Ava

Elijah raised a finger to his lips to silence me, his eyes narrowing as the voice of a man who sounded very big and very angry echoed through the bathroom door. I swallowed my fear, eyes on Elijah, and then turned back to Sara, covering her with my body, holding her against me, praying that she was still alive and that she’d still be alive once we were out of this God-forsaken mess. She wasn’t the only one I was concerned for, however. I was terrified this Tyrese guy—some big-time pimp—would kill Elijah and me right there with her. I could see it now, three graves at some Seattle cemetery:
Don’t Be a Hero.
“Stay right here,” Elijah said. He kneeled next to me and put two fingers on Sara’s neck. Then he looked at me. “She’s still alive. We’ll get her out of her as soon as possible, okay? But I have to deal with this first.”
“What?” I hissed. “You don’t have to deal with anything. Let’s just go!”
“He could be dangerous, Ava.”
“Don’t go,” I pleaded. “What if he has a gun? He’ll kill you!” I was near hysterics now, my entire body trembling with genuine terror I didn’t know I’d possessed. I knew how men like this Tyrese guy were—everyone did. He’d sooner kill all three of us and hide the bodies before letting the cops come to his house and shut him down.
“Ava,” Elijah said softly. He took my chin between his fingers. Despite this shitty, horrifying situation we found ourselves in, my skin still reacted with a soft buzz when the warmth of his body met mine.
Dammit.
“I won’t get hurt,” he said. “Just stay here, okay? Take care of Sara.”
Sitting on the dirty bathroom floor, I strained to hear, praying to a God I wasn’t sure existed as muffled, angry voices reached the other side of the door. As I waited, Sara stirred, and after a moment, her eyelids fluttered open. She focused on my face, confused, a frown forming on her pretty features. I closed my eyes and drew her limp body tighter into mine as Elijah walked out of the bathroom and into the living room to confront this man we knew nothing about.
“Miss Ava—?”
I slapped my hand over her mouth, and she froze, now hearing the voices floating around in the living room. Her eyes went wide with horror, and she yanked at my hand, trying to speak, but my grip only tightened around her mouth. She was the reason we were here … she would not be why we died.
“You have to be quiet!” I hissed. “Your pimp is here.” One by one, Sara pried my fingers from her mouth, shaking her head vehemently.
“We have to get out of here,” she whispered. “Tyrese is a bad man, Ava. He’ll fucking kill us!” She sat up, swaying a bit, disoriented from the drugs, and wiped the trickle of vomit from the side of her mouth.
“Thank God you’re alive, S.” I scooted across the bathroom floor and put my ear to the door, straining to hear what was happening. “I thought you were dead.” In the living room, someone was yelling, a man, and I could only assume it was Tyrese because it didn’t sound like Elijah.
“Let’s sneak out,” Sara said. “Maybe we can get free while he’s distracted.”
There was no way to sneak out through the bathroom, as there was no window anywhere to be seen. We’d have to face Tyrese, and there was a ninety percent chance that we’d be killed doing it.
“We can’t. There’s nowhere to go but out the front door.”
“Who’s all out there?” Sara asked in an urgent, terrified whisper.
“Elijah,” I said. She gave me a puzzled look, but I wasn’t in the right mind to explain. Instead, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Elijah is out there.”
As I pressed the side of my face against the door, listening, there was a sudden ruckus in the living room. A few women screamed, and I cringed, praying with everything I had in me that innocent people weren’t being slaughtered, Elijah included. The sound of breaking furniture and shouting voices reached the bathroom, but I couldn’t distinguish between Elijah and anyone else despite listening hard. He was already dead for all I knew, and Tyrese was messing up the other guys.
“We need to get out of here,” Sara panted, clinging to me like a lost child. “I don’t want to die, Ava.”
“Nobody is—” Before I could finish my thought, the muffled sound of footsteps approaching the door nearly stopped my heart in my chest. Both Sara and I slid back against the wall, holding each other, shaking, and the only thing my mind kept repeating was that this was it.
It was time to die.
The door handle rattled, and I closed my eyes, waiting for our inevitable death. Sara whimpered next to me, still clinging, and all I wanted to say was how sorry I was for letting her down, but I couldn’t get the words out of my throat. Reacting in a blind panic, I grabbed the closest thing to us, a fallen shower rod, and jumped to my feet, ready to fight off Tyrese even if it was the last thing I did.
“He has guns!” Sara hissed, but it didn’t matter. I had to use what we had. Holding my breath, I poised next to the sink with the shower rod trembling in my hands. After another painstaking moment that felt like centuries, the door opened, and someone appeared in the doorway. Closing my eyes, I barreled forward with a yell that didn’t sound like it came from me, but the perpetrator caught the other end of the rod before shoving it into them, tossing it aside before he grabbed and pulled me in, hushing me.
It wasn’t Tyrese. It was Elijah.
“Oh, my God.” I fell into a sobbing mess, pressing my face against his shirt. He returned my embrace, drawing me into him, one hand on my head as he held me. So familiar, so right. He was alive. He was okay.
“Who are you?” Sara asked meekly from where she cowered in the bathroom corner. I squeezed Elijah one last time and then tore myself away from him to help her up.
“I’m Elijah,” he said. He looked exhilarated. Whatever had just happened outside in the living room had barely affected him. Aside from a slightly swollen lip, he still looked to be in one piece. He looked better than that, too.
“What happened?” I asked as Elijah took one hand in his to lead us out of the bathroom. Sara clung to the back of my shirt, gripping so hard she might never let go. As we crossed the living room, avoiding the trash on the floor, I saw precisely what had happened. A large black man, who I assumed was Tyrese, was lying still in the corner, and it looked like Elijah had beaten the shit out of him.
“Fuck,” Sara breathed. “Is he alive?”
“Unfortunately,” Elijah said bitterly. I was pleased to see that the rest of the living room had been cleared out, for which I was relieved. No woman, underaged or otherwise, needed to be here. If I could single-handedly save them all from this awful fate, I would have.
We fell silent as we followed one another down the stairs and back to the limo, where Malcolm was still patiently waiting. Elijah opened the door for us, and I got in. Sara followed, but her eyes were so wide they nearly popped out of her head.
“I’ve never ridden in a limo before,” she said, running her hand over the leather seats. Seeing her out of the dark house rattled me. She was a mess. Oily, unkempt hair fell around her pale skin in dull locks. Dark shadows haunted her eyes, and her chapped, dry lips looked bloody and raw. Seeing her this way made my heart shatter. I wondered if I would have been able to prevent this night had I tried harder to stop her from leaving Meadowbrook the day she disappeared. “It’s … nice.”
“It is,” I agreed softly, meeting Elijah’s eyes. I was grateful he was there; I wasn’t sure we would have gotten out of there alive without him.
“Where to, sir?” Malcolm asked as Elijah closed the door behind us.
“Anywhere,” I said quickly. “Anywhere but here.”