The Honest and The Brave

by Rebecca King

  She heard the thump of him hitting the door but didn’t stop to try to hold the door closed. Instead, she spun on her heel and started to run down the stairs. What she didn’t count on was the desperation of her attacker, who shoved her roughly in the middle of the back, propelling her down the stairs at a speed her feet couldn’t maintain.

  In one moment Annalisa was running downstairs, and in the next she was flying but then slammed into the stairs and tumbled downwards until she landed painfully on the floor at the bottom. Annalisa was covered in bruises, winded, and in incredible pain when she regained her senses and realised what had happened. She wanted to scream again but couldn’t get her lungs to work well enough for her to take a breath. Somewhere off in the distance she could hear Dean calling her name while he rattled the back door. His shouts were interspersed with the sound of shattering glass, but she still couldn’t call out to him. All Annalisa could do was stare in dazed disbelief at the ceiling while she battled fierce pain in her ribs. She was positive she had broken one or two, if not more ribs because each time she tried to breathe, pain lanced across her chest and crawled across her back. It was so bad that she had to pant. Stars danced behind her eyes and the hallway started to recede, but Annalisa knew that letting it disappear completely was the last thing she should do.

  I cannot be vulnerable to him any more than I already am. I must fight him. I must fight.

  But it was difficult to do when her captor was already dragging her into an upright position. She looked around for the poker only to find it protruding from a step about halfway up the stairs, too far out of her reach to be of any use.

  Annalisa drew in as much breath as she could and opened her mouth to scream for Dean again only for her attacker to lift his hand back. He tried to slap her, but she lifted her arms to protect her head. Annalisa then screamed as loudly as she could, until Lightfoot grabbed her cruelly by the hair and shoved his face up to hers.

  “Do that one more time and I am going to kill you right here and right now, got it?”

  “Kill me then because I am not going to be willing to do anything you tell me to do. Why me? What do you want with me? Why have you come here? We don’t have any valuables. You do know the Star Elite are outside, don’t you? They aren’t going to let you get away,” Annalisa hissed.

  “But that is why I need you. If they try to stop me they are going to be responsible for your death,” Lightfoot sneered.

  “Reverend.”

  “I am not a vicar,” Lightfoot snarled. “I am done with that pretence. It has earned me a nice, tidy profit but it is time for me to move on now, and you are going to help me do it.”

  “I am going to help you do anything,” Annalisa snorted.

  “You are going to come with me and do as you are told,” Lightfoot warned.

  Annalisa opened her mouth and screamed. She leaned forward and shoved her face into her attacker’s and defiantly screamed as she glared spitefully at him. Everything she was shook physically from head to foot but she refused to back away. She refused to allow him to see how scared she was.

  Joshua heard her screaming even from down the road. He knew the second he heard that plaintive wail that it was Annalisa. His feet were already pounding toward her house before she fell silent again. By the time he reached the property, Joshua saw Peregrine kicking the front door down. Suddenly, it flew open to reveal an awful scene in the hallway that made Joshua run even faster.

  Annalisa was struggling with Lightfoot. If that hadn’t been bad enough, the sight of just how badly bruised and beaten Annalisa was warned Joshua that the struggle had been brutal.

  “Get off her, you bastard!” Joshua bellowed as he pelted down the lane.

  He had to slow as he approached the house, though, because Lightfoot had a gun to Annalisa’s head. Even Peregrine, who was on the doorstep, daren’t take a step inside the house for fear of the trigger being pulled. Neither man had any doubt that Lightfoot would kill her if he was pushed.

  Joshua’s heart began to ache for her pain. It was so strong he could almost feel the hurt she felt. Fury flooded through him at the thought that anybody dared do this to her, his precious Annalisa. Joshua stared spitefully at Lightfoot as he stomped closer to the house.

  “Kill her and I will make you suffer a slow and very painful death,” he snarled.

  Peregrine lifted a hand up to stop Joshua from forcing a path into the house and tackling Lightfoot as he wanted to do. While Peregrine could understand this situation was now personal, he knew this situation was volatile and could result in Annalisa’s death at any moment.

  “What do you want?”

  “Get away from the door,” Lightfoot ordered Peregrine.

  Peregrine dutifully stepped away from the door, and backstepped until Lightfoot began to drag Annalisa out of the house.

  “Stay strong,” Joshua whispered to her. “Trust me. We will get you out of this.”

  Tears stung Annalisa’s eyes, but there wasn’t much she could say. Words failed her. The pain in her lungs was just too strong for her to do anything more than croak. In the end, she had to resort to mouthing what she wanted to say.

  “I love you,” she mouthed, before tearing her gaze away.

  Lightfoot, oblivious to anything other than his escape, waved his gun at Dean, forcing the Star Elite operative to one side as well. While dragging Annalisa around and around, Lightfoot then crossed the garden and headed straight for the trees.

  “Follow us and she dies,” he snarled, shoving the muzzle of the gun against Annalisa’s temple once more.

  When she saw the trees, Annalisa screamed and did everything she could to break free but Lightfoot’s hold around her neck was just too strong. Eventually, she couldn’t scream anymore because her chest hurt too much. Instead, Annalisa kept her gaze on Joshua, whose gaze remained locked on her as he followed Lightfoot step-for-step.

  Eventually, trees blocked her view of Joshua, leaving Annalisa facing a fear that rendered her helpless. Joshua had been her steadying force in her world of turmoil. Now he was gone, she felt all alone and vulnerable. While she knew the men from the Star Elite were around, they couldn’t do anything to stop Lightfoot from pulling the trigger and ending her life there and then.

  Desperate to stop Lightfoot taking her too far away from her home, Annalisa released her relentless objection to Lightfoot’s tight hold, and made a grab for a tree. Wrapping her arms tightly around it, she then forced herself to ignore her pain and refused to release it. Lightfoot tugged at her, but she refused to let that solid tree go.

  “You aren’t going to do this,” Lightfoot growled, smacking at her arms.

  Each time he succeeded in prising one arm away from the trunk, Annalisa rewound it around the tree again. Lightfoot cursed viciously, but Annalisa ignored him, and continued to resist in the only way she could.

  Suddenly, Lightfoot lifted his gun and pulled the trigger. Annalisa cried out and flinched. Her ears rang at the volume of that loud boom but she only tightened her hold.

  Dean cursed and threw himself onto the ground to prevent himself from being hit and was still scrambling to his feet when Joshua charged past him.

  “Let her go,” Joshua commanded Lightfoot coldly, but Joshua suspected Lightfoot didn’t even hear him. He was too busy cursing and commanding Annalisa release her hold on the tree.

  Suddenly, Lightfoot pressed the gun to her temple once more and pressed his lips to her ear. “You are going to let it go or you are going to die.”

  With that, Lightfoot cocked the gun again.

  Annalisa froze when she felt that cold press of metal against her warm flesh. Terror stole her thoughts. All she could do was lock her panicked gaze on the reassuring sight of Joshua and pray that Lightfoot wouldn’t take her life.

  Joshua tried to take aim at Lightfoot’s head, but his line of sight was blocked by Annalisa, who was still twisting and squirming to try to get away. Further along the treeline, Peregrine was trying to forge a path that
would bring him to a point behind Lightfoot so he could creep up on the captor, but Lightfoot had already seen him and knew time was short. He therefore redoubled his efforts to get Annalisa to move again. When she continued to struggle, he slammed a booted foot against the tree, and smacked her harshly on the back of the neck with the handle of his gun. Annalisa’s cry of pain was loud and resulted in her immediately releasing the tree to clutch her wounded neck. Lightfoot immediately yanked her forcibly backwards and got her moving again. Rather than try to drag her, Lightfoot tossed her over his shoulder and charged through the trees to make his escape.

  “Don’t make too many tracks,” Joshua bellowed at Peregrine.

  Joshua cursed bitterly because Lightfoot and Annalisa had been swallowed almost immediately by the dense foliage. While he knew his colleagues were only trying to help, Joshua also knew their desperate attempts to recover Annalisa were covering Lightfoot’s tracks.

  “Track him,” Roger bellowed.

  Everyone froze leaving Joshua to pause and catch his breath. He started at the spot where he had last seen Lightfoot and began to do what came naturally.

  “He is going to follow you,” Annalisa cried. “Joshua can do that better than anyone. He will find us. You can’t hide your tracks.”

  “I don’t need to. They can have you. I don’t want you. You are only here to provide a little distraction so I can escape,” Lightfoot snorted.

  All sorts of questions ran through Annalisa’s mind, but she was too scared to ask them. She knew she wouldn’t like what answers the thug had to give her because the tone of his voice when Lightfoot had said ‘distraction’ had caused icy fingers of fear to slither down her spine. She knew that whatever he had planned meant something dire for her.

  “Joshua!” she screamed.

  “Stay calm,” he shouted back, but was horrifyingly faint.

  Annalisa began to cry. She stared in horror in the direction of Joshua’s voice and wished he would appear. She wished she had the time to say all the things she wanted to say to him, that she needed to say. But it was probably better if she didn’t get to say them if she was going to die today.

  “Why me?” Annalisa cried.

  She wanted to fight her captor, to punch him and make him suffer, but it was difficult to think of something suitable to do that would hinder him when she was several feet off the ground. All she could do was lie like a dead weight across his shoulder and hope he eventually tired of carrying her.

  It took just a few minutes before her captor began to curse viciously.

  “Walk,” he commanded coldly as he slammed her onto her feet. “Don’t think I won’t kill you if you try to fight me again.”

  “I know you have killed all the others. Those poor villagers trusted you. They let you into their homes and gave you their donations and you robbed them blind, then took their lives. Why? Why did you have to go and kill them?” Annalisa cried.

  “They were always sticking their noses into things, asking questions and talking about the old vicar,” Lightfoot growled. “I was sick of them. I am sick of the whole bloody lot of them. They won’t be missed. They were old anyway.”

  “No matter how old they are, nobody’s life should be stolen. Everyone has a life that is valuable. It isn’t for anybody to deem it worthless,” Annalisa hissed. “How could you be so vile?”

  But she knew this man was vile. It was written in the cold stare he levelled on her. What was shocking was that there was a dead look about his expression that was almost blank. It was as if the part of him that was his character had disappeared, and in his place was someone who was cold and unfeeling. He was something that operated rather than existed. She didn’t doubt that the man had no respect for life, and he would indeed take her life to try to save his own.

  “Just let me go and I will delay them,” she pleaded.

  Her captor didn’t even stop to consider that. Lightfoot yanked her with him as he forged a way through the undergrowth toward a destination only he knew about. It was as though he hadn’t heard her.

  “Please. Just let me stay here.”

  When Annalisa stopped walking, Lightfoot yanked her cruelly forward, and shoved her in front of him so she had to walk or keep bumping into him. Suddenly, he jabbed the end of his gun into her back. The pain that lanced around to her ribs stole her breath once more and this time started to make the world around them recede.

  It was then that Annalisa knew that her chances of survival were remote.

  “Joshua!” she screamed, determined to tell him what she wanted him to know before she died. “Joshua!”

  This time, he didn’t reply.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Because of his panic Joshua lost Annalisa’s trail, picked it back up, lost it again, but eventually picked it back up again. What concerned him was that there were clear signs of blood on some of the leaves on the trail, which seemed to be too direct to be a panicked flight.

  “He knows where he is going,” Joshua growled.

  “Do you think he is going to meet someone?” Peregrine asked.

  Joshua nodded but then looked warningly at his colleagues who were spaced out on either side of him.

  “He can’t have too many accomplices. We would have seen them by now. There isn’t any trace of a second person at any of the recent crime scenes. The only person we know Lightfoot has had help from is Garmead. I cannot see that Lightfoot has anybody else he can trust,” Roger reasoned.

  Joshua nodded. “Lightfoot has been living here for over a year now, don’t forget. He has probably had plenty of time to scout the area and look for places he can hide and use to escape should he ever get caught.”

  “What is this way, does anybody know?”

  “More woods and the main road leading to London about five miles beyond it,” Dean informed them.

  “Well, he has to be heading to the main road, then. Do you want me to go and see if I can circle around them?” Peregrine offered.

  “No. We all need to stick together. He is armed and not afraid to shoot. I cannot risk losing any of you,” Roger replied. “Let’s just keep following. If he is having to drag Annalisa, he is going to tire before we do.”

  “Where is Yvette?” Joshua asked as he followed yet another path Lightfoot had taken across a small stream.

  “We don’t know. She had gone up to her bed chamber but was no longer there when I went to check on her,” Hamish warned.

  “So, Lightfoot might have both women?” Roger said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Why would he want them both? One is a bargaining tool, but he won’t manage to drag two women through the bushes. What could he want Yvette for? Moreover, where has he hidden her?” Peregrine demanded.

  “Maybe she has just gone home?” Hamish suggested.

  “Annalisa would have called out for her if they had been together.” Joshua looked at Hamish who shook his head in consternation.

  “Yvette was in her bed chamber, but he didn’t get into the safe house. We would have heard him,” Hamish confirmed.

  “Maybe she followed Annalisa and was knocked out by Lightfoot or something?” Ronan shared a worried look with Luke that Joshua caught.

  “What?” Joshua demanded.

  Luke shook his head.

  “What?” Joshua asked of Ronan who sighed.

  “Annalisa looked badly beaten,” Ronan muttered reluctantly. “Maybe he had already beaten Yvette. She may be at her house somewhere and we just didn’t get the chance to find her.”

  “She has to be at the safe house somewhere. I was on watch. Lightfoot didn’t get inside, and Yvette didn’t leave the building,” Dean snapped.

  “We would have known,” Peregrine growled. “Annalisa asked to go to fetch some clothing. I whistled for Dean, who escorted her across the garden, and sent her inside. The last I saw of Yvette was before she went into her bed chamber for a nap. She didn’t come back out again. The next thing I know, all hell broke loose.”

  “Yvette is of l
ittle concern right now. What is more important is getting Annalisa back before Lightfoot gets too far away,” Roger interrupted before turning to Joshua. “Do you think we are getting close to them?”

  Joshua shrugged and tried to bite down on his frustration. “It is too hard to tell because the tracks are still fresh.”

  He didn’t wait to chat with his boss and increased his pace for several more miles until they saw smoke.

  “Maybe it is a camp?” Roger asked hopefully.

  Joshua’s thoughts turned immediately to Billy, but he knew the man was miles away. Someone else had decided to light a fire.

  What the men eventually found was a make-shift camp. It consisted of nothing more than a couple of tree trunks positioned beside a fire, which smouldered because it had been built using wet leaves and fresh twigs.

  “Whoever has made this hasn’t got much of a clue about how to start a campfire,” Joshua snorted in disgust.

  “I don’t suppose there is much need for a campfire in gaol,” Dean mused.

  He bent down and studied a small bag tucked away carefully beneath a small shelter. With two fingers, he slid it out of its hole and lifted the flap back.

  “Well, at least we know where the rest of the money has gone from the goods he pawned,” Peregrine whispered picking up a handful of coins and letting them run through his fingers.

  Joshua studied the camp but wasn’t all that interested in searching it. He continued to look for the trail that would lead him to Annalisa. He didn’t wait for his colleagues to keep up. When he found what he wanted to see, Joshua started to follow it and hoped that Annalisa would be alive when he eventually reached her.

  Annalisa was so cold her teeth were starting to clatter. She was terrified beyond words and felt sick with despair and the hopelessness of it all. A part of her wanted to fight but she knew she might need what was left of her energy for a fight if Lightfoot did try to take her life when they reached wherever they were going. She had to conserve as much energy as she could because she fully intended to try to make an escape the first time that he stopped and loosened his hold. So far, though, he hadn’t done either. His hold was so tight her already painful flesh had gone numb from the discomfort of it. She had given up trying to force him to release her.