Chapter Twenty-Five #3
But the lightning blows he’d expected never came. Instead, Ryan pivoted and slid to the side of Tanner. Tanner quickly caught him, but not before the other man threw out his leg in a slide kick and knocked over the chair Bree was balancing on.
He could hear Bree’s strangled groans behind him as the rope once again cut off her source of oxygen. Tanner dived for the chair, but Ryan tackled him, knocking him out of the way.
He felt the sting of the knife again and again as he threw Ryan off him and crawled toward Bree. His side. His calf. Tanner kicked out blindly behind him as his fingers brushed the leg of the wooden chair. He just needed a few more inches and he’d be able to right it back under her.
Then he couldn’t stop his cry of pain when the knife stabbed him deep in his waist. Unlike the other blows that had been slices, this one had done definite damage.
The whole room was starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges. Tanner was losing too much blood. He didn’t have much time.
He was working at a disadvantage because Ryan was using Bree against him as a weakness. As a chink in his armor. As long as Tanner kept trying to protect her, Ryan had Tanner exactly where he wanted him.
But if there was anything the last couple of weeks had taught him, it was that Bree was his partner. She was nobody’s liability.
They were a team. She’d said it herself.
His fingers wrapped around the edge of the chair again. He knew Ryan expected him to crawl toward her with it, to try to get it back under her.
But Bree was strong. She could make it. And that wasn’t something Ryan had taken into consideration.
Instead of moving toward her, Tanner spun with the chair in hand and slammed it against Ryan’s head. Caught completely off guard, the man fell to the ground, dazed.
Once Ryan was down, Tanner stumbled the couple of feet toward her, lifting Bree’s weight by her thighs, taking the pressure off her throat.
She sucked in a couple of gulps of air then croaked out, “Finish him.”
She had to know Tanner would need to let her go to do that. Even setting her back down as gently as he could, it was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
This time she didn’t flail as her oxygen cut back off. She trusted him to do what he had to do.
He trusted her to survive as he did it.
A team.
Tanner turned back toward Ryan, reaching down and grabbing a leg of the chair that had broken. Ryan was starting to recover from the blow to the head, but it wasn’t enough.
Ryan spun the knife toward Tanner again, but with one blow of the chair leg, it went flying from his hand. Three blows with the chair leg later, and Ryan was unconscious on the ground. The sickening thud from the third blow probably meant Tanner had broken his jaw or cracked his skull.
Tanner didn’t care. Ryan was down and was going to stay down.
Tanner took a step toward the knife, his foot sliding in whatever liquid was covering the ground. He let out a low curse when he realized the liquid was blood, most of it his.
The room was spinning, his vision reduced to a pinprick now. He fought to hold on to consciousness and knew if he didn’t get that knife and get Bree cut down, she would strangle there.
That was damn well not going to happen.
He got the knife and tried to crawl back to her, but everything had turned so dark he couldn’t seem to find her.
“Tanner.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper, but it was enough.
He forced himself to his feet and took drunken steps toward her. “Freckles?”
“Tanner.”
He wasn’t sure if it was her voice that led him to her or sheer blind luck. But he ran into her hanging form a moment later.
Using the last of his strength, he lifted her. There was no way he was going to be able to cut the rope from her neck. It was all he could do to stay upright.
After a moment of breathing, she whispered, “Just cut my hands, baby. I’ll do the rest.”
He couldn’t see the tape on her wrists, couldn’t see anything at all. He just prayed he wasn’t cutting her too badly as he kept one arm wrapped around her legs, supporting her weight, and used the other to slice through the tape.
“You did it,” she whispered. She took the knife from his hands. “We can do this, Tanner. You’ve always held me up, in every possible way. Now just do it for a couple more minutes.”
Her voice seemed like it was coming from a great distance, but no matter what, he would do it.
“Won’t let go.” His words sounded mumbled and unintelligible, even to his own ears. But she understood.
“I know you won’t.”
He drew on every iota of strength he had to hold her weight while she cut herself down. In the end it was thoughts of Nate, and the rope he would’ve sworn he didn’t have the strength to break and yet had, that kept him in place.
Sometimes you didn’t know how strong you were until strong was the only option you had left.
He felt Bree’s weight collapse against him and knew she’d managed to cut through the rope. They both fell to the ground, tangled with each other.
And the black that he’d fought for so long consumed him.