Then the water went away and the cloth was lifted off my face, folded up onto my forehead and left there as a reminder. I took in a huge gulp of air and immediately choked, the air searing my lungs. I coughed and coughed. I hadn’t realized I was crying but tears were streaming down my face.
Powell leaned over me, a cruel smile on his face. “Now. Who did you tell? And did they believe you?”
I opened my mouth to tell him but stopped. I wasn’t being brave. I wasn’t trying to protect Harlan or Kian or my dad. I was way past that, way too scared. But I knew that, as soon as I told him, they’d kill me. Right now, that was frightening enough to make me hesitate but I knew that, given another session, the balance would swing the other way: death would become a welcome escape. I’d give him the names, Kerrigan would win... and I’d have helped usher in a new world where torturing innocents like this was normal.
“Okay, then,” he said.
I’m never going to see Kian again.
The cloth came down over my face.
And the black fear finally won.
Kian
It was just as the photo had shown it: a huge empty lot, filled with rubble, and the hotel standing on its own at the center. I started to see why they’d chosen this place. The windows were boarded up, so they didn’t have to worry about prying eyes, and there was enough space for a small army. The best part was, once this op was over, they’d demolish the building and any evidence would be buried underneath a new office building.
We crept closer. Around back, covered with a tarpaulin, was the same black SUV I’d seen at the museum. We were definitely in the right place.
The main door was locked but we pried off the board that covered the empty doorframe at the rear and sneaked in. A hallway led to an echoey, musty ballroom but I couldn’t see Emily or any of the bastards who’d taken her. Then Miller nodded towards a doorway, silently indicating that he’d heard something. We both crept up to it... and from inside, I heard Emily sobbing. Not a woman: Emily. I knew the sounds she made when she was scared. They’d been burned into my mind that day at the park.
I knew we should wait while we checked out the rest of the building. We had no idea how many of them were behind that door or how many others were upstairs. We should stop, assess and call for backup.
But someone was hurting my woman.
I charged the door and kicked it almost off its hinges, yelling a wordless cry of rage. Everyone froze for an instant, startled, and I took in the scene: the board, the cloth over Emily’s face... Jesus Christ!
Powell was bent low over her, his face inches from hers. When he looked up at me, his mouth was still twisted into a faint grin: he’d been enjoying watching her struggle. Oh, you son of a bitch.
He focused on my face and saw the pure rage there... and his grin faltered and died.
Time seemed to slow down as I ran at him. He was too close to Emily to risk a shot, but that was fine: shooting was too good for him. As I ran, I squeezed off two shots at the two guys holding the foot of the board. My first shot hit one of them square in the chest and he went flying back against the wall. My second just clipped the other guy but, now that I had my old gun back, the force was enough to spin him around and send him to the ground clutching his shoulder.
And then I was slamming into Powell, my momentum carrying both of us to the floor. Next to me, I was dimly aware of Miller doing the same to the bearded guy.
My first punch caught him right across the jaw. I followed up with another and another, the anger pouring out of me like lava and bringing words with it. “You don’t touch her!” I bellowed. “Nobody touches her!”
I was fighting wild, without any thought to tactics or defending myself. When I’d been a kid, my brother Aedan had been into boxing and he’d won every play-fight we had because I was too angry, too undisciplined. It had never been a problem before, when I had to tussle with some drunk idiot who was threatening a senator, or some guy in a crowd who got too close to Emily. But Powell was ex-military, like me. He’d been trained.
His fist caught me in the kidneys and I felt one whole side of my body go weak as pain flashed up and down my spine. Then we were rolling over and over until we whacked into the white-tiled wall with him on top. Now I was taking the blows, the room spinning as his fists pounded me. Shit. I managed to get a few more hits in but brute strength wasn’t cutting it, now. I glanced at Emily, still helpless on the board. The cloth still covered her eyes: she couldn’t even see what was going on. She must be terrified. The thought of it pumped more anger into my veins but anger wasn’t helping either.
Aedan’s words came back to me across the years, memories I’d pushed to the back of my mind until Emily got me to open up. “Keep your guard up, you feckin’ idiot. Wait for an opening.”
I lifted my arms and started absorbing the blows, going against my instincts and reigning in my need to hit back. I made myself wait, letting Powell grin and get cocky, thinking he’d won. I waited until he drew his arm back to put me down for good.
And then I got in my one good hit, catching him right in the face.
He flew off me as if he’d been hit by a truck and lay groaning. I got up and, next to me, Miller was getting to his feet as well, the bearded guy unconscious under him. We looked at each other, panting, and then nodded.
I could hear boots thumping in the hallways above us. There must be more men here, upstairs, and they’d heard the shots. I raced to free Emily, wrenching the zip ties free from the board and then pulled her into my arms. She was bruised where she’d strained against her bonds and she couldn’t speak yet, still coughing up water, but she was alive and we were together again. The pain from the beating I’d taken seemed to fade away. As long as she was safe, everything was okay. “It’s alright,” I whispered in her ear.
But she didn’t respond. My chest tightened.
“We need to move,” said Miller. The pounding footsteps were getting closer. It sounded like a small army was approaching.
“Emily?” I said gently. My throat was closing up. She didn’t seem to know I was there.
“Now!” said Miller. He pointed to Emily’s leg and I saw that she was holding one foot off the floor, unable to put any weight on it. “I don’t think she’ll be able to walk.”
I stared down at Emily, taking in what those bastards had done to her. My anger swelled into huge, crimson clouds that filled my mind. I scooped my arms under her legs and back and then stood, carrying her cradled against my chest. “She doesn’t have to,” I said.
We ran back into the ballroom. I was hoping we could make it to the door and then back to our car before the reinforcements got downstairs but, when we were less than halfway across the huge room, a door swung open and the first man burst through, leveling his gun right at us. There was nothing I could do, not with Emily in my arms. I winced and twisted away, waiting to feel the impact on my back, praying that my body would protect hers—
I felt something brush past my back. An instant later, I heard the boom as the gun fired... but I didn’t feel any pain. Then Miller was falling against me, nearly knocking me over. I hoisted Emily into one arm and fired back at the gunman, putting him down. Then I stood there blinking, confused. Looking down at myself, I didn’t see any blood. Terrified, I checked Emily... but she was fine, too. Had the gunman missed?
Then I looked down at Miller, who was lying on his back at my feet. He was clutching at his chest, wet red blossoming across his white shirt. He’d taken the bullet for us.
I could hear more men approaching. We weren’t going to make it to the door before they arrived. I bent and grabbed Miller’s jacket and dragged him along with us as I backed towards the corner. “Asshole!” I spat at Miller. “Thought you hated me.”
“Didn’t do it for you,” Miller managed. “Did it for her.”
I pulled him and Emily behind one of the big, circular tables, then tipped it up on its side to act as a shield. Seconds later, bullets started tearing at the wood. We w
ere safe for a second but now we were trapped, pinned down in the corner of the ballroom with no place to run.
“Now can I call for backup?” Miller grunted. He was rapidly going pale.
“Be my guest.” We’d managed to take them by surprise by staying off the radio, but now I’d happily take all the Secret Service help we could get. Miller started gasping orders into his radio, stopping every few words to wince in pain. I peeked around the edge of the upended table. Shit! Another four guys were already in the ballroom and firing at us and two more were just emerging from the door. I fired a couple of times to hold them back, then had to pull back behind the table as bullets slammed into the wood.
I knew the Secret Service would take at least a few minutes to get there. Miller’s breathing was slowing. He might survive but he certainly couldn’t fight. And with just me to hold off the bad guys, we weren’t going to last that long.
I pulled Emily higher in my arms so I could look at her. If this was the end, I wanted to see her face one last time. I gently pushed her wet hair back but, when I saw those big green eyes staring up at me, my heart tore in two. They were distant and unfocused and that light that I loved had gone, maybe for good. “Emily?” I asked in a broken voice.
She didn’t reply. She was breathing, but she wasn’t with us. She’d experienced too much and she’d slipped into catatonia. I buried my face in the crook of her neck, raw emotion flooding through me: guilt that I hadn’t been able to protect her, anger that Kerrigan was going to win.
It shouldn’t end like this.
And then I realized that maybe it didn’t have to.
Maybe only one of us had to die.
Emily
When they’d started the second round of waterboarding, the black fear had finally risen up over me, joining the water as it poured down into my throat. It had filled my body with impenetrable cold, forcing my mind into a smaller and smaller space to escape until something finally snapped. And suddenly it was as if my mind and my body weren’t connected at all. I was aware of the table shaking as bullets slammed into the far side of the wood and the feel of Kian’s fingers on my face as he brushed my hair aside, but it felt as if it was happening to someone else.
“I’m sorry,” I heard him say against my neck. “I’m sorry, Emily.”
I wanted to tell him that it was okay, that it wasn’t his fault. But my mind refused to go near my body—it shied away like a dog from an abusive master. My body was a source of fear and pain.
“I’m not going to let them get you,” he said. The Irish was thick in his voice, now, gleaming and razor-sharp. He pushed me back from him a little, propping me up against the table, and I sat there like a lifeless doll. I saw him check his gun and then he took Miller’s pistol, too, so that he had one in each hand.
No. Oh no. I suddenly realized what he was planning. He was going to burst out from behind the table and run at them, use all that anger and brute strength to charge right at them. They’d cut him to pieces... but he’d draw their fire long enough for me to escape.
He leaned out to fire a few final shots before his suicide run, then returned to me and cupped my cheeks in his hands. “When I go,” he said firmly, “you have to go. Okay?” He must have known it was probably useless. He could see I was gone, cowering in the shadows of my mind, but he wanted to believe he could give me a chance. “Run!” he ordered. But I couldn’t respond. Every time I tried to force myself back into awareness, my mind slid away again. I didn’t want to be me.
“I love you,” he said. “I’ll always love you.”
I love you, too. But the words wouldn’t come out. My body felt as if it was at the end of a mile-long hallway.
He shifted the guns in his hands, readying himself. He was about to sacrifice himself for me and it wasn’t even going to work, he was going to die for nothing: he’d run towards them and I’d sit there like a puppet with its strings cut, hearing the bullets hit his body and him slump to the floor. All because I was hiding, hiding from the pain and fear just like a child.
Kian shifted his weight, about to spring out into view. He was going to die. He’s going to die, Emily, he’s going to die, right fucking now unless you do something do something DO SOMETHING—
I looked into those blue eyes and imagined never seeing them again. Deep inside my mind, I gritted my teeth... and wrenched.
I’d been floating free: numb, but light as air and in no pain. Now, suddenly, I was at the bottom of a black ocean, the fear pressing down on me, crushing me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. But I knew I needed to swim against the weight and I did, soaring up through it with everything I had.
I broke the surface... and I was back. All the pain slammed into me at once: my injured ankle, the bruises on my wrists but most of all my aching, burning lungs. Taking a breath was sheer agony and there was no way I could speak yet. But I didn’t have to speak.
As Kian rose to his feet, I reached out and grabbed his wrist and hung on in a death grip. He snapped his head round and stared at me.
It took me several panting breaths before I dared to try speaking and, when I did, each syllable burned like fire in my lungs and then clawed at my throat. “Don’t,” I croaked.
He squatted back down next to me. I could see the conflict in his eyes: joy that I was back but aching sadness that he had to leave me. “I have to,” he said. I saw him glance at Miller. “It’s the only way.”
I could hear the shuffle of boots on the other side of the table. They were starting to advance towards us. In another few seconds they’d be on us, and Kian could only guard one side of the table at once.
I reached out and pulled Miller’s gun from Kian’s hand. I couldn’t speak anymore, so I put my head close to his and whispered, my voice rasping. “You forget where I grew up,” I said, and worked the gun’s slide.
He stared at me and I stared right back at him, resolute. It was about more than just knowing how to shoot a gun. It was about him understanding that we’d moved beyond him protecting me. I loved him. And that meant I protected him, too.
He nodded and the look of pride in his eyes took my breath away. Then his lips were on mine. We only had a second but it didn’t matter: we poured every ounce of ourselves into that kiss. Everything we’d been through, every danger he’d shielded me from, every bit of pain I’d helped him release. We kissed for then and now and for the future because, if we lived through this, we were never letting go of each other again.
Then we were moving apart and he was leaning around the left side of the table while I leaned around the right. It had been a long time since I fired a gun. I closed my eyes for a second, remembering Texas and sunshine and shooting cans with my dad. Identify your target. Aim and squeeze.
Muscle memory took over. The gun kicked in my hand and the first guy cried out and fell to the floor, clutching his leg. I aimed again. The second guy’s eyes went wide, amazed that a girl was pointing a gun at him... and then he staggered back as I hit him in the shoulder. Kian’s huge gun boomed on the other side of the table and another guy fell. There were many more of them than of us, but they were caught by surprise out in the open—they didn’t expect to suddenly take fire from both sides. They actually began to retreat.
I had to flinch back behind the table as they started firing back, but with two of us one could hold them at bay while the other repositioned. I crawled behind Kian, careful to stay off my injured ankle, leaned around the bottom of the table and shot from there. I didn’t hit anyone, this time, but the shot was close enough to make the guy duck back behind cover. This might actually work….
Then my gun clicked empty. Two shots later, so did Kian’s. We both dropped back behind the table, staring at each other in horror. Immediately I heard boots pound across the ballroom’s wood floor towards us. We were so close! I grabbed for Kian’s hand and felt those big, warm fingers wrap around mine. I looked up into his eyes. I wanted them to be the last thing I saw.
The first of the gunmen round
ed the table, his gun pointed right at us.
And every one of the ballroom’s huge windows exploded inwards.
Emily
I screwed my eyes closed, gripped Kian’s hand and braced myself against the chaos. The air was full of smoke, shards of glass and charred bits of the board that had once been nailed over the windows. I could hear men converging on us from every direction, swarming in through the windows and doors. There was a hail of gunfire, then frantic shouting. And then everything went still.
When I opened my eyes, I counted at least twenty men: a mixture of Secret Service agents and soldiers. I later learned they’d called in a Marine unit as backup. A medic ran over and started tending to Miller.
As Kian helped me to my feet and I peeked over the top of the table, I saw that most of Powell’s men were dead. The two that were still alive were on their knees with their hands clasped behind their heads while the military zip-tied them. Meanwhile, the medics worked to stabilize Miller. When they eventually nodded that he’d live and loaded him onto a stretcher, I threw my arms around Kian’s neck and hugged him close. It’s over!
Moments later, the soldiers brought out three men from the bathroom. Powell and the man with the beard had both regained consciousness and the one Kian had injured was being carried out on a stretcher. They carried the injured one outside, presumably to an ambulance, but the other two were pushed to their knees and restrained along with the others.
Powell looked up at me and smirked, unafraid. A chill went through me. Hadn’t we won?
That was when the Secret Service agent approached us. “Ma’am?” he said. “You’re to come with us.” He gave me his arm to lean on, because I still couldn’t put any weight on my injured ankle. But when Kian stepped forward to follow, the agent shook his head. “Not you,” he said.
Kian and I looked at each other in confusion.
The Secret Service agent sighed and shook his head. “I’m on orders to take O’Harra into custody,” he said. Then he looked down at the semi-conscious Miller. “You, too, sir,” he said sadly. “You’ve been declared enemy combatants.”
Saving Liberty (Kissing #6) Page 24