Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide

Did the dark haired girl really mean to try the boots on now? If she slid her foot right in, Julian knew he would be crushed, driven into the toe of the boots and popped like a ripe little cherry tomato. Panic gripped him. He definitely did not want to be turned into a greasy stain inside the boot. But he really didn’t want to be eaten. The proverbial rock and the hard place. He was about to yell out, scream that he was in the boot as it was being lowered toward the ground, but the overwhelming sense of dread choked his voice in his throat. The boot stopped moving. Closing his eyes tightly, he thought for sure he was goner. But instead of a gigantic foot crushing the life out of him, there was nothing. Peeking up, he realized she had set the boot back down against the wall beside its mate where the blonde had originally placed them.

Heart pounding, he saw the brunette’s head turn away, “After we find your missing little ones,” she said, “I’ll give them a try then.”

Shaking with relief, he chuckled nervously and wiped an arm across his sweat dampened brow. That had been close. It was the story of his life, some might even say he was charmed. He could think of three previous times in his life when he thought he had met his end. This made number four. He grinned and nodded. The time before this had been hairy. He had gone to see Tracy at the flophouse where she was shacked up, not knowing that a bunch of others also staying there were bangers under surveillance by the cops.

When the cops tried to take the house down, the crooks pulled out some serious hardware and the place turned into a fucking warzone, bullets flying everywhere, tearing holes through drywall and people alike. Tracy got hit in the leg, but not him. Someway, somehow, every bullet missed him. There were no less than three bullet holes in his leather jacket, but not a scratch on him. Whether it was fate or divine providence, either way, he was unhurt. He never thought of himself as invulnerable, just straight up ‘horseshoes-up-the-ass’ lucky. After this near miss, how or why he was small didn’t really matter, he honestly believed he would now find a way to get out of it.

Climbing back up the slanted sole of the boot, he jumped up onto the hard leather to the left side of the heel pulled himself up enough to be able get to the top of the boot and peer out.

He could see a portion of the killer whale up near the pillows on the bed and wondered if Josh was still inside. Nothing the girls did suggested they had discovered him.

Next, the duo searched the walk in closet, again Julian wrestled with the idea of trying to sprint across the floor to get back under the bed. The throb in his ankle convinced staying was probably the wiser course.

Fortunately for him, he did stay because no sooner had he dismissed the notion, than the brunette reappeared in the room, pausing at the center, hands on her hips, attention focused on the higher shelves of the bookcase. “Did you just search the bottom level?” she called.

The blonde emerged from the closet, “Just that shelf. I didn’t think they could get up to any of the others,” she explained.

Probably not, but because we haven’t found them yet, I’ll check just to be sure,” she said, moving over in that direction.

“Did you check the boots?” asked the blonde, pointing to where they sat next to the door.

“Before we went into the closet,” answered the dark haired girl, now down on her knees and sifting through the curios and material on the shelf above the plush toys.

Julian let out a sigh of relief, but he knew his reprieve was only temporary. The way these two females were searching was methodical, systematically eliminating possible hiding places one by one. The blonde girl was right, he and Josh were running out of options and he knew he couldn’t stay in the boot indefinitely. Thinking a moment, he chuckled softly, where else could he go now they were back in the room?

The blonde went and got another towel, blocking access to the closet. Another nail in the coffin.

“Are you sure they didn’t get out?” asked the dark haired, sitting back on her heels and looking at the other girl.

The blonde grinned, and nodded. “They are here somewhere,” she said, “they’re just very adept at hiding,” she conceded, while she continued to search under the base of the nightstand beside her bed.

“I’ll say,” replied the brunette, shaking her head while sweeping her eyes across the floor.

“When Nathaniel escaped from me, he hid in here for an entire day. It was actually Julie who found him out on the stairs trying to get down,” she said with a chuckle, as she reared back onto her haunches.

“Ooh, I’m sure that didn’t end well on account of the fact your sister is kind of a, no offense Faith, she’s a bitch,” the dark haired girl said, making a face and shaking her head.

“She told me the day after she had caught him, of course by then he was gone, but she said if I wanted, I could come get what was left of him in the toilet,” replied blondie.

“Bitch,” repeated the brunette, tone exasperated.

Josh was making mental notes. The blonde girl’s name was Faith. There was at least one other person in the house, Faith’s sister, Julie, and apparently she is unpleasant. They were on an upper floor and there were stairs. How the hell could someone this size get down stairs? Peeking out though the split in the seam, hands still clutching the knotted thread, he saw the pair of boots on the floor near the door. That had to be where Julian was, everything else on that side of the book case was out in the open and he surely would have been caught. But the brunette had said she checked. He knew it wouldn’t be long now before the pair of huntresses exhausted all the obvious places to hide and started searching more thoroughly. He felt a cramp in his stomach. When was the last time he had anything to eat or drink?