CHAPTER 13 : THE SHADOW'S SECRET LAIR (PART 2)

Victoria's POV

~*~
RECAP :

I wipe my hands on my jeans and slowly climb out the window. I hold onto the walls of the house as I put my one foot onto the ledge, slowly but surely I move my other foot next to the other one on the ledge.

I look down behind me to see that there is a few bricks sticking out and I start to lower my foot to the nearest brick. But just as I place my foot on one of the bricks my other foot and hand slips, I lose my footing and I start to fall.

I try to reach for something to stop my fall, but there is nothing. My life flashes before my eyes as I fall, I close my eyes tightly as I wait for the impact.

~*~

My eyes are shut tightly as I wait for the hard, cold sement against my flesh, the scrutinizing pain of a broken leg, rib and arm. But none of it comes.

How long can it take to land on the ground? It wasn't that big of a drop. Feeling annoyed I open my eyes slowly, the Shadow's face is looming over mine with a small smile.

Then it hits me, the Shadow caught me before I reached the ground. He lets go of me and helps me back up on my feet. After he is sure I was steady he retreats his hands.

"Thank you." I say as I smile up at him,"you just saved my life."

"No problem, maybe you can repay me someday." He says and I nod.

"So now that we're finally on the ground let's go." He says as he turns around and leads me to the fence. He climbs over the small fence and I follow.

In the driveway of the house next door stood a pitch black car. My jaw dropped when I took in the appearance of this car, this was one gorgeous car.

The Shadow smiles at my reaction, before saying in a western cowboy voice, "Lets ride."

The Shadow climbs into the driver seat and I into the passenger. This was truly amazing. He starts the car and we ride off, I only hope it is not to my death.

The Shadow took a few turns before he started to drive strait. I took a look at my surroundings before I realised where we were going.

"Why are we going to the river?" I ask.

"You'll see." The Shadow answers.
We rode to the bridge that was over the river, but the Shadow took a turn onto the dirt road before we could ride over the bridge. The dirt road was surrounded by trees and bushes. This road led to the river bank, and an old boat cottage next to the river. I knew this place well because this was where we used to come for fishing trips. The place was very secluded and you couldn't see the dirt road from the main road, unless you knew it was there.

After taking a turn around a few bushes the river and the big boat cottage came into view. The Shadow stopped infront of the wooden boat cottage, it had large doors which a boat and a car could fit through. But there was nothing special about it, it was just a storage place the last time I saw it.

"Are you ready to be amazed?" The Shadow asks with a cocky grin.

"By what?" I ask.

The Shadow pulls out a remote and presses a button, the two wood doors open. On the other side of the cottage is the other wooden wall.

"Don't tell me this is you're secret lair. I thought it would be more impressive than this." I say as I see an old, empty cabin infront of me.

"No this isn't." He say before he starts the car and drives straight towards the opposite wall of the cabin, full speed.

This is it, we're going to crash, why did I even agree to this madness. I stare at the wall as it gets closer and closer. But then all of a sudden the car dives into darkness. The Shadow rides down a tunnel until he comes to a stop at a garage door and an intercom, he types a few numbers in on the intercom and the door slides open.

He drives through and the door closes behind him. He stops next to his motorcycle, cuts the engine and climbs out. I follow suit and close the car door softly. The garage closes behind us.

"Did we just drive through a tunnel? How is that even possible?" I ask, still in slight shock from the sudden turn of events, we just rode straight towards a hard wooden wall and then all of a sudden we're riding through a tunnel, amazing.

"The wooden floors are retractable and it opens to this tunnel." He says.

The underground garage is lit by two long florescent lights. The walls are a dull grey, and on the wall across from the garage door is another, small door with a keypad next to it.

The Shadow strolls over and after typing a code of sorts the door clicks open and he holds it open for me. I take another look around the garage and walk past the Shadow into the next room.

You know how I thought that the Shadow's place was going to be one big filthy mess, well lets just say I was completely and utterly wrong. Nothing I ever thought could have prepared me for what was in front of my eyes, I was blown away.

It was another grey room. On the left hand side there was two rooms next to each other, one was a bathroom and the other a room with a table and two chairs. Next to the room stood a large desk with a small bookcase next to it.

There was a huge flat screen tv above the table, with three monitors on the desk with a keyboard and mouse, the Bluetooth radio device was also next to it.

The book case next to the table was full of all sorts of gadgets. There was a small helicopter with a remote control and what looked like a small camera inside the window of the helicopter. There was also a set of tracking devices, cameras, police radio, motion sensors, binoculars and books. This must be the Shadow's make shift office.

Next to the make shift office, in the corner of the room was a couch with another flat screen. And across this small lounge area, on the right hand side of the door we entered in, in the corner was a kitchen, a beautiful, fancy kitchen. And then next to this amazing kitchen (which I was so going to use) was a gym area with a few gym tools.

I swept through the room again and again, I couldn't believe my eyes. How was it possible that there was this exquisite room under the cabin I explored as a child?

I looked over the Shadow to voice my thoughts, but all I could say is, "wow"

The Shadow laughed at my awestruck expression, but I couldn't help it. This was truly a secret lair.

"How did you find this place? Why didn't I find it? How did you get here in the first place?-"

"Woah there Sherlock, I'll tell you everything, but firsts things first hand over the cookies." I didn't even realise I still had the cookies in my hands until the Shadow mentioned it.

"Sure it's all yours." I say as I hand him the cookies. He immediately digs in while I walked around the room, taking in every small detail. This was truly the best secret lair ever.

I mean who would've thought that there was a secret tunnel under the cottage.It had wooden floors that were retractable, I mean come on, you don't see that every day.

"Are you impressed?" The Shadow asks from behind me.

"More than impressed, how did you find this?" I ask as I take a seat on the desk chair.

"Easy, I didn't find it."

"What do you mean you didn't find it?"

"I created it, you see this was a very special place to me during my childhood, the person who motivated me to start this whole search for the White Hawk used to bring me here when I was younger."

"But this place was sold as private property....wait do you mean you bought it?" I ask.

"Yeah, after the loss of that said person I bought this place. I got private contractors to dig this tunnel and to make these rooms under the ground. I installed this secret passages and doors with the keypads and codes." He explaines.

"Well you've done a pretty good job at it."

"Thanks, here's you binder." He says as he hands me over my binder, which I completely forgot about.

"Thank you, I love your kitchen," I say as I walk over to the kitchen area,"can you cook?"

"Yeah, the kitchen is my favorite part too. But I mostly eat frozen foods."

"So this is where you've been hiding all this time, who would've guessed." I say as I take a look at the monitors and screens.

"Yeah, this is it. Did you expect something different?"

"Sort of," I say as I turn around to look at him, "I expected this old, dirty warehouse."

"Oh so it is a lot better then what you expected?"

"More than a lot, this place is just amazing, I could stay here forever." I say as take a long look at everything.

"Well in that case I'll give you a remote and the security codes so that you may come here whenever you want."

"Seriously, you trust me with this wonderful place of yours?"

"Victoria, if didn't trust you, you wouldn't even be here in the first place."

"Fair enough, so how does this stake out thing work?" I ask the question that had been bugging me the most.

"I'll show you." He says as he leads me towards the monitors, "take a seat."

I take a seat in the desk chair as I stare at the monitors intently.

"This flat screen, shows you all the cameras I have installed, the first monitor has a search engine on for internet use, the second is a map of the city and world that shows you where my tracking devices are, and the third one is for normal use." He explains as he show me every thing on the computers and what they are capable of, "And then I also have a police radio that we can use to track the police's movements."

"Wow, this is so cool, can I have some tracking devices?" I ask.

"Sure why not, here's is some for you. I'll install the tracking device's data onto your laptop tomorrow." He says as he hands me two of the small devices.

"Thank you, so what's your plan for this stake out?"

"We'll be monitoring these cameras around the city to watch for any suspicious movements. I'm sure the White Hawk will get someone else to rob the bank again, so when he does I go in and kidnap the thief before the police gets there. That is why we have the police radio, to keep track of the police's movements. I'll drug the thief and bring him here with my car. We'll tie him up in this room and interrogate him there. I've installed speakers and cameras in that room so that we can communicate with him without being seen. How does that sound to you?" He asks.

"It sounds like a good plan, seeing that this is the only plan we have, so it just has to work."

"My thoughts exactly."

"I see that some of these cameras have views from inside the jewellery stores, how did you do that?" I ask as I skim over the flat screen.

"You see these chips," the Shadow says as he points at a small box on the book case with some sort of memory chips inside, "well they're Bluetooth enabled, just like most of my devices, every camera has a place for two memory cards. But most stores only use one of those reserved spots for a memory card, so all I did was plugged my one chips in and connected it with my monitor here for easy viewing pleasure."

"Wow, that is pretty high tech, how is your Bluetooth range so good?"

"I wondered when you would be asking that question, I've got a booster for my Bluetooth range, which means it is five times the range of a normal Bluetooth device."

"Where did you get all this stuff?"

"It's a secret," he says with a wink, "Do you want something to eat and drink?" He asks.

"Some water would be nice, what do you have to eat?"

"Come to the kitchen and I'll show you." He says as we walk to the kitchen. He open a few cupboards and again I'm amazed at its contents.

Inside the cupboard is a variety of different cookies, sweets, chocolates and energy bars. It looks like a mini sweets isle in a supermarket.

"You just made this the best stake out ever." I say to the Shadow with a huge grin on my face, I can totally get use to this.

____________________________________
Hey guys
So this is the Shadow's lair, finally.
Please tell me what you think about the Shadow's lair, is it better or worse than what you expected? And what do you think about all his gadgets? Please comment and vote:-)
Thank you.
~Amorie.