Fracture

by Amanda K. Byrne

  I scowl at him. “How about I call bullshit? That’s what it sounds like. We ‘spend time together’ because we live together.”

  “I call it exactly that. Do you think I don’t enjoy spending time with you, Nora?” Feathery, teasing kisses burn on my skin as his mouth works its way over my jaw, drawing me closer. I dig my fingers into his thighs as his tongue flicks over my earlobe. “Are you certain it’s not more than sex?” he whispers.

  I’m certain he’s a manipulative, selfish man. His words find their mark, though, as his mouth continues to taunt. He doesn’t have to spend all that time in the flat, talking to me. He’s already proven he can get around on his own, regardless of whether his leg is paining him. A moan escapes as he kisses the delicate skin below my jaw. I scramble to hold on to my frustration. “Stop it.”

  He lifts his head, lips an inch from my ear. “If that’s what you want.”

  It is. My feet are stuck. They won’t move. I have to move away from him, free myself before he changes my mind for me.

  “Nora?”

  Decadent. That’s what my name sounds like, coming from his mouth. Is it such a bad thing to take from him like this, when he so clearly wants to give? It’s the best kind of distraction, the most beautiful reminder that life goes on, even in the midst of destruction. Is it so bad to take comfort from that?

  I turn my head toward his and kiss him, sinking into it. Sometimes I think this must be what dying feels like, the air in my lungs burning to be released, unable to escape because my mouth is otherwise occupied. Then his teeth nip into my lip or his tongue curls around mine, and I figure if I’m dying at least I’m going to enjoy it.

  It happens so fast I’m not sure it’s real.

  Thunder rumbles, a fast, fierce roll. Someone screams. The shrillness of it pierces the thrum of noise in the club, drawing murmurs. Another scream, accompanied by yelling. Constant yelling. I whip my head around, trying to break free of Declan’s arms as I search for the source.

  Everything slows. A flash, a crack, a rumble, and he picks me up, shifting his hands to lift me onto the bar. A wince of discomfort crosses his face as he boosts himself up. His mouth moves. There’s smoke. He pushes me over the bar, and I land in unfamiliar arms. The bartender. He shoves me below the bar and Declan’s on his knees in front of me, dragging me toward him. I shove at his chest. I can’t see. I need to see. I have to know what’s happening. But Declan’s strength gives him an advantage and he won’t let go.

  Let me go.

  Then it’s dark and sound rushes back. Another crack, more smoke. His arms tightening, pressing my face into his chest. Screaming. So much screaming. My mind blanks. He pushes me to the floor, stretching out over me. A protective shield. Bad. Something bad must be happening.

  Flashes of light. Smoke. A bomb? One side is trying to blow up the club? While I’m in it. While Zlata and Mila and my new buddy Danilo are in it.

  Who knows how long we lie there behind the bar. Another explosion, more smoke, a hell of a lot more yelling, and my face getting smushed against Declan’s shirt. One hand around the nape of my neck, the other arm braced at my lower back. He’s going to absorb whatever comes. It isn’t fair. He shouldn’t have to. He shouldn’t be here. None of us should. All we’re doing is having fun, and they — whichever side it is — have decided we can’t anymore.

  The screaming hasn’t stopped and it’s getting smokier. The place is burning around us. The bartender tugs at Declan’s sleeve and points toward the end closest to the entrance. Leave. He’s telling us to get out now before it collapses around us.

  We could be stumbling into an ambush.

  “Follow the bartender!” Declan’s shouting in my ear. He pushes me after him, and I shake my head frantically.

  “There has to be another exit! They could be waiting outside!”

  “No choice!” He points to the back of the room. Flames are licking the far wall, where the back exit would likely be, eating into the walls with glee. “Come on!”

  Crawling to the end of the bar, I peek to my right, to the rest of the club, and all I see is chaos. A fiery, whirling mass of it, flames and smoke and creaking furniture. Bodies. God, the bodies. Eyes smarting from the smoke and tears, throat stinging, I crawl along the floor to the entrance. Fire’s starting to work its way forward, judging by the increased screams.

  Someone steps on my fingers. A woman falls in front of me, then scrambles to her hands and knees and staggers on. Everyone’s forgotten that smoke and hot air rises. Everyone’s forgotten you drop to the floor in a burning building, not stand around like a herd of sheep, rolling your eyes in fear and confusion, waiting for the border collie to come along and make everything all right.

  My knees are crying along with the rest of me, the unforgiving floor bruising. Palms slipping and skittering on something I’m best not questioning, it’s an agonizing crawl to the entrance, navigating through fallen tables and chairs, around people milling about, pushing each other in their attempts to find the way out.

  The short hallway leading into the main part of the club is clearer. An enterprising soul propped the door open. My legs aren’t working. My brain isn’t working. Other club goers are rushing past us, squishing us into the wall. Mila and Zlata aren’t among them. I can’t back up to go search for them. No room to turn around.

  I pull Declan to his feet and we stagger out, into the bracing cold.

  The nightmare isn’t over.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I’ve stumbled from one level of hell straight into another.

  The street outside the club is crowded with soldiers and club goers drifting around, their shouts and whimpers a blanket of noise. Smoke and dust choke the air. It’s hard to breathe. I’m cold. I’m freezing. I left my coat in the club. Goosebumps pop up, and I shiver, wrapping my arms around myself to hold in the warmth. I should go back and get my coat.

  Declan catches me around the waist before I can dart for the entrance.

  “Let go!”

  “No.” I’m trapped by steel girders, his chest a wall at my back. “The building’s on fire. Or didn’t you notice that?”

  I try to elbow him in the gut. He simply grunts and limps backward, dragging me with him. “What are you going to do, Nora? Get yourself hurt?”

  Hurt. So much hurt. Pain. There are bleeding people everywhere. Shambling past. Crying on the sidewalk. Lying stretched out on the dirty, dirty street, inviting infection.

  There are bodies inside that building.

  Danilo might be inside.

  Mila and Zlata might be inside.

  Sirens rise in a wail, drowned momentarily by a thunderous crack. Dust and smoke billow outward. My throat closes off, and I double over, Declan curving over my back, our bodies wracked with throat–ripping coughs.

  I blink the tears from my eyes and straighten, scanning the street for Mila and Zlata. Danilo staggers out of the gloom, and I fight Declan’s hold until he releases me. Blood drips from Danilo’s nose and forehead. He tries to smile as his eyes light with recognition, the expression twisting in a grimace. There’s a cut at his hairline, the source of the blood on his forehead. The warm red coats my fingers as I run them over his face.

  “Are you hurt anywhere else?” His grasp of English has to be good enough to answer this question. It has to.

  Before he can answer, he’s waved over by a black–clad soldier, and my hands fist at my sides. The street’s crawling with them, their boots stomping through the clumps of people, weapons at the ready. I step back, watching Danilo’s shambling progress through the street toward the soldier. Experience has taught me that where there’s government soldiers, there’s Cristian, and I don’t have the strength or patience to deal with him.

  The dark and the smoke and the dust are blinding. I squint against the gritty air, heart in my throat, nerves screaming and poised to jump at first sign of the soldier who won’t leave me alone.

  A hand clamps on my arm and I swing around, my fist bounc
ing off a solid bicep. “Jesus. Watch where you plant that fist.” My eyes have finally given up the ghost, and tears stream unchecked down my cheeks, the grit stinging and burning. Declan’s hand is huge and strangely gentle as he wipes the damp from my face. “Can I take you home now?”

  Take me home. Take me far away from this chaos. “Where’s Mila and Zlata?” My throat is raw, smoke and dirt crawling into the tiny crevices each cough tears open. Every word hurts. Every breath hurts. I’m rasping like an asthmatic after a sprint. But I won’t leave without knowing the sisters are all right.

  He tugs me farther away, the noise and the swirling, writhing mass of humanity behind us growing bigger as troops begin pulling people out of the building. At first they’re lumps. Bricks? Rubble? I wish I were that lucky. It’s not the wreckage of the club. It’s the bodies, the limp, broken shells I knew were in there and hoped I wouldn’t see.

  I can’t stop watching. More. More and more, soldier after soldier, carrying people out. Too many. It goes on forever. They blur together, and the only thing holding me up is the band at my hips and the wall at my back. Some part of me is aware it’s not a wall and a band but Declan, though why he hasn’t pulled me away from the horror show in front of me I don’t know.

  He does seconds later, our progress awkward because he won’t let me go and his cast hampers his stride. A familiar figure stumbles through the smoke and dust. “Mila!” Declan calls.

  Oh, god. Mila. Mila’s alive. She cradles her left arm like a child, and there’s a gash along the side of her face, blood seeping from the wound. She doesn’t register Declan calling her name, just stares at us blankly.

  “Mila?” I ask. Nothing. Eyes wide and unseeing, she sways on her feet, and Declan shoots out a hand to steady her, keeping his other arm around me. He can let go. I’m okay. Mila’s not. Mila is definitely not. Her lack of response is disturbingly familiar. Shock.

  Careful not to move too quickly, I reach up and cradle her face, turning it toward me. The cut on her face isn’t deep, the blood dripping from it almost congealed. I swallow bile. “Do you know what’s wrong with her arm?” Though he’s right next to me, I have to shout to be heard.

  Declan shakes his head. “Broken? Dislocated shoulder? I can figure that out pretty easy.” He presses his fingers along the socket. Mila starts and moans, jerking away. “Dislocated shoulder. Hold her hand.” I take her right hand in both of mine as he steadies her, grasps her injured arm, and shoves it back into place.

  She jumps, stumbles, and doubles over, retching. When she’s done, she wipes her mouth on the back of her hand and straightens. “Nora? Nora.” She lunges forward and catches me in a hug, hissing with pain and dropping her arms almost immediately.

  “Where is Zlata?”

  She blinks and peers into the gloom. “She found Ismael before the explosion. He was bored, as usual. She was scowling. As usual.” She takes a tiny step toward the club, then another.

  Declan stops her. “If she was with Ismael, he probably got her out. Best thing you can do is go home and wait for her.”

  She starts to protest and winces. “Yes. Home.”

  The way is slow and painful, each step a victory as we get farther from the wreckage. Mila’s sunny cheer is buried under worry for her sister and doesn’t put in an appearance. We leave her in her apartment after she insists we leave. She doesn’t have to do much to convince me. I want the relative safety of my stolen flat.

  We cover the remaining blocks, dragging ourselves up the stairs and into the apartment. We collapse on the couch on opposite ends, Declan groaning softly. There was a bomb. In the club. The walls collapsed. There was fire, and smoke, and dead people. So many bodies.

  Nausea surges, and I lurch to my feet, racing for the bathroom, barely making it in time to empty my heaving stomach into the toilet. Hollowed out and weak, it’d be comforting to succumb to unconsciousness right about now, but the stink of smoke reminds me of the charred remains of the club goers. I need a shower first. Then I’ll sleep.

  Stripping aside my ruined clothing, I turn on the tap. Please have water. Please have hot water. I’m rewarded with a spurt of hot water, hot enough to peel the flesh from my bones, the pressure better than it’s been in weeks.

  “Nora?” Declan opens the door as I’m about to step into the shower. His gaze cuts past me to the stall. “Good idea.” He ducks out and returns with his trusty plastic bag. Making quick work of his clothing, he gives me a crooked grin as he sits on the toilet lid to adjust the bag over his cast. “Might want to get under there and start soaping.”

  Right. Showering. Standing stupefied isn’t on the agenda.

  The shower’s crowded with the two of us. His cast doesn’t make it any better, either. We move slowly, and he nudges me around, substituting soap for shampoo, his strong, deft fingers working it into a lather and soothing my scalp.

  I’m exhausted. A few cursory swipes of the towel and I pronounce myself dry. I don’t even have the energy to pull on my sleep shirt or underwear. Squirming under the covers is the most I can do.

  He slides in beside me and pulls me to him, and his skin rubbing over mine ignites me. I need to erase tonight, with its death and shock and terror. Replace it with life. With sweat and gasps and endorphins. My lips search his out, and I whimper as I tangle my fingers in his hair. Alive. Vibrating with it. So warm. Warm, firm, assured and in control. He’s all these things and exactly what I need.

  It’s not enough. I need to be surrounded. I hook a leg over his hip and roll onto my back, pathetically grateful this man knows his way around the bedroom and takes my hint with ease.

  Then he stops, stares, forearms bracketing my head. “Don’t stop,” I plead. “Why’d you stop?”

  He dips his head and runs his tongue along the curve of my neck, nipping into my ear. “You’re looking for a distraction, lass?”

  Yes yes yes please fuck me now. I rock against him, grinding my clit into his hardening cock. He hisses out a breath and shuts his eyes, tendons in his neck standing out in stark relief. I do it again.

  His eyes snap open. “You’ll pay for that.”

  He plunders. There’s no other word for what he does to my mouth, forces it open and strokes inside, drawing my tongue into a duel with his. My hips jerk as he sucks my tongue into his mouth, releasing it to nibble on my lower lip.

  I pull back and flick my tongue along the shell of his ear, planting kisses along the way as I work back toward his mouth. His talented, incredible mouth. Sometimes I think he’ll make me forget my own name just from kissing me. And if there’s any time to find out if he can, it’s now.

  God, I want him to. I want him to wipe away the nightmare of tonight with strong, firm strokes, replace those awful memories with ones of lust and need.

  He works his way along my jaw, down my throat, pausing to nuzzle my breasts, pinching and tugging at my nipples as I squirm under him. The farther down he goes, the less friction I have, and I’m soaked and desperate by the time he deigns to move on over my belly. Soft, soft kisses around my belly button, hands clamped on my hips to hold me in place.

  It’s too hot in here. I buck my hips up. “Declan. Please.”

  When he finally runs his tongue over my clit, I want to cry. Cry, beg for more, grab his head and hold him there until the world ends. The heat ratchets up, and everything narrows to his wicked, wicked mouth, teasing and sucking and stroking and oh fuck he’s using his fingers and I’m blind and deaf and—

  I bow up, scream dying in my throat, stretched taut and he’s relentless, driving me on, the pleasure so keen it’s a blade, slicing clean through and leaving me bleeding. I don’t care. If it means I’m consumed by this white–hot pleasure–pain, he can drain me.

  And he keeps going.

  And going.

  His fingers twist along with his tongue, and he hurtles me headlong into another orgasm, the sensations racing through like fire on oil, melting my bones, turning my blood to lava. I will die. If he doesn’t s
top, I’ll die.

  But he does, and because he does, my clit throbs with anticipation while he fumbles for a condom. He bats my hand aside to roll it on, plunging into me, straight through swollen tissues still shuddering with aftershocks. It bends me in two, my back arching so far off the bed something cracks.

  “Wait. Wait wait wait. Don’t move,” I whimper. There’s no air. He’s used it all.

  “Like this?” He rocks forward, nudging my oversensitive clit. A high-pitched mewl escapes. “Or this?” A circular movement, tiny bolts of pleasure zipping through me. “Maybe you mean like this?”

  He rears back until he’s almost on his knees, palming my ass and lifting me to meet his deep, lazy thrusts. My hands fist in the sheets, every cell on alert and ready to burst.

  His eyes bring me back as he fucks me at his leisure, the blue glinting in the shadowed room, hooded and inscrutable.

  With a sudden fury he flips us over and slams my hips down as he thrusts up, setting off more tremors. This. A thousand times this. This room, this bed, this moment, this single breath of air, tension mounting and ready to break, taking us to pieces on a night that could have crushed us both.

  “Touch yourself,” he growls.

  Of course. We’re not done yet. He’ll wring every last drop from me. I asked; he’s delivering. In spades. Rolling my hips, my hand snakes down to where our bodies join, stroking gently.

  “Harder.” He sits up, trapping my hand between us, threading his fingers through my hair and yanking my head to the side to ravage my neck. The closeness presses in, presses my hand into me, harder, faster, sweat making us sticky.

  I have nothing left. He’s already taken it all. I can’t give up. The horizon opens up, and it’s there, bright and vicious, stars bursting as I shake from the impact of release, dimly aware Declan’s grinding into me, his shouts ringing in my ears.

  I’m a void. I’m ready to be filled. Strait–jacketed in Declan’s arms, he lowers us to the bed and shifts us to our sides, my face flush with the crook of his neck, legs twined together.