26. Bianca
Chapter 26
Bianca
“ W e have to get you out of here,” Frank yells to Herman as he leaves me and rushes around to grab his boss.
“Let’s go, Yarrow,” Herman orders. “Leave them!”
“No! I’m not leaving things unfinished!” Yarrow screams, then slams his fist into Silas’s gut. He withdraws his weapon, and I sprint forward, slamming my body into him. He goes down with the force of my hit, and pain shoots through my shoulder, straight up into my neck. “No!” he yells, rearing back his fist.
I prepare for the hit, but seconds later, he’s ripped off of me and flung across the room. Silas comes into view above me.
“Are you okay?” He reaches for me, pulling me to my feet.
“I think I dislocated my shoulder.” I cradle my arm against my body, the pain familiar, but that doesn’t make it any easier to bear. “Otherwise, I’m okay.”
“Want me to reset it?”
I groan. “Yes.”
He grips my arm. “Breathe.”
I do.
He slams it back into its socket and I scream, my head falling back as my body jerks. But the seconds tick by and the pain resides, becoming a bearable ache. An ache I can deal with, but trying to run with a dislocated shoulder? Not good.
“Don’t move!”
Silas stops and turns toward Yarrow, who’s holding a grenade in his hand. Terror ices the pain as I stare what could very well be my death straight in the face.
“You had a job to do,” Yarrow snarls, his eyes wide and wild. “And you failed. It’s okay though. I was going to kill you when I was done playing with you anyway.”
At one point, Yarrow served as my own personal nightmare. A boy I’d trusted who’d tried to force himself on me, then laid on the floor, promising to do terrible things to me should he ever see me again. I think I’d built him up in my mind over the years, telling myself he was far more terrifying than he actually was.
“You don’t have to do this,” I tell him, putting up both hands. “It’s not too late for you to come around.”
“Come around?” he spits out. “I’m not the one who needs to come around, Selena. You were born into this life, and you thought you could escape. Who’s the delusional one?”
“We can’t choose where we’re born,” I tell him. “But we can choose to stay in or leave. I wanted a different life.”
“You had a life! A job to do!” he screams.
Outside, people scream. Chaos reigns.
Silas moves in front of me. “You want to take out your anger on me? Fine. But you leave Bianca out of it.”
“Her name is Selena!” Yarrow snaps, ripping the grenade’s pin free.
“You’re making a mistake!” Silas bellows, frantic now. If Yarrow drops that grenade—we won’t make it out of the house in time.
“No. I’m making a choice. If I can’t have her, no one can.” He throws the grenade then turns and sprints from the room.
Silas looks to me for a split second, and in that moment, everything around us slows to a near stop. His eyes fill and he smiles. “Run,” he says, then throws himself onto the grenade.
“No!” I scream. I hesitate, too afraid to move and not wanting to live without him. A second passes, then two, as I wait for the moment when everything I love will be robbed from me.
But nothing happens.
Silas sits up, eyeing the grenade warily as he pushes off the floor and rushes toward me. He grabs my good hand and tugs me out of the room. We’re just stepping foot outside when the grenade goes off.
It collapses the house behind us, and we’re thrown forward—away from the blast.
Debris rains down on us. My ears are ringing, the pain in my shoulder spreading through the entire side of my body, but as I sit here, staring at the house we were just standing in, I’m hit with the overwhelming love of the God who kept us safe.
I turn toward Silas sitting beside me, his face covered in ash. He’s staring straight ahead, shocked, confused—but then he turns to me and grins. “He saved us,” he calls out, the words barely audible with the still fading ringing in my ears.
“Yes,” I call back. “He did.”
Silas cups the back of my head and yanks me toward him, slamming his mouth onto mine. He kisses me like the world is ending and we’re out of time. Everything I’ve ever wanted, ever craved, comes slamming into me in one moment, along with the understanding that he was made for me, and I for him.
Silas Williamson is the only man I’ve ever really loved.
And until the day I die, he’ll be my forever.
However long we have.
“Okay, you two. I know you nearly got blown up, but you can’t expect us to do all the work.” Michael drops to the ground beside Silas as we pull apart.
“All the work?” Silas replies. “You get Herman?”
“And Yarrow. It sounded like River was dead through the earpiece, but we haven’t been able to confirm it.”
“Consider it confirmed,” Silas replies, then gestures toward the house. “He was in there and was dead before it blew up.”
“Okay. I’ll let Bradyn know.”
“The people?” I ask. “Are they okay?”
Michael smiles and nods. “They’re fine. We found a man to translate and pulled them all out once the guards were subdued. Look.” He points to the right, so I turn my attention over there, and emotion turns me into a puddle of joy as I see the men, women, and children dancing down the street.
They smile.
Laugh.
All of them free from the shackles River had placed upon them.
Silas lies back down on the ground, and I lie down beside him, taking his hand in mine.
“All right, I get it. I’m a third wheel.” Michael pushes up from the ground. “Five minutes though, guys. We have work still to do. And like I said, I’m not doing it all.”
I turn my face to Silas, surprised to find him already looking at me. “What is it?” I ask, cheeks heating.
“Just wondering how I ever survived without you.”
By the time day breaks, the guards, Yarrow, and Herman are all on their way toward an airplane hangar, about to board a flight that will take them back to the States and a trial that will land them in prison.
Apparently, one of Bradyn’s buddies at the FBI has been trying to nail River and Herman for years now, and we just handed him every bit of evidence he needs.
I stare down at the worn Bible that I pulled out of the medical building earlier and smile. God came through for us, just as He always does. But even though Silas and I just faced down the evilness of Yarrow and his father, I feel lighter than before. Exhausted, yet exhilarated.
Today, we’ll be heading home. In a few hours, Silas and I will be on a private plane, heading back to the small airport just outside of Hope Springs. He’ll get to see Eloise, and I’ll get to return to my home.
To my life.
Only this time, it’ll be even better than before. I smile at Silas when he turns toward me. Warmth spreads through my belly when he grins back. The darkness that’s been in his gaze ever since I saw him again is gone, leaving behind the bright light that he’d been for me when we’d been wandering through that jungle, barely surviving.
Abana steps up beside me. “You saved us.”
“I told you I would free you.”
“You did,” Abana replies. “But not all people keep their promises. You did.”
“I want you to have this.” I hold out the Bible, and she takes it.
“Are you certain?”
“I am.”
She smiles. “You gave us hope, Bianca. For that, we will be eternally grateful.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I tell her. “God did. He deserves your praise, not me.”
She smiles again. “We will continue to read this Bible.”
“Good.” My gaze finds Silas again.
“Ah, yes. You two belong together. Soul bound, as I would call it,” she says. “I am happy that you worked through whatever was between you.” When I turn to look at her, she adds, “It was easy enough to see.”
I laugh. “Things are definitely different.”
Abana loops her arm through mine. “But better.”
I nod. “Much, much better.”