I Fell In Love With The Devil

Chapter 29

I felt my heart lurch in my chest as my fingers lost touch with the pole. Things slowed down, I twisted in mid-air and felt my feet clip the barrier of the balcony below but I moved too slowly in this slowed-down universe to reach around and grab it before it passed. By the time my hands were outstretched to grab it, they brushed the side of the concrete slab. Dread pooled in my stomach and my eyes widened in shock. I was going to die. Not at the hands of X or Theodore but at my own fault. I blinked in slow motion. Everything went black and when I opened my eyes I was just about at the next balcony down. This was my chance, my one and only chance. I reached out, straining my arms as much as physically possible, they hit the top of the railing but failed to find purchase and I kept falling. They slid down the clear glass, my greasy fingertips staining as they grazed the surface. Last absolute chance, the concrete ledge. They hit the edge and my fingers curled, brushing a pole between the glass. Time sped up and I jolted to stop. I breathed out a sigh of relief. I wasn't dead yet. I let go with one hand to grab a spare gun. It cost me. My knuckles were going white from trying to hold on and slowly my fingers were slipping. I fired it a few times below me before swinging down and landing safely on the balcony. I rolled and stood up beside the concrete, away from the view of any possible X personnel inside. I looked up to see Matthew swinging over the edge of the balcony I had previously been on and landing on the one beneath. He was now on level nine and I, level seven. Shit. 'Get to the elevator,' he said into the earpiece. 'I'll meet you there if you come to level nine, but it only works if you get to it before X. Run.'

I yanked open the balcony door and barrelled through, firing every once in a while at a suspicious-looking piece of furniture before bursting through the door and sprinting as fast as I could for the elevator.

As soon as I got there, I pressed the 'open' button and hopped from foot to foot, biting my lip in frightened anticipation. When the lift reached the level above me I pressed myself against the wall near a linen cupboard and pulled out a towel then prepared to throw it when the doors opened. Ping. The doors whooshed open and nothing made a sound apart from the shootout going on above. I hurled the towel in front of the elevator and it was quickly peppered with singular bullet holes, not machine gunfire. Slightly better. I immediately dropped into a crouch and pulled the trigger twice as a person appeared and fired where my head had been seconds ago. They dropped and I shot them once more for good measure before trying not to gag as I pulled them out of the elevator doorway and stepped in, pressing the button for level nine. A hatch lay in the elevator roof so I quickly climbed onto the railing and undid the latch just as the doors closed. I had fifteen seconds tops to get outside of the elevator and close the hatch. One... two... it began to move and I positioned myself to jump. Three... four... I swung out and used the momentum of the swing to begin climbing out. Five... six... seven... eight... nine... I sat on top and swivelled around as I pulled my legs out. Ten... eleven... the elevator slowed down. Twelve... thirteen... I struggled with the hatch which was caught on a wire. Fourteen... I slammed it down and flicked the latch just as I heard the doors whoosh open. I exhaled a breath I had been holding to calm my heart which was beating faster than fucking Phar Lap's would've been during his Melbourne Cup races. There were three elevator shafts, the other two had elevators heading up, probably to collect the mass numbers that had surged to the top when they'd seen my drone go that way.

'Where are you, Piper?' Matthew hissed into the earpiece.

'Go down and I'll meet you there. And don't worry, I've got a plan.' The lift started moving downwards. 'Actually, what level are we headed to?'

'It's stopping at four. Where are you? I can't hold off many more, I've only got a bit of ammo left and it'll run dry in seconds at the rate I'm going.'

'Climb up and tell Levi to get his arse moving, we're gonna need him to get away or more specifically his vehicle and a capable driver.' I unlocked the hatch and lifted it up. 'Get up.'