Chapter 13
R iff swerved the vehicle to the right, yelling, “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” Ania said from the footwell, where she was huddled. Sanders was curled up in the front seat.
“Stay down,” Riff barked.
“So much for losing them,” she muttered.
“Desperate people pull desperate stunts,” Riff replied. “This is a sign that they’re losing control. They’re also in a whole different country right now, and that won’t go over well, not for them.”
“Sure, but we’re also still being pursued, so it’s unlikely they’ll care right now.”
“No, but they will very soon.”
Almost immediately sirens came all around them, as the cops swarmed into the middle of this mess. Riff pulled onto a side road and then drove into the first alleyway he saw.
There Sanders hopped out, then came around and helped her out of the vehicle. “How are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m just great,” she quipped. “That was absolutely the best thing ever.”
He smiled. “You’re holding up, and that makes you a trooper.”
“I don’t want to be a trooper,” she whined, feeling suddenly teary-eyed. “I just want this nightmare to be over with.”
“You and me both. I promise we’re getting there.”
She wanted to glare at him because, of all the things she had heard so far, that phrase was becoming all too familiar. And he knew that all too well.
He nodded. “I know. I get it, but we are getting there.”
“You could have fooled me,” she muttered, then looked around at the alleyway they were stuck in. “Now what do we do?”
“We’ll sit here together, just the two of us. I am sure that Riff will come back with another car soon enough.”
“Does he ever get tired of stealing cars?” she asked in amazement.
“He does it as long as we need to,” he murmured. “And, if not him, it would be me, but nobody wants to leave you alone, while we go off and search for vehicles.”
“Right, now I’m cramping your style.”
He burst out laughing and then his laughter stopped as he turned her around. “You’re hurt.”
She stared up at him. “No, I’m fine.”
“No, you’re hurt.… You’re bleeding.”
Now she felt the stinging along her back. “Ah, crap, I’m really no good at the sight of blood.”
“The good news is that it’s on your back, so you shouldn’t see it.”
She gasped, twisting around to look.
But he turned her head firmly forward. “It’s not a bullet, thank God. It looks like you’ve been cut from all the shattered glass.”
“Well, gee, what should I expect?” As she went to shrug, she saw cops standing at the end of the alleyway, slowly approaching with their guns drawn. “Ah, crap,” she muttered. “We have company.”
Sanders stiffened and slowly turned and nodded. “Great. That’s not exactly the way I wanted my day to end.”
“Will they arrest us?” she asked fearfully.
“I don’t know about arresting us, but we were shot at, and our vehicle was likely involved in some confrontation, so they’ll want to charge us with something,” he suggested, with a smile. He reached out his hands, showing that he wasn’t armed, and called out a greeting.
As the first cop approached, Sanders said, “We were shot at.” Pointing to the car, with the shattered back windshield, he then turned Ania to show him the bloody cuts on her back, now soaking her shirt. “We need help.”
The first cop approached slowly and asked a million questions.
Sanders answered as best he could, and then Ania took over, as the cop was speaking Russian. Sanders let her do the talking because his Russian was a mess.
She explained how they were from Estonia and had come across the border this morning. They’d had somebody following them for a while. Then suddenly their vehicle was shot at. The cops fired off more questions, but the fact that she could speak the language seemed to relax them to some degree. She knew that helped and that they weren’t the same guys who had shot at her, which was a relief.
When a cop car pulled in, and they were ordered to get in the back seat, she hesitated. The cop looked at her with a hard glare, as if to say that any arguments wouldn’t be taken nicely. She got into the back seat, wincing as a piece of glass still in her shirt slipped across her shoulders, cutting her deeper. She gasped.
Sanders turned to the cop and said, “She’s hurt and needs medical care.”
At that, the cop just nodded and thankfully took them straight to the hospital, but he didn’t leave them alone. He stood by, while her cuts were treated. She felt tears in her eyes every time they cleaned the area, but there wasn’t a whole lot she could do until it was done. Her shirt was cut and in shreds, but it was all she had, so she kept it, even though they tried to take it away from her. She looked up at Sanders. “Now I need a new shirt,” she muttered almost mutinously.
He smiled. “That’s the least of our worries,” he murmured.
“Are they upset with us?” she asked.
“Of course they’re upset. We disturbed their peace and quiet,” he said, with a small smile. “But remember that we didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know, but they’re not exactly the friendliest, are they?”
“And again, something’s gone wrong in their city, and they have us but nobody else to talk to, so we can’t really expect great treatment.”
At that, one of the cops turned, looked at the two of them, and asked, “Do you know who was shooting at you?”
This time the question was in English, so he had heard and had understood everything that they had just said. She shook her head. “My father had me kidnapped and drugged in Estonia.” She provided the name of the city where he had held her.
He raised his eyebrows. “Why?”
She knew she couldn’t tell him the truth. A discussion about her abilities wouldn’t go over well. She shrugged. “I would love to know that myself, but, ever since my mother passed away, he’s been…” She frowned. “I don’t know how to say it, but… not quite right.”
He nodded. “It can happen.”
“It definitely can happen,” she stated bitterly. “It did happen, and I don’t know how to stay safe from him. He’s high up in the government, and nobody there will help me. I left to get away from him, and then they shot at us.”
Since it was the truth, she didn’t even have to try to convince him of it, and she knew that it came across clear and easily.
“I’ll get a statement from you, but I’ll need names and details, so we can follow up.”
“Of course he’ll tell you that I’m off my medication and that I’m a danger.” And she raised both hands. “All I can tell you is that everything was fine while my mother was alive. I have a degree in accounting. I’m heading to a job in England, and he decided that he wouldn’t let me go.”
The man was busy taking notes. He turned and looked at Sanders. “And your part in all this?”
She looked over at Sanders and shrugged. “He’s going to England with me,” she replied. “Of course my father doesn’t approve.” Considering love caused fights within families all over the world, she figured that would have a ring of truth to it, plus she didn’t want Sanders to try to explain what had happened to him either. Talk of their special gifts or abilities wouldn’t go over well, no matter who tried to explain it. She wanted to keep the story as simple and as clean as she could. Sanders didn’t say anything else and just waited for more questions, but the cops were busy writing down everything they’d said so far.
When the cop reviewed his notes, he shook his head. “I need to go down to the station. I want you to stay in town, and you’ll need to get that back cleaned up. Maybe get some clothes, and, while you are at it, I need to know where you’re staying tonight.”
“We’ll catch a hotel then,” Sanders replied. “We were just driving, not causing trouble in your beautiful city,” he murmured, “but the shooters stopped us.”
“Do you have insurance on the car?” the cop asked absentmindedly.
“Yes, but, of course, it’s in Estonia. I’ll phone them as soon as we’re done here.”
The cop nodded, but didn’t say anything.
Ania immediately realized that their vehicle had been stolen, and, once the police found that out, it would be hell to pay. She stiffened.
Sanders grabbed her hand and squeezed it, adding, “You need some painkillers for your back.”
The cop stepped away and, with a wave of his hand, said, “Go ahead. We’ll handle this, but I need to know where you’re staying tonight.” He handed Sanders a card. “As soon as you find a place, contact me, at least by text, and let me know where you are. I don’t want to find your bodies in some rundown hotel in a couple days because nobody checked on you.” And, with that, he was gone.
Ania was allowed to leave a few minutes later, with a couple painkillers in her system and a prescription for more, if she needed them. As she walked out with Sanders at her side, she murmured, “You know I didn’t want any painkillers, right?”
“I understand,” he told her, “and, if it were that easy, I would be all over it, but that’s a pretty impressive series of cuts on your back.”
“Maybe,” she murmured. “However, I would just as soon not have any more drugs in my system.”
“Then let’s see how you do when the first drugs wear off. We can always fill the prescription and not use it.”
She wasn’t sure if that would even be necessary, but it might be good to have them if she needed them. She just hoped she wouldn’t. The last thing she wanted to deal with was more meds in her system. “It’s really just the side effects that bother me the most,” she murmured. “Absolutely nothing is nice about any of it.”
“Of course not, but sometimes, when the pain is too bad, there’s really no point in trying to fight it, as your body needs rest in order to heal.”
“I won’t be using my skills for anything right now,” she shared, “so, if my father’s tracker does try to contact me, he can’t reach me because I’ve shut everything down. Yet it will validate my story about losing my abilities,” she noted, with a snort.
“It all depends on whether your father trusts him or not,” Sanders suggested. “Also, if he finds out that he can’t reach me either, maybe he’ll just give up and let us both go.”
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “At the moment, I really don’t even care to think about him. Takes too much energy.”
“Let’s go. We don’t have wheels, but I think I saw a place not too far from here, where we can stay tonight.” And, with that, he made a couple phone calls and then smiled, nodding. “Seems we have a place to stay for the night.”
“Gee, and we didn’t even have to break in,” she muttered.
He burst out laughing at that. “I would give you a big hug for that bit of humor amid all your pain,” he said, “but I’m a bit concerned that a hug would hurt your back even more.”
“In that case, don’t bother because it feels like it’s on fire. After all our running and hard work, those sandwiches were a freaking long time ago.”
“They were, no doubt,” he agreed. “Let’s get off the streets and inside for the night, and then I’ll see what we can rustle up for a food delivery.” And that’s what they did.
About the time they got into their actual rooms, he looked around and nodded. “Now, are you okay if I leave you for a few minutes? A restaurant is just down the street.”
“Absolutely,” she murmured. “I’ll go have a shower, try to ease the pain in my back, and then I might even crash.”
“Don’t crash yet, as the food won’t be long.” And, with final orders to lock up, he went out the door.
She quickly locked up behind him and headed for the shower.
*
It didn’t take very long to order food, and Sanders had ordered extra, just in case. He had no idea where Riff was but knew he would find them. That was another skill Sanders admired greatly, and it sucked seeing that these people could do so much when Sanders’s own abilities were severely stunted still. But not for long, he hoped. He was really excited about the potential to have a legitimate opportunity to develop his skills, as everybody else in Terk’s group was doing. Sanders just didn’t have any way to know what that would take.
As he walked out of the restaurant with two large takeout bags, a guy was leaning against the building, studying him with a half smile.
“That’s a lot of food.”
“It is,” Sanders agreed, without looking at him and walking past. “Game night with the boys.”
That seemed to startle the stranger, or maybe it was the fact that Sanders spoke Russian with an English accent. He didn’t know, kept on walking, deliberately not looking in the guy’s direction, hoping he had nothing to do with this nightmare. But, as Sanders approached the hotel, he sensed the guy was walking in behind him. He turned in the lobby, gave the stranger a hard glance, and asked, “You following me?”
The stranger held up his hand. “No, no, not at all.”
“Good thing,” Sanders bit off, “because the last guy didn’t do so well.”
The stranger slowed and eyed him uncertainly.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Sanders stated. “So, if you’ve got anything to do with this nightmare, I suggest you take some advice and run while you still can.”
“Hey, I don’t know anything about anything. It’s just that word’s gone out that somebody’s paying for information.”
“You could take the money,” Sanders noted, “but I’ll tell you right now that you’ll never live to spend it. The guy paying this money has already tossed several of his men into the soup. He doesn’t give a crap about anything.”
“Maybe you could explain what the situation was.”
“What’s to explain?” Sanders asked. “It’s a father looking to keep his daughter contained and drugged, like he kept her for the last several months. And, if you think that isn’t sick, something is wrong with you.”
The other man stepped back, his face twisting. “That’s what he wants the information for?”
Sanders nodded. “Yeah, that’s exactly it. They shot at us, and the cops are already on the case,” he added. “So you’d better hope they don’t ask me about your presence because you’re already standing in front of the cameras up here. Thus it will be pretty easy to identify you. So, if anything happens to us, just so you know, the cops will be all over you.”
The stranger studied him, then saw the cameras pointed at his head and looked physically stunned. “I’m not… I’m not trying to cause you any trouble.”
“In that case, get lost,” Sanders snapped. “Don’t tell him where we are because, if anything happens, it’ll all come down on you.”
The stranger shook his head. “I want nothing to do with it,” he replied, trying an apologetic tone. “My own father was an asshole. So the last thing I want to do is cause some woman who’s already suffered more trouble.”
“Then go and don’t bother even thinking about passing on any information because the repercussions for you will be costly.”
With that, the stranger quickly left.
Sanders was sore, tired, and moving slowly, wondering about their options right now, as he stepped into the hotel room and called out, “Food.”
When no answer came, his heart froze. He raced to the bathroom to find her in a bath, all curled up and sound asleep.