66. Chapter 63 #2
Talia stumbled back into the wall. “Watch it,” she growled.
I bit down into my bloody throbbing lip when Chance’s beautiful face came into view. Still wearing the damage Randy had given him, his expression was wild with panic and thunderous wrath. The circles ran deep under his eyes, as if he himself had been up all night.
“Took you long enough to get here,” Talia purred, pressing the barrel of her gun between his shoulders.
Tension radiated off Chance’s entire frame. He wriggled out his fingers, as if straining not to close a fist and swing. “You didn’t exactly leave a trail,” he gritted out. His eyes found mine and I could feel it down to my bones what he was trying to tell me— there was a trail, but I needed time.
I may not have escaped as planned, but that was another thing these two idiots were too stupid to take into consideration—the bond Chance and I shared.
“My bad, I guess, for expecting better of you.”
My blood boiled at the insult.
She sighed and used a hand to brush loose, purposeful stray hairs out of her face.
“What do you want, Talia?” Chance growled.
His jaw was locked, and the sound barely made it past his teeth.
Every single muscle in his body was locked and steeled under his control.
The tension emanating off him, the strain to spring into action—it was him , fighting every instinct of his roaring to life inside of him.
He gripped them like a vice, had to in order to be smarter than these two assholes. Better than them.
A fighter.
My fighter.
“You know what I want, baby.” Gun now pressing against Chance’s abdomen, she trailed her long nails up his torso.
Those beautiful, beautiful blue eyes never left mine.
Talia sighed theatrically. “But I guess that’s now out of the question.”
Chance all but growled when he turned to face her.
“I’m here. We had a deal—I’m here, so let her go.
” He slowly took steps around her, moving in a way that made Talia think it was her own motions.
They turned a full 90 degrees before Chance met my eyes again.
He stared at me—if I’d blinked, I would have missed it.
His eyes, they quickly flicked to my left.
“Baby, you know I can’t do that,” Talia purred, now trailing her fingertips up and down Chance’s forearms. “And if I can’t have you … no one can.”
A subtle flaying of a hand to my left, just past the grandfather clock that JJ and I had accidentally broken when we were fifteen, grabbed my attention.
JJ’s eyes flared when I met his gaze, and he pressed a finger to his lips. A steel baseball bat was in his other hand. He twirled his finger, telling me to turn back around.
I nodded and my legs began to shake in anticipation to run.
A knife and at least one gun against a baseball bat.
Running was the best option.
“Of course you can have me,” Chance’s voice softened, his heated gaze falling onto Talia’s face.
I knew that heat, not the wild, flowing, carefree flames he had when he was with me. No, this was straight from the pit of a bushfire—the part that burned the most.
“Come on. This will draw way too much attention for us to get out of here together.”
Talia’s free hand was now grazing Chance’s face.
I swallowed the fury that built up inside me at the sight, even when the lines of tension formed at the corners of his mouth.
He leaned into the touch, moving her head off centre as JJ crept close and closer. His bottom lip was no longer swollen. The cut that graced it was closed but still present.
“Trust me, baby. I won’t get caught.” The she-devil let out a revoltingly sweet laugh.
JJ’s footsteps were quiet, barely audible, but getting closer as he moved along the open hallway and into the room we were all currently in.
But he knew this house better than anyone—knew where every creak in the floor was.
Hell, he was the expert sneaker-outerer when we’d both hit our ‘rebellious teenager’ phase.
I couldn’t help but internally laugh at what our younger selves would think of this situation we were in—we thought we’d been through tough shit then. This? This was real stuff. Big, scary, evil, real-world shit.
Chance stared Talia down, and he swallowed the grimaces fighting to surface.
She was mid-sentence when a creak sounded, right under JJ’s boot-covered foot.
“I hate things on my feet. I’ll only wear my Doc Martens when I know shit is gonna go sideways. Like if I know Jayden’s very punchable face is going to be anywhere near me.”
I opened my mouth to speak, to try and cover for the noise when she whirled, firing blindly but missing JJ’s thankfully moving target. She fired again. Adrenalin rushed so quickly to my skin it prickled.
Fantastic. Gunfire was going off around me, and I was tied to a fucking chair.
Chance grabbed Talia’s arm, forcing her into a severely uncomfortable shoulder lock.
Oh, Chance .
A gun didn’t require two hands.
Another shot went off and a scream ripped through me as Chance, the love of my life, dropped a hand to his abdomen. Dark, wine-red blood was already pouring past his fingertips.
“Not very nice of you, sweetheart ,” Talia hissed, rolling out her shoulder. “Now, where is that friend of yours?”
~
My head screamed, every single neuron inside buzzing in panic. My heart pounded.
Chance.
Chance.
Chance.
Each beat could do nothing but repeat his name. Over and over again in soothing yet frantic calls for him.
He was on his knees in front of me. So close, and yet so far away.
If my fucking legs weren’t tied to the chair, I’d be able to reach him with my toes.
His hand, the one with the rings, was covered in blood now, along with the side of his shirt. He hung his head low, letting out slow but even breaths.
A thud sounded from the back of the house, near mine and Chance’s room. Talia’s heels clicked like a horse running as she sprinted across the tiles. When I looked back, Chance was on his feet, eyes blazing as he staggered towards me.
“Chance!” I choked. “Stop! You’re bleeding!”
“Well …” He grunted as he bent down in front of me and began to fiddle with the ropes. “… aware, Trevino.”
“Chancey-boy,” JJ called, sliding a pocketknife across the wooden floorboards before turning and running back the way Talia had gone.
It hit Chance’s booted foot within a second. His shoes were bigger, clunkier than JJ’s.
“You came,” I whispered, smiling at the bleeding man in front of me as he sawed through the ropes around my ankles.
“Whatever it needs to be, darling,” he said, looking up at me under heavy, pain-stricken lids.
“Even if it means you playing superhero?” I stretched out my legs, rolling my ankles to wake them up so we could get the fuck out of here and I could get Chance to the nearest hospital.
“Especially then.” He pressed a soft, tender hiss to the back of my neck as he cut through, layer by layer, of the rope that bound my hands. “I’ve got you, darling.”
A muffled voice came from nearby as a light flashed.
A phone screen lit up with an active call.
Chance shoved it into my hands when he’d finally freed them.
Three white zeros stood boldly on the screen.
Hope bloomed in my chest. I opened my mouth to start shouting instructions down the line, starting with JJ’s address and finishing with, ‘Get the fuck here now!’.
“Hang up the phone.” That cold, cunning, malicious voice.
I’d been cut off. Painfully, piss-poor-timingly cut off.
Chance’s face hardened to stone, and I knew Randy had the gun held to my head.