Nowhere by Joshua David Page A

you know they’re onto you and there’s no way to get away.”
                  “Is it poison, like cyanid, will it kill me?”
                  “Most likely no… you take it and chew it up in your mouth and swallow what you can. It’ll make you spew out everything in your stomach. I mean barf your guts out like there’s no tomorrow.” Steven still hadn’t turned around and was now wiping down the counter. “We use these as a form of distraction to buy some time. You start throwing up on someone’s shoes all of a sudden and I promise you they’re gonna lose their grip on you and give you enough leverage to land a good elbow to the gut or knee to the groin. Otherwise if you want to play it nice and just disappear, it should buy you some unsupervised time in the restroom. If you can teach yourself how to take apart the flush handle of a toilet at the same time you’re throwing up in it, you can escape from anyone, anywhere.”
                  Richard suddenly imagined himself wearing a vomit stained shirt while jimmying off the handle of a toilet, and sliding out the large metal flush arm before sneaking up on an unsuspecting Chinese guard standing outside of the restroom and stabbing him in the neck with a toilet handle. Vomit speckles covered his mouth… He suddenly snapped out of the day dream and quickly shook the idea out of his head.
                  “Put that somewhere safe and use it when the time comes. You got me?” Steven asked.
                  Richard nodded and stuck the pill in his shirt breast pocket.
                  Without turning from the counter, Steven stopped him. “I hope that’s not your plan. That’s not only the first place they’ll check, but it’s also the quickest way to crush your getaway plan.”
                  He put some pots in the sink and then picked up a washcloth to dry his hands.
                  “Either put it in a plastic bag and tape it up next to your nut sack or you could carry it in that pill bottle you’re always carrying around. The nut sack is less likely to be detected, but the pill bottle may be easier to get to in an emergency, I’ll leave it up to you.”
                  Richard went back to his coat and got the prescription bottle from his pocket. He opened it and put the single blue pill in with the rest of his medication. He heard the click of his balcony door as he put the bottle back in his coat. He turned around and found himself unsurprised to see that Steven had left without a trace.
                  Richard walked to the kitchen, which was now clean and appeared as though no one had been there, then he went to the balcony door and found that Steven had even locked it before he left. He unlocked it, opened it and went out onto the balcony. The early evening air was full of the sounds of traffic and strangely a few hoot owls could be heard from a rooftop somewhere.It was a small balcony, only wide enough for a single deck chair and a small plastic patio end table. There was a black rot iron fence going around it. Richard looked over the edge.
                  There was at least a twenty foot drop on all sides, down to the concrete parking lot below, an athletic jumper might get super lucky and be able to make it to the small grassy patch between the lot and the building, but still... twenty feet. Richard looked up and saw that there was a four inch drain pipe running up the exterior wall to the roof, which was only about ten additional feet up. Richard nodded, believing this to be Steven’s most likely exit path. Still the man was an expert in disappearing quickly and efficiently.
    "The AIA..." Richard said to himself with a smirk.
                  He shook this off as yet another one of Steven’s many oddities and then went in to fix himself dinner. He turned on the TV and flipped it to the news, then he