The mysteries of Queen's | AngelaAMS ¦ English Version

Chapter ten

CHASE MITCHELL

Heather gasps as soon as she reaches the other side and my arms wrap around her waist to support her.

I grab her shoulders and look down at her, her eyes are closed and her breathing is ragged.

"Are you okay?" I whisper and after a couple of seconds she nods and goes further back on the roof with her sister and the boy.

The last one to jump is Jacob who makes it successfully just as the guards appear on the roof of the building next door where we were just a few minutes ago.

"This way!" Louise indicates, handing the child back to Jacob, and we go to the stairs of this building on the way down.

I look up several times making sure we are not being followed, but slowly the guards also started to jump into the building and chase us down the stairs we were rushing down.

At one point I bump into Jacob's back who has abruptly stopped coming down.

"What's going on?" I look up again and the guards are almost catching up with us. Why are they stopping?

"There are no more stairs" Louise exclaims "There are no more stairs!"

"Let me see" her sister steps forward and looks down. We're about six floors above the ground.

"I hope you have a plan" I speak "or else we're dead."

"Get ready, we're going to jump."

What?

"Are you insane? We're not cats, we don't have seven or nine lives, let alone land on our feet!"

"There are mattresses downstairs, there are three of them piled up. If we jump, we'll be unharmed, or so I hope."

"You hope so? What's that supposed to mean?!"

"Jump!" Heather shouts as the guards stand beside us and draw their weapons from their belts.

The next thing I know, I find myself falling off a dry sixth floor onto some old mattresses, feeling the springs dig into my back.

The four of us cough and try to pull ourselves together as fast as we can as Marco starts to cry from shock.

We struggle to our feet and run behind the building to avoid being seen, but the boy's crying attracts attention and leaves us as a perfect target for those chasing us.

"Calm down, please" Heather urges him, and Marco's crying stops slightly as we run through the city.

We pass at least six blocks until we find a hotel that looks abandoned, though not for long. We go to the back door and I push it open with my shoulder, which I do on the third try.

"Get in, quickly."

I close the door and lean my back against it as we all enter the hotel, listening outside as the cops walk past.

I let out a sigh.

"They lost us" I whisper "I guess we can stay here."

Jacob lowers the boy to the ground as he starts to kick, and the first thing he does is run to Heather, hugging her legs.

She takes a breath and then exhales, trying to keep his composure and then crouches down to the little boy's level and takes his little hands.

"It's all right, okay? I need you to stop crying" she wipes away his tears with his thumbs "can you do that for me?"

Marco bites his lower lip and nods after a couple of seconds.

"Great, now, how old are you?"

He raises his right hand and holds up four little fingers.