Chapter 42
Chapter forty-two
Noah
Weighing Honey's puppies is less heartbreaking now she only has eight left. With her extra food rations, and each of her tiny pups getting a supplementary bottle every day, they're putting on weight slow and steady.
“No one is taking you away from me, ever. You're mine.”
She licks my hand as I return the last pup.
“Yeah, you're a good girl, aren't you? And I promise, you'll see your other pups again. I'm taking good care of them for you. Me and the others.”
She has no idea what I'm talking about, but her tail wags anyway.
As I'm finishing up, the barn door opens quietly, then closes.
I smile at the thought of Rhys slipping in. No one else moves as secretively as he does.
When I leave the kennel, he isn't there. No one is.
I move suspiciously down the kennels to the kitchen. I'm overreacting, but the phone call today has me extra jumpy.
“Hello?” I call, praying Chloe is just being silly, or has sleeping pups in her pocket she needs to return to the incubator.
My feet move in short, quiet steps towards the kitchen area. I don't know what I'm expecting to find; the man from the restaurant just standing there looking at me? It's stupid, I know I'm wrong even before I can finally see into the kitchen.
The empty kitchen.
My shoulders relax a little; I'm worried about nothing…
Something flashes in front of my eyes, a blue dog leash snapping over my head. The slip-lead tightens before I can grab it.
My hands raise, fingers trying to grab at the hands holding the leash tight.
I can't breathe.
I can’t…
The rope leash digs tightly into my throat, held firm by the man behind me.
“You took the dogs, Noah.” The voice is the same as the man on the phone. “You took the dogs, which means you took the debt.”
“I…” My voice is a breathless croak. My foot lashes out as I collapse, but I don't register whether I hit him.
“You keep paying, or I'll come back. I’ll come for you. I'll come for your friends and your parents. Do you understand?”
I nod frantically as I try gasping. His words barely filter through my panic; I'll agree to anything to get air again.
Suddenly, the guy disappears backwards. Not in the way a man would withdraw after giving his message, but more how side characters disappear in alien horror films. There one second. Gone the next.
I scramble to free myself, numb fingers fighting with the noose, before that eventual breath of delicious air.
I'm on my feet before they are completely ready to support me, but I'm not staying down until I know I'm safe.
Outside the kitchen doorway where I nearly died, two bodies are scrapping on the floor.
Rhys.
He and my stalker are scrapping like puppies, equal in size and ability.
I've had to separate fighting pups almost daily for nearly a decade, and somehow my brain thinks this is the same. Overconfidence mixed with oxygen deprivation has me bulldozing between them as if I can separate two six-foot guys as easily as seven-week-old puppies.
Walk in, push them apart and tap the naughty pups on their noses.
Somehow it works; both men fall apart. Rhys holds his nose as I turn to him, panting from the effort.
“Did you slap me?” He frowns, stunned.
“Just booped you. I'm sorry,” I mutter, looking down. But I'm not looking at the hand that booped him on the nose. I'm looking at the other hand. The one that slapped my stalker…
And the red brick held tightly.
“I'm sorry,” I glance back at Rhys. “I moved your brick.”
He stands quickly. He doesn't hug me; he moves me aside and checks on the intruder lying flat on his back, unconscious from taking a brick to the face.
“I didn't mean to move it.”
“Noah,” Rhys turns back to me. “I don't care about the brick. I care about you.”
His fingers ghost across my throat, where it burns with phantom pain from the rope. “I'll take care of him. I'll make sure no one ever finds him. He will never hurt you again.”
His palm cups my cheek, encouraging my gaze to meet his.
“Thank you,” I croak.
He nods.
That is as far as his plan goes.
Instead of slipping out to take care of things, the barn door bursts open and Danielle runs in.
“Is everyone okay? We heard…” She looks down at the body. “Oh God. What happened?”
“Do you have a phone? We need an ambulance and the police.” Rhys calls, his plan changing in a heartbeat. “Noah’s been attacked.”
His words remind my body of what happened, and my knees give out on cue.
I drop backwards, losing my grip on the brick. Rhys wraps himself around me, dropping with me. My elbow bashes hard on the floor, but the rest of me lands on Rhys.
The world swims, then it tilts.
Like everything has shifted slightly out of place, and I can’t find where I’m supposed to stand anymore.
Voices echo somewhere above me. Danielle. Tree. Others I can't place. Everyone is moving and talking. Fussing.
It's all too much. I need to shut it all out.
“Noah, keep your eyes open. Look at me.”
I obey, looking at Rhys, and forgetting everything else.
Nothing else matters while he's looking at me.
Holding me.
His legs are under me. His arms are wrapped around me. I press against his firm chest, resting my head on his shoulder. Feeling nothing but Rhys.
Rhys and the tightness in my throat.
“You’re safe,” he says, low and controlled, as if saying it enough times will make it true.
Safe.
My fingers curl into his shirt, gripping tightly.
I don’t feel safe.
I feel…
My stomach twists violently.
“I can’t…” My voice breaks into nothing. My throat burns with every attempt at sound. “I can’t breathe.”
“You are breathing.” His hand presses lightly against my chest. “Slow it down. In. Out.”
I try. I must be breathing; I just can't feel it.
My eyes flick past him to the man on the floor.
He's motionless. Surrounded by nurses who know exactly what to do with a man who had been hit on the nose with a brick.
“I booped him.”
The words come out small. Wrong. The voice isn't mine, even though it comes out of my rasping throat.
Rhys makes a quiet sound; half breath, half disbelief, but he doesn’t correct me.
“You stopped him.” Rhys mutters the only words that matter.
That isn’t the same thing.
My hands start shaking. I pressed them into his shirt to hide it, gripping the fabric like a lifeline.
“I could have killed him.”
“You didn’t.”
“But you were going to.” That slips out before I can stop it.
I feel his stiffened instantly. I feel the silence. Not from the room. From him.
Just for a second.
“Yes.”
No denial or softening of the fact. Just the truth.
I nod, thinking it would be less painful than speaking, but discovering how wrong that assumption is.
“I don't remember picking up the brick.”
“Save your voice,” he orders.
We both know what my words mean. Don't blab secrets.
I didn't choose a target.
If I had picked up the brick in my other hand…
If they had been the other way around…
Would I have hit Rhys?
My throat tightens again, my breath coming out in choked sobs.
“You knew what you were doing,” he encourages.
He's right. The adrenaline was pumping as I stepped between them. It's only now that my mind has fogged with doubt.
Sirens cut through the air outside. A sound that should have filled me with relief sends dread through my veins like ice.
What if I say something wrong and get Rhys into trouble?
“I don’t want them here,” I whisper.
Rhys’s grip tightens.
“They’re coming, anyway.”
And for the first time, I don't know if that's a good thing.