A quick search of the room revealed no other potential weapons, so Micah huddled near the door, intent on catching Ren by surprise the next time he came to check on him. The plan was simple: hit the man as hard as he could in the back of the head with the chair leg and hightail it out of there.

Of course, Micah hoped the next person to walk through the door wouldn’t be Ren. More than anything, he wanted it to be Damon.

He couldn’t have been crouched there long when his whole body suddenly tensed, every cell going on alert as he heard the faintest trace of footsteps approaching the door. The lock unclicked. The knob turned.

But, of course, Micah’s luck was absolute shit, and God must have hit his daily quota for answered prayers, because it was Ren who stepped into the dank, dreary room.

“Micah?”

Ren’s back was turned towards him so Micah didn’t have the pleasure of seeing the shock seize him, quickly overtaken by panic – but he did see the way his shoulders stiffened in alarm. Micah didn’t give the man time to discover him; he merely pulled the makeshift club back behind his head, and swung.

Ren staggered forward when the chair leg collided with his skull, but Micah didn’t stick around to see if he went down.

It didn’t matter. Micah ran. He shot out the open doorway, which revealed a steep set of stairs. He booked it up the steps, taking them two at a time as he braced his bad arm with his good one. It affected his balance, and Micah’s toes caught on the top step. He tripped, but didn’t fall – though steadying himself cost him precious seconds.

The stairs led to a kitchen.

Micah barely registered the fact that he wasn’t in a church, after all, but a very normal-looking house – parsonage, his brain supplied, the typical housing arrangement for a pastor – when he was suddenly slammed into from behind.

He was tackled to the floor.

Micah tried to catch himself with his good arm, but his damaged one took the brunt of the fall. He screamed – the sound taking a turn towards guttural when Ren grabbed him by his dislocated shoulder and forcefully flipped him onto his back.

The man sat on top of him, looming over Micah as his knees caged him in on either side. Ren’s eyes were like brown, molten lava, spitting fire at him, and blood dripped down from his hairline where Micah had struck him – though not hard enough, apparently. Fuck.

The man looked crazed.

“There’s nowhere you can run, nowhere you can hide, that He does not see you, that I cannot find you.”