by Belle Knight
“But did you really have to fucking use me like that?”
The pain from the tusk Station had tried to bury in his flesh was nothing compared to the pain Laura’s words created. He fumbled for something to say, anything that could make this right somehow. “I didn’t mean to do it. I was going to a dark place and you came at me and…” And it was the hottest experience I’ve ever had. It was the only thing that’s ever pulled me out of my dark place before. It was more than I ever thought I deserved after everything I’ve done.
But the cacophony of noise outside the door covered Heald’s words.
Tears leaked down Laura’s face. She wiped them angrily away.
Before he could change anything, before he could take back the words and the awful way they made things sound, he watched her change. Her face grew still and cold. Her gaze somehow turned inward. He swore he had never seen a person’s walls go up so fast, so high, so completely.
There were two people in the room. He counted. There were two of them. They both stood on the rug they had sex on just hours before, but Laura was miles away and he felt ice cold waves coming off of her. He wanted to rip the wall to shreds. He wanted to take Station apart, limb by limb.
“Laura—” Heald shouted over a weird buzzing sound that started up. It made him swivel his head toward the door. It sounded like a saw. The walls began to shake. “There’s rebar, right? You said—”
She tried shouting back, when he pointed to his ear, she nodded instead.
Okay, rebar would give them some time, but not much. The office was small. But all Station would need was some time and a big enough gap to fit a gun through.
Heald headed for another filing cabinet, expecting Laura to protest. Her silence was deep and cold, but she helped him push over another cabinet to add it to their meager fortress.
There was no chance to talk over the noise of the saw. There was no time to pause in their work if they wanted a chance to survive.
The sinking feeling in Heald’s stomach told him that chance was slim, if nonexistent. Station had decided to stay instead of run. Station wasn’t going to stop until both Heald and Laura were dead. Heald knew that as truth as soon as he thought it.
Those rhino horns were business, but Heald was something else now. Station didn’t let his victims, animal or human, get away—ever.
As Heald worked on building up their fortress, he knew it was a hopeless task. He should just give up, give himself over, and be done with the whole mess once and for all.
He paused, because he was torn for that brief moment. He had spent his whole life protecting his brother. He had spent his whole life trying to pretend he was in control.
He was anything but in control.
He recognized that fact now, here, at the brink of a gruesome death, next to a beautiful woman he had really, wildly, unrealistically wanted to get to know better.
He would never have that chance now.
He admitted to himself that he had never been in control. Not really, not where it counted. He allowed himself a brief moment of cowardice. He allowed his body and his mind to give up.
But then his eyes lighted on her again. She was onto the next cabinet, struggling to tip it over, her skirt baring her calves, her hair wild and determined, her glue stick aim still deadly accurate.
He should have stayed with her when he had the chance.
He got back to work helping her with the next cabinet.
If he was going to die in this place—and he was pretty sure that’s how things were going to end for them—then he was going to die trying to protect her. He owed her that, at least.
It was all too late to take anything back now, but he could at least control how things were going to end.
It wouldn’t undo what he had done to her, but it was the only thing left of himself to give.
He would end it by protecting her until his last breath.
Chapter 14
Laura knew without needing anyone to say it out loud that they were going to die in that office.
It made a poetic sort of sense.
Five men outside. 10 million dollars in rhino horns. A taken over security system. Both cell phones gone, not that it would have mattered. The basement didn’t get cell service.
She’d had the best lay of her life on that stupid rug and now she was going to end her life on it. If only Shakespeare were still alive to write this comic tragedy.
She struggled with the next cabinet, noticing the pause in Heald’s contribution. She worried the wound was weakening him.
The soonest anyone might notice something was amiss was in the morning when Director Stone followed up on the notes Laura was supposed to have left behind.
Director Stone was going to discover two dead bodies instead.
Laura thought her life had been boring and lonely, but now she wished for all of that back as adrenaline made her heart pound.
Heald seemed to come back to himself and came over to help with the next cabinet. They both strained against whatever contents were locked inside. Blood seeped through Heald’s makeshift bandage. Even wounded, he looked amazing—strong, determined, like a force to be reckoned with.
But Station didn’t seem intimidated.
Okay, maybe she didn’t wish for all of it back. If she was going to die here, at least she had some awesome sex just before going out. Plus, every buzz of the power tools Station and his men were using on the door and walls of this office melted Laura’s rage a little more. Station was using Heald’s brother as leverage. When Station broke through, Laura doubted Station had any plans to keep either her or Heald alive.
It didn’t change that Heald had used her, but if the life of someone she loved was at stake, who’s to say what she would do to protect them?
She had thrown herself at him. He’d as much admitted it, but what did that matter in the scheme of things? He had taken what she had freely given and paid her back ten fold, making her feel beautiful and desirable again.
If only they had a way to notify the police, or really anyone outside these walls. They were running out of time and there seemed to be no way out. She thought about giving up.
Her hands paused against the cold metal of the cabinet. What was the point in fighting anymore? This was all so much bigger than her. Why had she thought she could do anything about any of it?
But she couldn’t let those thoughts take over. Heald wasn’t giving up, so she wouldn’t either. That’s not how she was built. She hadn’t given up after her divorce.
Yes, I did.
Alone, lonely, and making damn sure she would stay that way by volunteering late at the museum, surrounding herself with kids, moving towns, not even trying to meet anyone new, cutting off her old friends.
Okay, well, fuck that part of her.
She wasn’t giving up now.
Heald shouted something but she couldn’t make out his words over the power tools.
Maybe if they had more time.
The saw pierced through the drywall and popped back out. Drywall dust flew everywhere. Laura coughed, using her skirt cloth as a makeshift air filter.
They were running out of time.
Heald headed for the desk, intent on throwing it onto their growing barricade.
Her eyes lighted back upon the parts of the ham radio scattered across the desk.
Her heartbeat slowed and her vision narrowed onto those parts.
“Wait!” Laura shouted before Heald could toss the desk over and make the parts go flying. “Stop!”
His chest heaved with adrenaline, but he somehow had heard her.
She rushed to the desk. Director Stone had been repairing the antique radio for fun. If it were working, then they could use it to call for help.
But the repairs weren’t finished yet.
Except.
Laura saw Director Stone had gotten close. It looked rather like one of her student’s projects—just a wire or two that needed better soldering.
Laura heartb
eat quickened.
She had an idea.
Chapter 15
Heald needed to buy them time.
If he could just buy them enough time maybe he could think his way out of what looked like an impossible situation.
After tossing as many cabinets over as he could, but leaving the desk for Laura, he set to work on searching for a weapon of some kind.
The saw had pierced the door and walls in multiple places. It wouldn’t be long until Station and his men opened up an area large enough to shoot through.
Laura worked furiously behind him at the ham radio, but that piece of junk looked more useless than a toaster with its guts hanging out. He wasn’t having much luck either. All he could find was a walking stick, a hammer, and a few screwdrivers. The trash can with his used condom still inside.
He tried each of the cabinets he had tossed over, hoping for something—an antique bow and arrow? Stone age hammers? Instead, all that spilled out were papers.
The saw continued to scream its murderous intent, making any sort of communication impossible except for this: they both worked furiously to survive in the face of imminent death.
Heald felt carved out from the ache of knowing that he was never going to get to know this fierce, courageous woman any better. He’d glimpsed something beautiful and was hungry for more, but knew he would stay hungry forever.
There was a screech, then a click.
Silence.
The silence was deafening. Heald’s ears rang. He thought he could hear someone speak as if through a walk talkie—call signs and all.
“505050. We’re at Rohnert Museum in the basement. Robbers are at the door. Send the police ASAP.”
There was a garbled reply.
Heald turned to face Laura. She was hunched over the Ham radio, shouting into the receiver.
She waited for a reply, and then looked up, her brown eyes shining. Satisfaction filled her face. “I got through! They’re calling 911.” She looked at him like anything was possible.
“Deadly with a glue stick, even deadlier with a soldering gun,” Heald said, smiling.
“If we get out of this alive,” Laura said, light dancing in her eyes. “You owe me big time.”
“Anything,” Heald said and he felt that ridiculous knot harden in his jeans again.
She glanced down and a devilish look entered her eyes.
A bullet fired, the sound so loud it felt like it burst his eardrums.
Laura flew backwards, hitting the wall behind the desk. A look of shock overwhelmed the satisfaction that had shined on her face.
“No!” Heald shouted.
Blood darkened her shirt, soaking her right shoulder.
He turned and took up the walking stick. Throwing himself at the gun, he batted it away with the stick before it could let off another shot.
He fought with everything he had left even as everything inside of him felt like it was being ripped apart.
Chapter 16
Why was she against the wall?
She should have been at the desk, calling for help.
The taste of iron sat on her tongue. Everything felt muffled as if she were breathing and listening and looking through a layer of cotton.
In front of her, through blurred vision, she could see Heald fighting off Station and his men as they tried to storm the office. His bandage had come undone and his side weeped blood. He was like a greek god, fighting five to one. He was smart and calculating, using the cabinets and the office itself to help him.
Something buzzed at her shoulder and she reached over, thinking to wave off a fly. Her shoulder burned, like she had been stung by a dozen bees. When she held her hand up to her face there was blood on it, but she had wiped off Heald’s blood after wrapping his chest. She could almost still feel the way her body had flushed at being close to his bare chest like that.
Oh.
This was her blood.
When that fact finally lodged in her brain it helped clear away the cobwebs.
She tried moving her shoulder. Blood soaked her shirt and made her skin sticky underneath. It hurt like hell but she could do it. She wasn’t dead.
Heald looked back. “Laura!”
Terror filled his eyes. She realized it wasn’t terror because of Station and his men but because he thought she was dying.
“I’m all right,” Laura said, her voice shaky.
But he turned back as one of the men took a sledgehammer to the drywall, trying to open up a different section.
Heald roared as he picked up a cabinet and threw it, just threw it, at the wall.
It was enough to make them back off. He took the chance to stack more cabinets in place, but it would only buy them a few more minutes. The sounds of power tools and sledgehammers surrounded them now.
Station and his men had split up around the room. With enough openings far enough apart, Heald wouldn’t be able to cover them all.
Scrambling backward to her spot, Heald hovered, concern sharp on his face. She let him probe her shoulder even though it hurt.
“Looks like it went clean through.” Heald took the hem of her skirt and ripped it. What was once an ankle length skirt was now little more than a mini-skirt.
“Now, now. We’ve only just met,” Laura said, giggling, even as she knew she was going out of her mind a little.
Heald quickly wrapped her shoulder with the cloth, tying it off so tight it pinched. “Ow.”
“You’re in shock. Just stay here. Keep the desk between you and them.” He stood up, as if to return to his barricade and fight to the death.
Laura snatched for his hand. He felt warm and strong and competent.
He felt alive.
“Stay with me.”
Heald paused, his grip tight on her hand. “There’s still a chance.”
“They’ll kill you” Laura said.
“They’ll kill you if I stay here. At least—”
There was a terrible screech. Sounds of metal crashing, cabinets toppling. The shouts were louder now. Furious, murderous.
“Kiss me,” Laura said, not wanting to die without tasting him one last time. She wanted him in spite of everything. If they were going to die here, she wanted it to be on her terms.
Heald seemed to struggle with some inner conflict, so Laura made the choice for him. She pulled herself up, using the strength of his arm to guide her. Slinging her good arm around his neck, she upturned her face to his.
Their lips locked. Warmth surged in her belly and mixed with the burning pain in her shoulder. Her entire body turned electric.
Heald moaned against her lips.
She kissed him harder, using her tongue, as if she could devour him and take them both away from this moment to somewhere else, somewhere beautiful where they were both safe.
Men crashed into the room, breaking apart their kiss.
Chapter 17
Heald used his body as a shield to cover Laura’s. His mind felt drunk from their kiss.
He alternated between arousal, pain, panic, and a fury so great at the way luck had screwed him over that it took all he had to hide how his body wanted to shake from the emotions raging through him.
That’s why it took him so long to recognize who had entered the office.
Rather, that who had entered the office wore uniforms.
Police uniforms.
Between Laura’s ham radio call and Heald’s makeshift barricade, they had bought themselves enough time for the police to arrive.
Station’s men quickly gave up—lawyering up—but the evidence was pretty damning.
The damage to the office.
The rhino horns discovered in cloth sacks.
Laura’s report. She had been released long before him and had vanished without a word to him.
Station had managed to escape, leaving his men to the job of hacking through the office walls, as if he knew the police were coming. But he luckily hadn’t had time to get back to the van where he’d been holding Heald’s br
other.
Just like Station had said, his brother was in a van in the museum’s parking lot. The police got to the van before it could drive away. Lucky for Heald, his brother corroborated everything that had happened. The driver was arrested. His brother was arrested too.
***
It took hours of questioning, but they finally released Heald though he was warned not to leave town.
He stepped out of the police station, his side wrapped with a clean bandage and clean clothes. Part of him wished he could have kept a swatch of the cloth skirt. It might have been bloody, but at least it was something tangible to remember Laura by.
Dawn was rising, turning the sky neon pink and orange. It was strange to see color and light again after all the basement darkness and then the severe white light of the police questioning room.
He took to the steps, his heart bursting with sadness. His brother would likely serve some jail time. Head figured it was what he deserved after willingly getting mixed up in with the rhino horn smuggling ring.
They would want to question Heald more later, but said Laura’s version of events had pretty much absolved him of any charges—for now.
Laura.
There was no way her questioning had taken as long as his. She was gone, lost in the wind, and it was better that way.
Even if he had wanted to find out, the police would not give him her contact info. But she was better off without him. It was better not to get her any more mixed up in his crazy life than he had already forced upon her.
He pulled out the memories he had carefully saved. Her goddess glow in that office, the way she had spread herself on that rug for him. His fingers had touched each button on her shirt like they were magic.
For a beautiful few moments, he had unwrapped her, felt inside of her, and let go of himself. It had been beautiful.
He would have to make those memories be enough.
Without a cell phone that he should have put in a call for a taxi before leaving the station, but didn’t want to go back inside. Instead, he stepped to the street, hoping to flag one down.
A little green four door drove up. The windows were rolling down as it coasted to a stop next to him.
