Untangle Me

Chapter 14

Giada

I'm not sure who I expected, maybe my usual guard or Enzo even. But neither of them is frozen in place in the doorway to my cell. No, instead it's the same man I laughed at all those days ago after he called his boss Enzo. You know... the one who stormed into the dining hall after the first incident.

Now he's here, his eyes jumping back and forth between Luciano and me. Occasionally, he looks me over once though I'm not sure why. There's nothing sexual or objectifying about it and if I didn't know any better, I'd say he was looking for something wrong.

Maybe the adrenaline is messing with my brain.

No one speaks and suddenly, the stranger collects himself. "What are you doing here, Dante?" he asks calmly though I can see his hand moving to the back of his pants. Probably to get his gun.

"Checking on the prisoner, Sir. She was screaming again," Luciano lies without missing a beat. I do my best to play along, keeping my face cool and my hands pressed to the sides of my legs so they don't tremble.

"No one's allowed to enter the cell without direct orders from Enzo," the other man replies.

"I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. We can't sleep with her constant protests, you know," Luce attempts a smile though it barely reaches his eyes. The other man shakes his head.

"What happened to her guard? Do you have any idea why he's knocked out?"

I look at Luciano, desperate for him to answer with some smart lie but his whole demeanor has changed. The easy expression has fallen from his face and I know the act is over. So I do the obvious thing.

I scream. Scream at the top of my lungs and thereby successfully capture the stranger's attention. Luciano catches on to what I'm doing and shoots forward, hitting the butt of the gun against the side of the other man's head before he has time to react.

He crumbles to the floor and I quickly shut up. God, I must've woken the whole building up. Gold star to me for thinking my plan through. I just realized that both men were about to attack and I didn't want this to end in a bloodbath.

"Come on, follow me," Luce says, grabbing my hand as he runs out of my cell.

We round corners and sprint through empty corridors and although we're making no efforts to be quiet no one seems to follow us. I hear no guards yelling, no alarms going off. No, the only sounds accompanying us are our footsteps against the marble floors and my heavy breathing as I try to keep up with Luce.

Suddenly, he pulls me to a stop and holds a finger to his lips, telling me to be quiet. If I had the air for it, I'd snap at him.

"There's a guard in the booth down the next corridor just next to the staircase. He won't be attentive since no one ever comes back here but you need to be quiet and follow my lead," he tells me. I nod slowly. Finally, even my frantic heart calms a bit.

We take a right and walk with our backs along the wall. I don't know how far away from the guard's booth or the staircase we are since I can't see past Luciano's body. That results in me hardly allowing myself to breathe.

I'm so focused on stepping lightly that I don't notice it when Luce stops. Instead, I bump into him. He stays rock-solid, steadying me as if it were nothing. I'm not even surprised, I'm pretty sure he's made of Vibranium or something.

The man makes two signs with his hands I do not understand and then slips through a narrowly opened door. I hadn't even noticed we were at the door already. Either way, without another thought I go after him.

Then we run again.

We run down all those stairs and through some more doors, only stopping quickly when Luce knocks a few guards in the lobby out. He does that with such precision that I wonder once more what his job is.