One Stupid Thing

3:2:83

"Just get away from me!" Kiara yells at the top of her lungs.

"I'm tired of this shit. I'm gonna kill you, Kie!" Rafe yells back.

Kiara grunts as she struggles against him and screams as she falls back. "Help!" A glass vase on a side table shatters.

I let out a blood-curdling scream and grab the closest thing to me, a lamp on the nightstand.

"Hey, you three! What'd you do?" the guard standing outside our door asks us. After a few moments of silence, I hear the lock click and the doorknob turns. The soldier pushes the door open cautiously and steps inside, his gun gripped firmly in his hands.

He sees me standing in the corner beside the bed, armed and ready with the lamp. He points his gun at me accusingly. My eyes widen and I tremble under the pressure. "W-wait! He... he's gone mad!" I tell him, out of breath. He follows my gaze to the open bathroom door and edges towards it carefully. Just barely visible a boot-covered foot is a draped over the edge of the bathtub.

"What be this?" the soldier asks warily. Just as he crosses the threshold, Rafe, who had been hiding behind the open door, slams it shut, which knocks the gun from the man's hands.

Rafe springs from his hiding spot, catching the man by surprise. Now unarmed, he isn't as much of a threat and Rafe easily knocks him to the floor. Kiara climbs out of the bathtub and quickly picks up the gun he had dropped. I hand my brother the lamp I had been holding on to and he smashes it over the guard's head. He lays in a heap on the hardwood.

Our plan worked perfectly.

"Stay down! Stay down, you understand?" Rafe seethes, pinning the man face down with his hands behind his back.

"Don't move!" Kiara commands him, appearing at my side and turning his own weapon on him.

"Huge mistake. You'll regret this," the guard mutters, not daring to move a muscle.

"Hey, gimme the phone." Rafe forcefully takes the guard's phone out of his back pocket and stashes it.

"Here, tie him up." I yank away the fabric draped on the four poster bed and hand it over to Rafe. He makes quick work of using the material in place of handcuffs or another type of restraint.

"Don't move!" Rafe grunts. "Don't make a sound, all right? Good?" He gives the guard one last shove before standing up. My adrenaline is pumping through my veins from the risk we just took.

The guard had left the bedroom door wide open behind him. Kiara led the way out to the upstairs hall with the gun ready. I follow close behind her and Rafe closes the door softly and locks it behind us. With majority of the soldiers out looking for our friends, the house has been left unguarded.

"This way," Rafe whispers. "Come on." He takes up the lead, dashing down the back stairway with Kiara and I hard on his heels.

"Okay. Hey. Hey, Rafe. Rafe. Rafe," I say softly.

"What?" he replies impatiently, hurrying towards a door that has been cracked open and hiding behind it.

"Hey, hey, let me see the phone."

"Why?" he asks me, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Just give it to me."

"Fine, but give me the gun." He looks to Kiara expectantly and she reluctantly hands him the pistol just as the phone is in my grasp. "You ready?" We nod and he slowly opens the door into the main foyer. Another guard is posted outside the front door, but he is facing away from us and doesn't know we are there. "Shit. Okay, this way, this way, this way," he beckons us and crosses the room, disappearing down a hallway.