Chapter 10
Staring out at the moon, glad Lissie slept soundly in her own room, I pounded my fist on the doorframe.
Will had taken a hardline position about me getting together a funeral service for Isabel and Gran. He believed an assassin would be there lurking, waiting in the shadows for an opportunity to get to me.
Not only had those bastards taken our family from Lissie and me, but also, they took away our chance to see them one last time and say good-bye.
I did the only thing I could do—I imagined hearing the reverend’s prayer as he committed the bodies of my sister and my grandmother to the earth for rest and their souls to heaven.
It helped to diminish my anger, but it didn’t fully soothe me. I needed a real connection. I wanted to be with Will.
More and more, I craved his sheltering presence.
So I went to the kitchen to find him, passing through the living room where John watched a video on his phone.
But Will wasn’t around.
The intensity of the sea called out to me through the kitchen window. Farther out beyond the shoreline, the ocean’s white caps contrasted with the night’s blackness. It was beautiful.
A large shadow figure on the beach caught my eye…Will had gone without me.
I ran out and down the steps and started down the hill path, seeking his comfort, and hoping to find freedom from the endless, painful clutter in my mind.
Clouds rolled in, blocking the moonlight, and I lost sight of him. When light hit the beach again, he was gone. He frequently made security checks on the property. That’s where he’d gone, I realized, to make a pass around to the front.
I had watched him do it the night before.
He would come back around in a minute.
I would be alone only for a minute, then we could go inside together…and I would apologize for breaking the rules.
Already at the bottom of the hill, sinking in the sand, I decided to get my feet wet. I stepped into the water, and my lungs filled with ease again.
Brisk water struck my thighs.
“I’ll just clear my head for a second,” I whispered.
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, focusing on the ocean…the cold water washing up onto my skin, the briny gusts of air, the crashing waves.
I extended my arms and took in another deep breath.
But then I couldn’t exhale.
A thick arm snaked around my neck.
British-accented words ordered me not to move.
Cold steel touched my neck.
My body and my mind failed.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t think.
The man behind me pressed his mouth against my ear while holding his knife at my throat.
He slogged through the waves, dragging me in deeper.
Blood pulsed violently through my veins.
Pain twisted inside my chest.
He gathered my hair in his other hand, wrapping it around his fist, yanking on it.
“You keep your mouth shut.”
I still held my breath, and my lungs burned, pleading for me to use them. When I exhaled, a sharp inhale quickly followed my choking gasps, then I screamed.
He yanked on my hair.
“Shut your fucking mouth, bitch.”
My blurred vision improved with oxygen filling my lungs.
I heard the respiration and the thumping of my heart inside my ears. It grew louder.
I could no longer hear the crash of waves.
The man moved us out into even deeper water.
His voice, grunts, seemed like distant echoes in my head.
A wall of waves rolled in, and I stumbled on a slimy rock, losing my balance. I fell, and the force of the undertow pulled me under and out of his grasp.
But he leaped over the waves and caught hold of me again.
I gulped air and vomited seawater. Brine burned through my sinuses.
A cruel laugh burst out of the hit man. He jerked my body around and wrenched my head back using my hair.
Pain shot through my neck, through my scalp.
He planned to drown me.
It was my turn to die.
He plunged my head under the water.
I grabbed at his arm. I scratched. I kicked.
Suddenly, he lost his grip on me.
I pulled my face out of the water.
But he lurched forward, grabbing me, putting the blade against my throat again.
I gasped for air as salt blistered my lungs.
The clouds then rolled out, letting me see what had distracted him…
Will stood just several feet away.
His posture was tall and erect, his stance wide, and his fists clenched into weapons. The muscles in his jaws tensed. His eyes flashed with the promise of death.
Will was a dangerous storm in his own right.
As I locked on to his stare, terror fled from my soul, and those raging flashes of emotion in his eyes calmed me. I was repulsive, sick for feeling that way. Maybe my mind had completely broken. Either way, the fire in his eyes was my lifeline…his darkness was my salvation.
But still, he was so far away.
Will’s voice boomed above even the thundering waves.
“Focus on me, Elle. Look at only me,” he shouted.
Cloud cover rolled back in, thicker this time, and Will became a dark silhouette.
The intensity of the hit man’s desperation grew palpable.
“I will slit her fucking throat,” he shouted at Will.
I searched the darkness until I found Will’s eyes again.
He nodded at me.
Strength climbed from my quivering stomach up to my heart, and I slammed my elbow into the man’s stomach.
He grunted and grabbed his abdomen in reflex, losing his grip on the knife. It fell away from my throat and sunk into the water.
I pulled away from his body, but he still held on to my hair.
He yanked my head back.
“I can snap your neck just as easily, bitch,” he spat.
And then a sharp pop echoed through the night air. Then another. Suppressed gunshots.
The man jerked and contorted…he’d taken the second bullet in his leg.
Will shouted over his shoulder to the beach.
“Hold, goddamn it!”
Using my shoulders, the hit man steadied himself and shielded his body with mine. He squeezed my neck with his arms.
I couldn’t breathe.
God, I couldn’t draw in any breath.
He was strangling me.
Will charged, something like a roar ripping out of his throat, his feet leaving the ground. His blade came down on the man’s arms and then he threw me toward the shore.
Freeing waves swept me in to the beach, to the men waiting for me, running at me.
I forced my exhausted body up on my hands and knees. I clawed through stones and seaweed until I collapsed on dry sand.
My lungs purged seawater and filled with air at the same time. I lay there on my back, gasping, choking, closer to death than I’d ever been.
John turned me onto my side.
Voices, so distant.
I vomited.
Ben wrapped a blanket around my body.
Then my confused mind let go, giving in to darkness.