Lila

Lila whipped around at the sound of the voice, then cried out. It felt like freezing fire stabbed her deep between her ribs, crackling out to sear her heart, her arms and her neck. She grabbed her side and stumbled as Chris swore and rushed over to her from the living room.

​​

"Are you okay? Lila! Are you okay?" he kept asking, worried.

"I'm fine. You scared me," she hissed.

When he reached her he put his arms around her, but she pushed him off and leaned on the wall, breathing slowly the way the doctor had shown her, and glaring at Chris.

"What? I didn't know where you were. I was worried. The drivers said you were here, but when I got here… fuck, Lila, I thought he'd gotten you again."

Chris did look a little pale, and Lila bit her lip. "Sorry."

But as she got her breath back and straightened, Chris's eyes dropped to the fireplace, the open front now a large, sliding panel behind her.

"Fucking, Dane and his fucking secrets," he muttered. Then he looked at her, anger lighting his eyes. "This is where he hid you?"

Lila's heart sank, but there was nothing for it. She nodded.

"How long's he had this?" he said, his voice a strangled kind of high that Lila didn't think he could fake. Had he really not known?

"I don't know," she lied. "I just know he had it before I showed up."

"What's down there?" he said, pushing it further open and tipping his head to look down the stairs.

Lila let herself breathe for a minute before she answered. She had four phones, and Chris couldn't know that. "This is a staircase to what used to be a fire escape and maintenance entrance… I think," she said, wincing again as her ribs stabbed.

Chris turned back to stare at her. "Used to be?"

"It's now an airbridge to a little apartment in the next building that Dane… either owns or rents, I'm not sure."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

She shook her head and blew out the breath that she kept wanting to hold because her ribs hurt even on the little breaths now.

"And you just went over there right now? Alone?" he sounded just like Dane when Dane was getting protective and for a second she pressed her lips thin and glared at him. He didn't get to talk to her that way. But when he didn't back down she decided it wasn't worth fighting over.

"I sort of went," she said in a small voice, looking down at her hands and keeping her arm close to her side so he wouldn't see the shape of the phone in her sleeve. "I started to, but…"

"What's wrong?" That desperate concern was back in his tone, and Lila was confused by it. She'd never really heard Chris gentle before.

"I answered the door because I thought Doug was Dane," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. She closed her eyes against the memories of that moment—the blazing hope she'd had, and how quickly it had exploded into terror. "It… it looks like he never closed it when he… took me. I…" she trailed off and let her tears of frustration and stress well. "I couldn't go in, Chris. I was… I was too scared. I thought… I couldn't… But what if Dane was there or something? I just… I'm making no sense, but… I'm scared, and I'm so scared I'll never see him again and what am I going to do?" she wailed, only partly acting.

Chris shushed her, pulling her softly into his chest. She kept her arm curled across her stomach like she was protecting her ribs and he rubbed her back. She prayed his hands wouldn't drift anywhere he might feel a phone. "It's okay, Lila. It's going to be okay," he said into her hair.

She shivered. "You can't know that."

"I know Dane," he said softly. "I know how strong he is. And how stubborn. He's not… he's not going to let his father…" but he didn't finish the thought, and Lila choked on real tears.

Because, no matter what he couldn't know. And neither could she.

She could hope. She could only hope.

******

An hour later, she sat on the couch as a full team from Daniels Security created a guard and perimeter around the fireplace and apartment. They even went over to guard the other building, which had created some drama. They'd closed down the hall on the other side of the apartment walls—apparently that apartment used to be accessible from the other building, but Dane had concreted it off. But they still had to guard the walls over there to make sure no one tried to break through.

The Police were on their way.

Lila didn't know whether to be ecstatic, or terrified.

And she sat on the phones, and hugged one to her stomach, and prayed the one in her waistband wouldn't be pressed up and out of her jeans and give her away.

Chris stood in the Penthouse giving instructions while men filed in and out. He promised her they weren't actually going inside the apartment because they didn't want to disturb anything, but she wasn't sure whether to believe him or not. He didn't really meet her eyes when he said it.

The only thing she was sure of was that she couldn't risk anyone learning about the phones.

So she sat quietly and didn't make a fuss when all the men tramped back and forth through the Penthouse. She didn't say anything when the Police arrived and there was an argument about who should hold the perimeter.

Then one of the detectives approached her on the couch and introduced himself. She didn't catch the name, her head buzzing—screaming, really—with warning.

"Mrs. Daniels, I understand that this other apartment was the site at which you were abducted from. Is that true?"

She stared at the man and opened her mouth, then closed it again, like she was having trouble speaking. She nodded her head and the man looked at her with a furrowed brow.

"I'm sorry, I know this is hard," he said. "But, you're saying that this is a crime scene, correct?"

"Y-yes."

"Can I ask why we weren't notified of it earlier?"

Lila stared at him.