by Serena James
“I told you not to touch. You have to go now.”
He pushed her through the door that led out to the back of the building and to the rear perimeter of the electric fence. There was a gate in the fence. Jonathan punched in another code into yet another keypad and the gate opened in front of them. He pushed her through and slammed it closed, shutting her out into the wilderness.
He shouted at her, “Go, before it is too late. I can give you an hour or two before the alarm will be raised. That’s all I can do for you. I’m sorry.”
She watched him through the fence and nodded. “Get out of here Jonathan. I will make them destroy this place. I’ll won’t rest until they bomb it to hell.”
He said softly. “You do that and they will just build another, somewhere else. I told you, you can’t win this one, Rebecca. The people that make these hospitals possible are more powerful than you can imagine. They will cut you down. Run and run far away and hide so they can’t find you. Be safe. Now go. Head for the trees and keep going north. You will hit the border sooner than you think. Go.”
“Thank you for saving my life.”
“Go”
He turned away from her and ran back into the building.
Rebecca could feel the pain from her wound begin to burn. She clutched her side and tried to move as quickly as possible. But her movement was hampered by the flat sandals that Jonathan had given her to wear. They were too big on her feet and slipped every time she moved. At least the shirt was a reasonable fit. She thought of where the clothes would have been taken from, no doubt a victim.
She headed for the trees and didn’t look back at the hospital once. She wouldn’t have the glare of the camp’s floodlights to light her way but she would be safe under the cover of the darkness. She would just have to feel her way through. She stopped suddenly hearing the call of a wild dog somewhere in the distance in front of her.
Jonathan had warned her that man wasn’t her only predator to be afraid of out here. She continued but making her way more cautiously and quietly this time. She stumbled and fell many times as she made her way through the trees. They seemed to stretch on forever. She felt so hot, so sick and weary. Pain throbbed and prodded her sides and between her legs. Even her bruises ached. It was an effort to move her heavy aching limbs. The more she did move the heavier they got.
She relied on the adrenaline from her fear of being caught and her determination to bring Quayle and her brother down to propel her on. She found herself still walking when the sun rose. She was hot, thirsty, and her mouth felt so dry and parched. Her vision was swimming, blurring. She knew she wouldn’t last much longer. She still clutched her side. How much further?
Then she heard it. It was a vehicle. It wasn’t far away. She tried to pick up speed but she tripped. Her movement was no longer co-ordinated. She fell face down into a large puddle of water. She lifted her head, ignoring the overwhelming feeling to just lie there. She spat the water out and forced herself with all of the strength she had left to stand. She’d made it this far. She couldn’t give up now. She had to help those people back in the hospital and save London from being bombed.
She could hear shouts and another vehicle. She heard movement in the undergrowth of the field she had walked through. They were coming to get her. The men in white masks were coming to get her. She realised she was delirious. It was the soldiers who were coming after her. They would kill her this time, for sure. She felt for the handgun in the back of her trousers and pulled it out.
She aimed it with shaking hands, looking all around her for signs of the soldiers. She crouched down and moved behind a bush in the grass. She could hear them getting closer. As she moved behind a tree a soldier appeared. She stayed behind the tree as he came her way aiming his assault rifle as he searched for her. She waited until he was closer and then moved out, surprising him. She shot without hesitation.
He went down. She made herself look. He was still alive, shot in the shoulder. He was picking up the rifle again. She gave a frightened cry knowing what she must do to save her life. She shot him again in the chest. He fell back, and this time he didn’t move. She shoved the gun back in her trousers and moved as quickly as she could before the others reached her. She could hear the vehicles pursuing her, hear the shouts of the soldiers but she was evading them by going under the cover of trees.
She was afraid she was now going in the wrong direction but something told her to keep moving. The South Bundenese soldiers strangely appeared to have called off the chase. Five minutes later she suddenly couldn’t remember who she was or what the hell she was doing or where she even was. She stumbled through the trees and slid down a bank to a road on her backside. There were lots of people on the road. She sat there watching them pass. They looked like refugees and they were wearing Asian dress. She stood up shaking, trying to focus on them with her fading vision. She looked down at her hand she’d placed on her side. It was covered in blood. She was bleeding. She decided to follow the people, see where they were going. She would have panicked but she didn’t seem to have any energy to do that. She moved behind a man and a woman with two children. They kept looking back at her with suspicion. It made her nervous. She found it hard to put one foot in front of the other. Maybe someone at the end of this road could tell her what was happening.
She could see some kind of roadblock up ahead. There were soldiers. She stopped. One of them was running towards her calling a name. Was it her name? His uniform made her frightened. She didn’t know why. She felt a sudden urge to flee. She turned back to make a run for it. Only she could hardly move. The soldier caught her up, caught her arm. She cried out. He called her Rebecca, said she was safe. Where had she been? What had happened to her? She’d been lost. She looked at him in confusion and then he’d caught her as she collapsed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kane sat back in his chair and closed his eyes trying to take in the enormity of everything Rebecca had just told him. His first thought was to deck the bastard at the back of the plane. His second was to shoot him, executioner style. The third was to throw him out of the plane. None of them were viable without causing harm to others. But they were the only solutions that would calm the rage boiling away and overflowing inside him at that moment. The only thing keeping him in his seat was the seatbelt tight around his waist.
He found himself breathing hard. Rebecca was talking to him but he couldn’t hear her, couldn’t make out her words. Everything in his head was chaotic, dream like. Images taunted and teased his sanity to distraction. Once more they were all of her. Her account had fed his imagination and produced life-like reproductions of her torture and helplessness in the hospital. But it was the abundance of her strength that shocked him the most. All of the pain, suffering and injury she had endured and she was still battling out on the front line and ready to go in for another assault.
He still had a tight hold of Rebecca’s hand. Its softness was curled under his strong grip reminding him of her physical fragility in contrast to her inner strength, determination and formidable sense of spirit. She amazed him. Now he understood why Michael had been in awe of his sister. He opened his eyes and looked at her. She stopped talking and stopped trying to get his attention. There was apprehension in her eyes, brightening the deep emerald colour in them. He was consumed with an overwhelming sense of love that shook him to his core with its intensity. It was accompanied by a fierce burning need to protect her not only from the men who chased her but from herself and the compulsion that drove her to take on the whole bloody world.
He had an irrational thought of living up to the nickname she’d given him. When this damn plane landed back in London, he would bundle her into a car with him. He wouldn’t tell her or anyone else where they were going. He would drive her up to his cabin in the Lake District, make her hide away with him until it all went away. Yeah, as if she would let you get away with that. Then you would really take some stick for your nickname.
She needed someone to t
emper her, balance her drive, and watch out for the dangers that she drove from her vision in her quests. Yeah, she needed him in her world and she wasn’t going to have any choice in the matter. He understood that she would always push the boundaries with him but then that’s what he needed from her. He needed the challenge, the excitement and the fear of it. She made him feel alive. I love you and I am going to kill the next bastard that tries to take you from me.
He began to realise that his silence was unnerving her. He felt her try to slip her hand from his grip and held it tighter. He reached out and brushed his fingers along her cheek and down the side of her face. He softened his critical expression that had been aimed internally rather than outwardly and watched her tense features relax.
She asked him in a whisper, “What am I going to do about, Michael?”
He answered her gently, “What are we going to do about Michael? You will have to get used to we rather than I from now on. But in this case I am taking charge. I want you out of it. I don’t want you near him. Is that understood?”
Her sudden frown told him that she hadn’t missed the note of command in his tone.
She gave him a small laugh of disbelief. It sounded nervous. Good. She was definitely getting the message. He wouldn’t be moved on this one. She had been through enough. She’d proved herself on more than one occasion. Now she was going to take a back seat if he had to tie her up and gag her.
Her voice was haughty, short, “Why are you talking to me like that? Like we are back in Afghanistan and you are giving me an order. I don’t take them, remember!”
He deepened his voice, held his line. He smoothed his thumb over her knuckles as though it might somehow melt her resistance. “In this case I need you to. I want you safe. I don’t trust Michael...”
She interrupted him sarcastically, “What can he do to me on a plane? He’s done more than enough...”
“Precisely! He’s done enough. He doesn’t have to be physically violent to harm you.”
She was fretful, “You are going to hurt him, aren’t you? That’s why you don’t want me near him.”
If I get the chance, yes, I am going to hurt him. “No. I am just going to talk to him but I can’t tell you it is going to be pleasant. I want to find out what he knows about the organ group and what they are planning. Maybe he knows who the kidney went to.”
“You can’t keep me out of that. It’s my story, my life, my family, not yours. If he knows anything I need to be there to hear it.”
Now she was making him squirm. She was using her persuasive female tone, the one that usually rendered him helpless. Michael would manipulate her emotionally. She’d put her life on the line to protect him. She’d always put him first. It was in her nature to make excuses for him because she loved the way he had accepted her as his family. He had taken advantage of her loving support, her money with his gambling, and now her life. He was one of life’s users. With Michael she was vulnerable and the wound would run deep. Kane was determined to shield her from him.
“Don’t fight me on this one. You stay here and you don’t move.” He started undoing his seatbelt. “Ramsay, come and sit with Rebecca. Stuart you are with me. Ramsay, if Rebecca tries to move from her seat, tie her to it.”
He could tell by the look of outrage on her face, he was going to pay for that last part dearly at some point. Tough! You pushed me to it.
Stuart had been ready to move since he’d indicated that he would be needed when Rebecca was narrating events. Ramsay moved quickly into his seat as they both marched up to the seating towards the back of the plane.
Kane watched Michael lift his head out of his hands and look up to ascertain the source of movement in the cabin. His whole frame lifted from his bent position and pulled taut with tension. His dark eyes shone brightly with fear. Kane watched him stretch to look behind him, clearly expecting Rebecca to be with him. No such luck Michael. No one to manipulate. I’ve got you just where I want you.
Kane didn’t need to ask Stuart to stand and block the aisle. No escape for Michael and no view for Rebecca.
Michael asked nervously, “Where is Rebecca? I need to talk to her.”
Kane sat down at the other end of the corner leather sofa that Michael was seated on and placed his arm over its back adopting a relaxed composure. He noticed that it made Michael even more nervous. Michael glanced at Stuart and then quickly away again. It was at this point that Michael began moving the wedding ring he still wore round and round on his finger, studying it closely. His lips wore a pout and his eyes were downcast to the floor. He did the guilty schoolboy routine perfectly. Rebecca must have been putty in his hands in the past. Even the toughest of women would have found him hard to resist with every maternal instinct begging his protection.
Rebecca had acted as his surrogate mother, father and sister from the age of eleven and he’d taken advantage of her need to protect him and deceived her. Now the bastard was on his own without her to shield him. He could cut the routine, Kane wanted to see the evil monster that lurked within. That’s who he wanted to talk to, the real Michael, not the carefully crafted one he’d given to Rebecca.
Kane sat watching him for a moment, as did Stuart. Michael grew more nervous and couldn’t meet his eyes. Kane eventually answered him when he was convinced he had unsettled Michael enough to shake his guard. “You are going to talk to me and answer some of my questions, Michael.” He paused. “I know what you did to her. Rebecca has told me everything. She remembers everything now. There are no more secrets Michael, so don’t evade my questions.”
Michael’s eyes shot up at him. They were filled with blind panic. “I need to speak to her. I need to explain. I didn’t want to make her stay with Quayle. I had no choice. I was trying to save her life. I would have got her out of there. I didn’t want anything to happen to her. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t my fault I...”
Kane’s stomach twisted with disgust. Michael was only concerned with himself and proving he wasn’t at fault. A stupid schoolboy who had never grown up.
Rebecca’s adopted mother’s last words had been for Rebecca to put the safety of her son paramount. There had been none for Rebecca. Maybe he was biased, didn’t understand but he’d picked up a trace of resentment from Rebecca when she had narrated the story to him. It merely confirmed his suspicions. That was the way it usually went. There was nearly always a favourite.
Kane had been the favourite as the eldest, the healthy son as opposed to his clever severely autistic sister. It had crippled him that his mother had been unable to find a way of showing her love for Kate. She showed only her disappointment. She saw Kate as her failure. He’d hoped she would be different with Kate when he joined the Royal Marines. He’d thought it would give them space but then his mother met his stepfather and things went from bad to worse. She hardly saw Kate now and was desperate for Kane to return to the fold and end their estrangement. But he would deny her reconciliation. That was the only revenge he could enact on Kate’s behalf.
It sickened him to think that the man that sat at the other end of the sofa was worse than his mother. He wouldn’t just see Kate as a disappointment; he would see her as a vessel carrying organs that he had the right to take whenever he chose. This man saw his sister as a leech on the stronger members of society, a drain on resources, a hopeless case whose life could be put to better use in sacrifice for others. She was an object without thought or feelings, a commodity that could be exploited for wealth and convenient amenity. She was unworthy of existence in his master race.
But Kane wasn’t about to make this a conversation about Michael and his warped ideals. He refused to allow his anger to entertain Michael. Kane was suddenly philosophical. Michael wanted to save lives but to do it he had to destroy others. To a man like Michael who had undoubtedly seen much suffering that had kept him awake at night, the end justified the means. It was no excuse to Kane, simply an observation. The world often gave birth to monsters out of the initial beginnings of honest altru
ism and the hope of making a difference, when disappointment set in.
Michael needed putting back in his cage, along with his ideals and his distorted sense of moral medical justice. It wasn’t a fire Michael had started all on his own. It was one he had thrown paraffin on and stoked until it was beginning to burn out of control. Kane doubted that Rebecca and he would be able to extinguish the fire completely but they could make it burn a hell of a lot less fiercely.
Kane spoke quietly, calmly, determined to keep mastery over the situation. “I am not going to allow Rebecca to sit here and listen to your pathetic school boy excuses. You must really believe you have her around your little finger. You’ve known her all of your life and yet you don’t really know who she is. Rebecca is noble, self-sacrificing, courageous, everything you are not. She is horrified at what you have created.”
Michael didn’t speak. His eyes welled with tears and he rubbed his hands over his face a couple of times. Stuart gave Kane an impatient glance. He folded his arms.
Kane decided to step it up. “You know it is all over for you now. I am going to hand you in to the police when we land in London. Why don’t you save causing your sister more heart ache and tell me who her kidney has gone to and why they now want the other one.”
Michael stared at him and then rubbed his face again. “I didn’t want to hurt Rebecca. You have to tell her I love her. I never wanted to see her harmed...” Kane gave him a warning look. Michael looked at him defeated. He bent his head and told Kane, “It’s her father. Her natural father! He’s hell bent on using Rebecca to save his daughter, Rebecca’s half sister. She has damaged kidneys from a car accident a while ago. She’s only eighteen. She is a hell raiser, bit like her father by all accounts. She was joyriding...”