“Marc,” she suddenly said, startling him a little. He’d thought she’d fallen asleep.
“What?” he asked back, his voice loud in the small room.
“We only have two days. Do you really think we’ll make it?” she asked.
He realized it was the first time her voice hadn’t been combative since he’d made her stop her car.
“Possibly. If there’s no hiccups,” he answered.
“And if there is a hiccup?”
“Then we’ll deal with it. Besides, there can’t be only one ferry to Barcelona.”
“This has to work, Marc. You screwed it up. Now you have to make it happen,” she whispered. He took a deep breath.
“I don’t have to do anything. I just want those diamonds.”
DAY THREE
Lily woke up slowly, not sure where she was for a moment. It was warm and humid, but Africa always felt warm and humid to her. She stretched her legs and her feet came into contact with something. She froze and opened her eyes.
She was completely pressed up against Marc’s side. He was sleeping on his back, his hands clasped on top of his chest. She was on her side, her forehead actually touching his bicep. She must’ve rolled into him in her sleep because she’d gone to bed with her back to him, with as much space between them as she could manage.
She sat up, blinking and taking in their room. She couldn’t figure out what had woken her up, but there had been something. There was soft light coming in the windows, so she knew the sun was just rising. She scowled and glanced down at her sleeping captor. She reached out to push him awake.
“Marc, are you -” she began to say, but his hand snatched hers, holding it just above his chest.
“Shut up,” he hissed.
“Did you hear something, too?” she whispered, ignoring his request.
“Yes.”
Bullets ripped through the room, just above their bed. Lily fell against the mattress and Marc’s arms went around her as he rolled them off the bed. They landed on the floor, Lily on top of his chest. She covered her ears while his hands covered her head, holding her flat against him.
“What the fuck is going on!?” she shouted.
“Someone found us! Did you fucking do something while I was asleep!?” he shouted back.
“Are you kidding!? I’m chained to you, you idiot! What do you think I did, popped out for a quick phone call!?” she was shrieking.
The bullets stopped and Marc immediately shoved her to the side. He began doing a quick crawl across the floor, like a spider, staying as low as possible without actually slithering. The chain went tight and she was yanked along behind him.
“They’re in the back,” Marc explained, his voice low as she came up next to him, “but they won’t stay there. Some are probably already in the house. We’re gonna have to fight our way out. Stay close to me, stay at my back, and stay quiet. If you get in my way, I’ll shoot you. If you slow me down, I’ll shoot you.”
“Unchain me and give me a gun!” she demanded, pulling on the chain for emphasis. He pulled two hand guns out of his bag, but neither of them went to her. One went into the back of his pants, and the other he laid at his feet. Then he pulled her Glock out and it joined the first gun at his back, the butts sticking out above his belt. He took out extra clips, storing them in his pockets. He handed two clips to her and she let out a sigh of relief, expecting a gun of her own to follow. But it didn’t. He took out a set of keys and zipped his bag shut.
“Remember, stay at my back,” he ordered her as he unlocked the padlock on his wrist. The chain fell free.
“What!? Gun! I need a gun! I can’t go out there unarmed! They have a fucking anti-aircraft machine gun out there!” she was almost yelling.
“Deal with it. You’re not getting a weapon.”
And that was it, he was moving towards their door while he put the bag on his back.
“Hey! Hey! Chain!” she snapped.
He turned just enough to toss the keys at her, but at the same time the machine gun from outside started firing again. Startled, she missed the catch and the keys hit her palm, bouncing to the floor. She watched in dismay as they fell through a crack in the floorboards. She cursed and slammed her fists against the wood, listening as the gun shots died down.
“This is it, sweetheart. Keep up!”
Marc had risen to stand against the wall, a gun in his hand. He yanked open the door, waited a beat, then spun around, the gun outstretched. Lily stayed flat against the floor, waiting for someone to fire. When nothing happened, she got up and scurried behind him, hunching down and matching him step for step as he made his way down the hall.
“Which way are we going?” she whispered.
“The front.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“Have you got a better one!? Just shut up and keep moving!”
There was shouting from the end of the hall and Marc immediately hugged the wall closest to them. Lily followed suit, trying to coil all the excess chain around her arm. Whoever was yelling, they were speaking in a language she didn’t understand, a mangled sort of French. Marc held still, his head cocked towards the voice.
“Can you understand what they’re saying?” she asked.
“What part of ‘shut the fuck up’ don’t you fucking understand!?” he growled, not looking at her. “Yes. He’s saying he knows we’re here and he knows what I did. He’s saying he wants the diamonds. Ask me another question and I’ll shoot you in the leg.”
Lily kept her mouth shut.
As they got closer to the voice, her breathing picked up. She’d trained in dozens and dozens of classes, but nothing ever compared to real life action. They were heading towards potential death. Those had been real bullets ripping through the building. They were surrounded by very angry people with very real guns. She could die. Chances were high that she would die.
No. Not yet. Remember everything you were taught. You have to make it. You have to. Trust him to get you out of this. You have to make it.
Marc once again had the gun out in front of him. They got to the end of the hall. Whoever was yelling was right next to them. Lily squeezed her eyes shut tight, pushing her forehead against Marc’s shoulder blades. She would kill for a gun, but both of the other ones he had were hidden by the bag on his back. She took a deep breath and stood upright. He glanced at her and she nodded, staring straight ahead.
Well. It was a good life, for the most part. At least I got to have fantastic sex one last time before I died.
Marc held the gun up, at first at the same height as his own head, and then a couple inches higher. He moved it around for a bit, then held it in place. At first she couldn’t figure out what he was doing, then she understood, and after a two count beat, he stuck the gun out around the corner.
There was silence, so Marc slowly moved out of the hall, not moving his arm at all. Lily followed suit. The barrel of his gun was pressed into the middle of a tall man’s forehead. The man looked cross eyed, staring straight up. Marc cleared his throat and their attacker finally looked at them.
“You have two seconds to drop your gun,” Marc warned in a low voice. The man glared.
“Fuck you, De Sant. We know who you are, and the whore you’ve got with you, and we’re going -”
BANG.
Lily had heard guns fired before, of course. She’d shot guns plenty of times, in firing ranges. There, in Africa. At Marc, specifically. But it still sounded different when he pulled the trigger.
Maybe because she’d never heard a gun being fired while shoved up against someone’s skull. The shot was loud, but she didn’t make a peep. Not even when the man’s body hit the floor.
“Move. They had to have heard that, they’ll be coming,” Marc told her.
Lily moved.
They went down the stairs in a crouch, the gun once again leading the way. There was nobody on the bottom floor, but she could hear movement in some of the back rooms. She tried to remember the layout f
rom the night before – there was a large gathering room at the front, where they were in now. Beyond that she had seen a large dining room, which meant there had to be a kitchen, and both were separated from the gathering room by a narrow hallway that possibly let to more rooms. All the guest rooms had been on upper floors.
“How many of them do you think there are?” Lily whispered, crouching behind him when he dropped down next to the entrance to the dining room.
“Not many. Small group, maybe three or four. That’s why only one guy was on the stairs. They’re trying to scare us, trying to hold us here, till reinforcements arrive. Fucking idiots, I bet they weren’t supposed to do anything, probably were just supposed to watch the house, but the temptation to bag such a large catch was too much. Too bad. I’m going to kill all of them and we’re going to steal whatever car they came in, ditch that piece of shit we stole yesterday,” Marc informed her.
“So only three shooters left?” she asked.
“If we’re lucky. It’s going to get harder. Two of them are down here, they won’t hesitate like our friend upstairs. Stay behind me. Hit the floor if there’s gun fire,” he instructed.
“Or you could give me a gun and I could help!”
“No. You’ll never have a gun while you’re at my back. Now shut up, and -”
He never got to finish snapping at her. Bullets peppered the frame of the doorway where they were crouching. She clutched his backpack between her hands, praying for it to end. She’d never pictured it being so loud, so big. A gun fight. It felt like the whole house was shaking.
“Give us diamonds! No one get hurt!”
Marc ducked around the frame, fired five shots, rapid fire, then quickly moved back next to her. More shots were fired from the dining room. He seemed to hold his breath, waiting them out.
“One of them is in the kitchen, firing over a breakfast bar,” he whispered when the bullets stopped.
“None others?”
“Not that I could see.”
As if that had been a spoken cue, the front door to the house burst open. A screaming man came running in, two machine guns in his hands. Lily didn’t even need instructions, she began scrambling backwards as the bullets started flying. Marc did the same, moving double time, shoving up between her legs as they fell into the hallway between the kitchen and gathering room. Marc laid down on top of her, forcing her flat, as he whipped out one of his other guns and began firing it in the direction of the living room.
“Go! Go! Look for a way out!” he was yelling at her.
She yanked herself out from underneath him just as the assailant from the dining room came rushing out. Two bullets to his chest dropped him, but Lily didn’t think about that. She pressed her back against a wall and moved down the hall, just as Marc had done earlier.
Two. That’s two dead. If he’s right, that means only two more. Man in the living room. Guy with the gun out back. Only two. We can do this. We are doing this.
The machine guns from the living room erupted once again, but she didn’t look back. There were three doors – one next to her, one in the opposite wall ahead of her, and one at the end of the hall. Two of them were closed and the one that lead into the kitchen was open. She gripped the door knob next to her, but found she was scared to open it. What if someone jumped out?
The chain was wrapped around her left arm, and she let it fall loose. She doled out about six feet worth, then doubled it, leaving three feet of excess hanging and making the chain seem twice as thick. She cast one glance back at Marc. He was pressed against the same wall as her, and he was reloading his gun. He looked back at her, flicked his eyes to her chain, then back to her face, and he nodded. She could almost hear his voice in her head.
Now or never, sweetheart.
She twisted the knob and shoved open the door. Nobody rushed out, so she dropped into a squat and peeked into the room. A couple heads were peeking back, looking over the top of a large metal desk. The family who owned the house, maybe some renters. One of them stood up, an old man, holding a gun that looked even older than him. Lily held up her hand. A peace offering. There was hesitation, then the man held up his hand as well, and he got back behind the desk. She stood back up, reached in and grabbed the door. As she swung it closed, gun shots started behind her again.
“I said look for a way out, sweetheart, not fucking make friends! Move your fat ass!” Marc started shouting.
Fat ass!?
Her success with the first door emboldened her, so Lily dashed to the end of the hall and repeated the act with that door. Broom closet. That just left the kitchen. That made her nervous, because it had open access to the dining room, which meant the living room. Also, the back door was in the kitchen, and it was open by the looks of it. All she had was her three feet of chain.
Fucking mercenary asshole.
There was no one in the kitchen, but the moment she stepped foot in it, the big gun outside started blazing. She hit the floor, dropping her chain and covering her ears. Fuck, it sounded like the gun was in the kitchen with her, it was so loud. Bullets ripped everything to shreds, blowing up appliances, taking cupboards off their hinges, hitting the door with such force it bounced shut, hitting her in the leg.
“Stop it!” she started screaming, not even realizing she was doing so. “Stop it, stop it, stop it!”
She didn’t know if it was because of her pleas or not, but the burst of gun fire ceased. She breathed a sigh of relief, but then gun shots from the living room started. That was a much shorter burst. Footsteps came pounding down the hall and she scurried to get out of the way, crouching in front of shelves, trying to stay hidden. The door slammed open and she held her breath.
“Lily!?” Marc shouted, striding past her.
She grabbed the back of his pants and yanked him down, just as the gunman outside opened fire again. Marc scooted backwards, sitting back against the shelves next to her. He held up his gun.
“I’m out,” was all he said. She patted down her legs, found one of the clips, and pulled it out. He slammed the gun down on it, then slapped it against his palm, locking the magazine into place. The shooting outside stopped.
“Man in the living room?” she asked, breathing hard.
“Doesn’t exist anymore. What was in the room across the hall?”
“Office. Family who owns the place. No exits.”
“Good job. Now to take out this nutter,” Marc grumbled, pulling out his second gun from his back. Her Glock fell out of his pants and hit the floor, so she dove to grab it.
“Fucker! It’s empty,” she hissed, checking the clip. She tucked the useless gun into the back of her own pants.
“It’s all yours, I guess,” he began crawling towards the back door.
Lily went to move after him, but only got halfway across the floor when she was pulled to a stop. She looked back and saw that her doubled-up chain was caught under the door. She crawled back towards it and began yanking, but it wouldn’t come free. It was lodged under the door in such a way that it wouldn’t move, and the door wouldn’t budge.
“I’m stuck!” she hissed, panic clawing at her chest. If she couldn’t move, then she was a sitting duck. She sat back against her heels, pulling at the chain that was looped around her waist.
“I’ll come back for you!” Marc snapped.
“No! No! Do not leave me here! You have no clue how many guys there could actually be!” Fuck whispering, Lily was practically yelling now.
“Shut the fuck up!” he yelled back, trying to look out the doorway without being seen.
She was about to respond with something witty and cutting, but she was interrupted by a crazy man that came running, screaming, into the kitchen. She shrieked and scooted backwards, moving herself up against the same shelves as before, watching while the guy leveled a sawed off shotgun on Marc. She didn’t even think, she grabbed the closest thing to her and launched it at the shooter’s head. A cast iron skillet hit him, causing him to howl in pain. He spun arou
nd, catching her in the side of the face with the butt of his gun. It was enough to stun her and send her to the ground. More gun shots were fired while her brain rattled around in her head.
I wonder if I got a concussion when Marc hit me that first day, and this has all been a coma dream?
There was a muffled sort of quiet. She could hear Marc shouting, she could see their new pal dropping to the tiled floor, his weapon clattering on the ground, but it was all sort of surreal. Fuzzy. Blood spread out from the dead gang member’s head, spreading across the floor.
She glanced back towards the door, her hearing starting to clear up. She could detect footsteps racing towards them. Another person. She sat up, ignoring the dizziness that swept over her, and grabbed her chain, pulling it as taut as possible. It sprung up at an angle, hovering a couple inches above the floor.
When the man ran through the door, his foot caught on the chain, sending him sprawling to the ground. The force with which he tripped yanked her forward, towards him. He shouted angrily in another language, then saw the chain. He grabbed it and started reeling her into him.
Don’t let him get you. Do something, Lily! Do something!
The shotgun was near her, so Lily grabbed it, swinging it in a wide arc. The barrel clipped him in the nose, causing him to shout in pain and drop the huge machete he’d been waving. He snatched the end of the gun, trying to pull it from her. Tug-o-war started, and she found herself once again being pulled towards him. So she did the only other thing she could think of – she pulled the trigger.
His hand turned into confetti, blood raining everywhere. The release of tension on the gun caused her to fall flat onto her back. The injured man fell to his side, as well, screaming in pain as he stared at where his hand used to be.
“You fucking bitch! I kill you! I kill you, fucking bitch!” he was screaming in English, as well as in his own language, while his remaining hand felt around for his machete.
Lily didn’t give him the chance. While still laying flat, she swung the shot gun up, resting it on her chest and pointing it directly in his face. Then she turned her head away and pulled the trigger.
Best Laid Plans Page 9