Smells Like Winter

19: Is It Really Game Over?

"If this doesn't work, I'll skin you alive, I swear," muttered Mia as they all kept running down the stairs, a threat that Maddy didn't like at all.

After jumping over the last two steps of the stairway, Maddy found herself against a French glazed door. She pushed it open and took her first step outside, the cold morning air hitting her instantly to freeze her bones to the core.

It was still kind of dark outside, the weather adamant to remain moody and overcast, the sky cloudy and grey. The wind blew cold, whipping her dark brown hair and icing her skin, only to be met with the resistance of her hot blood flowing underneath, mixed with a fair amount of adrenaline.

The others were right behind her, but she was too busy scanning the area around the terrace for bloodthirsty armed men to look behind her shoulder at them. There were two grey SUV vans parked in front of the house at a fair distance from the terrace, four men in black uniforms carrying guns guarding them, or rather waiting casually in the fresh air for their fellow companions to get the job done. They still hadn't noticed them, too focused on the entrance of the house to look at the terrace on the left.

Other than that, Maddy couldn't see anyone else waiting outside to blow the brains out of their heads. The men who were shooting at them from the windows must have been positioned at the other side of the house, blocking the back door, and the intruders who had broken the front door were surely somewhere behind the five of them, probably having crashed the bedroom door as well.

They had to hurry. Maddy turned to face the others. "Okay. Now wh-"

Before she could finish her sentence, Carter had pushed her to the wall with his uninjured hand, leaving a red tattoo of his bloody fingertips on her exposed shoulder, which had slipped out of her -his- hoodie, revealing her sharp collarbones.

Her back slammed against the outer wall of the house on the terrace, and she winced, muffling a cry of shock at the sudden attack.

"Keep your voice low, princess, or I'll have to make you," he breathed, his lips leveling with her eyes as he crouched above her.

Then he lined up against the wall next to her, just like the others. That way they were hidden out of sight from the four men flexing their weapons in front of the entrance of the house, next to the SUVs.

What were they waiting for? Their pursuers from earlier would be there soon, and it would all be over unless they did something instead of just standing there, glued to the wall.

"The garage," gasped Sia as if she had read the confusion on Maddy's face. She was out of breath and shaking like a leaf. "It's right below us," she explained.

"There's no way they haven't blocked it. There might be a dozen men standing right under our feet as we speak," pointed Mia, panting.

Oh.

OH.

"There's no way they've broken in. The garage door is sectional," said Logan, who had knelt down, fingering the teak wood of the decking with his palms.

Maddy wasn't sure what that meant or what he was doing, but she didn't dare speak again with Carter standing only inches next to her.

"If there's more of them, they're outside the garage," continued Logan, still feeling the floorboards of the decking, his hands touching the wood as if searching for something.

What is he doing?

Maddy frowned. Where had she gotten herself into? These people were lunatics.

"Damn it Logan, find it already!" whisper-shouted Mia, looking nervous.

Find what?

"Why don't you find it, huh? I could use some help over here, you know," retaliated Logan, his eyes always glued on the wood beneath their feet.