by Alex Gates
Harding led me back to the bodies. Re-staging his crime scene? Clever.
“We have nothing in common,” I said.
“But we do.” He dropped the flashlight and secured his hold over the girl. The light rolled away, brightening only the platform’s rusted out railing, broken and missing in huge chunks that offered no protection to the twenty-foot drop below. “Look at how hard you’ve fought, doing what you thought was right.”
“This is wrong. You’re smarter than this. Killing your enemies and staging a fake assassination is absolutely insane.”
“I have no choice.”
“You’ve always had a choice,” I hissed. “You could have stopped this a long time ago. Gone to the police. Reported the people who abused and raped these girls.”
He laughed. “Are you serious? Do you realize how many men have fucked these whores? Who these men were? Bankers, hedge fund managers, politicians, tech moguls, every CEO from every major company now headquartered in this state. If men would trade their souls for power, what makes you think they’d suffer a conscience while indulging in every perverted sexual fantasy that’s ever haunted their imagination? They would have murdered me for even considering revealing those dirty little secrets…and then what would have happened to these pretty little girls?”
He hugged the teenager closer to his body. She couldn’t fight him, her head heavy and limp from the drugs. He looped his arm tighter across her belly, gun at her head.
“I wanted to help the people of this state. I wanted to do good for them. Bring back jobs. Focus on combining past industry with future technologies. I planned to improve schools and help children living in poverty and…” He shook his head. “I wanted to give the police the materials and funding and support they deserved. You know that. I worked tirelessly with the union for body armor and lapel cameras and benefits. All so you could threaten to destroy everything I’ve done because you’re naïve enough to believe the world is so very black and white, law and crime, innocent and guilty. The world is complicated, London.”
“And so you’ll kill me and her for what…?” I asked. “To restore a natural order of corruption? Sacrifice us so you can make your deals and eliminate your enemies for the greater good?”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing. If I want to do my job and help the greatest number of people…what choice do I have?”
I stiffened, but I didn’t move. No sense making a mistake now. Not until the girl was free.
“Let her go,” I said. “I won’t go anywhere. You can have a clean shot at me.”
“I can’t trust her.”
“Why not?” I stepped a little closer, risking the gun at her neck. “You said so yourself. The most powerful men in the state—in the nation—all flocked to CTR’s parties for an opportunity to lose themselves in this debauchery. So, who will people believe? A teenage whore? An addict sentenced into criminal rehab? Or will they believe the refined politician? A wealthy CEO? A man of power and means and money that could buy his share of women from a country club, not a state-funded private facility?” I took another step, rising to the platform where he held his hostage. “She can’t hurt you. I can. And I’m standing right here, Senator. Let her go, take your shot, and pretend that you’ll save the world.”
Harding sneered. “I can’t risk anyone destroying what has taken me a lifetime to plan. I will be free of this insanity, London. The blackmail. The threats. The stress of staring into the shadows every night, wondering if they’ll ruin me before they kill me.”
“And what about her? Sentenced to a facility no safer than she would have been on the streets? Forced into the sex trade? Raped and beaten and starved?”
“Will she be able to bring healthcare to thousands of kids in poverty?” Harding yelled, the gun clattering against her jaw. “Will she ever reform education so whores like her will have a chance at college instead of spreading their legs in a dark alley? Will she ever vote to send a man or woman to die in the Middle East, or to bring them home after the mission is complete? Will she ever do anything of consequence that isn’t bitch about getting fucked by some asshole with a small prick—”
The senator bent in two. His breath oomphed out of his lungs like a popped balloon.
The girl twisted, twice slamming her elbow into his groin hard. Harding dropped to his knees. She dove for the stairs as the senator raised the gun.
I attacked him, kicking his knee and lunging for the weapon. His fist connected with my side, tormenting an already bruised kidney that threatened to steal my breath.
I rolled, grunting in pain, dodging the second blow. Harding swore, evading my slowed punch. He aimed the gun. I kicked, and the shot went wide, blasting into the darkness and shattering glass.
The kick threw me off balance. I couldn’t rise to my feet. Harding got lucky. He staggered, the brick to his head still bleeding, affecting his balance, aim, strength.
But he had command of the situation. His eyes locked on me, gun steady in his hand. I struggled, but I gripped nothing behind me. The edge of the platform.
I was trapped. I couldn’t run. No way to rise to my feet before he took the shot.
A still second passed. His finger tightened on the trigger. He snarled a cowardly grin of malice and desperation.
It would not be the last image I saw.
The gun fired as I rolled off the platform, escaping death by crashing twenty feet into the darkness below.
The fall was terrifying.
But the land nearly crippled me.
My leg and knee smacked first, the bone audibly snapping as I crunched onto the brick. It didn’t matter that I screamed. The sound echoed everywhere, crashing off the walls and ceiling, bouncing two, three, four times in a disorienting wail of panic, frustration, and pain.
Harding laughed, his steps on the stairs slow and steady.
“I think that was a mistake, London.”
His words followed me. I gripped the brick, scraping the skin as I dragged myself over the dirty floor. My leg dangled uselessly behind me, and every movement, every frantic breath, every tachycardic heartbeat that slammed too fast, too fiercely against my chest only carried the agony to every nerve in my body.
Or maybe that was a cracked rib too.
My breath hurt. Head hurt. Side hurt.
Leg was fucked. That much I knew. And unless I could drag my useless body somewhere safe, it wouldn’t matter how the pain exploded white hot flashes of terror through my devastated bones.
“This might make your death harder for me to explain,” Harding’s steps slowed at the base of the stairs. He scanned the darkness with the cold sweep of the flashlight. “Maybe I shot you, and then you fell? That makes sense, right? The momentum of the bullet or something? I’m probably over-thinking it. Graziani will fix it in the official report.”
The adrenaline forced me to move when the cold sweat stole my courage. I curled behind a huge metal container, hollow and bolted to the ground. Something for the old molten iron, but now the only shelter I had to protect me from a shot. The brick tore at my clothes and leg. Tears burned my eyes, but I kept moving, kept dragging, kept fighting.
Inch by inch.
Closer to the door.
Lost in the dark. Crippled in pain.
His steps echoed behind me. Slow and steady. The sweep of the light followed the blood. A trail leading the hunter to his prey.
My arms ached, unable to drag me over another groove in the floor, the channel feeding the old slag out of the furnace. I didn’t bother to climb. I followed it, army crawling, shoulders pinned between the groove. Hand over hand. Closer and closer to the end.
Whatever it would be.
The familiar click of a new magazine into the gun echoed louder than any of my screams.
At least the girls were safe.
I held my last breath.
And a flood of light and chaos erupted from outside, barging into the casting house with spotlights, the crunch of boots against rust, and
the readying of guns. Their shouts blended together, indecipherable in the clamoring, deafening echo of metal doors slamming open and blasted sirens and cars peeling into the gravel outside.
“FBI! Hands up!”
A quick burst of gunfire popped in the now swirling light and shadow. Harding screamed, collapsing to the ground in a grunt of pain. The agents swarmed him, guns pointed at his head.
And the hands that grabbed me?
I’d know his touch anywhere.
I bit back my groan as James pulled me from the floor. He hauled me up, my weight heavy against his chest. The FBI agents took their position around Harding. I blinked through the tears.
“How?”
“Your watch.” James panicked as he realized how badly I was hurt. He shouted for medical help. “It’s paired with your phone. We followed the GPS.”
“See?” I hoped the sobbing relief sounded like a laugh. “And you thought a watch wasn’t as romantic as an engagement ring.”
Epilogue
“You think you’re alone, but you’re not.
If you give me a chance, I’ll always be there to save you.”
-James
The hospital wasn’t all bad as long as I had visitors.
Adamski brought flowers. Falconi handed me one of his kid’s coloring books and a pack of new crayons. Riley supplied the beer.
And once the others from the station made their way in and exchanged well-wishes, and my Mom threatened to move in to help with cooking and cleaning—a generosity James and I adamantly refused—I was left alone with the greatest visitor of all.
The social worker gently maneuvered around the cast protecting my leg and gently rested Baby Hope in my arms.
I still didn’t know what to say to the kid. Hell, at least this time I had an excuse beyond sheer terror in holding the infant as to why I refused to move.
But there had to be a reason she’d been brought back to the hospital pediatrician for a check-up on the same day I’d recovered from my surgery.
“She’s okay?” I asked the social worker. Franny, I think her name was. The painkillers screwed with my head. “He didn’t hurt her?”
Franny, a plump woman with pudgy arms perfect to haul around the babies she helped all day, just smiled. “Yeah, she was okay. Staying with some friends of his or something. She put on weight, so I bet she was having a good time on her wild adventure.”
An adventure. Christ. The poor kid had been born, neglected, kidnapped, and stolen before her belly button fell off. One hell of a start to her life.
But she slept soundly. Content. Her little puffy cheeks and long eyelashes transforming her from a terrifying little bundle of possibility into something…
Normal.
Peaceful.
I might have actually liked holding her.
This little baby. She had no idea what people had sacrificed for her. Her mother. Amber. Me.
I had worked so hard for so long just to ensure she’d be safe in little moments like this. Sleeping. Eating. Exploring just how she could wiggle her tiny fingers and toes.
She’d never know how much she was loved.
But she was here.
She was alive. Protected. It was all the proof she needed to know that someone was watching over her. Someone had cared about her and worried for her safety and did all they could to bring her comfort and joy.
That goodness would forever overshadow any of the evils that once threatened her happiness.
And that wasn’t a bad start to life.
One that had already begun, and one ready to be lived.
“So…” I cleared my throat. I blamed the catch in my voice on the drugs. “Does…does she have somewhere to go?”
“The pediatrician is checking her over in ten minutes.”
I smirked. “No, I mean…after. Is someone taking her?”
“Oh. Oh, yes. The Yates. They’ve been beside themselves since the fire. She’s got a good family to take her in.”
“Oh.”
I sighed. For whatever reason, the relief felt…
Bittersweet?
Who else would have taken the baby? She deserved a home. A family. A good life.
She deserved a family like the Yates, and not someone like…
I didn’t let myself think it.
Franny took her from my arms and gently hummed as she placed her back into the car-seat carrier. She winked at me, taking my hand.
“You get yourself well again,” she said. “A hero like you belongs out in the world. Little babies like Hope need you.”
And, for the first time, I think I needed my own Hope too.
Franny said her goodbye and carried the baby from the room, greeting James with a smile as she passed him in the doorway.
He looked amused.
That meant I was in trouble.
“Did you bring me ice cream?” I asked.
He handed me an Oreo Blizzard with a smirk. “Feeling better?”
“Now I am.” I busied myself with the dessert and avoided his glance. “That was Hope. Has a doctor’s appointment here. I got to see her.”
“Almost did more.”
Busted. I scoffed a little too hard. “What are you talking about?”
“You were going to take that baby.”
“What?”
James stared at me, amazed. “You were going to volunteer to adopt that baby without even asking me.”
“I was not.”
“Yes, you were.”
“You think I was going to take Hope?”
“Everyone else has grabbed her. Why not you too?”
I threatened him with the sticky spoon. “She was cute. That’s all.”
He pulled his chair beside my bed and stole an Oreo from my ice cream. “You know, London. We could always make our own cute babies.”
“Whoa.” I grabbed for the morphine and rapidly pushed the button. “It’s not working!”
“Very funny.”
“Surely, we can compromise on this.”
James nodded. “I know a way. You can marry me.”
“Okay.”
Suddenly, he looked like he was the one to take the twenty-foot tumble onto cement. “What?”
“Let’s get married,” I said.
“Really?” He grinned and called my bluff. “You think you can handle that? Marriage? Me? Commitment?”
“I know I have issues…” I couldn’t shift with the cast on my leg, but that was fine. I wasn’t ready to look at him when I said it anyway. Maybe I could blame the tears on the pain? “But I’ve learned one thing about myself.”
“And what’s that?”
I met his gaze, always stunned by the honesty and compassion in his stare.
“I don’t mind being loved by you.”
The End
Contact Alex Gates
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Acknowledgments
Kelley. You are my hero.
Always and forever.
This entire page is yours.
I don’t know what I’d do without your help and support! I take it down to the wire every time, but you are always there to do wh
atever you can to push me forward. Thank you!
<3