Nila
I LIVED IT all.
Jethro fighting with the wheel.
The rain of gunfire.
The buck and kick of the Jeep as its nose ploughed into earth and sprang upward into the air. I witnessed Jethro’s head snap sideways, his temple crunch against the windshield, and the bone-shattering landing when air turned to ground and the Jeep morphed from car to flattened sandwich.
Vertigo had affected me all my life. But this...the flipping, ricocheting, swerving nightmare was ten times worse. The hurl, the roll, the loop de loop forced our bodies to forsake our bones and turn into cartwheels of flesh.
Down was up. Up was down. And fate had well and truly abandoned us as we came to a teeth-chattering stop upside down.
I hurt.
I throbbed.
The engine wouldn’t stop whining. The shattered glass rained like fractured crystals. Blood stung my eyes, but I refused to tear my vision from Jethro.
Jethro...
Tears clogged every artery. Panic lodged in every vein.
We’d been so close...
He hung unnaturally still. Blood dripped from his temple, splashing against the roof of the car with morbid artwork. His side bled a rich scarlet while the gash on his forehead oozed almost black-red. His arms dangled, wrists bent and lifeless on the roof.
No...no. Please, no...
He couldn’t be dead.
He couldn’t.
Life wouldn’t be that cruel.
It wouldn’t bait hope before us and then yank it away as we reached for it.
It can’t be that cruel!
Jethro...
I wanted to reach out and touch him. I wanted to speak and assure him. I wanted to pull him free and drag him far, far away.
But my brain had no power to send the message to bruised limbs.
So I hung there—a broken marionette held up by strings.
My lungs suddenly demanded breath. I gasped and spluttered. My seatbelt hugged me too tight, cutting my ribcage, keeping me pinned upside down. My hair hung around me, droplets of my blood tracing their way over my forehead, like incorrectly flowing red tears joining Jethro’s on the roof below.
“Ki—Kite...” I groaned as the word ripped me in two. I begged my arm to move to him, to see if he was alive.
But I couldn’t move.
Jethro didn’t move.
Nothing moved apart from the spinning tyres and settling dust, cocooning us in a cloud of yellow ash.
Blinking away blood, I sucked in another breath, willing the oxygen to knit me back together and revive me.
Come on.
We weren’t safe. I couldn’t remember why. But we weren’t safe.
Lions?
Hyenas?
Footsteps crunched closer. The click and snap of weapons being disarmed echoed in my skull. Instructions given in a language I couldn’t understand.
I suddenly remembered.
Hawks.
Someone tried to open my door, but it wouldn’t budge. I didn’t look at them. Keeping my eyes trained on Jethro, I wordlessly told him everything he deserved to hear.
I love you.
I trust you.
Thank you for coming for me.
I’ll follow you.
I’ll chase you.
This is not the end.
Horror that he might’ve gone forever consumed me. I’d watched him die twice. Twice.
I knew what it was like to survive without him. If he’d died, I wanted to go, too.
Tears streamed from my eyes, joining the blood dripping from my forehead.
More footsteps.
More crunching and conversation.
“Jethro...” I battled against the pain and misfiring synapses and managed to force my arm to move. Inch by inch, cripple by cripple, I reached for him.
When my fingertip touched his elbow, I burst into ugly tears. “Please...wake up.”
He didn’t twitch.
I poked him.
He didn’t flinch.
I pinched him.
He only hung there like a butchered corpse.
The windshield suddenly shattered. I screamed as a rain of safety glass pebbled in a waterfall.
My arm wrenched back of its own accord, sheltering my head instinctually. The butt of the gun came too close to my face.
Then a human replaced the gun. A dark-skinned masculine human. His gaze met mine. “Alive, boss.”
I squeezed my eyes. Outside, the view mocked me. We’d managed to soar free of the compound before succumbing to bullet fire. We’d been free. We’d made it past the fence.
But now...I would be dragged back and Jethro...I doubted reincarnation would happen a second time.
I drifted in and out of consciousness; half pictures and stuttering images showed me a story of African workers, slowly making sense of the wreck. Someone reached inside and undid my seat belt.
Instantly, gravity yanked me into its embrace and folded me in two on the roof.
A moan tore past my lips, aching with pain.
The moment I was undone, someone grabbed my ankles, yanking me through the jagged hole where the windshield used to be and into the bright morning sunshine. Sharp shards of metal cut me as they pulled me free. Sand burned my bleeding skin as they dragged me across the dirt.
“No!” My fingers latched onto the bullet-riddled car. “Not without him. No!”
No one listened.
Instead, arms plucked me effortlessly and carried me away from the Jeep. They put me down, spreading me onto my back. My spine creaked and stretched, my brain rapidly cataloguing pain, agony, and excruciating discomfort.
My body had been through so much in such a short amount of time.
I hurt, but it didn’t matter anymore.
Pain was only temporary as I focused on more important things.
While part of my brain catalogued my injuries, I looked at the destroyed Jeep. Everything bellowed, but I could move in small increments. I didn’t think anything was broken.
The man who’d dragged me from Jethro left me alone. However, his sunburned silhouette was replaced with the man I hated the most.
His shoes crunched as he stood over me like a devilish avenger. “You were leaving before the best part, Ms. Weaver.” Cut spread his legs, placing his hands on his hips. “I can’t permit my guest to leave before the festivities are over.”
I had no more to give. No more to fight with.
Ignoring him, I twisted my head to stare at the 4WD. My heart leapt as Jethro was dragged from the wreckage.
I didn’t look away as the man who’d carried me placed Jethro’s inert form beside mine on the ground. His head lolled to the side. Dirt and grease smeared his handsome face, braiding with the blood on his skin.
Cut nudged me with his toe. “So...you were telling the truth when you said you ‘love’ not ‘loved’ my son.” Squatting, he poked Jethro in his broken side—the side where he’d shot him.
My arm flailed with uncoordinated projection. “Don’t—don’t touch him.”
Cut smiled, placing his hand on his son’s throat. His forehead knitted together, searching for a pulse.
I bit my lip, begging him to find one while at the same time hoping he wouldn’t, so Jethro would be free of more torture.
Slowly, Cut’s lips spread into a grin. “Well, well. He’s still alive.”
Thank God.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Softer tears fell, enjoying the moment even knowing the future would be anything but happy.
Cut’s fingers landed on my cheek. I swallowed back rage, pushing unsuccessfully off the ground to get away.
“I’m so glad to see you’re in one piece.” His fingers latched angrily around my chin. “However, you have a lot of explaining to do before I let you stay that way.”
“Let’s start with a few easy questions, shall we?” His other hand smeared blood from Jethro's forehead. “How is he here? How is he alive? Where the fuck is Daniel?”
Gritting my teeth, I used every avenue of energy and shoved Cut’s hand away from my lover.
You can touch me, you bastard. But not him. Never him.
“I’ll tell you everything if you let him go.”
“Let him go?” Cut chuckled. “Why on earth would I do that? It’s not every day a ghost comes back from the grave.”
I tried to crawl closer to Jethro, to place myself between him and his father. He was alive but unconscious. Cut could kill him so easily, and he would never know until his soul untethered and became homeless over the African plains.
“Stop it. Leave him alone.”
Cut dropped his hand, his smile deepening. “You’re telling me what to do now, Weaver?”
“Yes.”
His eyes glowed. “And what do I get in return?”
My heart clanged and the pits of Hades opened up beneath me.
Marry me.
Yes.
Husband.
Wife.
None of that would come true now.
But I had the power to keep Jethro alive. I would do whatever it took.
“Me, you get me. Just...let him go.”
Cut stood upright. “No. I have a better idea.” Snapping his fingers, he ordered a guard closer. “Bind his hands.”
The guard nodded. Dropping to his knee, he rolled Jethro roughly onto his stomach, not caring his bloody face squashed into the dirt. Efficiently, the guard wrapped the same coarse rope that’d bound me in the mines around his wrists.
It physically hurt watching them maul him while he couldn’t defend himself. Then again, it was better this way. This way, he couldn’t antagonise his father or somehow manage to get shot a second time.
Please, wake up.
Please, don’t leave me.
Selfishness rose. It would be better if he left in peace. If he slipped quietly away. But I couldn’t stomach his loss.
Whatever Cut had planned would make both of us wish we’d died. The belief that we’d get out of this intact and alive was left in the disfigured Jeep, crushing our dreams into African soil.
Cut wiped his hands on his jeans, glaring at the workmen. “Has anyone seen Daniel?”
Men scuffed their boots, fiddling with their guns. None of them made eye contact.
Finally, someone found a backbone. “No, boss. Not since last night at the ceremony.”
Cut scowled, running a hand across his face. “Well, find him. He can’t have run off too far.” His glare landed on me. “Unless you have something you want to share with me, Nila?”
I glared right back, silent.
“Fine.” Pacing, Cut growled, “Search the compound, head to the mine to see if he was stupid enough to go there, and check the plains around the camp. I want him to be a part of the afternoon plans, and he doesn’t get to skive off just because he has a fucking hangover.”
My lips twitched. I’d won in some small measure against Cut.
Daniel was suffering the worst hangover of his life.
In pieces.