Chapter 39 #2
“Now, listen first.” The fucking coward has never sounded so scared. “We did not harm her in any way. I need to tell you… things, because I need to make sure the promise still holds. Not just now, but permanently. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say again, feeling stiff with anxiety. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Logan listening intently, while behind me, Josh’s breathing tells me he’s just as focused.
“Remember that we killed Coltello to save her. Before that, he had made us stay with her while she peed. We averted our eyes. We didn’t see a thing. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say for a third time, my voice so strained it feels like it’s going to explode.
“She has an injured knee, but we didn’t do it. She fell on a broken glass bottle. Okay?”
My tension dissolves just slightly at hearing how clumsy my Piper is.
It tugs on my heartstrings, and makes the injury in my own knee throb in sympathy.
Knowing we’ve both been injured in the same area, probably around the same time, makes me breathe a little easier.
It’s like an invisible thread connecting us.
No matter where she is, no matter how far, she’s mine.
“We didn’t mean to kidnap her. We knew if we didn’t go with Coltello, other soldiers would, and they wouldn’t have the same motivations to help her as we did. Everything we’ve done was to save her, Quill. We have been acting selflessly. For you. Okay?”
“Okay,” I agree one last time. I smell the bullshit from far away. But at this point, I don’t care. I’m feet away from Piper, and I just need her. Revenge be damned. Every second I’m not holding her in my arms is pure torture.
“Okay,” echoes Liam, sounding somewhat relieved, but still on edge. “You’re going to stay on the phone. You’re not alone in that car outside. I can see you from the window. I want you to come in by yourself. Walk very slowly. Leave your weapons in the car.”
My heart beating a mile a minute, I open the car door, making sure to leave the AK-47 behind.
I can feel Josh’s and Logan’s eyes on me, but they don’t dare to move, let alone speak.
They’re both waiting in tense silence as I hobble toward the door, not even caring about the pain that throbs through my leg at every step.
“I’m at the door,” I say at last. “Can I come in?”
In lieu of an answer, the door opens from inside. A masked soldier steps aside, his gun pointed at me. My eyes fall on a figure, caked in mud and blood, huddled on the opposite side of the room. The barrel of Liam’s gun is trained on her head.
Piper.
She lifts up her head, her eyes focusing on me. She lifts up her arms to me helplessly, like a child begging to be picked up.
It takes everything I have not to run across the room, grab her and hold her to me. The gun pointed at her threateningly forces me to pause, waiting for their instructions.
“Walk slowly,” says Dane, standing on the opposite side of her. “Walk very slowly. No sudden movements.”
It’s another form of torture to slowly cross the room, the delay before I hold her in my arms dragging out interminably. But at last I’m standing over her, forcing myself to stay still and wait for the next instruction.
“Give us your promise again,” says Dane. “Promise not to go after us. Not to hunt, harm, or kill us. Not me, not Liam, none of the other soldiers who may still be living.” He gestures imperceptibly to the man standing behind me. “Promise us.”
This time, I don’t hesitate. I’m a shell of pure need, and nothing else matters but the girl at my feet. “I promise.”
“Okay.” Liam speaks now, and the fear that was giving his voice an edge before is gone. He actually seems to deflate, the tense breath he’s been holding in at last leaving him.
Dane continues. “Lean down. Take her in your arms. Both your arms. Your arms and hands must stay on her at all times, until you are sitting once more in the car. Until you’ve driven away.”
That’s the easiest instruction yet. Though I know he’s giving it to me to make sure I don’t renegue on my promise, and use a free hand to shoot. He’s not quite as trusting as Liam, but he trusts my promise enough to give it a chance.
He’s right. I have no intention of breaking it. The only intention I have right now is to hold Piper.
I bend down, my arms encircling her small frame, and lift her up gently. At once, she nestles in my arms, and my chest twists at feeling her tremble against me.
Her curly hair is matted with mud, and her natural scent is potent with the sweat that’s coating her skin. I guess, objectively, she stinks, but I’ve never smelled anything so good as her. I breathe it in deeply and it settles my stomach.
“Turn your back to us and walk away,” concludes Liam. “We promise not to shoot you. Walk away slowly and no one gets hurt.”
There is nothing I trust less than his version of a promise, but I also know that it would be illogical for him to shoot me. He wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of saving Piper for me if he’d thought he could take me out with a shot to the back.
Sure enough, none of them move as I walk slowly back toward the door. The masked soldier opens it once more, and I step out into the early morning light, clinging to Piper, unable to believe I’ve got her at last.
Maybe I’m weak for giving up so easily on my revenge, but I suddenly realize I don’t care.
For the first time in my life, my priorities are in order. The thing that matters, the only thing that matters, is Piper. No one else. Nothing else. There is no fucking to-do list anymore. There is only her.
Remembering the instructions to keep both hands on her at all times, I hesitate at the car door.
Then, I lift just one finger from her, to tug on the handle.
My first thought is relief to see the AK-47 isn’t on my seat anymore.
I don’t have to figure out how to nudge it away without using my hands.
Huffing out in relief, I slide into the seat, still holding her firmly, then lift the same finger as before to close the door again.
“Piper!” gasps Josh, about to bound forward from the back seat.
“Don’t move,” orders Logan tersely. “We’re not gone yet. Quill, put her in the backseat. On the floor.”
Piper whimpers, clutching my hoodie, but I have no intention of letting her go anyway. “No.”
“She needs to be shielded. Just in case.”
“I’ll shield her with my body,” I say, turning toward him so that my back is facing the window. “But anyway, they won’t shoot.”
My eyes had been glued to the top of Piper’s head, but lifting my eyes for the first time, I notice that Logan’s the one holding the AK-47.
“What are you doing?” I hiss. “I made a promise.”
“Well, I didn’t. And if I had, I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about breaking it. If you think I’m going to let those fuckers walk free…”
He’s out of the car before he’s even finished his sentence. Then he runs toward the door of the shack and kicks it in.
I guess Liam, Dane and the third soldier had believed the danger was over, because they’re clearly taken by surprise. A single shot rings out from inside the shack, and I push Piper to the floor in front of me, ignoring her stifled protest.
“Get down,” I cry to Josh behind me.
But a moment later, Liam and Dane walk outside, their hands up in surrender, followed by Logan, who’s pointing the gun at them. I guess the shot killed the third soldier.
Logan makes eye contact with me, then lines up my two ex friends so that they’re directly in my view.
My old thirst for vengeance rises up feebly within me, but Piper’s hands have twisted themselves around mine, and I don’t want to leave her.
Not even for a second. Not even just to stand a few feet away and kill the men who defiled her.
The only satisfaction I am able to derive is from watching another man extract my vengeance for me. Logan lowers the AK-47 so that it’s trained at their feet, and then shoots, first Dane, then Liam.
They both fall, screaming in agony. He waits a beat, and then shoots their calves. And then, their knees.
Always Dane first, and then Liam. I don’t know if he’s learned something while I was in the cabin, or if he knows instinctively Liam’s fault is greater. Or maybe the choice is random. But it’s a double punishment for Liam to see what Dane is enduring moments before he has to endure it himself.
He shoots up their legs, slowly, as they writhe and scream in agony, crumpled on the ground. I gently press Piper’s head between my knees, trying to block out the sound as much as possible, my hands covering her eyes.
“Don’t look,” I tell Josh. “Keep your eyes averted.”
It’s a strange world when I’m finally getting the revenge I crave—albeit vicariously—but my first thought is for Piper, and my second, for Josh.
Still, I’m not so hopelessly soft that my third thought isn’t for revenge, and I feel a beautiful sort of satisfaction to watch Logan direct his gun toward every part of their bodies, apparently knowing exactly where to shoot so that they don’t die immediately, giving them the kind of slow and painful death they deserve.
Nowhere near as slow and painful as what I’d had in mind, but it’ll have to do, under the circumstances.
When he reaches their dicks, he pauses, his gun angled in such a way that they know exactly what he’s about to do.
Despite their bullet-riddled limbs, I can hear their muffled pleas and shrieks of agony.
Logan pauses long enough to savor their screams before shooting them each multiple times in the crotch.
Then he turns, walking back toward us, a grim look of satisfaction on his face that probably matches my own.
“They’ll bleed out in less than an hour,” he comments, slamming the door shut behind him and throwing the AK-47 haphazardly on the backseat, ignoring Josh’s muffled squeak of terror.
The minute he’s turned on the ignition and is driving away, I pull up Piper and cradle her once more in my arms.