Chapter 33 #2
A few more seconds of burning, then he was gone from the bed. I could hear him moving around, followed by a sound of metal sliding against metal. He passed by where I could see him carrying a gun.
Footsteps led him away.
A door opened and slammed shut.
I was alone.
Forever passed before anything happened. Far off, a loud squeal of tires as cars approached and braked rapidly. I couldn’t breathe the sigh of relief I wanted to because of the pain. Was this my rescue?
A loud boom sounded outside, like a cannon going off. It shook the windowpane, followed by . . . fireworks?
No. Gunfire.
I needed to get off the bed, to either hide or run, but I couldn’t move without burning alive. There came another volley of shooting and shouting. I tried to move my fingers, sending pain straight up my arm.
Maybe the agony was what distracted me. I hadn’t heard the door open or close, but I was suddenly aware I was no longer alone. The man moved silently even though he was at least six-and-a-half feet tall.
Ethan came into view, staring down at me with concern. He knew something was wrong. I was lying in a strange position and much too still given the gun battle raging outside.
“Ethan?” I whispered.
He ignored me, surveying the room, then his gaze returned. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you move?”
“No, he drugged me, and it feels—”
He gently grasped my arm, and I screamed, the pain shifting to pins and needles rather than pure fire. He released me with a look that said I needed to be quiet and studied me, unsure of how to proceed.
“It’s too painful to move,” I explained between two enormous breaths.
There came another loud explosion that made up his mind. He grabbed the pillow beside me, yanked the pillowcase off, and twisted it in his hands. “We can’t stay here. Open your mouth.”
I didn’t understand what he was doing, but I obeyed. I fought against the burning pins and needles to part my lips, and no sooner than it was done, the fabric he’d twisted into a rope was in my mouth.
“Bite down.”
He didn’t need to tell me, because he shoved me over onto my stomach and tied the pillowcase into a gag, making me scream into it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, scooping me up and draping me over his shoulder.
My vision went black.
Perhaps I’d passed out from the pain, but unfortunately, I came to mere seconds later in the doorway, where every step he took set me on fire over and over again. When would I be nothing more than ash? I hung limp, and the fighter inside me who never gave up? She was nowhere to be found.
I wished I would die, wanted it to end.
He trudged out into a narrow hallway and headed away from the gunfire.
The pain was more acute now, but stabbing rather than burning, allowing me to regain the tiniest shred of movement. My head turned just in time to see a man, dark hair and olive skin, approaching us from behind with a gun.
Screaming did no good with the gag. I bit down as hard as I could and made a fist, banging it into Ethan’s leg in a furious rhythm so he would know it was intentional. He swung around, and a gunshot erupted, followed by the sound of something heavy falling to the floor.
“Fucking hell,” he said under his breath, then rolled back the way he’d been going, giving me a view of the man he’d just killed. The body was a bloody heap, blood spattered across the wall.
This time, Ethan moved much faster and rougher. I screamed in agony into the gag.
It was warm outside. A pleasant summer day, great for burning alive and gunfights.
We were in the woods a moment later, and he laid me down, taking the gag off and giving me a reprieve while he knelt over me. I struggled for air through my clenched teeth, eyes closed, wondering how long he would let me remain like this. The absence of pain gave me a kind of euphoria.
“Whose blood is that?” I asked. When he’d rolled the pillowcase up, there had been blood covering his hands.
“Most of it’s from the man watching the back door.”
Most, not all. It was likely we were resting here in the trees for him as much as for me. He had a hand pressed to his waist, right below where the vest stopped, but blood leaked out.
“Did you get shot?”
“Knife.” He glanced at the wound before covering it again and sounded disgusted with himself. “That’s what I get for being slow.”
A stick cracked under foot.
Ethan’s gun snapped in the direction the sound came from, grimacing in pain, and he probably moved slower than he wanted to.
Oh, shit. Shit!
A large man crashed through the woods, dashing toward us with a gun raised—
From the side, a gunshot ripped through the air, the sound making me flinch. The man running at us spun sideways, red spraying from his chest as he went down.
Ethan’s attention turned to the shooter. I couldn’t move to see who it was, but he let out a breath, lowered his weapon, and said something harsh in German. The voice that answered back . . . was I delusional from the pain?
It sounded like Shawn.
Footsteps brought the man closer, then Shawn came into view, and I wanted to cry. I wanted to fling myself into his arms—but didn’t dare move. What was he doing here? Had he just killed a man? The thought was gone when he pulled me up into his arms and I had to fight not to scream.
“Don’t touch me!”
He set me gently back on the dead leaves and uneven ground, not understanding my reaction. His face was full of concern and his unblinking gaze refused to leave mine.
“She’s been dosed with a neurotoxin,” Ethan said. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
How did he know that? My heart thudded painfully as I realized the answer. He’d seen Juric use it before. But, oh, my God. How was it going to get worse?
“We’ve got to get her to the car,” Ethan said. “You carry her and I’ll cover you.”
“No!” Tears rolled down my cheeks. “Please, I can’t . . . just leave me.”
The gunfire on the other side of the house came in a burst then stopped, but the air was tense. We all expected it to resume at any moment. Both the men crouching over me glanced toward the house, then back to me. Shawn wore a look that said leaving me wasn’t an option.
“Knock me out,” I gasped.
Ethan didn’t hesitate, like maybe he’d already considered this. “You might wake up right away.”
I had passed out before and immediately come to, but I was willing to try again. “I don’t care. Do it,” I begged.
The conversation moved too fast for Shawn. “Wait a minute.”
But Ethan didn’t. He jammed his hands under my arms and hauled me to sit up, which rewarded me with sharp, stabbing pain.
With all my terrible ideas, this was the absolute worst. Then he was behind me, his arm snaking around my throat in an instant so his large bicep was on one side of my neck and his forearm tight on the other. In a chokehold.
“What are you doing?” Shawn asked, horrified.
“I’m trying to help her.”
The muscles around my neck flexed, and I couldn’t breathe. I needed air. Oh, fuck, the pain. My gaze locked onto Shawn’s. I tried to focus on the rich, dark eyes that looked tormented, but everything went fuzzy and black.