37. A Life For A Life
37
A LIFE FOR A LIFE
Dahlia
The Present
A noise in the bushes draws our attention away from Bow Bridge where a confrontation between Li and Rian is starting to escalate. As the sky clears and the flurry of snow dissipates, their figures become more visible. Though from this distance, it’s almost impossible to hear what they’re saying.
Henchman number two spins around. “Did you hear that?”
The shorter one leaves his perch against a nearby tree and looks around. “No. What did you hear?”
“I—”
A gun goes off and Henchman number two crumples to the ground with a cry of agony. Blood oozes from the injury in his leg and stains his frostbitten fingertips. Henchman number four reaches for the gun at his side but gets caught in the shoulder by a flying bullet. Whomever is firing at them must be close by but doesn’t have a clear shot because when they fire again, they miss. He fires into the dark and I try to scream out for help but the duct tape on my mouth prevents me from doing so.
All of a sudden, someone jumps out from behind the snowy bushes and tramples Henchman number four to the ground. During the struggle, the injured man manages to push himself up to his knees and grab at his fallen gun. Eyes alight with rage fiery enough to cut through the darkness, his gaze zeroes in on me.
“Fuck this,” he grunts.
He limps over to me and raises the weapon, finger poised on the trigger. Before I’ve had time to catch my breath or say my final prayers, his head snaps to the side as something hits him from behind. Another gunshot goes off and the sound rattles me to my bones.
The man tries to get up but he’s struck again—in the back of the head with a massive tree branch—and then a third time by a screeching Lyss who keeps her eyes close when she brings her arms around for a fourth blow.
I yell as loud as I can to get her to stop; the man is likely dead and if not dead, then certainly unconscious. After a final, deadly swing of her tree branch, Lyss gasps and releases her makeshift weapon. Taking a large leap away from the body she looks down to make sure he isn’t moving and then gives him a good kick in the rib cage to make sure.
“Holy shit…” she murmurs. “Holy shit. Oh my God! Do you think he’s dead?”
“Alyssa,” Damiano grunts from where he’s struggling in the snow. “Focus.”
“Right, right, right. Sorry. Oh my God….oh my God. Okay Alyssa Marie, focus. You can do this.”
Damiano manages to pin the last man down and traps him in a chokehold. Either the man suffocates or Damiano manages to break his neck, I’m not sure which comes first. I’m too focused on Lyss to pay attention to anything else.
She collapses to her knees in front of me and pulls the tape off my mouth. “Are you okay? Jesus, your eye?—”
“What the Hell are you doing here!”
She reaches into her coat for a pocketknife and starts to cut the zip ties around my wrists and ankles. “I wasn’t going to sit at home while you were in danger. Your necklace.”
“What?”
She tugs on the chain around my neck. “You were wearing it today. The tracker inside is how we found you.”
Once my hands are free, I grip her by the shoulders and shake her so hard I’m surprised her head hasn’t popped off her body. “Don’t ever do some crazy shit like this again, do you understand me? Ever! Next time let me fend for myself. You could’ve gotten yourself killed!”
It’s the wrong word to use because all the color leaves her face. Windswept and shivering from the cold, I have never seen her as terrified or as resolute as she is right now. Tears gather in her eyes, silver colliding with hazel-gray, and she struggles to take a steadying breath.
“Is…is he…did I kill him?” she whispers. “I didn’t mean to. I swear. He had a gun. He was going to hurt you…”
I look over her shoulder at Damiano who bends down to check the man’s pulse. A deep frown mars the planes of his otherwise handsome face as he gives a quick shake of the head. Lyss must see it in my eyes because she lets out a small cry and covers her face.
“Oh my God,” she exclaims and tries to turn her head. “I did, didn’t I?”
“No, you didn’t. Don’t look!” Damiano orders and I cover her hands with my own, forcing her to keep her eyes on me. “I have to put him down. Cover your ears so you don’t hear anything.”
I wrap my arms around her and pull her against me, doing my best to shield her from whatever Damiano has planned to alleviate her conscience. She covers her eyes and I place my hands over her ears, hard enough to muffle the sound of Damiano breaking the man’s neck but not so much that Lyss can’t hear enough to know what’s happening. We have to make it real.
When that deafening crack happens, her entire body jolts and she bites down on her fist to muffle a scream.
“It’s okay, it’s over. It’s over, you can look now.”
“We have to go.” Damiano crouches down beside us. “Do you need help?”
Lyss manages to pull her face out of her hands and cast a glance over her shoulder. She winces at the sight of the man’s body and the unnatural angle of his neck. Somehow, it propels her into action and she’s able to stand on her own. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
“Where’s Alejandro?” I ask. “I know Rian is here but?—”
My friend’s gaze narrows. “We can talk about that lunatic later. Right now he’s probably getting trigger happy with a bunch of Huang’s men. Who the fuck knows. I thought we had a solid plan in place until Rian went to confront Li alone.”
“Why? I don’t understand?—”
“We don’t have time for questions, Dee,” he sing-songs, voice laced with impatience as he pulls me to my feet. “We just have to get out of?—”
A gun shot echoes across the park.
My heart catches in my throat. “ Rian .”
Alejandro
I can’t tell where the latest gunshot came from but it couldn’t have been far.
The plan was to confront Li together but Rian insisted on doing so alone. In the meantime he would buy me and his security detail more time to take out however many men Li had in the area and hopefully find Dahlia. Apparently nothing is going as planned because Damiano and Lyss aren’t waiting where they’re supposed to be. Which tells me the rapid gunfire from a few minutes ago wasn’t from Corey and Owen; it must’ve been them.
Dahlia.
Did they find her? Did some of Li’s men open fire on them? Is Lyss okay? I gave her Dahlia’s revolver but I doubt she knows how to use it properly, if at all. Bringing her may have been a bad idea but I simply couldn’t risk Lyss sneaking out on her own and getting hurt. Figured that at least with us, we could protect her.
I’m an idiot for thinking a friend of Dahlia’s would take instruction any better than she does.
“ Alex !”
I look to the trees behind me as a figure emerges. Lyss trudges through the snow and loses her balance toward the bottom of the hill, and I rush to her aid.
“Are you all right?” I do a quick sweep of her figure and examine for injury. “What happened?”
“I’m fine,” she manages through gasps for air. “We found Dahlia but…this guy…he came out of nowhere. Damiano fought him but I fell and Dahlia…she went…we got separated.”
“Where is she? Where was she going?”
“To find Rian,” she says. “We heard a gunshot. It came from the bridge.”
White-hot panic whips through me and my lungs tighten with every breath I force myself to take. All around me the world blurs together until snow and night sky are the only things I see. I recognize the feeling immediately only this time instead of fire, I’m surrounded by ice. As if remembering, my hands ache and burn with the memory of that night.
Focus. You need to focus.
“We need to find the bridge.”
Lyss turns and points. “It’s that way.”
“Are you sure ?”
“I’m positive. I came from that direction; we’ll see it as soon as we come around the bend.”
I grab her hand and pull her after me. “Do not leave my side and stay behind me. Do you understand?”
Lyss gives a silent nod and I release her hand so she can grip the back of my coat. With all the fresh snow layered on top of what’s already turned to black ice, walking is difficult and running is impossible but I go as fast as Lyss is able to keep up with. Around the bend, the bridge comes into view but the figures there are blurred from this distance. When we’re about fifty yards away I can finally see more clearly.
Li has his arm around Dahlia’s throat and a gun to her temple.
“Let her go,” I hear Rian say. “Your problem is with me.”
Judging by his outstretched hands he either lost his weapon somewhere along the way or hasn’t been able to draw it.
The base of the bridge sits at the edge of the pond, and I guide Lyss into a well-hidden corner behind mountains of snow and dead branches. “Do not move from here.”
Lyss grabs my wrist. “Alejandro, wait?—”
A shrill scream cuts through the night as Rian yells Dahlia’s name. Lyss gasps at the sound of Li’s gun going off.
We both look up. At the top of the bridge, one of three bodies collapses and I have no idea who.
Rian, Li, or Dahlia.