MARRIED TO MY MASTER

by Nicole Fox

  Edward started a low whine, a sound deep in his throat like a wounded animal.

  “Shoot you?” Dane asked after a while. “Let you go? What do you think I should do, Edward? What would you do in my shoes if I'd packaged a drug for your brother that got him to kill your niece, nephew, and sister-in-law?” He fingered the trigger, his thoughts on Emily and Benton.

  BioSphere was going down over this, one way or the other. Edward Barker, though? Who knew? He may do a couple years in prison, if Dane was lucky. But the courts didn't seem to care much about corporate crimes. They just fined people and threw a couple of scapegoats to the wolves.

  Look at the banks during the Great Recession. They were bigger than ever. Was that what Edward Barker was going to be like? Richer than before?

  But, then, there was Emily. Dane's soulmate. God, it sounded cheesy just to think it, but deep down he still knew it was true. It was truer than anything he'd ever believed in during his short, miserable life. What would she think of him if he gunned down Edward in cold blood? He wasn't judge, jury, and executioner. He couldn't be, no matter how light a sentence Edward would receive for his horrendous crimes against the first responders and soldiers of this country.

  He raised the pistol and aimed it straight at Edward's head.

  Edward recoiled in his chair, his eyes wide, his face white as the blood drained. Edward began to cry. “You can't. I didn't mean to hurt anyone like that. I really didn't.”

  No. He couldn't do that to Emily. He couldn't saddle her with the knowledge that she'd fallen in love with a cold-blooded murderer, a man willing to gun down another like this.

  “Bang,” Dane shouted.

  Edward screamed.

  “Just kidding, Edward,” Dane said, as he reached forward and yanked the executive to his feet. “Come on. We're walking out.”

  Dane sniffed the air as he shoved Edward in front of him, toward the office door. He grinned as he held the gun on him. “You piss yourself, Edward?”

  Together, they headed down in the elevator. Dane kept Edward against the elevator wall, opposite him, and away from the control panel. When they hit the lobby, an uneasy feeling hit the pit of his stomach.

  “Lotta cops out there,” Dane mused, as they crossed to the front entry way.

  “Yeah,” Edward agreed. “I'd be worried if I were you.”

  “Why should I be worried,” the veteran replied, as he shoved Edward forward through the doors. “I'm not the one who was basically poisoning all their buddies with fake medication.” The sounds of the outside, the beating of the police helicopter's rotors, the blaring of bullhorns, and the sound of distant sirens all hit him like a wall as he stepped outside onto the little concrete plaza. It was a wall so difficult to penetrate that he actually had to slow a step and take a moment to deal with all the input coming at him.

  “Dane Bishop!” roared a familiar voice on a bullhorn, from behind the ring of steel surrounding the building. “Put down your weapon and put your hands in the air!”

  Dane hooked the gun's trigger guard over his finger and raised it in the air as Edward ran for the barricades. He could see the dots of the red lasers doing their twists and turns on the concrete in front of him, speedily making their way to his body, but he didn't think anything of it. If they'd wanted him dead, they could have gotten him in the lobby. He hadn’t used Edward as a human shield on his way out the door.

  He leaned forward and, with exaggerated motions, so the police would know and understand his intentions, put his gun on the ground of the plaza, then put his hands in the air.

  Dane glanced to the left suddenly, his arms going wide like he was making a move. “No!” he yelled, his voice booming out over the assembled police and other first responders.

  He saw a blur coming toward him, slipping out from between the barricades. “Dane!” the blur screamed. “No!”

  She must have seen the laser sights and thought that meant they were ready to shoot. Now she was rushing out in front of a trigger happy group of cops. “Emily,” Dane yelled back, waving her away. “Get down!”

  She was nearly to him when they open fired and the bullets began to come down in a hail of lead and powder. Dane swept her into his arms, tackling her to the ground beneath him. His body shook with pain under the countless impacts of bullets, intended for him and his love. Beneath him, Emily cried out in fear as his body jumped and shook with each bullet that hit him.

  They just seemed to continue to come, and Dane's mind groaned under the strain, sending him to a better, happier place.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Dane

  Benton flipped the burgers as the kids ran around in the sprinklers. Dane stood on the porch next to his twin brother, looking out over the backyard, ice cold beer in his hand. It was his brother's own brew, in fact. He'd had labels printed up that read ‘Bishop's Brews.’ Dane was going to help him with the next batch.

  “Got yourself a good family, bro,” Dane said, unable to wipe the stupid grin from his face as he watched the kids run around, chasing after each other with water guns, their laughter and simple cheers of wordless excitement filling the air.

  “Yeah,” Benton said, his face wistful and pained. “It feels good to be back with them after all those years in the sandbox. Wish I could be a little better, you know, but I've been trying my damndest. Gotta embrace the suck, you know. Make it work for me.”

  “Medication still not working, then?”

  Benton shook his head and began to flip the burgers. “It's just so fucking hard all the time. You know, first, they say they want you to admit to having it — the PTSD. Then, they want you out because of it. Then, they don't want to give you the help you need.”

  “Come on, Benton,” Dane clapping his brother on the shoulder and squeezing, “I know you're trying. It's tough coming back. I know it is. But, you're a good father, at least you try to be. Better than Mom and Dad, right?”

  Benton laughed. “Yeah,” he said, still flipping burgers and rolling hot dogs. “Don't I know it.”

  “Just keep taking the medication the doctor recommended. Things'll get better, and you'll still be there for your kids. You'll see. You'll be the best dad any kid ever hoped for in this fucked up world.”

  His twin chuckled. “Yeah. My kids don't deserve this world, I'll say that for sure. They deserve heaven.”

  “Don't we all?” Dane asked, laughing. He took another drink of his beer and looked back out to the kids, watched them rolling around and fighting on the green lawn.

  “What about you?” Benton asked. “You dating anyone yet?”

  “Me?” he asked, shaking his head. “Still getting used to civilian life. Haven't really started to get settled in, yet. Figure it'll happen when it happens.”

  “Well, I hope you find that special someone,” Benton said, as he stepped away from the grill and, beer in hand, went to stand next to Dane. “Landon and Paula need cousins, you know. And maybe, if she gets a niece or a nephew, Marianne will back off about our third one.”

  Dane laughed. “Number three?”

  Benton rolled his eyes. “I can hardly keep up with these two. And, just my luck, twins will end up running in the family.”

  As they both laughed, the day began to fade, the world disappearing into a blanket of shrouded darkness. The vision ended, drifting away no matter how hard Dane tried to hold onto it.

  His ears rang from the shock, and his world seemed to be coming apart at the seams. Instead of Landon and Paula's laughter, there was the sound of stomping feet. Instead of the taste of Bishop's Brews, there was salt and copper.

  The men tore him from Emily, pulled her away as she screamed, and reached out for him. Emily’s hands grasped at empty air as they took her back to the barricades.

  With his last bit of waning strength, Dane reached out for her like a lifeline. His hands touched nothing but empty air, though, and fell to the plaza.

  This was it. It was all over. Even if Benton's family wouldn't ever come
back, he'd still be vindicated. Dane had seen to that. But, like in all things, there was a price to pay. Now Dane had his own crimes to take responsibility for.

  # # #

  Emily

  The world was a blur as Emily was pulled from Dane's strong embrace by more hands than she could count. With her ears ringing, she screamed for him as she reached out across the distance, her fingers grasping vainly as she was dragged away.

  The only person who mattered to her now was being taken away from her by gray, indistinct shapes that seemed little more than ghosts. “Dane!” she screamed, her soundless words raw in her frayed throat. “Dane!”

  He just looked on, his eyes haunted and distant as the EMT's and paramedics surrounded him, blocking him from view. Emily realized she'd been wounded, too, as she tried to stumble toward him, her leg giving out beneath her wait.

  No, this was all happening too fast, like the worst nightmare anyone could conceive of, and she was thrust into the middle of it, like Alice through the Looking Glass. They began to drag her back to the ambulance, trying to gently subdue her as her hearing resumed.

  The world of sound, previously dimmed from the gunfire, returned in with a crash. The sound of helicopter blades pounded above her, sirens whirred, and men shouted orders. “Get him in the stretcher! We need to see how bad these gunshots are!”

  “Get her back to the ambulance! I want a tourniquet on that leg! We need to stop the bleeding!”

  They dragged her back to the ambulance as she kicked and screamed, fighting against every inch they put between her and Dane. “Please,” she sobbed, her throat ragged and raw as she sobbed out her tears. “Please, let me go to him!”

  “Ma'am, we need you to settle down,” they replied, their voices one step away from tense shouts as two burly medics finally lifted her into the air and got her into the rear of the ambulance.

  “Dane!” she screamed again, the tears streaming down her face now as she fought against their hands and grappling arms. Men in uniforms strapped her to the stretcher and tightened her bonds as she thrashed violently, trying to break free to get back to her love.

  “Get a god-damn sedative in her,” growled one of the men. “She'll bleed herself out with all this kicking.”

  “Surprised she's going so strong, with all this blood gone.”

  Then there was a sharp pain in her thigh, followed by blissful, omnipresent darkness that encompassed all. She drifted like a lost soul over the inky waves of blackness, the only thought she could form a wordless blob that coalesced into the shape of Dane Bishop, his shirt bloody and ragged, his eyes hollow and haunted as he watched her torn from his protective embrace.

  She came-to a while later in a hospital bed, her clothes gone. One of those scratchy cotton gowns covered her. Her right leg ached like hell, a throbbing, hot pain that seemed to pierce all the way to the core of her body, like nothing she'd ever experienced.

  How much time had passed? She looked around groggily, trying to find a clock. She didn't see one, and just flopped back onto the flat, unfluffed pillow. She groaned, a deathly rasp coming from her dry-as-dirt throat.

  “Oh my God, you're awake!” came a familiar voice, a lilting sound that seemed to drift through the room beautifully. “Em, you're back!”

  Emily groaned, turning her head to the source of the voice. Jas! “Hey,” she said, smiling as she saw her executive assistant.

  “Hey, yourself,” Jas said, as she came to the side of the bed and put her hands on the railing. She looked as ragged as Emily felt, but wracked more with worry than physical pain. Dark rings stood out beneath her eyes, her hair looked like it could use a brush, and her makeup needed to be touched up. To Emily, it appeared Jas hadn't left her side since she'd been admitted.

  “How you feeling?” Jas asked, reaching down and taking Emily's hand in her own, squeezing it gently.

  “Like I got shot in the leg, then sedated.”

  “Funny you should say that,” her friend said, squeezing her hand.

  “Water?” Emily asked.

  “Yeah,” Jas said, reaching over and grabbing a cup of ice chips. “Here, they said to give you these when you woke up.”

  Emily took the cup and shook some chips into her throat, the cold wetness like iced tea on a summer's day, refreshing and rejuvenating. She never knew frozen water could taste this good.

  “I ran into someone earlier today,” Jas said, her words sounding carefully and deliberately chosen. “Never guess who.”

  Emily groaned. She didn't have time for this. “Who, Jas? Just spit it out.”

  “Dane Bishop. Saw him at Pharma, in fact, just this afternoon.”

  Emily groaned again. “Oh God,” she whispered. “Is he okay?”

  Jas shook her head, her eyes narrowing. “He put a gun to my head, Em.”

  Emily turned her face away. She couldn't deal with this. Not now. Not with her whole world coming down around her. She knew she owed some explanation to Jas about Dane, but what could she say that would make everything better?

  “He used me as a hostage to get in to see Edward,” she continued. “Do you know what that's like? To be held as a fucking hostage?”

  “Kind of,” Emily whispered, her face still turned away.

  “What?” Jas demanded.

  Emily just shook her head. “Look, I'm sorry about what you had to go through.”

  Jas sighed. “It really wasn't that bad, Em,” she groaned. “I mean, I knew he wasn't going to hurt me. Dane just doesn't seem the type to do that. But, with all that, I know you're not telling me the truth about who he is, or what happened between you two.”

  “Is he okay?” Emily asked, as she turned back to him. “Have they said if he's okay?”

  Jas crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “He's out of surgery, and doctors say he'll be fine. The cops, though . . .”

  Emily felt numb. She was too weak to cry and too emotionally exhausted to not. It was like a sick limbo that seemed to consume her, one that wouldn't let her go free no matter how much she struggled. She wanted to let herself go, to let big, fat, salty tears roll down her cheeks so they could dot the hospital blanket. But she just couldn't.

  Dane was in custody. He was safe, and would live. But, still, he was gone from her. No more would he be her guardian, or her captor. She wouldn't feel his hands on her throat, feel his fingers in her hair, or the sting of his hand on her backside. She'd never feel the same safety in his arms, or the quiet strength encircling her and keeping her upright as the world tried to tear her down.

  “You still didn't answer my question,” Jas said.

  “I can't,” Emily whispered. “I just can't. It's as much for you as it is for me, Jas. Believe me.”

  Finally, though, as the words left her mouth, she felt her eyes begin to fill with the tears she needed. She felt them fill up and brim over, beginning to trickle her down her face.

  Jas sighed and, seemingly not knowing what else to do, gathered Emily up in her arms and held her. “It's okay,” she whispered to her boss, as she stroked her hair. “It's okay, Em. Everything'll be fine. I promise.”

  Emily tried to believe her, but she just couldn't bring herself to.

  Nothing was going to be fine with Dane gone. Nothing would ever be fine again, and she knew it.

  Chapter Thirty

  Emily

  One Year Later

  Emily felt like she had about ten pounds of pancake makeup on, and the stage-lighting beat down on her like the Sahara sun. Her chair was uncomfortable, reminding her of the ones Dane had used so well for her time-outs, and forced her into the perfect posture Geraldine West had drilled into her from the time she could stand on her own two feet. She sat there, legs crossed, with her hands folded on her knee like a prim and proper lady.

  Across from her sat Charlene Padilla, newly elevated to talk show personality on cable news. It wasn't one of the major shows, but it was still a step up from her job as a news reporter.

  A long year had passed, on
e filled with trials, headlines, bankruptcies, recriminations, and tabloid press. Emily, though, had come out on top. Or, as much on top as one could be when it came to a media dogpile like the one after Dane took Edward Barker hostage. But Emily had escaped all the stigma of Hymalete when the gravy-train ended, and the FDA and the Justice Department had come in. Edward and the rest of the board had been left holding the bag, and had taken most of the heat. The board itself, of course, got off scot-free, with BioSphere only getting sued into the ground and fined into non-existence.

  But, Edward. Well, Edward was on trial and looking at some pretty serious time, especially with all the files that had escaped the data purge by ending up in Emily's personal email account.