When in Italy

Chapter 18

The sun seemed to start setting even faster than it had been before. We walked down the empty street and Nathan annoyingly hummed a song. Kyle held on to his collar the entire time and held his gun to Nathan's side. I walked behind them and continued to look behind us, making sure to avoid getting shot in the back. 

"Kyle how did you get him this far?" I questioned. 

These heels were starting to make my feet hurt. 

"Yeah, this is a long walk," Nathan added on.

 "Quiet," I snapped at him. 

We turned a corner and came to face with a large abandoned building. 

"He's on the top floor," Kyle motioned his head up and my eyes followed. 

I stepped around them and opened the front door. It looked like it used to be some type of hospital building. There was an elevator, but that obviously wouldn't work. I looked towards the staircase and saw the terrifying reality. 

"Kyle those are wooden stairs. They'll crumble when we go up there, especially since your weight was already on it once." 

"You're right, so you're gonna go up there and bring the friendly mayor down. The two do us weigh too much," Kyle said. 

Nathan was grinning with his eyes; he knew I probably wouldn't make it back either. Before I could mutter a complaint, Kyle nudged me forward with his free arm, "Off you go." 

I glared at him sharply before slowly making my way up the stairs. By the time I had made it to the top floor, it was dark outside. There were only seven floors but there were so many stairs in between. Once I made it to the top, I peered my head and gun in to every room. 

"What the hell, Kyle," I muttered to myself. 

There was one last room at the end of the hallway and muffled groans were coming from it. I pushed my hair back and placed a finger on the trigger. I slowly eased open the cracked door and my eyes almost rolled out of my head. There was a girl who looked similar to the one in the picture Kyle and I had found a few days ago. It was her... It was Anne Marie.

 "How – what are you doing here?" I asked. 

Her breathing was ragged and her eyes wild. She held a large knife against the mayor's throat and she looked at my gun with an unreadable expression. 

"Get out... Get out!" she screamed. 

Hopefully Kyle had heard that and was on his way to provide me with some back up. I couldn't kill her; the whole point of this mission was to get the two hostages out with their lives. But it was obvious they were both crazy now.

 "Anne Marie... what are you doing? You're not supposed to be out of the house," I said. 

She rolled her eyes at me and started laughing crazily.

 "Is that what they told you? 'Anne Marie has to stay inside, no one can know she's here' blah blah blah. Newsflash! Everyone knows where I've been and no one's done a damn thing about it!" The knife was slowly getting closer and closer to the mayor's neck and his panicked eyes begged me for help. 

I moved my finger from the trigger and raised my hands defensively, showing her that the gun was barely in my grip. 

"That's not true. I'm here. I'm here to do something about it," I said calmly. 

Her eyes trailed me up and down, "Who are you anyway?" her thick accent snapped. 

"My name is Alexandria. I came to this country for the sole purpose of helping you and Nathan get away from these guys who have been holding you," I explained.