by Natalie Dean
Ellie dashed past him, towards the door, but Jacob got between her and the door and slammed it shut.
“How’d you find me?” he growled. His voice, like his hulking frame, was broken.
“What does that matter?” David stepped forward so that he and Adrianna were between Jacob and Ellie. “Just let us take Ellie and then you can do whatever you want.”
Jacob’s nose was bleeding. Apparently, David had gotten a good shot in before Jacob launched him into the TV.
“You’re done. We won. We found her, and the cops are on their way,” Adrianna snapped at him. Not true, but he didn’t know that. “Anything you do from now on will just make it worse.”
“Worse?” he snorted. “Worse? Tell me. How could it get worse? I stand to spend life in prison.”
Adrianna’s thigh started tingling, where she normally kept her gun sheathed. What she would have given to have her 9 millimeter with her right then…the kidnapper was a huge target. He blocked out the entire door. Instead, they were about to go hand-to-hand with him unless he moved away from the door, but she doubted that he was going to do that.
She was right.
Instead, he attacked.
Watching him go on the offensive was a bit like looking at a walrus attack a person on a nature show: slow, powerful, and still quite scary. Adrianna and David managed to get out of the way, but his fist took out a chunk of the wall.
A ferocious battle ensued. Adrianna and David were fast – way faster than he was – but as big as he was, he hardly felt their blows. The most disturbing thing was that he was not going for them – he was going for Ellie.
Ellie was screaming at the top of her lungs, throwing anything she could get her hands on at the advancing giant, backing up slowly. David clocked Jacob in the jaw. Nice shot. Spittle flew out. His teeth smashed together loudly. Jacob stumbled for a moment while David and Adrianna pummeled him. Adrianna had spent hours in combat training, but hitting Jacob was like hitting a punching bag – hard, immovable, and otherwise unaffected.
But even a big man like him could be brought down by one thing.
She brought her foot up right between his legs. He felt it. That’s for sure. But to her surprise and horror, it didn’t keep him down long. She kneed him in the face while he was bent over, cupping his crotch in pain. She felt his nose snap from her knee connecting with his face, but he must have been on drugs or something because he seemed to hardly feel it.
He got his sausage fingers around her hair and tossed her like a ragdoll across the bed. She bounced off the mattress and slammed into the wall, but she was up a moment later.
Jacob grabbed the glass shards of the TV and slashed at David like he had a knife. David barely managed to duck away.
Bleeding everywhere, limping, and making a demented low moan, Jacob slashed again at David. David had to duck away, leaving Ellie standing by the window unprotected.
He reared back his hand with the glass blade and slashed at Ellie. David was too far away. He’d tripped over the nightstand. Adrianna jumped in front of the blade as he started to bring it forward. She grabbed his wrist, keeping him from bringing it forward anymore. Or at least that was the plan. She managed to grab him, but she barely managed to slow his strike.
“Get off!” he bellowed.
He put all his strength into it. Adrianna was a strong woman. She’d never met a woman in better shape than her, and she was a lot stronger than most men, but against him, she dropped to one knee in a vain attempt to slow him. Her body got smashed up against Ellie.
And then David tackled Jacob from behind.
Adrianna didn’t even see him, but one second she was struggling against Jacob, and the next second he was coming towards her. His tree trunk legs caught up on her kneeling body. And with a howl of anger, he busted through the window and vanished.
“Ellie!” Adrianna yelled, stumbling to her feet. She was shaking. “E-Ellie! Are you okay?”
Ellie was crying, but she didn’t seem physically harmed. She managed a horrified head bob. She was fine.
Adrianna looked out the busted window.
Far below – two stories to be precise – Jacob was lying, face-down and contorted, on the bottom of the drained swimming pool with a red liquid filling up the bottom of the basin. He wasn’t moving.
“Don’t look.” Adrianna turned Ellie away, back towards the remains of the room and away from the pool. “Don’t look sweetie.”
They didn’t leave. Honestly, Adrianna didn’t even consider leaving the room, and she was pretty sure David didn’t either. They simply cuddled by the window until the police arrived. Adrianna suspected someone had called them, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was that her baby girl was safe.
Her baby girl. Huh. She wasn’t sure when she’d stopped seeing her as just David’s child. But she knew that she loved that little girl and started seeing her as her own flesh and blood.
She and David were swiftly arrested. Neither of them tried to fight or run or do anything. They just quietly obliged. They had no intention of being criminals. They’d saved Ellie. Nothing else mattered.
Nothing else mattered.
She held her wrists out silently as they locked the cold handcuffs around her wrists. She was utterly exhausted.
She looked over at David. His eyes were still wild and angry, but they were starting to dim as the realization set in that the whole escapade was over. Now all that was left was for the hammer to fall as it might.
The officers took her outside, past the hotel clerk who was all huddled up by an ambulance with a blanket around his shoulders. He looked like he might have seen a ghost when he saw her. She looked away. She didn’t want to scare the poor guy.
They took her straight past the police car.
“Hey,” Adrianna said. “I, uh, think you might have missed our stop here.”
“We’re not arresting you right now.”
“You have got to be kidding me. After all we did - “
David gave Adrianna the evil eye. “What are you trying to do? I’m sure the man knows what he’s talking about.”
Then Adrianna saw a black SUV, and she understood. Stone. The officers directed her and David to the door, which popped open.
“Come in,” came a deep voice from inside the darkened vehicle. She could recognize Stone’s voice anywhere.
She hopped into the car with David. The officers promptly shut the door, leaving them in darkened silence. The windows were tinted to the legal limit, and the interior was all pitch black, but eventually Adrianna’s eyes adjusted to see Agent Stone on the other side, arms crossed with a hard expression on his face.
“Heeyyy…” Adrianna managed. “Agent Stone...how can I help you?”
He took a long inhale, held it for a moment, and exhaled dramatically. “What was it I told you two NOT to do?”
Two to do, Adrianna thought. Hehe. Funny little thing to say. Yup. She was not in her right mind. “You told us to stay away from the case.”
“What was that?” He heard her. He just wanted her to repeat it.
“You said to stay away from the case,” she said, louder.
“That’s right. And what did you do?”
“Didn’t stay away from the case.”
“Wrong!” he slammed his fist down on the seat loudly. As tightly wound as Adrianna was, she almost jumped ten feet in the air. “You didn’t just not stay away. You broke into the agency. You shot at someone on a live interstate. You kidnapped a man after breaking into his house!” The vein in his forehead pulsed. He was ticked. “I had an idea you would ignore me. I had no idea you would toss all logic out the window and act like a damn fool!”
She sunk back into the seat. She hadn’t seen Stone angry many times before, and she didn’t like it. “Sorry.”
“Sorry? Sorry? You’ve humiliated the FBI!”
Neither David nor Adrianna spoke. What was there to say?
Stone rubbed his face with his hand, gathering himself befo
re speaking. “I took credit,” he said, quietly but with a degree of hardness to it. “According to the FBI, I sent you off after Jackson. As for you…” he turned his attention towards David, who looked about as surprised as Adrianna. “It was harder to get you off the hook. I still don’t know why I did. I should have let you go ahead and take the blame. Would’ve been easier for me.” He took a dramatic pause. Adrianna was pretty sure he was milking it. Although he was her boss, it was rare he ever had any real power over her. He sent her on assignments and let her have free reign because he knew she would always find the fugitive. Having him decide whether she and her fiancée would go to jail was disconcerting, to say the least.
“…and?” she asked, hoping to break the silence.
“But I did,” he said finally. “Had to pull all kinds of strings, but I got you off the hook.”
“Thank you!” David said. “I just don’t understand. How did you- “
Stone gave him the shut-up look. “Don’t matter.”
“So…” Adrianna couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “We’re not being arrested? I mean, we ran from the cops- “
He snorted. “I said I took credit. I didn’t say I got you off scot-free. Your two genius’ are spending the next year doing community service for that little stunt. And you…” he looked at Adrianna firmly. “I told you to stay away. You’ve got three years of probation now. Try another funny little stunt, and you’ll land yourself in jail. Understand?”
Adrianna nodded, stunned. She couldn’t believe it. She’d been expecting to go to prison for years at the very least. But somehow, some way, Stone had pulled his strings and gotten them off the hook. Stone, however, wasn’t done.
“You’re also going to need to take an unpaid leave from the agency until we get it all sorted out as well as take a series of classes. Think anger management.”
She didn’t care. Anything was better than the slammer. Especially as a former officer of the law…
Stone leaned back in the chair. “Okay. Adrianna, David, you two can go. I’ll have someone send you the details.” He bared his teeth in a feral smile. It was one of the first times she’d see him grin. “Until then, good work.”
He tapped against the door, and the officers opened them up.
“They’re good to go,” Stone said, and the officers unlocked her and David. Part of Adrianna wondered if there was a scenario in which he would have arrested them. If they’d been smug, she had no doubt he would have been fine letting them spend some time in jail. But because they had been respectful and appreciative, they were free.
Stone grabbed Adrianna’s arm as she exited the car, stopping her cold. When she looked back at him, his eyes were dangerously hard. “I like you, Whetmore. I’ve given you a pass. Next time, I will not be so forgiving.”
With that, he released her and closed the door.
Chapter 13
It wasn’t until about two hours later when they were back at the agency and waiting for Stone to tell them it was okay to leave, that Adrianna realized how sore her body was.
In the moment, fighting against Jacob, she hadn’t thought about it, but she had really been tossed around hard in that hotel room. Her hip hurt. Her ribs were aching. Nothing felt broken, but she knew she’d have bruises by the next day.
Ellie, meanwhile, had passed the “Quiet and Terrified” phase and gone into the “Won’t Stop Talking” phase. She chattered on and on about what she had done that was so brave when Jacob had kidnapped her. She said that Jacob was scary and mean, but he had never actually hurt her.
Adrianna didn’t mind the endless talking. She was just relieved to hear Ellie’s sweet little voice again.
“Were you brave?” David asked at one point on the seat in the waiting lounge, grinning down at his daughter.
She looked at her shoes bashfully. “Yeessss….”
He reached out and touched her on the nose. “Boop.”
The first few months she’d hung around David and Ellie, Adrianna had felt depressingly left out. However, over time, David came to care more about Adrianna. And Ellie had grown to start seeing Adrianna as a mother figure. It was all coming together for them to be a family. It felt great to finally be at peace, sitting there in the lounge with her fiancé and dear little Ellie.
Eventually, a woman came out of the office, telling them that Stone had finished up the paperwork and that they were free to go.
They ended up having to call a cab to get home because David’s car had been completely obliterated in their car accident when they’d first caught up with Jacob on the road. Ellie nodded off in the cab. She was exhausted, justifiably so. She’d had a long day.
“I feel like we should go to the doctor,” David whispered, leaning over to Adrianna. The cabbie hadn’t said anything the entire trip. He was just firmly focused on the road.
“Just to check if we’re hurt?” Adrianna replied quietly. Ellie had fallen asleep on her lap with her head across her legs, so she didn’t want to move. David came to her.
“Yeah. I mean, you busted through the windshield of my car…and I got pretty beat up. And who knows if Ellie’s got anything wrong.”
Adrianna nodded silently. What he was saying was smart. They were capable, not immortal. And she had gone through the car windshield... She’d heard of people breaking their necks in car crashes and ignoring the pain, thinking it was just a pinched spine, for years before problems started to actually emerge.
He gave her a sweet, caring smile and reached out for her hand. When she gave it to him, he squeezed it gently. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. Everything that needed to be said at that moment passed between them, without ever saying a word.
It took them a while to make it to their apartment. David paid the cabbie. Ellie was still sleeping, so very gently, David slid his arms under her and picked her up. He barely looked like he was straining to carry her all the way up to their apartment. Usually, Ellie walked up there herself, but she was zonked. She barely stirred when David picked her up.
Adrianna found the spare key and unlocked the door. Although the sun was still up, Adrianna and David fell asleep too, right after getting inside. David walked to the bedroom after laying Ellie in her own bed. Ellie had blinked sleepily before curling up in the sheets.
David dropped into the bed, still clothed. He was the kind of guy that didn’t like to sleep in his regular clothes. In all the time she’d known him, he had only gone to sleep in his day clothes once? Twice?
“I. Am. So. Freaking. Tired.” He said, face in the mattress.
Adrianna could not go to sleep without showering. Ever. She didn’t know why it bothered her so much. Everyone had their own little pet peeves. For David, it was people that called their significant other “bae.” For Adrianna, it was going to sleep dirty.
Zombie-like, she sluggishly went to get clothes – a sheer, silky smooth nightgown. After turning on the shower, she sat down on the bed to wait for the water to warm up.
David, who had not moved, geared his eyes towards her incredulously. “Are you seriously showering? Now? Just go to sleep…”
She leaned back. Without her consent, the bed sucked her onto her back, with the soft mattress cushioning her body. Her back sunk in deep. “I… I can’t,” she said with a yawn. “Just gonna take a quick...gonna take a quick shower.”
She’d been okay until she hit the bed. She’d felt tired earlier, but the longer she laid on the bed, the more exhausted she became – especially when David flung a hand out lazily onto her thigh.
“Staaaayyy.”
She moved his hand, but he put it back. “I….” she yawned loudly. “I… you know what? Forget it. One night of not showering won’t kill me.”
“That’s my girl,” he said, blinking very slowly.
She stumbled back to the shower and turned off the water. As she returned to the bed, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She hesitated for a moment, lingering to get a better picture of hersel
f. She looked like crap, first of all. She was still obviously attractive, but she hadn’t slept well in days. She’d gone through a windshield and been through more in the last few days than most people went through their entire lifetime.
Her long black hair was tossed everywhere. She looked like she’d spent an hour in front of a leaf-blower. She blew a strand of her jet-black hair out of her face.
Maybe at another time she would have studied herself in the mirror and come to an enlightening realization or something, but right then she was entirely too sleepy. She pulled her eyes away and went back to the bed. David still hadn’t moved. He was halfway off the bed, his general upper body was sprawled across the bed, while his legs were half on the ground.
“I’m tired.”
“Really?” as she went past him, she playfully clapped him on the butt.
“Oh, my,” he said. “How very immature.”
She slid into her side of the bed. It felt like heaven.
David summoned his energy and surged onto the bed. “I’m going to sue for sexual harassment.”
“I’m terrified,” she replied, melting into the bed.
“You should be.” He pulled off his shoes and tossed them away. “I’ll have you know….” He paused. “I forgot what I was saying.”
“You were threatening to sue,” she said. She closed her eyes.
“Oh, yeah.”
There was a pause.
“Ads?” he said.
She didn’t open her eyes. She felt like she had maybe thirty seconds before she was out. Although she’d gotten some sleep on their little adventure, it hadn’t been anywhere near enough.
“Mmmmphhhh?”
“I love you.”
“I love you more.”
“I’m glad I’m marrying you.”
She tried to wake up enough to finish the conversation, but it was like running through mud while pulling a boulder. “I am too.”
He shifted to get more comfortable. “I’m too tired to be romantic today. Wanna try again tomorrow?”
“Yeah….”
Adrianna was asleep in seconds.