a fanfic by SonnyandAlexisGal
Chapter Eight
And then I’ll put a bullet into her head right before his eyes. And when it finally hits him that she’s dead…
I’ll kill him, too.
Roscoe puts the key into the heavy-duty lock and turns it clockwise. He leans against the heavy door and pushes it open.
He steps into the room.
Just as his mind registers the fact that he doesn’t see Alexis in front of him, a chair swings toward him from his left.
The force of the impact pushes him across the room and sends him sprawling to the floor.
Alexis turns and runs out of the room, pulling the door closed behind her. She knows that she cannot lock the door since she doesn’t have the keys. Still she wants to put an obstacle in Roscoe’s way – any obstacle that might give her time to get away or to hide.
She turns to her left and runs as quickly as her sling-back shoes will allow down the long corridor and around the corner into the dark warehouse. As quietly as she can, she creeps further and further into the dark space, ducking behind racks of shelves and listening for any signs of Roscoe having followed -- trying desperately to stay out of sight.
I can’t let him find me, she tells herself. The longer it takes for him to find me, the better my chances…
__________________________________________________________
The yellow taxi comes to a stop halfway up the quiet pier.
“I don’t like the way this feels,” Al tells Sonny.
“Neither do I,” Sonny answers.
“This pier’s been dead for at least a couple of years now…”
“I know,” Sonny answers. He touches the door handle. “Remember what I told you. As soon as I get out, you get outta here.”
“I remember…”
“Alright,” Sonny says. “Thanks for your help, Al.”
“Hey, thanks for the money.”
Sonny smiles.
“You’re welcome.”
Sonny opens the car door and makes his way outside. He closes the door and Al pulls away slowly, headed back to town – as instructed, passing another car along the way.
Sonny moves slowly and deliberately, on the alert for anything sudden.
Al was right, Sonny tells himself. With the overcast sky above and the inactivity along this entire stretch of the pier, the general feeling is one of foreboding; something bad has or is about to happen.
Sonny silently promises himself that whatever that is, it will not happen to Alexis.
This entire pier was once part of Sorel’s territory. It was part of the late Philip Mahoney’s turf – the same Philip Mahoney that was gunned down on a dark street in New York City some six years ago. Rumor had it that Mahoney’s murder had been the work of Sorel but none of the big bosses wanted to retaliate – they feared Sorel’s support within the organization that much.
Sonny sees the dark opening to the warehouse and approaches it slowly. He looks around for a moment before stepping inside. The space is expansive and dark. This had once been a busy, thriving warehouse. Now it sits dark and empty. He steps in further – watching and waiting for some noise or sign but none comes.
Where is Alexis, Sonny wonders. Is she somewhere in this building? Is she alright?
Just then, Sonny thinks that he hears a noise from deeper inside the warehouse. He takes out the gun at his ribs and moves further into the warehouse to find out what made the noise.
Or who…
_________________________________________________________
Roscoe shakes off the after-effects of being hit with a chair. He quickly reaches behind his back and into the holster that he wears and pulls out a gun. He holds it gingerly, his finger on the trigger and starts out of the little office from which Alexis made her escape.
That was careless of me, Roscoe tells himself. He knew that Alexis trying to escape was a very real possibility. A woman like Alexis Davis would. Still he walked into that room without his guard up.
Now I have to find her and get her back under control – before Corinthos gets here.
____________________________________________________
Alexis crouches and creeps along behind the racks of shelves that populate the deserted warehouse. She carefully avoids the intermittent streams of light shining through the windows – partly because the light hurts her eyes after so much time in a windowless room and partly to avoid being clearly seen by her captor. She steps lightly and as quietly as she can so that no one hears her moving around the room.
Did I have to wear sling-back shoes today, she questions. Keeping these heels from making noise isn’t exactly easy. Mental note to Alexis: buy more pumps…
“Miss Davis?” comes Roscoe’s voice from the direction that Alexis ran in from.
The sound startles her.
“You don’t want to wander around this filthy room, do you?” he asks, moving through the aisles, searching for her – gun in hand. “Really. You’d be surprised at how many river rats find their way into a place like this…”
River rats, Alexis repeats to herself. Oh my God!
Still she can’t allow herself to react. Instead she drops to her knees and crawls along behind the rack of shelves – ruining her pants, her eyes scanning the area while she desperately keeps out of view.
“Really now, Miss Davis,” Roscoe says. “You’re upsetting my timetable and I don’t appreciate it…”
Alexis breathes as quietly as she can and says nothing in response.
“My patience is wearing thin, Miss Davis!” Roscoe shouts. “Corinthos is already on his way. There’s nothing that says I have to keep you alive now. If you come out and show yourself, I just might be inclined to feel a little compassion for your situation…”
Alexis crawls into the farthest aisle of shelves and makes her way into the large shadow cast by one of them. The darkness of that shadow soothes her eyes a bit. She sits with her back pressed against the rack. As she does, a grayish, medium-sized rat finds its way past her.
Alexis quickly covers her mouth with her hand to quiet her gasp. The rat slowly continues on its merry way as she keeps perfectly still – encouraging it to do so.
“My suit is dirty, Miss Davis!” Roscoe calls out before quickly looking around the rack that he is passing at that second. “This was an expensive suit. I’m liable to be a little cross when I find you. You really should come on out now…”
Alexis hears slow footsteps approaching, sounding clearer and clearer as they grow closer.
Quickly, she crawls on hands and knees around behind the edge of the rack.
She freezes in place.
“Miss Davis?”
Alexis hears Roscoe’s voice and knows that he would have seen her if she hadn’t moved. Her eyes fall on a group of about four or five rats about three feet away, clustered somewhat around something that she can’t quite make out and squealing in a way that makes her skin crawl.
She shakes it off before noticing that the footsteps have stopped.
She can sense that Roscoe is at the other end of the aisle.
Slowly the footsteps begin again. Only this time they’re in the aisle, coming closer.
Alexis holds her breath. Her heart thumps inside her chest. A bead of perspiration trickles down the side of her face as she hears Roscoe approaching.
Move dammit, she tells herself.
Roscoe takes one step closer to where Alexis is hiding.
Suddenly Alexis takes off along the edge of the rows of racks. She makes it past one, two, three, four racks.
She ducks around one and into the aisle as she hears a gunshot.
She drops to her knees once again and quickly crawls through the aisle and to the other end.
Roscoe laughs.
“That was pretty close, wasn’t it?” he teases.
Alexis stands and takes off in the other direction. She runs past another several racks of shelves and darts into an aisle that she picks at random, hearing Roscoe following behind, trying to catch her.
Alexis moves through the aisle, her peripheral vision scanning the area around her for Roscoe’s form. She sees a large something just up ahead. It looks like a container of some kind.
Another gunshot rings out, forcing her to run around and duck behind it.
She stands panting and gasping when she hears a different voice calling.
“Roscoe?” Sonny calls out, having heard the gunshots and following their sound.
Something inside of Alexis wants to call out to him – to tell him that she’s nearby. She wants to tell him that she’s safe. She wants to tell him how much she wants to go home.
Her better instincts take over, though, and she remains silent.
“Is that you, Corinthos?” Roscoe answers from the other direction.
“It’s me,” Sonny responds, moving slowly and peeking behind every rack of shelves that he passes. “I thought we were working a deal…”
“We were,” Roscoe answers. “Your mouthpiece had other plans…so the deal’s off…”
Once again, Alexis hears footsteps approaching from the direction that she came from. She drops to her knees again and moves along the edge of the shelves, past an open space, and into a corner where she hides in the shadows.
“You gave me your word,” Sonny calls, moving slowly through the aisles. “I hoped that that meant something to you…”
“Just a means to an end, Corinthos,” Roscoe calls in response. “That’s all…”
The movement from the bad direction continues, becoming easier for Alexis to hear.
“This is between us anyway,” Sonny reasons. “Let’s finish it.”
“First things first,” Roscoe answers.
“Alexis is a pretty smart lady,” Sonny says. “She’s not stupid enough to let you find her…so let’s just forget about her. You and me, Roscoe – once and for all. How about it?”
“Like I said,” Roscoe begins, “first things first. Besides…you don’t think I brought you here just to play hide-and-seek, do you? I have some very definite plans and both you and Miss Davis figure very prominently…”
“Alexis has got nothin’ to do with this!” Sonny yells. “You wanna come after me, be a man and come after me, Roscoe. Don’t hide behind a woman…What’s the matter? You afraid to take me on by yourself?”
Roscoe laughs.
“I’m not afraid, Corinthos,” he answers. “I just want to see the look in your eyes when you watch your pretty lady die right in front of you…”
“She dies, Roslyakov…” Sonny warns. “She dies…and you die.”
Roscoe detects movement nearby and begins to track down the source of it.
“I kind of expected you’d say that…”
Alexis inches along the shelf and back down the aisle, her eyes wide and darting around, trying to spot Roscoe before he can see her.
She makes it to the end of a rack of shelves and quickly hides behind it.
She peeks her head out in time to notice the figure of a man backing out of one of the aisles. He backs out slowly, glancing around him. He moves into one of the streams of sunlight and she can make out who it is.
It’s Mike Corbin.
What the hell is Mike doing here, Alexis wonders.
No sooner than she does, out of the corner of her eye, she sees Roscoe appear – no more than a couple of feet behind Mike, following him into the light.
A smile crosses Roscoe’s face as he raises his arm and takes aim.
“Mike!” Alexis shouts. “Look out!”
A shot rings out.