Chapter 13 Kat #2
I have her in my arms when a motorcycle pulls over and comes to a halt in front of my eyes. The world freezes, and before the biker pulls the gun, I already know what’s about to happen.
“Gunman!” I shout. “Ninety left, motorcycle!”
Hannigan reacts immediately, but shooting a fully clothed and protected rider without proper aiming is a one-in-a-million hit. The biker takes off as fast as he came.
I curse in my mind because I definitely revealed too much of myself now, and if Hannigan is as good as the reports say, he’ll notice what I did—but it was either that or be dead.
“Cover me!” I shout as I stand up with Lilian in my arms. She stares at me, her body shudders, and I see the consciousness fading from her.
Hannigan shoots and opens the car door. I push Lilian in the car, and she screams out loud; her eyes have a weakness in them that I have seen before, in those whom I have killed.
“Stay with me,” I say and slap her face, leaning over her.
Somewhere in the distance, I hear sirens.
“I’m going to put pressure on that wound,” I say, “It’ll hurt like shit, but that’s good.”
I rip open her blood-soaked shirt, crumble half of it under her, and use the other half as a compress to put pressure on her upper abdomen because I don’t have anything else.
Lilian screams more as I press.
Hannigan slams the door shut behind us and jumps into the driver’s seat.
“It’s a through-and-through,” I say. Hannigan is on the phone ASAP, coordinating with a team and calling Langone Health to inform them of our imminent arrival.
“She’s fading,” I tell Hannigan, as I slap her face again. It’s a real challenge to keep pressure when racing through a city with a thousand corners and turns.
“We’re almost there,” he says, and I hear the pressure in his voice.
“Stay with me,” I tell Lillian. “Focus on the pain. There is pain; feel the pain. It keeps you alive. Don’t tune out.”
I press slightly more, she gasps.
“Yes,” I say, “Good girl.”
Life returns to her for just the briefest of seconds, and then we’re there.
Doctors and nurses take over.
Hannigan rushes with her.
I stay back and breathe.
Collecting myself and my thoughts.
I have goosebumps on my skin.
My hand wanders mindlessly over my lips.
The lips Lilian just kissed.
And now she might die.
I am scared.
Scared of her dying, while I should be happy someone did the job for me.
Think about something else, I tell myself.
I focus on my surroundings.
Cold air.
Noises of the city.
But my mind doesn’t let itself be distracted.
Everything is so messed up.
I blew my cover.
Hanning will know.
She’ll know if she survives.
I need to be gone by then.
Far away were Zeus can’t find me.
“Are you okay?” someone asks me, and I focus back on where I am. I look at a nurse.
“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “It was just messy.”
“Why don’t you come inside and we check you out and look at that wound?”
Wait, what wound?
“No,” I say, “I’m fine. It’s her blood, not mine,” I add as I glance down at my arms and shirt, covered in blood. Which is not entirely true. The bullet did brush me, but I don’t care. I need to get away.
“Let's get you cleaned up then,” says the nurse, and tries to steer me inside.
“I’m okay, really,” I say and turn. I have to get away. Far, far away.
So I walk away. Three black Escalades pull up in front of the hospital. I tense for one second before I recognize two of Lilian’s people. They will be securing the area.
Get away, I tell myself. Walk!
I’m not one to be in shock over having shots fired at me. What shocks me most is that I couldn’t let her die.
I don’t want her to die.
I have feelings.
Desires.
And now she might die anyway.
The world around me feels strange.
I glance around.
I can’t shake the feeling of being watched. Maybe some of her people are already following me again because Hannigan knows something is off about me.
Gods, what a messed-up shit show my life is.
I walk down the sidewalk without knowing where I am going. I need a plan. I need to burn Ella, get to my safety apartment, and then vanish for a very long time.
Suddenly, a motorcycle crosses my path on the sidewalk. It's the same bike from before, and a gun is pointing at me.
A hand grasps my shoulder from behind.
I react with years of fight-and-reaction training. I am not Ella anymore. I am me, Kat, whoever that is.
I react with force as I am still on edge. I spin around, hit the man’s arm down, pull him close, swirl him around me so he is between me and the motorcycle, and get my arm around his throat.
“Who the fuck are you?” I hiss in his ear. The person is roughly my height and wrestles with my headlock.
“Who the fuck are you?” asks the man, through gritted teeth. I know how forceful I can be, especially when I lock my arm with the other.
“I asked first,” I say.
“It’s two of us, one of you,” says the person on the motorcycle, still wearing a helmet.
“Listen very closely,” I say threateningly.
“You are alive right now because I want to know who you are and why you are here. If I wanted, you would have been dead the moment you put a hand on my shoulder.” My voice gets dark as I close my arm even more.
“One sudden move here,” I say silently, “and you drop dead in an instant. So talk now, or we’re done here. ”
Silence.
“I'm counting to three,” I say. “One, two—“
And then, a shot is fired. The bullet rushes past me and hits the person on the motorcycle through the helmet visor, directly in the face. Rider and bike fall over with an ear-shattering thud as I spin round and see Hannigan walking up to us, gun drawn.
What a fucking precision shot. Only a few people can pull something like that off with a handgun from that distance.
He walks up and presses the gun into the forehead of the man I have in a headlock.
“Who are you and who do you work for?” he asks, coldly, with a murderous look on his face. I loosen my grip with one hand and search the pockets. I find a phone and hand it to Hannigan.
I find something else, a small sewn-in pocket with a little pill in it. And I know who they are. I know because I have seen it before. My fingers grasp the small pill and pull it out. I let it slip into my sleeve so Hannigan doesn’t see. I might need it.
The man doesn’t answer, and I see Hannigan is close to snapping.
“Look at the gun of the biker,” I say. “Is there a 94:1 engraved on it?”
Hannigan's eyes flash at me, but he does as I say.
He grasps the gun, turns it, and nods.
“It’s the Lords,” I say. “They are professional contractors for the cause of religious extremists. 94:1 is a psalm, ‘O Lord, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth.’ They kill the, in their eyes, sinners, the unholy, the greedy,” I tell him. My cover is blown anyway.
“Heard of them,” says Hannigan, and then puts a bullet into the guy's head. Blood splatters over me, and I turn away, wiping over my face with my arm.
I let go of the man, and he drops onto the floor, but Hannigan doesn’t lower his gun. It’s now pointing at me.
“And who are you?” he says. “Not an innocent Danish girl.”
“No,” I say.
“Then who are you?”
“Is she okay?” I ask him instead.
“Who. Are. You?” roars Hannigan at me.
“Tell me she’ll be alright,” I say silently. I don’t even know why it is so important to me.
“She’s in surgery,” he says coldly. “They’ll give their best.”
I close my eyes for one moment. I feel her lips on mine again, her touch, and hear her laugh. My fingers wander over my lips to protect the feeling at all costs. But they’re not there. It’s an illusion.
Everything is.
Everything is a lie.
So I open my eyes, turn, and walk.
“Freeze!” shouts Hanningan, but I call him on his bluff.
A bullet cuts through the air next to my head.
I don’t flinch, I don’t turn, I don’t react.
I walk.
I’m walking away because otherwise I would have to acknowledge what I feel, and I can’t.