Waters of Lethe, Book 2

47. Faith

Enzo told me that there were guards posted by doors and roaming the place, but I didn't see any on our floor when I headed toward the elevator.

I had the phone tucked in the waist band of my running shorts. The looks people were giving me as I rushed past them made me think they could see the outline of the phone through my shorts and t-shirt, but I resisted the urge to look down and feel for it to make sure it was still there. It was. I was overthinking it. Relax, I told myself. Everything was going to be fine. As long as I had faith, everything would be okay. 

As I was waiting for the elevator, I heard footsteps approach. 

"What are you doing?" Alex asked me as I turned to face him.

"Going to—" I almost told him I was going to the roof to get fresh air, but I thought he might try to accompany me, so I switched my story up. "—the nursery."

He cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. "That's not true."

The few people in the open living space had turned their attention toward us; Addie on the couch, Arsen and Ben in the kitchen. Their eyes made me annoyed and uncomfortable.

"Alex," I half pleaded, half warned. I wanted him to leave me alone, but I also wanted to let him know that I wasn't playing Scott's games anymore. I was getting the hell out of here, one way or another. With or without Alex.

"Why?" Alex asked me, crossing his arms over his chest. He seemed to know that I had moved my call to Maine up a few hours, that I was going on a mission to start something that would be next to impossible to undo. And Heaven only knew what war it would start.

His small, simple question stopped me though, even when I heard the elevator ding in its arrival behind me. I heard the doors slide open, saw Alex look past me to whatever came with the elevator.

Why?

I knew why. The reason why put me at ease. I blew out a slow, easy breath. Everything would be okay. In a whisper, I said to him, "Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." I couldn't help but smile at the fact I'd remembered the whole verse I'd based many of my hardships on. "How big is your faith, Alex? Where does it lie?"

I turned away from him before he could press me and walked into the open elevator with a guard who stood in the corner, holding a sniper rifle, decked out in bullet proof gear.

"Ma'am..." the guard warned in a polite voice. But I wasn't in the mood. Try me, bud.

I hit the button on the wall that would take us to the nursery before the guard could swat my hand away. The doors closed at once, shutting off my view of Alex's concerned face, his hard eyes and his furrowed brow. Something made me think that he would have followed me if the guard wasn't in the elevator.

I didn't wait for the elevator to begin its descent to look over the man in here with me. He was large, with arms twice the size of my head. He held his lowered gun intentionally toward me so that he could get a quick shot off if the need arose. The only problem, his only problem, was that I was a measly two feet from him. He needed more time and more space. I, on the other hand, did not.

As the elevator began to move, I nodded at his rifle. "You plan on shooting us with that at close range? That's a bit barbaric, don't you think?"

He avoided eye contact with me, which made me angry. I wasn't a human to him.

Hell, I wasn't a human to me.

When he didn't answer, I rolled my eyes. Just wait, I told myself. Almost there...

As soon as the elevator doors opened and I saw no one in the lobby, I kicked the gun out of the man's hands. As the gun banged on the floor, I hit the large red button that would make the elevator stop. Now all I needed was for the lobby to remain empty for a few seconds. 

I watched the man as his hand went for a radio clipped to his belt. He never got a hold of it, though. My hand flew through the air and snatched it from his side, then I drew back and, with all of the force I could muster up, struck him in the temple with it. Like the gun, the man fell to the elevator floor, creating a considerably larger bang.

I let the radio fall from my hand as I stepped out and into the lobby. No one was here, which was great. I paused and looked around, spotting a surveillance camera on the far side of the room. Which was not so great.

I walked back into the elevator and pulled the red stop button back out so that the elevator could move again. "Well, buddy," I sighed, "looks as if you're coming with me." I pressed the button that would take my new friend and I to the highest floor.

When the elevator began to move, I began to panic. What if guards were swarming the top floor? What if the door opened and they saw me with an unconscious guard? I looked around quickly. To my left. To my right. In front. Behind. To the ceiling.

The elevator was fairly large...

I had an idea over the span of the elevator climbing two floors. I pushed the guard to the far side of the elevator, by the doors, so that he was leaned up in the corner. I tried shoving his legs up to him as much as I could, but it wasn't much of a success. I then took his rifle and leaned it up in the opposite corner, so that both would be hard to see when the doors opened. At the very least, it'd buy me some time.

I had a few more floors to go, so I decided to be proactive with my plan. I pulled the phone from under my shirt and dialed Audi's number. Then I shoved the phone back in the waist band of my shorts. This way, if I got to the top floor and there were guards waiting to light my ass up, Audi would know. They'd know were I was, and they'd come get Piper and Enzo and the rest of these people. And if I were still alive, they could get me. If there weren't guards waiting at the top to light my ass up and I made it to the roof in one piece, it would cut down the time it would take to pull out the phone and dial Audi and wait for him to pick up, assuming he even had his phone on him to begin with.

Five seconds passed in the time it took me to think. Five agonizing seconds of hearing the phone begin to dial under my shirt, five horrifying seconds of hearing the ringing as clear as day, as loud as if I were listening to someone a foot away talk to me.

And then I heard Audi. "Hello? El?"

Two more floors to go. Two more floors to blink the tears from my eyes from hearing his voice for the first time in months. I didn't realize in the day I'd had my memories back that I'd missed him. I was too focused on getting out of here that I only saw him as one of my tickets out. The time would come later for tears, I reminded myself. Not now.

As the elevator stopped on the top floor, I heard the words I said to Alex a few minutes prior. If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed... 

"El? Are you there? Can you hear me?"

As the doors slid open, I knew my faith was much bigger than a mustard seed. It was bigger than the mountain I was trying to move.