Taming the Monster by K.J. Thomas

Chapter 15

Avery

“Come with me, I want to show you something.” Asher grabs my hand and slightly tugs. We had just left the secret room that Vito showed us in the basement.

“Okay.” It’s not like I have anything else better to do right now. Vito said he was feeling a little tired, so he went and laid down.

Asher leads us to the attic. “Come on, it’s not that far.” I’m glad he said something because this place is freaking me the fuck out. There is a reason that Tate and I avoided the attic and that’s because it hasn’t been touched in probably at least one-hundred years. I know there are spiders in here, at least as big as my hand. Asher chuckles slightly when I curl my body around his.

The attic is huge, it covers the whole expanse of the cabin. When we get further, it’s not as dusty as I thought it would be, but it’s still really dirty. I think the thing that shocked me the most is there’s not that much stuff up here. There’s the normal boxes and baby items, probably from my mother, but that’s it.

I pass by a box and run my finger over it, looking at the inch of dirt that came off. All the attics I’ve seen on TV shows, even reality shows, are just cluttered to the brim. This is the area that everybody puts the shit that they don’t want anymore, but are too lazy to get rid of.

“We’re almost there, come on.” Asher is excited to show me whatever he has planned. So I smile big, his happiness seeping through me.

Behind several boxes and an old chair is a door. Now I’m more intrigued to snoop. Curiosity is seeping through my pores, wondering where this goes. I can’t wait to tell Tate what I found, or what Asher showed me, she’s going to be just as pissed that we didn’t go into the attic.

The door opens and Asher makes his way through, leaving me trailing close behind. “Oh my God,” I say as we practically open the door to the roof.

It’s not the roof that I’m interested in, no. The Romano’s have changed this into a freaking atrium, glass is everywhere and it’s absolutely beautiful.

Asher comes close to me and wraps his arm around me from behind, my back fits snugly against his chest. “Vito was exhausted but he wanted you to see this place.” We continue to walk, but this time he comes around to my side and holds my hand as we explore. “This was all your grandmothers doing, but she passed before she was really able to enjoy it.”

In my head, I feel like crying, thinking about her, but I don’t want to miss anything. I blink the tears away repeatedly. No one’s been in here for at least ten or fifteen years.

Even the attic looks cleaner than the atrium does.

I gasp as my hand goes over my mouth when I look in the corner part of the atrium. This is absolutely stunning. I have a view of everything around, except for my back where the wall is. Stars are shining so bright.

“You brought a bed up?” I ask as I look at Asher and he smiles knowingly. He knows that I would love this.

I squeal with delight, throwing my arms around him. “This is awesome.” I look around some more, seeing the candles and bottle of chilled wine, with wine glasses next to it. “Does this mean that we get to sleep out here tonight?” Asher is nodding. “I want to make this our new bedroom.”

Asher shakes his head no. “There is no running water or electricity out here. In the winter I imagine it’s really damn cold, even though it’s enclosed in glass.”

The door that leads onto the roof slightly opens and out comes a grumpy Sneaker. I release Asher’s hand and snuggle up to the old asshole.

Wow, there’s so much light in here during the day, I bet the stars are so bright at night. This is a perfect area for a garden, and looking around I can tell that’s what my grandma intended to use it for. It’s magical.

There are multiple dust covered flower boxes everywhere. I wonder if she ever got to try it for at least one year to see how pretty it was and if it worked. I need to ask Vito about that, I doubt if Asher knows.

Asher engulfs me in a hug again. “With everything going on I feel much safer if we’re out here tonight than inside.” Shit, maybe we should ask Vito, Mac, and Tate if they want to come, I think to myself.

“I mentioned it to everybody else and they want us just to have our time tonight,” Asher answers, knowing what I’m thinking.

“You are too perfect.” I wrap my arms around him, letting him know just how much I appreciate him.

* * *

“Stop,”I mumble out, swatting at whatever’s trying to wake me up. Something keeps tickling my face and licking me.

My eyes open and I stare into the grumpy face of Sneaker. I look over at the door and it’s slightly ajar, we must’ve not closed it all the way last night. I go to pet the ass, but before I reach him, he falls right over.

Sitting up quickly, I grab Sneaker in my hands, normally the little shit always likes to hiss at me, but not this time. “What’s wrong buddy?”

I set him down on his feet and just watch him constantly running into anything that’s within ten feet of him. He seems to angle over to it. He hit a few flower pots and even ran into the wall.

This is not good, something’s up inside the house for Sneaker to be acting like this.

“Asher,” I put my hand on his shoulder and push trying to wake him up. He normally sleeps with one eye open but is like dead to the world. “Asher, get up now.” I start pushing harder on him.

He opens his eyes rubbing them to get them to clear up. “What’s going on?” He looks at me and then looks around, finally landing on Sneaker. I don’t say anything as he just watches the old cat trip and fall over himself multiple times.

Asher starts to chuckle before he gets a look at my expression and quickly zips his mouth shut. If this was any other situation, like if he had to have surgery or something, it’d be freaking hilarious, especially with this old ass hole, but I feel down deep in my bones that something is wrong.

Asher glances at the doorway and then back at the cat and then starts looking around at the area we’re sleeping in. He has come to the same conclusion I have, but ten times faster.

He nods at me. “Let’s go.” He doesn’t have to tell me twice. Both of us jump up and get dressed in less time than it took to take off our clothes.

Both of us head over to the door as quietly as we can. Asher puts his finger up to his mouth when he starts to pull the door open more. I nod, I sure as shit don’t feel like talking now.

I glance back over at Sneaker, who has already decided our bed is the best place for him right now. The old shit’s already snoring, peacefully asleep. Hopefully he’ll feel better and gets whatever’s in his system out.

Asher lifts the collar of my shirt and places it over my face. He’s doing his the same way in case there’s any fumes or gas in the air.

Both of us slowly sneak down, not making any iota of noise. It could just be something stupid, but the lives we live, I doubt that’s possible. Something bad is going down.

Two floors down and we’re back on the first level. Both of us are starting to feel a little relaxed because we haven’t noticed anything. That’s when the hairs on my body, the tiny little ones that never come out, are fully engulfed and standing straight up. My mom always taught me to pay attention to those hairs, they’ll let you know when something is wrong. Asher is the same way, none of us let our guard down even though we both want to relax. I would love to run to Tate’s and my grandpa’s room and make sure they’re okay. If this gas is doing that much to Sneaker, I can only imagine what it’s doing to them. He’s smaller I guess, but he got outside right away.

Pop, pop, pop. Shots are fired, startling the crap out of Asher and me. We both jump what feels like ten feet into the air.

We lean against the wall as fast as we can. “It sounds like they’re coming from outside,” Asher whispers in my ear.

He reaches behind his back and pulls out a gun. I didn’t even think to check for weapons or grab something as we were coming down, but I doubt if I can do much damage with the garden hose.

I nudge Asher when I see something reflective down at the end of the hall. We both freeze and he positions himself in front of me as much as he can.

It looks like two figures. I can barely make out any attributes on them. They must be covered in all black. The more I stare, it seems the more my eyes can adjust to the darkness. I gasp slightly and then whisper out, “Luca.”

He must hear me at the same time as Asher. That’s when the guns they have aimed our way start popping off. Both Asher and I get down, as he starts firing back toward them.

“Run, Avery!” Asher yells as loud as he can. The gunshots are loud but not too loud.

I’m unarmed and I know that they’re probably here for me, so it’s better to make my way away from everybody. I don’t want to leave Asher’s side, but at this point in time if I don’t, I put us both in danger.

I look for the closest means of escape, which is another hallway, thankfully this one leads to Tate’s room and the other guys.

“Asher, you should just give me the girl and I promise to let all of you walk out of here.” I couldn’t hear what Asher said back to him. I’m pretty sure he told him to fuck off.

I don’t think I can get my body any closer to the wall than I am now. My clothes are darker but not the color of darkness, so I’m not as invisible as I would like. I keep my back plastered against the wall, ignoring the bite of pain from the texture pinching and digging into my skin.

I breathe a sigh of relief and say a quiet thank you as I find Tate’s door and shut myself inside. It’s a bitch to keep my face covered. And the only reason I could tell it was Luca before is from the color of his eyes. Plus, what other fucking idiot would be in this house in the middle of the night.

There’s three-hundred guards. That makes my breath almost escape, leaving me winded. Where are the three-hundred guards now? And why does this house seem so eerily deserted?

“Tate, wake up.” I keep pushing on my friend trying to get her to wake up. I even smack her a couple times in the face, not hard. Most people that are being smacked in the face will wake up extremely pissed. Not Tate.

There’s something in the ventilation system, there’s gotta be. I spot a few bandanas on the nightstand over by Tate’s dresser. When she doesn’t feel like doing her hair, she just wraps it in a bandana from the back, like a southern girl.

I wrap one around my face and then wrap one around Tate’s. My best friend is tiny, but weighs a ton when it’s deadweight. I swear it takes me at least half an hour, but it was probably only five minutes, to move her.

There’s a little loveseat over by the window in the corner of the room. I moved the loveseat out a little bit and stuffed my friend back there. Opening the window as far as I can, I check to make sure her mouth is covered. Hopefully she’ll be able to wake up soon and won’t have as many ill effects from this fucking drug.

I just wish I had the energy to drag her around with me. I’ll come back and check up on her soon.

I look back and forth in a panic. I have no idea what the fuck I’m supposed to do now. I don’t think it’s safe for me to stay and hide with Tate in this room. Besides the closet, there’s no other place for me to go. The bed is totally open underneath. It’s one of those log cabin style beds you can see everything. I won’t be able to hide under there, either.

I put my back against the wall next to the door. “I can do this,” I whisper to myself. There’s no time like the present.

I take a deep breath to see if my little pep talk worked, it didn’t but I have no choice. I open the door, sneaking into the hallway looking both ways. I should probably get down in an army crawl, but if I need to run that’s gonna really fuck me up.

A sob wants to break out as I look into the darkness. The men that are in this house right now are here for only one reason and that’s to get rid of us, nothing else. If I’m not smart about this, I’m done.

I look back out into the hallway and decide to go down to the guards’ room. It’s farther down but at least maybe I could see if they’re okay. Who knows, some of the guys could be awake.

We have more guards’ quarters on the property, but we also like to keep some in the house in case there’s an emergency. This is one of the nicer suites up here. In the basement by the gaming room there’s a bunch of other ones. The one up here can only sleep six or seven. I believe there were three bunk beds and one queen-size bed.

I count the doors as I try to control my breathing and my shaking. I inch my way down as slowly as I can, not making any noise. I’m lucky that nobody is in this hallway right now. I don’t hear any shooting, shouting, or guns firing.

As soon as I reach the door, I yank it open and run inside. On instinct my hand goes to slam it but I grab it with my other one and slightly close it.

Half of the bunk beds are full with guys that are out. I cover my mouth and the gasp that comes out when I notice the queen bed on the side of the room has Mac in it. He’s out cold, just as bad as Tate was. I don’t have enough handkerchiefs for everybody, so I place the one I have left on Mac and open the windows in the room hoping that helps everybody. I don’t know if it will. What’s knocking everyone out must be coming in through the vents, that’s the only way that it could be.

I’ve been in this house long enough that I’m starting to feel a little lightheaded.

I need to make my way outside or I’ll end up passing out like the rest of them and then for sure I’ll be dead when they find me.

It doesn’t take much to kick out the screen in Mac’s window. Fuck, I think it’d be awesome if there was a security system panel here. I know we have one of the best but they’re not in this room. It should be in this room, this is where some of the guards sleep that need to have access and control to it.

This is something I need to tell Vito later.

I’m not even trying to be graceful, but I’m trying to be quiet. There’s no way that I’ll be able to be both. I dive headfirst out of the window. Luckily I’m still young and I can remember my tumbling days so I don’t snap my neck by landing headfirst into the grass below the window.

I stand with my back toward the window, I angle myself and grab what looks to be a little flashlight off the nightstand next to Mac.

I can see many guards hundreds of yards away just patrolling the area. I don’t know the SOS signal, so I just start flashing the light their way, hopefully they’ll see and start running back to help.

After five minutes I’m able to get a few of their attention and half of the men start running back in this direction. I sag against the pinewood of the house, taking deep breaths and just praying to God that everybody comes out of this okay, except for Luca. I hope they shoot that bitch right before killing whoever he brought with him.

Now it’s just a vile waiting game, hopefully we just come out on top.