Blind Love

by Kishan Paul

  He patted her shoulder and stepped back. “There, much better. Now, in answer to your question, yes, she hurt me.”

  Her heart thumped hard against her chest. Perspiration soaked her clothes. Lauren’s fingers clawed the plastic twine digging into her skin as her mind raced to keep the conversation going.

  “Anymore questions?” He sat in front of her and sighed.

  All her attention was focused on the one spot behind her. She scraped her nails into the rope as she continued their conversation. “Did you two know each other a long time?”

  He started throwing rocks at the trees beside her. “You could say that. We’ve been neighbors for over five years. I’m a security guard at the bank she worked at, actually helped her get the job there.”

  She tried to be still while her fingers pulled and twisted. “So you spent a lot of time together.”

  “Not as much as I would have liked. It was always fucking on her time. When it was right for her.”

  Lauren focused on the bitterness and pain in his voice.

  “Did she know how much you loved her?”

  He didn’t respond for a while. The sounds of the stones he threw slamming around her grew louder. She worried if she’d pushed too far. “I loved everything about her. She was beautiful, funny, smart. Perfect. But a better question to ask is: Did she fuckin’ care? And the answer is a big fat hell no. Told me if I kept bothering her, she’d call the cops. Said I needed to go get help.”

  One of the twines on her wrist began to unravel. Lauren pinched into the weakened fiber and twisted. “That must have been hard for you to hear.”

  “After everything I did for the woman, all she cared about was the piece of shit absentee husband of hers. Fucking led me on and then kicked me out. You can’t make love to a man and the next day say it wasn’t consensual. Just ain’t right.”

  Her chest tightened. She worked to keep her tone even and words calculated. “Is that what she claimed? You raped her.”

  He shot up from his spot on the ground and stormed over to her.

  When he wrapped a hand around her throat and squeezed, every organ in her body froze.

  “I. Am. Not. A. God. Damn. Rapist. You hear me?”

  She nodded.

  He released his grip and began to pace. “Bullshit. Said I scared the shit out of her son and hurt her. I loved the woman. I’d never hurt her.”

  Lauren dug harder into the rope. “It must have been hard for you when she died.”

  The man blew a breath. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it was her fucking choice. I told her I’d take care of her and the boy. She said no.”

  He stepped close and rested his head against hers. Lauren slammed her lids shut and stayed rigid. “You’re going to kill her son too?”

  After what felt like an eternity, he stepped back and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Naw, he’s just a kid but I do have a promise to make good on. I’ve always wanted a son, someone to take hunting and fishing, and you’re keeping me from him.” Lauren shook her head and sobbed as terror crawled up her spine.

  “Please, don’t,” she begged.

  She turned away when the back of his hand trailed her cheek. “Not your call to make. As nice as this talk’s been and all, time’s up. I wish I could let you keep working on your rope. It would have made things a lot more fun.”

  When the attacker started to walk away, she did the only thing she could. “He’s finally happy. Leave him alone. I’ll make a deal with you.”

  A calloused finger scraped over her lip. She jolted her head away before she could stop herself.

  He laughed. “What kind of deal?”

  “Take me,” she whispered. “No arguments. No escape. I’ll come with you. My life for his.” She didn’t allow herself to think about what she was saying. It didn’t matter anyway. Evan’s safety was all she cared about.

  His hand cupped her neck, forcing her to face him. He stepped closer until his hips smashed into hers. The hard stubble of his cheek burned against her skin. She shuddered when he nipped at her earlobe. “Sorry, sweetheart, but you’re not my type. Don’t worry though, I’ll be humane about it.”

  Rough lips scraped across her forehead. “One bullet through your brain and you’ll be done. Promise.”

  Although drenched with sweat, Lauren shook uncontrollably. Everything around her was spinning. She slammed her eyes shut and fought the queasiness rising from within.

  “Can I have a moment first? It’s my last few minutes alive. I want to get my thoughts centered.”

  “Sure,” he wiped the bead of perspiration off her lip. “Go ahead and pray, sweetheart. If you’re lucky, you might be meeting Him real soon.” The sarcasm and coldness of his voice inched the nausea higher. She swallowed it down.

  He trailed his hand down the length of her arm and walked around to the back of her. Lauren’s muscles tightened when the tips of his fingers grazed her skin as he touched the part of the rope she had been ripping.

  Calloused hands grabbed her wrists, slamming her spine against the tree. “You did some damage back here. More than I gave you credit for. Why fight the inevitable?”

  She leaned the back of her head against the wooded surface as a tear escaped her eye.

  Fighting the inevitable.

  How much of her life had she spent doing just that? Rebelling against things beyond her control?

  If she had only known…

  So many people had come into her life and most of them, she’d pushed away. Images of the ones who refused to let her go, ran through her head and, silently, she said goodbye to each.

  A gentle breeze caressed her cheek and with it came the faint smell of cedar and pine. She filled her lungs with the scent and smiled.

  Gabe.

  Her muscles eased at the memory of him.

  It took this moment for her to accept the truth. She loved him. Everything about him. The tears flowed freely as she thought of all the time she wasted pushing him away. He had been good for her. Made her feel for the first time she was beautiful and capable. Gabe was an honest man with a good heart. He deserved to be with Evan just as much as the child deserved to be with Gabe. Lauren prayed he would keep the little boy safe.

  A torrential flood of emotions flowed through her, making her body tremble. She worked on her breathing and focused. Scared and alone would not be how she would leave this world. She rolled her shoulders back and held her head up.

  Somewhere on the other side, a big hairy dog was waiting for her. The thought of Jack eased her fears. With another deep breath, she pressed her spine against the trunk of the tree and nodded.

  In the distance the faint wails of a police siren sounded. He walked around and stood in front of her. The metal of the gun slid. “Time’s up.”

  Lauren didn’t want to waste her last seconds staring at the fuzzy image of the man who would take her life. Instead, she closed her eyes and remembered walking along the beach of Maui as a child.

  A vivid blue sky was what she saw, and the ocean the most beautiful turquoise ever seen.

  A shot exploded into the silence, breaking her concentration.

  Funny, she was sure he had a silencer.

  The thud of the bullet hitting skin and bone made her cringe but, mercifully, there was no pain.

  She tried to stay focused on the beach.

  Maybe that’s where Jack would find her.

  Seconds later, another explosion invaded her thoughts and with it, yet another thud.

  Her body chilled and legs buckled.

  Lauren slid to the ground as her world turned black.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The Escape

  Flat on his stomach and surrounded by thick brush, Gabe peered through the scope of his rifle. A green light flashed repeatedly on the cell phone lying beside him, alertin
g him to what he already knew. He was about a hundred yards away from Lauren and the gunman. The land between him and them was clear of obstruction, except for a few scattered oak trees.

  The muzzle of his rifle poked out between a small opening created by two of the trees surrounding him. His elbows dug into the dry, dusty earth as the weapon was perched in his palms, its butt atop his shoulder. The gun’s stock stayed straight and stable under the grasp of his left hand. All but one of the fingers on his right wrapped tight around the grip of the rifle. A lone digit sat hooked around the trigger, waiting for the opportunity to press against it and make the kill.

  And the target: Raymond West.

  Gabe recognized the heavy-set, light-haired man the minute he laid eyes on him. The fucker had been Autumn’s neighbor. They even talked a couple of times in the past weeks while he was in Houston. His muscles tightened at the thought.

  How the hell did the lying sack of shit fall under the radar of both the cops and him?

  The trunk of an oak tree blocked Raymond’s head from Gabe’s sight line. He almost had the target in the center of the scope at one point, but the man shifted directions at the last minute.

  Aside from the slight rustling of leaves, the woods were silent. Portions of the man’s conversation with Lauren floated to Gabe’s ears. He listened as Raymond proclaimed his love for Autumn and, in so many words, confessed to raping her. When he mentioned something about a promise he needed to keep, he noticed the way Lauren shook her head. The more the man talked, the more the pieces fell into place.

  One thing became crystal clear: Raymond West was a killer and would kill again.

  Anger brewed in Gabe’s chest and the urge to pull the trigger was hard to keep at bay. Especially when the son-of-a-bitch pressed his body into Lauren’s like he just did. It took every ounce of strength he could muster to not pepper the man’s body with bullets.

  It was too risky. There could be a vest under his blue tee. If there wasn’t a vest, the bullets might go right through him and into Lauren. Or, realizing the attack, the target could take the gun in his hand and kill Lauren before Gabe had a chance to finish him off. With her life in danger, every move he made had to be calculated, precise.

  He scanned Lauren’s body for injury. She stood with her arms wrapped around the tree behind her. The muscles in his jaw clenched as he took her in. Her face and clothes were stained red and from the way she avoided putting weight on her right leg, it was injured.

  Gabe forced himself to look away. After spending twelve years as a Marine, eight of those as a Scout Sniper, he knew better than to let his anger lead him. Reacting emotionally and breathing erratically might set him up for error—something he couldn’t afford. So he worked on keeping his respiration steady and his eye fixed in the cross-hair of the scope—not on Lauren.

  Patience was not something he had much of currently. He cracked his neck and waited for the few unobstructed seconds he needed to make a successful kill. And it would come. It always did.

  When the man walked out from behind Lauren and directly into the sight line, Gabe sucked in a slow lungful of air, and, as he released it, pulled the trigger. One straight shot aimed for the head. He didn’t wait to see if it hit its mark before aiming and shooting again, this time into the man’s thick trunk.

  Gabe rose from his spot, slung the rifle’s strap over his shoulder, and put the tracker in his jeans pocket. There was no need to see if the man was dead. He already knew the answer. Instead, he sprinted across the field to get Lauren the hell away from there.

  The hundred yards between them seemed to widen with each second. She can’t die. He pounded his feet into the earth and ran as fast as he could while he repeated the words. By the time he got to her, she lay huddled on the ground, her arms still wrapped behind the tree.

  Sliding to his knees, he cupped her face with his hands, tilting it up. “Lauren, can you hear me?”

  Her eyes stayed closed and her head weighed heavy in his palms. For a few seconds, his brain shut down. He didn’t move or breathe. Could only stare at her as a chill crept up his spine. Was he too late? All his years of training hadn’t prepared him on what to do if the woman he loved died.

  As the terror bubbled inside him, Gabe locked it away with the other emotions he’d pushed past in the last two hours. Fear. Anger. Guilt. The list was endless and none of them were of any help.

  When he pushed his fingers against the vein in her neck, a faint pulse beneath her skin tapped back. He blew out a breath and pressed his lips against her cheek.

  She was alive.

  Wrapping an arm around her waist, he leaned her against the tree. From his back pocket, he retrieved his army blade and reached around her, slicing the binding from her arms. She went slack the minute the ties were removed and fell onto his chest.

  He pulled her into his arms and laid her gently on the earth, inspecting her injuries. Welts and deep gashes covered the soft skin of her wrists. The edges of her mouth were red and crusty with dried blood and abrasions. But those injuries weren’t the reasons his heart was pounding.

  It was the tinge of blue on her lips. The clammy, cool feel of her skin.

  Somewhere, she was bleeding out.

  After scanning the rest of her body, he had his answer: the injured right leg. The blood-soaked jeans and bullet hole in her thigh had his lungs pole-vaulting out of his body.

  Sweat dripped down his face and back as he cut off the fabric and assessed the damage. The wound went deep, bleeding excessively. He pulled off his shirt and tied it directly above the gash. Unbuckling his belt, he wrapped it snug over the fabric and tightened the leather as much as possible in the hopes of decreasing the blood flow to the area.

  When Gabe slid his hands under her, lifting her into his arms, she cried out in pain. It was the most beautiful sound he’d heard in hours. “Can you hear me, sweetheart?”

  “Don’t call me sweetheart,” she whispered.

  He grinned and held her a little tighter. The smart-ass woman he loved was still there. “Deal. Put your arms around my neck and hold on. I’m going to run.”

  Lauren hugged onto him and rested her head against his shoulder, falling in and out of sleep. Having her so close, feeling her breath against his neck, and the faint smell of citrus in her hair, had his eyes burning. After an hour of driving down the interstate not knowing if she was alive or dead…

  He blinked away the moisture threatening to spill and sprinted through the woods. She’d lost a lot of blood, and from the way it was soaking into his jeans, she was still bleeding. Between the injuries and the sun beginning its descent, everything was getting darker by the minute.

  Gabe jumped over a log, jostling her back to consciousness.

  She rubbed her nose against his neck. “I dreamt about Jack. He was running down the beach coming straight at me. All big and beautiful and happy.”

  Her head bounced against him as he hurdled over obstacles and weaved around trees. Soon she fell back asleep.

  “Gabe?” she asked as her grip around his neck loosened.

  He tried to ignore how her lips moved against his skin when she spoke.

  “Still here,” he said.

  “I love you.” Her voice came out soft and breathless, but he heard every chest-piercing syllable.

  Her words were so unexpected and shocking, Gabe stumbled, almost dropping her. He caught his footing, adjusted his grip and continued forward, trying to shake off the impact. A tear slipped from his eye. No. Now was not the time to think about what she said. His only job was to keep her alive.

  Lauren’s arm fell from his neck and dropped limp to her side. Seconds before her head flew back, he lifted her higher, crushing her cheek against his chest.

  Moisture dripped from every part of him. “Hang on, baby, we’re almost there.” Even as he said the words, he knew she couldn’t hear him.

/>   In the distance, men yelled out orders and dogs barked. The sounds sent a surge of energy through him, pushing him farther, faster.

  When he approached the steep incline separating the forest from the road above, a half dozen of the local PD’s tactical team were waiting. Dressed in dark body armor and helmets, the red lasers of their guns flashed in his face.

  “Put her down,” one of the men ordered.

  Gabe stopped in his tracks and tried to catch his breath. “She’s lost a lot of blood and needs medical attention.”

  “And we’ll make sure she gets it. First, you need to lay her down, put your weapon on the ground, and step away.”

  “Lower your guns.” Lauren’s father slid down the steep incline to the human wall of the SWAT team. “He’s the reason she’s alive. Let him through.”

  Before James could get any further, one of the men restrained him.

  “And we will, as soon as he puts her and the gun down and backs away.”

  Gabe understood. At this point, they didn’t know if he was the killer or the friend. He carefully rested her on the earth in front of him. With one hand in the air, he pulled off his rifle and laid it beside her. Stepping a few feet away, he got on his knees and placed his palms on the back of his head.

  His arms were yanked hard and wrists cuffed. They said things he didn’t hear. For him, it was all background noise to the more important scene unfolding in front of him. Paramedics picked Lauren up and laid her on a stretcher.

  Her father stood by her side, looking between his daughter and Gabe.

  Gabe tilted his chin toward Lauren, encouraging the man to go with her. James nodded and flashed a grateful look before running behind the EMTs as they carried her up the slope.

  They shoved her stretcher into the vehicle’s open doors. James jumped into the cabin of the ambulance seconds before the doors slammed shut. Sirens sounded. The dark sky filled with swirling lights as they transported her.

  If anyone could survive this, it was Lauren. She was the strongest person he’d ever met. The vehicle and its valuable contents disappeared from his line of sight.