All The Pieces (Pieces of Lies 3)

by Angela Richardson

  “They are coming for you right now Len. The Lappell. They have found out we are leaving and they are coming to get you. We have to leave immediately. Your Dad has some men meeting us at Hoppers Crossroad in thirty minutes.”

  “That place is about an hour from here,” Clint informed us all.

  “Are you kidding? We have thirty minutes. Shit!” Samuel stomped his foot on the ground, not at all happy with the news.

  Norah stepped forward. “Clint can get us there in time. He is the best driver I know.” She looked at Clint now. “Right Clint? You can get us there in thirty minutes can’t you?”

  Clint stared at Norah, a quiet calm between them. Tess, Samuel and I watched on in hope, wondering if he could really pull this off. Clint held out his hand, and as if Norah knew what he was thinking, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a set of car keys, walking over slowly and placing them gently in his palm. There was another silent moment that passed between them as they both looked at the keys. They were talking without saying a word. Then Clint snapped his head, picking up the keys and holding them in the air, triumphant.

  “Yes. I. Can. Let’s do this.”

  There was no time to change or clean myself up. I was about to disappear barefoot, wearing a leotard, covered in paint. It certainly wasn’t the ideal get away get up. But there was no time for anything now. No time for deep and meaningful conversations. No more time for dates. No time to think about the feelings I had to leave behind. No time to wonder what could have been. I had to focus on the next step. It was the next stage of my life with what I had chosen to do and who I had chosen to do it with. I did feel it though. The doubt. The possibility I was moving unnaturally to actions based on pure instinct, but even if there was a part of me that told me that I had chosen wrong, there was also a part inside me that told me I had chosen right. It had become such a familiar feeling. I realized that even if I loved two people, you can’t be with both. Life doesn’t work that way and if fate was on my side, then it would have been a lot clearer about who I should be with, especially given my condition. But maybe fate was just as confused as me. Undecided about who was really my true ‘ying’ to my ‘yang’. Perhaps it was still weighing up all the players, waiting and watching to see who would be the last man standing.

  Clint brought his sister’s Mercedes around to the back of the mansion and we all piled in. Me, Josh and Samuel in the back, and Tess in the front. Clint took off as soon as we slammed the doors shut. He made his way down a back road he must have known quite well. The road conditions were not as good as the highway, but I figured he must be using a way that would help us get to the crossroads faster. The winding woodland’s road twisted in and out between shrubbery and trees. We bounced around in the backseat in silence, not wanting to distract Clint in fear it would throw off his focus. Time was the enemy, and the future for Josh and I was now in Clint’s hands and his ability as a driver.

  I was sitting between Samuel and Josh on the back seat. Josh was holding my hand and Samuel kept looking uneasily over his shoulder at the road behind us and the trail of dust blowing up behind the car.

  Samuel tensed in his seat, lifting his head and squinting his eyes. “Shit, we’ve got company.” He turned his whole body to get a better look. The rest of us peered over our shoulders, trying to see what had burst out from a side road somewhere and was now hot on our tracks. A silver SUV was coming up fast behind our car, moving at incredible speed.

  “How did they find us so quickly?” Tess asked, sitting on her knees facing the back seat, directing her question at Samuel.

  “When I spoke to Joe, he said they were already watching us. They must have heard we received word from New York.” Samuel reached behind his back, pulling out the Magnum he had tucked in his worn jeans. He looked quickly into my eyes as he rested the gun on his lap. We didn’t need to talk to know what he was getting ready to do. He tapped the gun softly as Tess took in the size of the barrel. “Just in case,” he said out loud, which was more for Tess’s sake than it was for me. I wasn’t a fool to think this wasn’t going to turn into an ugly battle. Men in the Lappell, and men like my Dad, don’t muck around. Their threats were real. Guns were fired. They weren’t just for show, and I was positive that the Lappell would have no problem shooting us all in the head, and burying us on the side of the road here in the English countryside if that was their intention. Given Samuel and I knew these types of outcomes all too well, we weren’t going to alarm Tess any further, but seeing the look on her face, I didn’t think we could downplay the severity of the situation. The gun and the speed at which we were driving had set her off.

  “Will you really need to use that Samuel?”

  “Will they try and hurt us?”

  “Are they going to take Norah away?”

  “What happens if they catch us?”

  “What will we do?”

  Question after question spewed out of Tess’s panicking mouth. I wasn’t sure how to calm her down from the back seat of the car. Samuel clenched and unclenched his hands. Tess’s eyes got wider and wider as her verbal outburst continued to cause the tension in the car to rise. Samuel, who looked like he couldn’t take the rambling another minute, reached across, grabbed Tess’s face, and kissed her. Tess shut her eyes tight, like she was in a dream and holding on to the feeling of the kiss as long as she could savor. Samuel pulled away from Tess, moving slowly back to where he was seated. Tess opened one eye, then two, staring at Samuel gob smacked.

  “Sorry,” Samuel said sucking in a breath while holding her wide still eyes with his. “It was that, or I was going to have to slap you.” He gave her a quick smile. “I think I picked the better option.”

  Tess swallowed, lips still puckered as she backed away from the air that she had just shared with Samuel in lip lock. “It’s fine,” she breathed. “Just fine.” Tess turned to me, “I’m fine.”

  Despite our circumstances, I couldn’t help but grin, framing the moment in my head. I was lucky enough to witness their beginning, because deep down I knew it would lead to more. They had a spark, a connection, and seeing that display only confirmed what I had already observed. But Josh was quick to break the romantic air with a healthy dose of reality.

  “They’re getting closer guys.”

  Our heads spun once more behind the car where the SUV was gaining ground, handling the terrain much better than our mid-size vehicle. I heard Clint shift gear, taking a hard left and our bodies toppled on one another in the back seat with the same motion of the car. We righted ourselves and watched as the SUV pulled the same move, driving with more speed until it was almost side by side. I wasn’t sure if they were going to get us to pull over or try and force us into a ditch. Whatever their plans, Clint wasn’t going to stop. He just shifted another gear, forcing them to pull back but still giving us a view of the driver through their windshield.

  “That is the guy who kidnapped me,” Josh stated pointing to the SUV. I looked at the driver, and it was indeed the same man who pulled a gun on me and Josh back in Prague. There was another man seated next to him on the passenger’s side, pointing and nudging Josh’s captor.

  “Hold on!” Clint yelled out. Our car dipped, taking a sloped edge and then changed course again, but not before we saw the SUV using our slow recovery from the dip as an advantage to really catch up. We rounded another bend only to find the SUV again side by side, our faces lined up. Now we could see the men more clearly, talking to one another. They were not trying to get us to stop or pull over. No, the man in the passenger’s side was searching on the ground near his feet. When he came up, he looked like he was holding a gun, possibly a semi-automatic from my quick glance at what was in his hands. His head jerked once, and then twice, before Samuel roared, “GET DOWN NOW!”

  Everything moved in slow motion, or maybe my mind had left my body, like an out of body experience. Pieces of glass that were pierced by flying bullets darted all around the car like flying daggers, and I watched them move in front o
f my face as if they were dangling on strings like at a puppet show. Visions of my mother flashed into my eyes. My Dad. The screams and pain of my childhood. Music, so much music. And love. Huge amounts of love in the car. I coughed, trying to get air into my lungs and stop the nausea in my stomach. The car moved off and then on from the road and our heads lifted and bobbed from the quick adjustment.

  My shoulders felt like jelly. I was still not able to think straight. My head wanted to fall forward and pass out. I couldn’t quite adjust to the idea of having our car shot up like that. Even Tess was still crouched down in a tiny ball on the front seat. I looked at Samuel, who was the only person other than Clint who appeared to be in control and thinking straight. He picked up his Magnum and touched Clint’s shoulder, getting his attention. “Keep the car as steady as you can. I’ve got to get some straight shots.”

  “No problem,” Clint said, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. Samuel pushed out some glass still hanging on his door side window, and began climbing up so he was sitting on the window edge, the top half of his body disappearing over the roof of the car. I could hear bullet after bullet being shot from his gun. A loud ‘BANG’ went off. My eyes darted to see the SUV’s tires folding from underneath their car as Samuel fired round after round into them. The SUV then rolled onto its side. Samuel didn’t stop shooting though, he kept going until he hit the SUV where he wanted.

  A pounding came from the roof top. “Clint, stop.” Clint braked suddenly, turning the car so we all had a view of the now immobile SUV. More shots rang out from where Samuel was seated, and then, as I suspected, Samuel hit the SUV’s fuel line, and it erupted into a fiery ball of burning metal.

  Samuel slid back down into the car. He touched Clint’s shoulder again. “GO,” he directed. Clint slammed on the accelerator, our bodies thrusting forward once more. Tess finally lifted her head, shaking as she got to her knees to look at us all in the back seat.

  “Is it over?” she asked us, her voice trembling.

  “Yes, it’s over Tess,” Samuel said, moving his gun out of view, putting it behind his back and in his jeans, trying to create a sense of calmness. “Everyone okay?” Samuel asked. His eyes were still squinting at the flaming wreckage in the distance.

  Then came the scream. It was a scream so loud and so piercing that it was everywhere in the car. It was Tess, and she was looking at me like she had seen a ghost, or someone who was about to become one. Her eyes went straight to my stomach.

  “Oh my God Norah — you’re bleeding!”

  I’m bleeding? Perhaps I am dead and I just don’t know it? I saw the blood on my shirt. It mixed in with the colored paint already everywhere on me. If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought it was paint, but the red was so crimson, the texture so sticky, that you couldn’t misinterpret what it really was. It was blood. You could even smell the stench of death hovering within the car. But I couldn’t feel any pain from the blood. Perhaps I was in shock. They say you can’t feel the pain when you are in shock. All eyes then fell on me and the blood on the side of my shirt near my stomach.

  Breathing in and out, I reached into my shirt to feel my wound and assess how bad it was. I started to reach around to where the blood had stained, searching for a hole, a gash; something from where the blood was coming from. But I felt nothing. Just smooth skin. I replayed the last thirty seconds over in my mind, trying to make sense of what happened. The SUV pulled up next to us, and the guy with the man who kidnapped Josh opened fire on our car. Samuel saw it happening and told everyone to get down. And then someone had flung his body over the top of mine when the car was being sprayed with bullets. Someone had protected me. Someone had saved me.

  Then I realized. It wasn’t me who had been shot. It was Josh. It was Josh whose heart was pressed close to mine, making sure I was being kept safe. Then I saw the side of his shirt that had been pushed against me, and the blood seeping quickly against my own. I instantly pushed my hands up to the side of his shirt, trying to apply enough pressure to stop the bleeding from his bullet wound. “It’s not my blood!” I screamed, as I pressed into Josh, who had only now lifted his eyes wearily to mine. Samuel reached across over my hand to help apply pressure to Josh as well. Tess and Clint could only stare at us terrified from the front seats. “Guys, he’s been shot. We have to get him to a hospital. Drive Clint. Go there right now.”

  “No Norah. We need to get you to the checkpoint. We can’t miss them. If we do, we risk this whole thing being discovered by Hamilton. We have to get you there now.” Samuel was speaking to Clint but not looking at me. “Clint, keep driving to the checkpoint,” Samuel instructed.

  “What the fuck are you saying Samuel! NO! NO! NO CLINT! Just stop. We are going to the hospital. Clint drive to the hospital. I don’t care about Hamilton. Josh needs help.”

  Clint looked back and forth between me and Samuel, contemplating the options, the decision before us. I reached up at Clint, my hand covered in blood, and screamed again, pushing into the back of his neck. “Drive to the hospital Clint! What are you doing? It’s his life. We still have time to save him.”

  Something reached out and pulled down my hand. It was Josh, weakly grabbing at my hand with his other arm. “Norah...” I turned and looked at Josh’s face. He looked pale. I knew it was from the loss of blood, but he was still breathing, still living. We still had time.

  “Norah...” he began again.

  “Don’t you dare Josh. Don’t you say it.” My eyes welled instantly. I saw his forlorn look. I saw his eyes dart to the blood that continued to drain quicker and quicker over my fingers. I couldn’t stop the flow no matter how hard I pushed.

  “Norah, we have to get you to your Dad’s men. This is your only way out from your Dad’s world, and away from the Lappell. You have a chance.” He didn’t even sound like Josh anymore. His voice was raspy and breathless.

  “No Josh, no. I’m not going without you. No. I’m not leaving you!”

  Tess reached across to my shoulder to try and comfort me but I pushed her hand away. “Don’t do that Tess. Don’t act like he is already gone,” I cried out. “Josh is right here next to me right now. He will always be next to me. Okay. He will never leave me. Okay. He is coming with me.”

  Tess looked out of the window, unable to look at my face. Samuel only continued to try and help push into the wound to stop the flow of blood, knowing it was useless.

  “Norah...” Josh started yet again, and this time when he spoke, I burst into a loud sob.

  “Norah, look at me.” I lifted my head to look at the beautiful hue of Josh’s warm green eyes. He was doing his best to make them sparkle the way they did when he looked at me with our whole future in his eyes. I knew he was trying hard to help me see the hope, to help me try and be brave and listen to him. “Hey,” he whispered. “It’s going to be alright. You Norah, are going to be alright. You are going to find a new life, and a new happiness, without me. This is your chance Norah. You deserve this. Your freedom, your peace. No more darkness. No more demons.”

  “No Josh. Stop saying this. Stop telling me lies. No. You’re lying. You’re lying to me again. You’re coming with me. We are going to get married. We will live on a tiny island somewhere in the Pacific. No, no. This is not good-bye.”

  I started to push against Josh in frustration. I couldn’t bear another lie. Why would Josh say he wasn’t coming with me?

  “Norah stop. Stop pushing him.” Samuel grabbed onto my other arm, trying to stop me from pushing Josh. I stared up at Samuel, feeling broken and defeated.

  Josh’s eyes went to Samuel, “Tell Joe to look behind the photo of Norah’s mother in his office. He will know what to do with it, okay. Do you understand me Samuel?”

  Samuel nodded. “Joe, office, photo. Got it. No problem mate.” Samuel’s voice croaked, trying to be strong and when he said mate, he meant it. It was real.

  “We still have time Samuel. We can get him to a hospital.”Samuel looked at me grimly, knowing we on
ly had minutes left. I hated that I could read Samuel’s face. I hated that I could see it on Josh’s too. I hated that I was the only person who refused to believe what was happening. “Nooooo,” I wept as I felt my body collapse against Josh. My face fell against his cheek. “I can’t do this Josh. I can’t do this without you. I need you. You are my soul mate. This isn’t supposed to happen to soul mates.”

  “Norah, I’m just happy we had our time together. I’m happy that you wanted to marry me. I’m happy we have shared as much as we have. You have given me something so many people never get to experience in this world. Just because you won’t be able to see me, doesn’t mean that I won’t be there. A soul mate’s connection is never broken.”

  “This isn’t happening to us.” I cried hard on Josh’s shirt. “I need you with me.”

  Josh lifted my chin so he could look at my eyes staring into his own. I could tell he was struggling to keep my gaze. “Norah, promise me something please.”

  “Anything for you Josh. Anything.”

  “Promise me you won’t be alone. That you’ll take someone with you. Please.”

  “No Josh! No! What are you talking about you? You are coming with me. No one else. Just you.”

  “Norah,” Josh said, using what little energy he had left to see me and make sure I took in his plea. “Promise me you won’t go alone.”

  “Josh,” I wept loudly.

  “Promise me Norah.” He was crying now out of fear and sadness. “Please. For me.”

  I shuddered and looked back at him through the wall of tears between us; nodding slowly, and pushing my cheek against his. “Yes, Josh. Yes, I promise you.”

  I pulled away and looked at his face which was full of relief and love. “Thank you,” he said softly, still gazing at me.

  My heart did a double flip as I realized I still had one more secret. There was something I still had to tell him. “Josh,” I began and leaned down and whispered softly into his ear so that only he could hear what I was saying. I felt a surge of energy from his body as I whispered my secret. He gripped onto me tightly, trying his best to hold onto me. I pulled away to look at him once I finished.