A plan quickly formulated in her head. She would open the door, leap at the guy and shove the knife into his chest, letting her momentum knock him over the railing to the ground below. The fall was only a few feet and wouldn’t kill him, but the tip of the knife in his heart would.
She reached out, clasped the handle, and started to pull it when a voice from across the room stopped her cold. “Don’t move!”
Adriana froze in place and risked a glance out of the corner of her eye. A guard had entered the room from a hallway near the front of the house, on the other side of the living room. He must have been walking around to check the place. Stupid luck had led him to catching the escapees.
“Put the gun down,” he ordered, aiming his own weapon at her.
“Okay,” she said. “Please, just don’t hurt the boy. This was my decision. It isn’t his fault.”
“Shut up!” the man shouted. He reached up to his earpiece and spoke into his radio. “I found them. They’re in the house, in the great room. She has the boy with her.”
The man on the back porch turned around. Shock washed over his face as he realized how close he was to being killed.
“Put the gun down, or I will shoot the boy,” the guard said from across the room.
“I’m putting it down. Please, just relax. See? I’m putting it down?” She bent over and started to lay the gun on the floor. As she did, her head disappeared from the man’s view behind the sofa closest to her position. She turned her head to Niki and whispered, “Get on your belly.”
The door opened behind her, disrupting the silence as the guard from the back porch entered the room.
“Now,” she ordered Niki. The boy obeyed and dropped to his stomach in a quick move.
Adriana reached up and grabbed the guard’s hand from the door latch. She twisted it to an unnatural position and used the man’s weight to spin him around in front of her as a human shield. The other guard opened fire, squeezing off four rounds, all thudding into her captive’s chest. The man struggled for a moment, and then began to go limp as the bullets found vital organs.
“Cover your ears, Niki!” she shouted. The boy had already done so as the sound of the initial gunfire rang out through the room, louder than anything he’d ever heard before.
She poked her gun around her human shield and unleashed a volley of six shots. Two pinged off a stone column near her target; two others went through the window. One found the man in the gut and the other in his shoulder, sufficiently removing him as a threat.
Adriana dropped the dying man and reached down for Niki’s hand. “Come on! We have to go!” He shook his head in defiance, with his hands still covering his ears. “Niki, please,” she pleaded with him. “You want to win the game, don’t you? You’re a fast runner, right?” The boy nodded and seemed he might be willing to get up.
Suddenly, the front door to the mansion opened and one of the two guards on the front landing opened fire. She dropped behind the sofa as bullets zipped through the air over her head, shattering the windows behind her while others thudded into the doorframe.
She pulled herself along the hard floor to the other side of the sofa and slid around the corner. Her hands guided the sights of the weapon directly at the man’s chest. She forced herself to breathe slowly, calmly, and pulled the trigger twice. The two rounds sunk into the guard’s chest and knocked him back through the door. She crawled back over to where the frightened boy still lay on his belly with his hands on his ears.
“Time to go, Niki. Stay low and follow me. When you get to the road, remember: keep running as fast as you can.”
The boy nodded reluctantly. There was no more time for her to coddle him. She reached down and grabbed him with one hand and the dead man’s gun with the other. That should give her a further twelve shots. The remaining guard on the front porch was speaking frantically into his radio, calling for backup. She fired another shot in his direction, narrowly missing his neck. The guard ducked out of sight below one of the large windowpanes. She fired two more shots through the glass to keep him down and then darted through the back door and onto the deck.
Dragging the young boy along like a ball and chain, Adriana made her way down the south side of the deck. The porch ended at a small embankment, filled with landscaping grass, flowers, and various shrubs. Just beyond it, she made out the pool area and patio where Gikas had entertained her on a previous night.
She looked around the corner of the house and saw two men rushing toward the front porch. Hopefully they would assume she and the boy were still tucked behind the sofa. As soon as the men disappeared from view, she hopped over the railing and grabbed Niki under his armpits.
“We’re almost there, okay? We just need to go around this little mound and you’ll be on the road. Remember, you have to beat me to the church in town. I will be chasing you,” she made herself smile to keep the boy calm.
He nodded and smiled back at her.
She led him around the mound and stopped on the other side. Adriana stared at the front of the house. Three men were on the porch. One of them stepped into the doorway and fired three shots, then quickly ducked back behind the wall in case of return fire. Good, she thought. They still believed the two escapees were inside the house.
Niki let out a sudden yelp, and Adriana whirled around to find a guard holding the boy by the back of the neck. The guard’s strong, broad face showed no intention of mercy. His physique bulged through the tight clothes, neck muscles like a rugby player.
Adriana waited for a second, not sure what to do.
“Put the gun down, or I will break the boy’s neck,” the guard said. He shook Niki hard to emphasize his point. She leaned over to do as she was told, setting the weapon on the ground next to the guard’s feet.
He let go of the boy and pushed him aside, taking a cautious step toward the dangerous Spaniard. She still held the knife in her hand, something the guard had already noticed. He motioned to the blade by waving the barrel of his gun. “Drop the knife as well.”
She hesitated for a second.
“Do it, or I will shoot the boy in the gut.”
The man suddenly yelled out in pain. His arm lurched back, pointing the gun into the air as he leaned back in a quick, jerky motion. Adriana saw Niki on all fours behind the big guard, sinking his teeth hard into the guy’s calf. It was all she needed.
Adriana took the knife and slashed out with it, jerking the sharp edge across the man’s throat and then kicking him in the chest. The giant stumbled back, grabbing in vain at the gaping wound on his neck. She swiveled back around and crouched down in a quick movement. Her hand grabbed the gun from the ground and brought it up instantly, ticking off three shots at the guard. Two of the bullets found nothing but air, the other plunged into the man’s head, toppling him into the weeds just off the path.
She smiled down at the boy and reached out her hand. “Good job, Niki. Quickly. You have to run now.”
The two took off down the driveway. The three remaining men on the porch had heard the shot from the side of the mansion and were closing in. Adriana fired a few warning shots at them, effectively halting their advance and sending them sprawling for cover. The boy sprinted down the gravel driveway, running as fast as his little legs would carry him. She stopped and kept her eyes on the men on the porch. Her finger pulled the trigger again, sending another volley of rounds harmlessly into the side of the house, but effectively keeping the men down. One of them tried to hide behind a post and fired blindly into the air, using a spray-and-pray method.