Unsalted Cashews

Chapter 8 - My Escape

A/N: Hai guyssss! I'm sooooooooooooooo sorry for not updating for a while, but I've just been so busy with school! Also, I've been taking a writing class and I learned soooooooo much, so I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!!

We had ran down the entire hallway when we heard gunfire from behind us. I take a quick look behind me; Thom is almost matching my speed, but Alice was lagging behind. She then let's out a bark and collapses to the ground.

"Alice!" I scream as I scramble over to her.

"I've got her!" Thom quickly rushes over and supports Alice, and we turn the corner. I spot an open door.

"There!" I point the room out, and we quickly squeeze into the what happens to now be a janitor's closet. I shut the door and lock it, and the three of us hold our breaths as we hear through the door numerous footsteps stampeding past us. When I can no longer hear them, I let out a sigh of relief.

I turn to look at my friends. Well, half of them. "Are you okay?" I kneel by Alice, who was propped up by the wall.

"I've never felt better," She said, grimacing. I swallow a lump in my throat as I slowly look down at her leg, which was just starting to pool blood.

"You've been shot."

"No dip, Sherlock."

"Here, I'll try to find some first aid stuff in here. Thom, can you stop the bleeding?" I say as I shakily stand up, rummaging through the shelves for anything that might work. I manage to find pure alcohol, some tweezers, and cloth that I used some scissors to cut into long strips. I come back with my supplies, and I see Alice turned onto her side with Thom holding a cloth to the bullet wound.

Holding the tweezers over a bucket, I clean them with the alcohol, the fumes almost making me cough. I then examine the wound. I could see the bullet, it was a pretty shallow wound, and I positioned the tweezers when I caught the scent of blood. I froze, the tweezers almost dropping out of me hands.

"I can't do this," I manage to croak out before pushing the tweezers into Thom's hands and then throwing up stomach acid into that same bucket from before. That's when I decided that being a vampire sucked.

When I'm done, I find out that Thom had successfully removed the bullet. Alice had her teeth clenched as I helped Thom to bandage her wound. There was a sink at the far corner of the closet, and I turned the knob one millimeter, only letting a single trickle of water of water escape. Thom and I took turns washing our hands. Afterwards, we sat in a circle on the ground, Alice's pained breathing filling in the room.

"So..." Thom started in a hushed tone, before falling back to silence.

"Are you really a vampire?" Alice demanded quietly, though her words were still sharp.

"Apparently," I reply, looking down at my hands. They still faintly bloodstained. "I don't even know what's been going on these past few days." I look back at them. "How about you guys? How did they capture you?"

"Stupid secret agents, showed up at my door and arrested me." Alice growled, a little too loudly. We all flinch, and wait to see if someone had heard. When the coast was clear, we all relaxed, at least a little bit.

"About the same thing happened to me, too." Thom said, scratching the side of his neck. I nodded in acknowledgement.

"What about Dan, is he here?" Alice and Thom both shook their heads no. After that, there was a lull in our conversation. I close my eyes in concentration; I just realized we shouldn't be stalling for time anymore. My thoughts traveled from Miranda to Troy, who caused a lump in my throat. Opening my eyes, I rest my head on the cold cement wall behind me, and out of the corner of my eye I spot an air vent. "Guys, over there." I point to it.

"Nice find, Elle," Thom says, pulling himself up. "We crawl through the vents, find Miranda, and get out of here."

"And Troy," I pipe up. He helped me out, so I should repay the favor. Also, who knows what will happen to him here?

"Who's Troy?" Alice asks from the ground, and I hold out a hand to help her up.

"The guy who crashed my funeral."

"Ah. You know, when we got back home after that day my abuela made us all take holy water baths." I try to stifle a laugh, and Thom snorts from behind me.

"Okay, so the plan is crawl through the vents, find Miranda, find this 'Troy' dude, and get out of here." Thom says, standing on an upturned bucket and fiddling with the vent cover. He opens it and hops off the bucket. "Ladies first." I help Alice hobble over, and she signs the cross with her other hand.

"I'm claustrophobic," She mutters under her breath, but faces the vent head on as Thom and I help lift her up into it. I go in second, stepping onto the bucket and then Thom's hand to enter the vent. As I enter, I am hit with a wave of dust.

"Oh gosh," I cough into my shirt, before pulling myself further into the vent. I could barely see the bottom of Alice's converse from the light coming from the opening.

"Okay, I'm coming up," I can hear Thom struggling to fit into the vent as I realize that I have enough room to sit up, though a little scrunched. "Geez, this belongs in a horror movie." Thom pants after his entire body was in the vent. Well, except for his feet sticking out of the opening where we got in.

"I don't know, it's actually kinda comfortable," I note, scooching a little closer towards Alice to give Thom more space.

"Okay first of all," Even though he's trying act offended, I can still hear laughter in his voice and I can't help but crack a smile. "I'm six foot two, and you're five foot one. Second of all, you're a vampire."

"Half, but yeah, touche."

"Stop blabbering, we've got a mission to do," Alice groans from up front, and we take heed and start to crawl. Since we don't have a flashlight and Thom and Alice's phones were taken, we had to rely on the lights from vent openings to lead the way. Corners were tough to navigate.

"Ouch! Yep, that's a corner. Ow! Why are there so many corners? I've already been shot, now I need to get a concussion?" Alice rants, though quiet enough to not rouse suspicion. Thom is much quieter, but I can still hear him bumping his head into things or having his clothes catch on badly welded metal. My knees and hands start to hurt after a while, but I carry on.

When we stumble across vent openings (which was surprisingly a lot), Alice looks down and tells the rest of us if Miranda or Troy is there.

"What does Troy look like again?" She asks, and I can see her face illuminated by the light coming from below.

"He has white hair, hard to miss."

"Nope, not this room." With that we have to trudge on. "Hey, this is the one where we were held! No sign of Miranda, so they must have moved her somewhere." I groan, and Thom's breath quickens.

"I hope she's okay." I hear him say. I look back at him, though I can barely see his outline.

"Don't worry, we'll find her." I reply in a comforting manner, though in the back of my mind I still think about how it's odd that she didn't even move. I push that thought back, she probably was just too scared to move, I wouldn't blame her. Especially since I jumpscared her at my own funeral.

Time passed, joints ached, and still more negatives. Every sign of light we saw gave us hope, only to shatter them like I did to that window back there. It was torturous, and I thinking how long it would take for the government agents to find our decomposing bodies in here when Alice excitingly whispers to us.

"I think that's him!" She scoots to the side as I crawl over and peer down the vent. The light almost blinds me, and at first all I could see was tiled flooring. Then I tilt my head a little and then I see Troy, struggling to get of his restraints.

A/N: Oooooo another cliffhanger :D hope you guys aren't too mad!! If you like this chapter please COMMENT, VOTE, and SHARE IT! It'll help me alot!!!!