Chapter Eight
SAVEA
As soon as my brain registered what it meant that the alarm didn't stop beeping, instead only seemed to get louder, more insistent, everything within me seemed to seize, freeze.
Everything.
Muscles.
Heart.
Blood.
Everything was still as my eyes landed on the men.
I couldn't claim they were familiar per se. I hadn't gotten a good look at them that night, after all. But something in me seemed to recognize them.
They were meaner looking in the daylight. Criminals, bad guys, they belonged in the dark. But here they were. In the light, the sun streaming in behind them.
Two sets of eyes landed on me, eyes going victorious, lips pulling up into sneers.
Everything unfroze just as quickly as they froze, making me turn, run.
I realized really quickly a flaw in Kingston's apartment.
One exit.
Windows aside.
And they were blocking it.
So I did all I could, I tore through the hall and into the bedroom, locking it with shaking fingers, turning away from it to the sound of pounding, a sound that matched the frantic beating of my heart against the confines of my ribcage.
Think.
I had to think.
Kingston had a gun in his drawer at work.
Maybe he had one in here too.
There was nowhere to stash something like that in the living room.
I dove toward the closet, throwing my arms wide to push the clothes inside to the sides, dropping to my knees to throw open boxes.
Hopelessness filled me as I heard a scraping sound in the lock.
Picking.
I didn't have to have heard it before to place the sound when I heard it.
They were picking the lock.
Like they had done to the front door.
I didn't have long.
Inwardly, a part of me was praying Kingston was close, that Padfoot was quick and they were circling back, that they could show up, save the day.
I didn't, not for a second, doubt that he was capable of doing so. Even if he was outnumbered.
Home field advantage and the need to protect someone close to you always played to your advantage.
Mothers could lift cars.
Husbands could take down intruders.
And those were just normal people.
Kingston wasn't normal.
He was extraordinary. Smart. Skilled. Quick.
If he was close, he could, and would, save me.
But I couldn't curl in a ball and wait to be rescued. Only fools depended entirely on someone aside from themselves.
"Who needs this many shoes?" I grumbled, throwing the last box, standing, going to the two boxes situated at the top of the shelves, having to jump to grab them.
"Yes," I hissed, finding one loaded down with various items. Money. Fake IDs. A real passport.
No gun.
But a knife.
I had never figured I was someone who could stab something, that could use a knife for anything but slicing up fruit and veggies.
It was why I didn't go into veterinary medicine when it became clear I had an affinity for caring for animals. I would love all the little visits, weighing them, trimming nails. I could even do the injections for everyone's rabies vaccines.
But the idea of putting a dog under and slicing them open... nope. Not even to help them. The thought sent a shiver through me.
Knives and blood.
I wasn't good with blood either.
One of the guinea pigs at work once tore out its toenail.
It was like he'd been slaughtered. Blood was all over him and me as I picked him up, pressing a paper towel to the spot as I tried to open a bottle of Septic powder to staunch the flow.
I was shaking by the time Harry showed up, finding me clutching the guinea pig to my chest while rocking and crying and trying to breathe normally again.
He'd shaken his head at me, reaching for the guinea pig, placing him carefully back into his cage, squatting down in front of me with a smirk.
"You gonna make it?" he asked, his smile genuine.
He had helped me up, brought me to the bathroom to clean up, offered me a clean shirt from the stock of store shirts we sold, shared a cup of coffee with me while I calmed down.
It was one of the very few times we managed to be around each other without arguing over the store, about repairs that needed to be done, about what we needed to order, him always telling me there was no money for it.
But, yeah, I didn't do blood well.
I could handle my own.
But anyone else's?
I shivered at the idea as I closed the knife in my hand as the door made the worst sound imaginable.
A quiet creak as it pushed open.
I tried to suck in a breath, felt it get caught, making me cough hard.
"Don't make this difficult," one of them demanded, holding up a hand, like he was somehow going to coax me into going with him.
If there was one thing I learned from crime shows I occasionally watched for a few minutes before turning it off, my stomach not able to handle that much ugly, it was that you never, as in ever, let someone take you to a secondary location.
That was where they did it.
Raped you.
Killed you.
You never shrugged your shoulders, fell into step beside them, and followed them to your own doom.
You fought like hell.
Maybe it wouldn't do any good.
But at least you tried.
At least you did everything you could do.
He moved closer toward me, hand still out, like he thought he was somehow soothing me or something.
But that was okay.
That gave me something to work with.
My hand closed around the knife that was no longer so cold in my hand, so unfamiliar.
And in that moment, I learned something about myself.
Everything changed when my life was at stake. All my hang ups, my fears, my reservations, they fell away. All that was left in their place was instinct, pure survival.
He got closer, arm still raised, and I moved fast, so fast that my own eyes fought to keep up with the motion.
My arm raised.
The knife sliced through the air.
And then through the flesh of his palm.
Blood flowed.
He curled into himself, cradling his hand, cursing.
His gaze fell away from me just long enough to let me curl away, fly upward onto the bed, watching as his buddy closed in on the other side of the bed with a smile, like he had me.
He didn't have me, damnit.
I lunged out, he parried away.
I flew off the end of the bed, jumping far enough to shoot through the door before I landed, coming down hard, wrong.
The pain was instantaneous, shooting up my ankle and leg, burning, shooting, ricocheting off every nerve ending and I was pretty sure I heard a crack.
But the guys were coming.
They were coming.
And I had to get away.
Broken ankle or not.
I had to get away.
I shot forward, bracing one hand against the wall, hopping, dragging my bad leg behind me, even the sensation of it running across the floor making painful tears prickle at my eyes, spilling over as I bit my lower lip to keep the hysterical sob inside, not willing to give them that, no matter how hurt I was.
Something—someone—shoved into my shoulder, sending me flying forward in the living room, coming down hard on all fours beside the coffee table.
"E-fucking-nough of this," one of the voices growled.
And I knew it.
I knew.
It was over.
I lost.
No one was coming to save me.
And I failed at saving myself.
I felt the hand twist into my hair, yanking my head back hard and fast enough to make the back of my neck scream in objection before throwing me forward.
I knew what I would hit.
The edge of the coffee table.
I figured it would hurt.
But there was no pain then.
Only darkness.
Unconsciousness.
--
Wakefulness came in stages.
I became aware of things as I was still surrounded in that darkness.
Cold was first.
I was bone-deep cold, the ache of it slipping into my bones, settling so deep that a part of me was sure there would be no way to ever get warm again.
A shiver racked my system before my brain was able to latch onto something else.
Pain.
Oh, there was so much pain.
I read somewhere that you could only feel one pain at a time. It was why people with toothaches that wouldn't go away would sometimes break their hands. One pain outweighed the other.
My body seemed to agree with this.
My pain throbbed in strobes.
In my ankle. Then my head. Ankle. Head.
Over and over in an endless, soul-crushing rhythm.
Taking a breath, feeling the tears slip into my mouth as I exhaled slowly, my hand rose, reaching across my body, touching the space where the pain in my head seemed to be coming from. Sticky. My fingers felt sticky. Which meant blood. Which meant a gash. Right there at my temple.
My fingers probed around the edges I thought would be safe, finding only more open spots until the very edge of my hairline where the skin felt achy, bruised, but intact.
On a terrified exhale, my finger pressed into my eye, wondering if I would find it there, or just an empty socket.
The pain was too all-encompassing to figure out where it was coming from.
My fingers met eyeball, or, rather, eyelid covering eyeball.
And it was right then that full consciousness finally hit me.
Memories swirled back.
Pancakes and kisses with Kingston.
Taking Padfoot for a walk.
Being alone for the first time in while.
Realizing that someone had been watching very closely, anticipating this moment, ready to exploit it, to get me.
The frantic searching, the knife, the slashing, the flying through the air to crash down wrong on my ankle.
As if remembering the moment, my ankle seared again, throbbing, hot, painful.
Then the desperate urge to get to the door, the street, to scream for help.
It wasn't the best side of town. I understood that even screaming might not bring about a Good Samaritan. But maybe Kingston would be close enough to hear, could come.
But I never made it.
The coffee table.
The blessed, yet wretched, unconsciousness.
A part of me wanted it back, wished I could live in that swirling void forever, a place where there was no pain instead of this stark reality where the screaming of my head, my brain, my ankle made my belly revolt, made it churn and threaten to empty its contents.
But then again, the unconsciousness meant I had no idea what happened after my head collided with the coffee table.