Kian nodded grimly and pointed to an all-night convenience store. “Come on.”
He marched right inside. The clerk working the store had the TV on, tuned to a 24-hour news channel, which wasn’t good. “Foil,” Kian asked him immediately. “Aluminum foil. Got any?”
The clerk gaped at the man in the torn, bloody shirt and the woman in the evening gown who’d just walked into his life. “...what?”
Kian glanced at the door and the noise of the helicopter outside, then pulled his gun. “Foil,” he said again. “Like for wrapping a turkey. Do you have any?”
The clerk raised his hands and pointed. I ran to the aisle he pointed at and grabbed a roll. Kian dug in his pocket, pulled out a sodden five dollar bill and slapped it on the counter.
Outside, we could see the glare of flashlights approaching. We had to run all over again to regain our lead, our lungs burning and muscles screaming. Then Kian slowed and grabbed the roll of foil from me. “Which arm did they put the chip in?” he asked.
I looked down at my arms. I started to say left but, as soon as I thought it, I started to doubt myself. They’d put the chip in me as soon as my dad had taken office: it had been years. Had it been left, or right? “I’m not sure,” I said, cursing myself.
He nodded quickly and started wrapping my left arm in aluminum foil, all the way from shoulder to wrist. He used half the roll and then did my right arm.
“Will this work?” I asked.
“No idea. It might buy us some time.”
We ran on down the alley. After a minute or two, the footsteps chasing us seemed to drop back. The helicopter returned, louder than ever, making passes above us. It was so low it was almost brushing the rooftops. But it didn’t seem to be zeroing in on me quite so confidently.
Kian seemed to be searching for something, checking the front of each darkened building. Finally, he found the one he wanted and led me around back, then used a brick to smash a window.
He climbed in first, then me, taking care on the broken glass. I blinked in the gloom, then looked around in confusion. “A bar? How does this help?
He ran behind the bar and collected a few things, then searched the floor until he found a trapdoor leading to the cellar. He heaved it up and ushered me down. When he found the light switch, I saw that we were in a plain breezeblock room filled with broken chairs and crates of beer. Kian closed the trapdoor behind us and looked around. “This might block the signal when we take the foil off,” he said.
“I don’t get it,” I told him. “What are we—”
Then I looked down at his hands and saw what he was holding: a bottle of vodka and the little knife the bartender used to cut lemons. When I looked up again, I could see the pain in his eyes—pain at the idea of hurting me.
“Oh, shit,” I said.
“We don’t have a choice,” he told me, his voice tortured. “I don’t know if the foil’s working and, even if it is, they’ll come back with stronger tracking equipment. They’ll zero in on us while we’re asleep and not moving. We have to cut the chip out.”
I stared at the knife... and nodded. I sat down on a chair, my eyes glued to the blade. I watched as Kian poured vodka over it to sterilize it. It still felt unreal: he’s not really going to... he can’t actually….
Kian looked at me. “There’s no anesthetic,” he said. “Take a slug of this.” He passed me the bottle and that’s when it became real. I took a big slug of the liquor, then coughed and choked as it burned my throat. I thought about what was about to happen and took another.
Kian unwound the foil from my arms, looking up towards the ceiling and the faint noise of the helicopter outside. When my arms were bare again, he started to work his way down my left arm from my shoulder, his big, warm fingers probing at my muscles. “I got it,” he said, pressing a point halfway down my upper arm. “It’s not deep.”
“Just do it,” I said, my voice tight. I looked away, focusing on a huge cardboard carton of peanuts. When I felt him come close with the knife, I started to suck in air through my nostrils, my breathing loud in the silent room. Then the tip of the blade touched my skin and I tensed. “Talk to me,” I blurted. “Talk to me while you’re doing it.”
Silence for a second. Then, “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
A burning pain as the knife cut into me. My toes tried to dig through my shoes and into the floor, but I focused on that deep, growling voice with its hint of Irish silver. “When I saw you at the park,” he said, “I knew I had to have you. Didn’t matter how ridiculous it was for a guy like me to get someone like you.” The knife felt like it had been dipped in red-hot lava but his words vibrated through me, lifting me to another place. “I. Had to. Have you. And now I’ve got you, I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you.”
Just as the tears welled up, the pain stopped. “I got it,” he said, his voice hoarse.
I turned to see him holding a thing the size and shape of a grain of rice. Before I knew it, he’d grabbed the front of my dress and hauled me forward for a kiss. He kissed me with all the heat and burning hunger I’d come to know, but with something else, too. A warmth that was about more than just protecting me.
He moved back, my eyes opened and we stared at each other, both relieved it was over. Then his hand suddenly dived down the front of my dress, palming my naked breast and squeezing, his thumb rubbing. I jerked and my mouth fell open in shock... but my body needed him just as much as always and I felt the heat slam down my body towards my groin, my thighs pressing together—
I cried out and jerked away from him, my arm burning and stinging. I smelled vodka and, when I looked around, he had the bottle upended over my arm: he’d just poured it over the wound. “Sorry,” he said. “Figured it’d be better if you were distracted.”
I panted through the pain and then whacked him hard in the arm. As he tore another strip off his shirt and used it to bandage my arm, I looked at the tracking chip. “What now?” I asked. “We destroy it?”
He shook his head and looked up. I could still hear the helicopter outside. “If the signal stops, they’ll just surround the area and go house-to-house until they find you. I have to lead them away.”
It took me a few seconds to realize what he was planning. “No! NO!”
“It’s the only way. You’ll be able to slip away while they’re chasing me. I’ll give you as long as I can. Get out of the city. Go far away.”
“No!” I threw my arms around him. “They think you kidnapped me! They’ll put you in jail... or worse! Or Kerrigan’s men will get to you!”
“It’s the only way, Emily. If I don’t do this, you won’t survive the night.”
I was sobbing, now. “You said you’d never leave me again!”
“And I said I’d always protect you. This is what I have to do to do that.” He closed his fist around the tracking chip and stood up.
I jumped to my feet and wrapped my arms around him, my hot tears falling to soak his shirt. “Please,” I said, “Please don’t do this!”
He kissed me once, twice, three times... and then pushed me gently back. “I love you,” he said.
And then he ran up the stairs, flung open the trapdoor, and was gone.
Kian
Upstairs, I kept moving. I didn’t want to give myself time to think about it: wrenching myself away from her was already too damn painful. Should I have told her I loved her? It made no sense: I knew I’d never see her again. And the words had come out so suddenly they’d shocked me... but I knew it was the truth.
I found a set of car keys under the bar and spotted a banged-up red pickup out in the parking lot. Some customer had probably gotten too drunk that night and taken a cab home. I could hear the helicopter and it sounded like it was getting closer: I looked down at the chip in my hand. As soon as I’d come out of the cellar, they’d picked up the signal again.
I took a deep breath and ran out into the rain. I didn’t even have the pickup’s engine sta
rted before the searchlight was on me, turning night into day and making me screw my eyes closed against the glare. I looked over my shoulder—luckily, it was a crew cab and the back seats were full of junk. Hopefully, they’d mistake one of the dark shapes there for Emily.
I roared out onto the street, skidding on the surface water. Behind me, I could hear sirens: but that was good, that was exactly what I wanted. I just had to lead them as far away from the bar as I could before they caught me.
A pickup on an almost-deserted street is a lot easier to see from the air than a couple of people in alleys and the helicopter kept me pinned in its searchlight. I’d only gone a block when the first Secret Service SUV slewed out of a side street and picked up the chase, then another and another. How long until they set up a roadblock ahead? Two minutes? Three?
I put my foot down and blasted straight down the street and onto the on-ramp to the highway. Seconds later I was speeding towards the outskirts of DC with a full ten vehicles behind me and the helicopter above. I made it three miles before I saw the hastily-assembled roadblock ahead: a line of cop cars stretching across the highway and police officers with guns lined up behind them. Shit! I’d given Emily maybe five minutes. I’d just have to hope it was enough.
I hit the brakes... but I’d underestimated how wet the road was. With a sickening screech of tires, the pickup skidded and careened towards the roadblock, cops dodging back out of the way. I finally came to a stop with the front bumper a hair’s breadth from one of the cars.
I raised my hands in the air and waited for whatever came next.
Emily
I stumbled up the stairs to the bar, poked my head out of the trapdoor and listened. I could hear the helicopter and sirens but both sounded like they were retreating into the distance. Kian had done it.
He loves me. I knew I had to move fast but it kept ringing in my head like the clapper of a bell. I hadn’t had a chance to say it back to him. And now I never would.
Focus. I had to get out of there or it was all for nothing. But as I moved towards the window and glanced down, I caught sight of my soaked dress and stopped. I was going to stick out like a sore thumb as soon as I went out there... and even more, once dawn broke. I had to change my appearance.
I found a room behind the bar that seemed to be a combination office, break room and storeroom. I was hoping to find a jacket but fate wasn’t that kind. I did find a pair of outsize men’s pants, paint-splattered and worn but at least dry, and a hooded top stenciled with some rock band’s name that stretched down nearly to my knees. I scrambled into them and the simple luxury of feeling dry cloth next to my skin made me want to weep.
I stopped at the window to listen again. This time it was completely silent. I climbed carefully out and jumped down to the ground, then put my hood up to cover my face, picked a direction at random and started walking.
It took me until the end of the alley for it to sink in: I was all alone. For the first time since I’d persuaded Kian to guard me, it was just me. That would have been scary in the White House but out here, in a bad neighborhood in the middle of the night, with Kerrigan’s men hunting me, it was terrifying.
It was still raining and my new clothes were soaked in minutes. I could have sheltered in a doorway but I knew that, once they caught Kian and found he was alone, they’d double back and look for me here. I had to be long gone by then... but I had no idea where to go. Out of the city? Where? There was nowhere I could go where my face wasn’t known. Could I get to an embassy and seek asylum in another country, then try to convince the world of Kerrigan’s plans? How? He was the President, now, and I was just a—
I was just a woman with a history of mental illness, demonstrated live on TV when I’d freaked out and ran for the limo outside the John F. Kennedy Center. Who the hell would believe me?
This isn’t meant to be me! I was completely unsuited to taking on someone like Kerrigan. My dad was the strong one. He was the President—the real President. I was just his daughter.
The rain seeped through to my skin but the cold soaked further, right down to my bones. I was losing it fast. I could feel the black fear rising and, just like in my nightmares, Kian wasn’t there to help. It was worse than it had ever been. Even in those dark days immediately after the park, I’d had a safe haven in the White House; now, there was nowhere to hide.
I realized that I was walking further and further from the streetlights, deeper into the network of unlit alleys. With the clouds covering the moon it was almost pitch black ahead. But I didn’t have any choice: if I strayed close to the street, I might be seen by a surveillance camera.
Tears rolling down my cheeks, I plunged into the darkness.
Kian
After they dragged me out of the pickup and started cursing because Emily wasn’t there, they pulled me into a Secret Service SUV and drove me straight to the White House. As they led me through the hallways, I saw uniformed Rexortech goons everywhere. I’d been right: Kerrigan had wasted no time bringing them in. And all of them would be under orders from him to quietly eliminate Emily, if she was brought here.
As we passed a doorway, the First Lady emerged, flanked by Secret Service agents. Her face was deathly pale, her eyes red from crying. Then she saw me and started towards me. “You son of a bitch!” she yelled. “I saw how you were looking at her! Where is she? Where is she?”
It took both Secret Service agents to hold her back as we passed. I kept my eyes on the floor. Even on the off-chance I could get her to believe me, all I’d be doing was painting a target on her back.
I wound up sitting on a plastic office chair in an empty room with my hands cuffed behind my back. No doubt there was one hell of an argument going on over who had jurisdiction: the FBI would be trying to muscle in but the Secret Service wouldn’t give up for at least another few hours, not with their agents dead at the scene and the President’s daughter missing. So it was no surprise when Miller walked in. I only needed a split-second to see how utterly enraged he was, his whole body shaking with tension.
He got started right away. Before I’d even had time to open my mouth, he punched me so hard I felt a tooth loosen. My head snapped to the side and the room spun a few times.
“You piece of shit,” Miller spat at me. “You fucking piece of shit. How much did they pay you?”
I knew it was useless. I knew no one would believe me, but I had to try anyway. “You’re being duped. I didn’t kidnap Emily. It’s Kerrigan. It’s all Kerrigan, he set up the Brothers of Freedom. They’re all Rexortech guys, private military contractors.”
Miller held a black and white photo in front of my face. Ah, shit. It was worse than I thought.
The picture was of me, sitting in a cafe. Sitting next to me, was a big guy in a hooded top and a baseball cap. He was showing me something and I was looking down at it, frowning.
“It’s a setup,” I said weakly. “It’s a fucking crossword puzzle he’s showing me.”
“That’s Gavin Fiss,” said Miller. “A known associate of the Brothers of Freedom, one of the few we’ve managed to get an ID on.”
“Who sent you the photo? An anonymous tip? No, wait: I bet it was someone at Rexortech Security.”
Miller squatted down so that he was at my eye level. “Let me lay it out for you, O’Harra. You have a history of misconduct and violent outbursts. You show up out of nowhere, just at the right time to save the President’s daughter and she’s just scared enough to hire you, against our wishes, which conveniently gives you access to her, the President, and all our security procedures. The First Lady told me she’s pretty sure you’re sleeping with her daughter. That’s a common terrorist move, to find some naive young thing and seduce her, to gain access to the inner circle. Then you disappear for a whole afternoon, right before an attack, and no one knows where you are. The shooting starts and the next thing the team at the White House hears is this.”
He played an audio file on his phone and I heard the radio transmission from
the Secret Service agent outside the museum. ”I can see Liberty! She’s with O’Harra!” The agent had been surprised by our sudden appearance... but it was easy to hear it as shock that I was involved with some plot, if you were already thinking that way.
“Then you disappear with Emily and no one can find you until we track down her chip. Then we stop your car and she’s not there: you’ve deliberately led us away. Did you stash her somewhere, or are your friends moving her out of the country right now?”
I shook my head but I wasn’t listening to Miller: I was cursing myself for not seeing it sooner. This is why Powell and his men had left me alive outside the museum: I was going to be their patsy. Kerrigan must have thought it up once he saw me and her were getting close. Goddammit! This is my fault! If I’d just stayed away from her…. I’d played right into their hands.
Miller took my silence for guilt. His voice became conciliatory. “You are going to jail for the rest of your life,” he said slowly. “But maybe, maybe, if you tell me where Emily is right now, I can save you from the death penalty.”
There was nothing I could say that was going to get me out of this. I was dead: either by lethal injection with the whole country cheering or a rigged suicide or heart attack at the hands of Kerrigan’s people. I didn’t care anymore. My whole focus was on someone else.
“I have no idea where she is,” I told Miller. “But I hope to God she’s safe.”
Emily
I stumbled through the darkness for what felt like hours. The alleys seemed to be filling up with trash the further from the street I went. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it underfoot: the wet cardboard mulch from hundreds of fast food containers, the jagged, tinkling shards of broken bottles. As I got colder and colder, it got worse: my feet started to go numb so I couldn’t feel what I was walking on and I’d start to slip and slide before I could react. My high heels made it even more treacherous but I didn’t dare take them off with so much broken glass around. I was shaking—I couldn’t stop shaking, but I couldn’t wrap my arms around me to keep warm because I needed them to feel for the alley walls.
Saving Liberty (Kissing #6) Page 21