She smiles. “Let me borrow your knife.”
I watch as she takes off her bra. Izzy and I share a look. Mia has gone crazy. She takes the knife and uses it to cut the fabric around the underwire away on each side. She hands the knife back as she molds the underwire around her hand so that the two ends are pointing out. She does the same with the second underwire. She picks up the knife and starts to carve at the ends. Within minutes, the ends are now jagged and sharp.
“Wow, Mia. That is brilliant.”
She smiles and nods.
“Want me to do the same to yours?”
“I’m not wearing one. I was in bed.” I reply.
Izzy laughs when she looks to her.
“You know I rarely wear one. Look at my breasts. They are barely a handful.”
It was true. Izzy often times wore shirts that were baggier around the breasts. She was always a little self-conscious about it.
“Well then let’s go.” Mia says as she heads to the door.
I lean down and grab my shank and hold it in my hand while I have the knife open in the other hand. Mia keeps one of her handmade toys in her hand while she puts the other in her pants. I look over to Izzy and she shoves the gun in the back of her pants and gives me a nod.
I open the door a sliver and look out. I don’t see anyone so I open it a little bigger and stick my head out. I hear voices down the hall and shut it quickly and look to the girls.
“There’s someone at the end of the hall. The way we need to go. We can try the other way, but I don’t know where it goes. The hall splits off into two the other way. I know we are on the second floor so to get out we need to make it down to the first floor and find a way out. Once we get there, we will need to run a long way’s before we get to the trees. I don’t know what’s on the other side of it, but if we make it there, we might have a chance.”
“We can do this.” Mia gives a bright smile.
She is always the optimistic. I just hope we actually do make it.
I open the door again and still hear the voices. I slide out the door and make my way back towards my room. Once at the end of the hall, I turn and look back to make sure the girls are still with me. Once I see then, I quickly glance around the corner. One end side is a dead end. I pull back then quickly look out towards the other end. I smile when I see the stairs. I pull back.
“There’s stairs.” I whispered.
They each nod. I look back out again then head that way, walking as quickly and quietly as I can. Once at the top of the stairs, I inch my way down, my eyes constantly searching. After we reach the end, I see that we are in another large room. This time, the only light to guide us is coming from the hall above.
I reach hand back and grab Mia, who then reaches back and grabs Izzy. I angle my head towards the way I think we should go and they each nod. Then I start to head into the dark. The further we made it in, the darker it got. After a couple of minutes, my eyes adjust to the dark.
I keep walking until I hit a wall. I get closer to it and run my hand along it as I follow it down. About half way down, I feel a door. I put my ear to it, but I don’t hear anything. This door is steel instead of wood. I turn to Mia.
“I think this door goes outside.”
She nods and turns to repeat it to Izzy. She nods too. I take a couple of deep breaths and push through the door. The rush of light surprises me and temporarily blinds me. I stumble through the door, Mia and Izzy behind me. I blink a couple of times and freeze. Instead of stepping outside, we stepped into a loading bay. While there is a huge opening in the wall, there are also about 10 men standing around smoking. At our appearance, each one pulled out their guns and held them up to us.
“Son of a bitch.” I hiss.
“What do we do?” I hear Mia whisper as the men start to crowd us in.
“I don’t know. We could try to fight them, but there are too many.”
“Keep your mouth shut, throw your weapons down, and get on the ground. Now!” One of the men hollers at us.
Izzy speaks up.
“Do as they say. Throw the weapons in your hand down. Get on the ground.”
She drops to the ground and laces her hands behind her head. Mia throws her bra shank down while I throw my own to the ground. Then we each mimic Izzy.
“Hope you know what you are doing.” I whisper to her.
