Chapter Four
Mickey lowered herself from the roof of the brownstone house to the windowsill of the third floor. Luckily, there was an alley way behind the chain of apartments so she wouldn't be seen scaling the wall. The windowsill was only about four inches wide, so she had to cling to the overhang on the roof to steady herself.
The room to which the window belonged was dark, and it looked as if it hadn't been used in awhile. Mickey tried to open the window, but found it locked. She sighed in frustration, this was the third window she'd tried and still no luck.
The plan was to get into the house, find the girl, and 'rescue' her. Lia insisted that Mickey do this while she and the others were securing the mother and anyone else that might pose as a threat. They had waited one night before returning in hope that the operation would be quick and easy rather then having to fight.
Mickey climbed back up to the roof and moved to the next window which was the last on the this floor. The room was dark as well and inaccessible, so she carefully lowered herself to the windowsill directly below her on the second floor. All the conditioning her and her sisters had done throughout their lives had made such tasks simple. When her feet touched the ledge, which seemed slightly wider then the one above, she let go of the sill and sank down quickly. She allowed herself to gain balance before trying to open the window. It slid open about half way and then refused to budge any further.
Super. . . She thought as she stood on the sill and edged towards another window which was only a few feet away.
She extended her leg out until her bare foot reached the windowsill. With a quick, fluid movement, she reached over and grasped the brick window jam then pulled herself the rest of the way onto the ledge. She sank down and froze, she hadn't noticed that the room was lit. She sat still for a moment until she decided that no one had seen her then peered through the window. She saw the girl sitting very still on the edge of her bed, back facing the window. On either side of her sat a packed suitcase. Mickey could hear loud music blasting from speakers near the door.
She tired the window, and to her surprise, it opened. When the girl didn't look back, Mickey opened it enough so she could squeeze through. She stepped quietly into the room and crept up behind the girl, who she realized was crying.
Swiftly, she clasped her hand over the girls mouth and drew her across the bed towards her. Caught by surprise, the girl made no movement at first, but then thrashed violently and tried to scream.
With her free hand, Mickey caught one of the girls flailing arms and twisted it behind her back. The girl stopped struggling and lay still on the bed again.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you." Mickey said. "I've got to get you out of here, ok? So don't try to run or anything, understand?"
The girl nodded, her eyes wide with fear.
"Good, come on." Mickey pulled the girl off the side of the bed and stood her on her feet, trying to keep her from getting a good look at her. She led her towards the door and listened for a moment, trying to hear over the music.
"Is there anyone out there?" She asked firmly.
The girl shook her head.
"Ok, I'm gonna take away my hand now, don't scream." Mickey slowly removed her hand, and when the girl didn't scream, she reached for the door knob and found it locked.
"Great. . . " Mickey murmured and stepped back. "Why do the even make doors that lock from the outside?" She asked herself, frustrated, and placed her hand back over the girls mouth.
She lead her back to the window and looked for someway get the girl out. "We gotta get to the roof, can you climb?"
The girl shook her head violently.
"Then do you know another way out? Ok, I didn't think so. This is gonna be kinda hard, so just . . . don't look down." She forced the girl out onto the windowsill. When she turned around, she gasped.
"I knew it was you! Who are you anyways? What are you doing?" The girl had to grasp the window jam to keep her balance.
"Ok, calm down. Like I said, I'm not going to hurt you, I just gotta get you outa here, all right?"
"Why though? How do you know what's going on and why would you care?" The girl had a skeptical tone in her voice, mostly to cover that of nervousness.
Mickey glanced at the door and back to the girl. "Because . . . that's what we do. Now we gotta get going. I'll be right behind you."
The girl looked at Mickey a minute more before she turned around and stood on the windowsill. "So how am I suppose to do this? "
Mickey directed her back the way she had came, only it took much longer. The girl nearly fell several times and all but resisted trying to climb to the next floor. Mickey had to climb around her to get to the roof and hoist her up.
"Ok, now we gotta wait." Mickey said, looking over the edge of the building.
"Wait for what?" The girl was looking around the roof as if it were Martian terrain.
"For uh . . . everyone else." Mickey didn't dare say what the other were doing for fear of alarming the girl.
"What are they doing?" Her voice sounded frighted.
Oh, this is great. Now she's gonna freak out and I'll end up having to tie her up or something. "Nothing, don't worry. I'll explain later." The girl looked confused and doubtful so Mickey quickly added, "I don't think I caught your name."
"Sandra. You're . . . Mickey, right?"
"Yep."
"So what about what you were saying last time, about my mom being a . . . murderer?"
Mickey had failed at changing subjects. "Who said that?"
"I dunno, but someone did and now with all this stuff going on-"
"What's been going on?"
"My mom has been acting really strange and she hasn't let me leave the house for a long time. I haven't seen Steve, my step-dad in a long time either. It's like he just disappeared."
"What about that man? Have you seen him?" Mickey had turned her attention from watching the back door to interrogating Sandra.
"Yeah, once or twice, but if I asked about him my mom would just say he's a friend, but I know that's not true."
"So he's not in there now?"
"I dunno. I've been locked in my room almost all day. My mom just came up and told me to pack my things. Everything is just so screwed up."
Mickey nodded and looked back over the ledge again. She wondered what was taking her sisters so long.
Ok, so where is everyone? Lia thought, It's only 10 o'clock and the house is almost completely dark!
Rene and Donna had checked the perimeter of the house to make sure nothing was amiss and everyone was there. They returned to tell Lia that everything was as it should be, so what was wrong?
Lia braved a few feet into the dinning room and crouched behind the large oak table. From where she hunched, she could see a man relaxed on a large formal couch reading the newspaper. One floor lamp above him was lit, but the rest of the room was dark. Beyond this room was another dark living room and then through a large archway on the left wall Lia presumed was the entryway. She slunk back to the kitchen and ducked behind the counter. She waited for a moment and listened, but the only sound that reached her ears was the man turning a page to his newspaper. She stood and inched towards the window where Rene and Donna waited.
"We've got one guy in the . . . fist living room and from what I can see, no one else." She whispered.
"So is the coast clear?" Donna asked from beneath the window.
"Yeah, but be quiet." Lia crouched back down and waited for her sisters to climb through the window.
"Talk about living in the lap of luxury!" Rene said as she jumped quietly from the marble counter to the wood floors. She paced the cooking area and looked over the brick wall containing the oven.
Donna climbed through next and surveyed the room with astonishment as well. "How come we didn't notice this last time?" She whispered.
"Come 'ere!" Lia hissed at Rene who was busy examining every inch of the ornately engraved marble back splash.
"So we find the mother, right?" Lia asked when the other two crouched around her. They nodded. "Hopefully there won't be too many other people to contend with."
"Or none would be nice." Rene interrupted.
"Yeah, well, so far there's some guy in there on the couch. I don't know if he's armed or not, so we gotta be careful. The rest of this floor looks empty, so we might have to search upstairs. Remember, in and out, try to avoid any physical encounters if at all possible. Understand?"
"Right, no fighting." Donna nodded.
"Ok then to the left, take my lead." Lia peered around the corner of the counter and then slunk off in a still crouched position. She reached the archway and stopped, checking to see if the man was watching. She stood and tiptoed into the dinning room, drawing her kantana. The others followed behind and drew their weapons as well.
All three stepped into the living room silently but quickly and made it several feet before the man looked up. His eyes widened and he sat still in shock for a moment before he jumped up and drew a gun from a holster at his side. In an instant, Lia lunged forward and knocked the weapon from his grasp with her sword. She landed in a crouch and swept his legs from underneath him. He fell with a loud thud only to have Rene strike him upside the head with the hilt of her sai, knocking him unconscious.
Donna stood ready but useless with her bo. She shrugged. "That was easy enough."
"Don't speak too soon." Lia warned, now back on her feet by Rene.
They skulked through what appeared to be the formal living room into an even more luxurious parlor. The room had a turn of the century feel to it with the rich fabrics of the curtains and dated furniture.
Their attention was suddenly turned from the decor to four large men armed with guns walking into the parlor from the entryway. Lia guessed they heard the grapple in the living room, but she couldn't further her theory because she was in midair, about to alight on one of the men.
Donna, on the other hand, waited for her attacker to come to her. He stopped and held out his gun, preparing to fire, but that was his mistake. In the blink of an eye, Donna ducked down and struck him in the back of the shins with her bo, one of her favorite and most effective methods. She then spun around and back to full height to meet the next man who should dare face her. Now with her bo raised high to her left, she brought it down and across, making contact with the side of his face. Before he could regain balance from the blow, she jabbed the end of her stave into his soft belly, just below the ribs, knocking the wind out of him. She then lowered her bo, but only to plunge her foot into his gut and drive him backwards. He stumbled over his own feet, then fell only to have his head meet with the edge of the alter table against the wall. In one fluid movement, Donna had managed to knock one man off his feet, deliver a blow across another's face and then finish him with a jab of her bo and a kick. This, of course, was just standard routine.
A deafening shot was fired, but the action in the room did not slow. Rene had caught the man's arm as he lowered the gun to fire, avoiding a deathly collision with a bullet. Still holding his wrist, she administered a full-force kick into his side, aiming to strike his kidney with her foot. She released his arm to allow him to double over, then drove the hilt of her sai just below his neck, directly on the spine. The man wailed in pain and fell to the floor, but Rene remained standing. She leapt into the air, forcing her body into a spin. In the revolution, she managed to kick a man, who was recovering from one of her sisters blows, in the jaw. One her drop, she nailed another man with her hands on either side of the neck. He was stunned, but only for a moment. He managed to get in a quick and uneffective blow with the handle of his gun to the side of her snout. She tasted blood, possibly from a tooth that was knocked lose, but ignored it and the pain that accompanied.
She drove her sai like a dagger into his throat, spilling blood onto the beautifully woven Persian area rug. The man grappled at the deep wound in his neck and fell to the floor. Rene spun around to meet her next attacker, lips curled into a savage snarl.
Lia had noticed more men flowing into the parlor from all angles. There were now over 10 people in the room waiting to get into the action against the three of them. Several shots had been fired as well, which were bound to attract police. She knew a retreat would have to be called.
As she turned to face her sisters and call them off, she was met with an incredibly strong blow to her face. She was knocked off balance for only a moment, but in that time, her attacker elbowed her in the ribs hard enough to flip her over the back of the sofa. She covered her face with her arms as she landed on the cousins and rolled off onto the floor with a loud thud. Before she could manage to bounce back to her feet with little injury, another man kicked her in the gut and again in the ribs. She curled into her best defense position, unable to fight off the men who were now looming over her.
She felt blood poor from a fresh wound on her head down her face and heard several loud cracks and pops all over her body from the assault. She clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, feeling painful and helpless, but mostly painful.
Just as she was sure she was losing consciousness, her sisters came to the rescue. The onslaught seemed to stop and she felt a pair hands hook underneath her arms and drag her across the floor.
Rene was fighting the men off to clear their exit as Donna dragged Lia to the kitchen. Luckily, the police sirens had scared off most of the attackers, but a few still remained.
Rene kicked one man into the dining room table, sending chairs flying and elbowed another in the gut hard enough to make him sink to the ground. Donna was feeling weak from her own attack and dragging Lia was really wearing her out fast.
"Come on, come on!" Rene hurried as she opened the window and helped Donna lug Lia though.
They heard the front door bust open and men shouting. Blue and Red lights flickered in the parlor. Rene begin to panic as they wearily dashed through the house, guns held out and prepared to shoot.
"Hey you! Stop!" The police yelled as Rene leap through the window above the sink.
The officer hurried her pace to a run, jumping over the dead and unconscious bodies as she made her way to the window. When she looked out, there wasn't a sole in sight, only a smear of blood across the windowsill.