Disarm

by Halle, Karina

  Her eyes bug out. “That’s not what it was for,” she cries out softly. “You know it wasn’t.”

  “I’m just saying, it’s easy to twist things around. I’m very, very good at it, among other things. And believe me, you don’t want me to prove any of it.”

  Don’t do it. Don’t follow him, I think frantically. Other than me, that light is her only hope.

  “I’m going to run away,” she threatens. “I’ll scream.”

  He looks mildly amused, raising his brow. “That will save you only in the meantime. I guarantee you’ll be dead before you get back to your apartment.”

  She’s hesitating. I know she wants to look for me, but that would be a giveaway.

  “I’m not moving,” she finally says, but she doesn’t sound as determined as before. “I gave you the money. We have nothing more to discuss.”

  I’m holding my breath, ready to spring into action if needed. I don’t stand a chance against this guy normally, but he doesn’t know I’m here, and if I can catch him off guard . . .

  “Fair enough,” Jones says. He gives her a nod and then turns around, walking away toward the street, in the opposite direction he came. “Hopefully our paths won’t cross again.”

  Seraphine watches him go, tense and unmoving, until it looks like Jones has disappeared behind the wall that runs along the garden.

  Then she carefully looks around for me.

  Just in case Jones isn’t out of earshot, I don’t want to call to her and draw attention to myself, so as she walks away from the light and farther into the trees, I stand up and hurry through the bushes to her. My plan is to grab her hand, and we’ll run to where I was dropped off, head a good distance away before we call for a ride.

  But just as I’m about to break through the bushes into the clearing where she is, two men emerge from the trees, one from the side of her, the other from the front.

  She lets out a cry of shock, and then she realizes as quickly as I do that these aren’t random men. Both are tall, dressed head to toe in black, with close-cropped hair, blank faces you couldn’t pick out of a lineup.

  Much like Jones.

  Disciples of his.

  The first man reaches for Seraphine, and she opens her mouth to scream, but then the other clamps his hand around her mouth. They both pull her back into the trees as she’s kicking and trying to free herself.

  I don’t think.

  I just move.

  In seconds, I’m at them.

  I get to the first guy at her side, winding up for a lead hook that I know will only get his attention. I punch the side of his face, getting his cheekbone. Because I surprised him by coming out of nowhere, he drops Seraphine and is slow to face me, so I get him at the back of his knee with a fake low kick that brings his attention down to the ground, then I pivot around in a circle with my other leg out, striking him with a high kick to his chest.

  He doubles over, but I’m already moving past him and bringing my forearms up to block the fists of the other attacker, parrying against him and protecting my head as he swings. He’s bigger, so one hit nearly sends me flying, the world growing darker for just a second, but I come back at him with an uppercut, striking his jaw before I slip out to the side.

  I’m rusty, and I know that the element of surprise has already worn off. I haven’t practiced in a while, though when I was living in Thailand, Muay Thai had become like my religion.

  But back then I was lost and looking for something to sustain me.

  Now I’m fueled by anger.

  The purest, most devastating power there is.

  I don’t even feel much pain as the other guy comes at me from behind, clocking me on the back of the head.

  I fall to the ground but land in a plank position, and I’m able to spring to my feet just out of the way of one of their kicks.

  “Run for help!” I manage to say to Seraphine, who is scrambling to get up, free of their grasp. But focusing on her has taken my focus off them.

  The other guy gets me right across the face with an elbow strike, and that’s when I know he knows Muay Thai too. Of course he does—every guy now wants to be the next MMA fighter.

  Blood is running into my eyes, pouring from my head where I know he’s split the skin, and though my world is wavering from the hit, my instincts are still right on the money.

  I duck another hit, then jump backward, getting enough power through my shuffle to strike a knee right under his rib cage.

  He gasps, doubling over, but doesn’t fall.

  So close.

  Before the other guy can come at me, I slip left and then deliver a palm strike to the same spot where my knee hit him, clinch my knee up into the same area, almost a bull’s-eye; then, while he’s winding up to hit, I quickly place my hands against his chest, pushing back to give myself enough room, and go in for a head kick, striking him full force against the side of his face.

  He whirls around from the kick, almost a one-eighty, blood spraying from his mouth, and he goes down to the ground on his knees.

  If I’m going to get out of this at all, I have to take one of them out, unconscious, because I can’t keep fighting two guys at once. I am good, but together they’re better.

  I leap into the air and bring my body weight down with my elbow to strike right where his neck meets his shoulder, knowing that will put him out, but just as I make contact and feel the tendons on his shoulders snap, I’m tackled from the side.

  This is the bigger guy, the guy who can take a beating, and he’s straddling me, striking his elbow against my solar plexus repeatedly until I can’t breathe. When my instincts seem to dry up, I try to remember my training on how to get out of a maneuver, knowing I have to twist my body, and when his hands go for my neck, squeezing tight enough to break my windpipe, I think I might be able to twist free and do an elbow strike to his face, but then my thoughts slow.

  There’s no more air left in me.

  It was a race to see if he could weaken me before I could fight back, and I think I’m . . . I think I’m . . .

  Hold on, hold on, don’t close your eyes.

  The blackness is coming for me, right from the trees, like a phantom.

  “Stop it!” Seraphine’s voice comes through the darkness, and I know I have to fight back for her. I know that if I die, she’ll be left with them. She probably won’t survive. They’ll probably rape her, torture her, and I’ll have to die knowing that my own father had this ordered.

  And this guy doesn’t care that she’s yelling. He doesn’t hear what she’s saying.

  She’s saying . . .

  “I’m going to blow your fucking brains out!”

  He doesn’t hear that.

  But I do.

  With what little strength I have left, I tilt my head to the side to see Seraphine holding a gun with both hands, aimed at my attacker.

  She glances at me quickly, and there is so much fear in her eyes that I’m not sure she’ll be able to do it.

  But she does.

  She pulls the trigger and there’s a blast of light, and she’s thrown back a step and the guy screams, right above me, blood splashing on my face.

  He lets go of my throat and falls over, screaming, holding on to the side of his neck.

  She didn’t blow his brains out, but she did a lot of damage.

  I don’t even have the strength to wonder where the gun came from; all I can do is focus on getting enough air back into my lungs to get out of this situation.

  “What have I done?” Seraphine says, clearly in shock.

  I manage to get to my knees, eyes closed, breathing in and out as much as I can, ignoring the pain in my throat, and then her hands are under my arms, trying to haul me to my feet.

  I stare at the gun in her hands and can tell she’s about to throw it into the bushes. “Take that with you, don’t ditch it.”

  I glance back at the guy who is holding on to his neck and writhing on the ground, and I see the other guy starting to stir. I hav
e no idea if he will die or not, if his friend will save him, or how close Jones is to all this. I’m guessing he’s in a car around the corner, waiting for them, waiting for their collected prize.

  “We need to get out of here,” I tell her, taking her gun and slipping it into my coat pocket. Then I grab her hand, and we start running as fast as my beaten body will allow.

  We stagger through the trees to where I had been hiding and then follow the tree line that borders the railway tracks along the back of the park, not looking back.

  We’re about to cross the road when the screech of wheels fills the air, and a black SUV rounds the corner, followed by another. This isn’t the police coming to the rescue—this is something else. They aren’t here to save us.

  I wait, trying to figure out the best option. If we run through the streets, the chances of Jones and whoever else my father has on speed dial finding us are pretty high, and I’m not sure how long it will take to find a cab or wait for an Uber.

  So I wait until there’s a break in the action, and I pull Seraphine across the street the other way, heading to the apartment building that looks abandoned from the outside.

  “Where are we going?” she whispers as we run up the slick stone stairs to the main door. All the apartment names next to the buzzer have worn off, and when the door opens, I’m not surprised.

  We step inside. There’s a broken chandelier above the foyer with only one broken light. The place is damp and dirty. I lead Seraphine over to one of the two doors on this floor and try it. It’s locked. Same with the other.

  “What are you doing?” she hisses at me. “Blaise, we need to call the cops. We need to . . . oh God, I don’t know. What if I killed him?”

  I give her hand a tight squeeze. “We need to get somewhere safe before we can think about anything else, okay?”

  I lead her up the stairs to the second level, to the empty apartment I spied from down in the park earlier.

  It’s also locked, but I knock and wait. The sound of our breath fills the space in the hall.

  I put my ear to the door and listen.

  Silence.

  I take a chance.

  I run my shoulder up against the door in a jab and it flies open, the lock weak.

  Just as I thought, it’s empty except for a threadbare love seat and a coffee table with a broken leg. A thick layer of dust coats everything and has scattered into the air like snow. I reach for the lights, and only one comes on, in the kitchen. It’s weak and won’t stop flickering.

  Seraphine stands in the middle of the room and stares blankly at the studio apartment. I close the door behind us and then get the love seat, pushing it up against the door since I broke the lock coming in.

  Then I head over to the window, keeping a low profile and staying close to the wall. I sidle up along the side of the shutters and peer out.

  There is one SUV farther up the street, and I can just make out dark shadows passing underneath the light in the park. Then some of the shadows disperse, heading out along the streets in different directions. They run right past this building, which makes me relax just enough to be able to think about our next move.

  I leave the window and head to Seraphine, who is still standing in shock, shaking from head to toe.

  “Hey,” I say softly, placing both my hands on her shoulders. She flinches, eyes wide as she looks at me, like she forgot I was here at all. “You’re safe now. You’re going to be okay.”

  She shakes her head violently. “I . . . I shot that man. I killed that man.”

  “You don’t know that,” I tell her, trying to get her to meet my eye. “And even if you did, you had to do it. He would have killed me, and then he would have killed you, and you know that’s what would have happened.”

  But she’s not looking at me. She’s staring at nothing, eyes wide, chin trembling.

  “You’re okay now,” I tell her again, squeezing her shoulders. “I’ve got you. Okay? Nothing bad will happen to you, we just have to stick together and figure it out. For now, we’re hiding in here. His men are searching the streets right now to see where we would have run. After a while they’ll give up and we can leave, but for now, we have to hide.”

  “No ambulance came,” she says. “Why didn’t they call an ambulance for him?”

  “Because these guys don’t operate on that side of the law. You do know that they were meaning to kidnap you. Fuck knows what would have happened if I hadn’t been there. And if you hadn’t brought that gun. I’m not even going to ask where you got it, I’m just glad you had it and had the guts to pull the trigger.”

  “I was aiming for his head,” she says softly. “I missed.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You stopped him. You saved us both.”

  Finally she meets my eyes, reaches for my forehead with a shaking hand. “You’re bleeding.” Her fingers gently press near the wound, as if she’s trying to see that I’m really alive. “Oh God, Blaise.” The way her gaze stops at my brow and my nose and my eye tells me that I’m not looking too handsome at the moment.

  “I’m fine,” I tell her, and truly the pain isn’t sinking in yet. I’ll deal with it when it comes. “Just a few scratches. I’ve been in worse.”

  “You actually fought them off.”

  I wince. “Not really. If I had, there would have been no need for your gun. I’m sorry you had to use it.”

  She blinks at me, taking it all in. Then her eyes widen in shock, overwhelmed and lost. “What happens now? He, Jones, he’s still out there. They’re going to come looking for me, for us.”

  I nod. It hurts to swallow. I’m sure I have bruises up and down my throat. “I know. We have to plan our next moves really carefully.”

  “I can’t go back to work. I can’t go to my apartment. He’s going to kill me. Your father is going to kill me.”

  “I’m not going to let him do anything to you. I promise.” My words come out sharp and harsh, but I desperately need her to believe me. I won’t ever let anything happen to her from now on, and if it comes down to my father, then I’ll kill him myself if I have to, if that’s the only way we can be free.

  “I’m alone,” she says before she gasps, her hand dropping from my face and going to her chest, starting to breathe erratically. “I’m alone, I’m alone. Oh God, I can’t breathe, I can’t fucking breathe!”

  She drops her purse, starts pulling off her coat, shaking it from her like it’s covered in snakes. The apartment has no heat, it’s freezing cold, and I try to put the coat back on her, but she pushes me away. She pushes so hard against me that she goes flying backward onto the ground.

  “Fuck!” she yelps as I get to my knees beside her. “Fuck!” she screams again, her eyes pinched closed as she starts to wail, crying and convulsing with sobs.

  “Hey, hey,” I say to her softly, trying to bring her up, cradling the back of her head with my hand. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not!” she cries, tears streaming down her face, lit only by that flickering kitchen light. “I’m alone! I’m alone, I’m alone, I’m alone.” She keeps shaking with each ragged sob, trying to catch her breath. “I’m alone, I’m alone.”

  “You aren’t alone. I’m here.”

  “I’m alone!” she yells louder. “Oh God.” She makes fists in my coat, holding on to me for dear life. Through her tears she looks at me, and I see so much pain in her eyes that all resolve and strength I have breaks.

  I’m shattering for her inside.

  “I have no one,” she says, wild eyed and gasping. “No one. My mother and father are dead. My birth parents are gone. My brothers are on the other side of the world. I’ve been abandoned over and over again. I have no one at all, no one to love me, no one to want me, no one to take care of me. I have nothing.”

  I try to swallow, trying to keep it together for her even though my own forgotten emotions are threatening to engulf me once and for all. “You have me,” I say emphatically, holding her head in place, searching deep in her eyes, look
ing for a sign that she understands. “Even if you don’t want me, you have me.”

  This seems to make her still. She blinks at me through her tears. “How can I know? How can I know, Blaise? How can . . . how can I believe you?”

  “You just have to take that leap and believe me, Seraphine. That’s all. It’s all a leap anyway, everything in life. I’m not just on your side, I’m not just here for you . . .” I place my hands on her face and hold her. “I love you.”

  Words I never thought I’d say out loud to anyone hang in the air. They are words I have never tested before on my lips, words I’d always swept away if the emotions came calling.

  Now she’s in shock. At least she’s stopped crying.

  I take in a deep, shaking breath and go on. “I love you, and I’ve never loved anyone before. Never said it to anyone. Never even thought it. Because ever since you came into my life, those words have belonged to you, and they’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for the chance to be heard. So do with them what you like. But I’m in love with you, and I will do everything in my power to make sure you never feel alone and unloved again.”

  She’s still staring up at me in awe, and I’m still holding on to her face, but I won’t kiss her; I won’t subtract from the moment, I won’t dampen what I said. I want her to feel those words and wear them and decide how it makes her feel.

  I’m giving her all the power, all the power she’s always deserved.

  I stare at her, waiting, and her eyes flash with something that might be anger, might be a slap in the face again.

  But then it isn’t.

  She’s kissing me.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SERAPHINE

  I don’t know what’s come over me, but I’m not about to dissect it, question it, or rip it apart.

  There is no space in my brain.

  There is no room for those feelings.

  I’m on the floor in this cold, dirty place, and I feel like I could sink into the dusty floorboards, let it engulf me or spit me out.