by Mandy Baggot
He slowly moved Autumn from his embrace and down onto the ground, tucking her arm underneath her head to keep her face off the floor. Then he moved to the nail and took off his shoes. At that second, a thought flashed through his mind, and he looked to Autumn’s feet. The one time he wished she’d been wearing skyscraper heels she was wearing flats. He took a deep breath, and, having no choice, he started to use his shoe to force the nail out.
When she woke up, her cheek was on fire. The whole side of her face felt as if it had been hit by a truck. She sat up, opened and closed her eyes, and tried to shake off the shadow of sleep.
She saw Nathan over by the door. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Trying to get us out of here,” he replied.
He was sweating and out of breath, and there was a foot-sized gouge in the frame of the door. She got up and went over to him.
“Nathan, that isn’t going to work. It will take you hours. How long have you been doing this?” she asked, putting her hand on his back and halting him.
He wiped his brow then continued. “No idea,” he answered. “That’s the only good thing about not having a clock in here.”
“Stop, please. Just stop.”
“Why? I want to get out of here. Don’t you?”
“Of course I do, but look at you. Look at your hands, Nathan.”
Both of his hands had been ripped apart by the nail and the force he’d been using to dig at the wood.
“I made you a promise that I’m going to get you out of here. Back to the high life, back to your cyberdog and the art gallery openings and the café that does the chocolate chip muffins.”
“None of those things matter anymore.”
“Hull then, for chips and gravy and all the local attractions.”
He tore at the wood with his fingers, a few splinters dropping out and onto the floor.
“Nathan, please, you’re cutting your hands apart.”
He threw the nail on the floor and pulled her into him.
Autumn put her head on his chest and closed her eyes. “There must be some other way,” she said.
“There is, but it’s dangerous,” he answered.
“Well, what is it? I mean, they’re sizing up the knife for my throat right about now. How much more dangerous could it be?”
“We get them in here, say that you’re sick, and we ambush them. Take them by surprise. They’re going to be expecting us to still be tied up.”
“How would we do that?”
“We’d yell. We’d make so much noise they’d have to come and you could act like an extra from Grey’s Anatomy.”
“Let’s do it then,” she responded.
“Autumn, we have no weapons. If they’re in any way ready, they could kill us both.”
“I’m too valuable at the moment, and…well, let’s just hope they’re not ready,” she answered.
Nathan let out a breath and shook his head.
“It has to be better than using that nail to dig our way out of here. Once we were out of the room, we’d have to take them by surprise anyway, wouldn’t we?”
“I wasn’t planning on meeting them on our way out of the building,” he responded.
“I want to get out of here. With you.”
He nodded and kissed the top of her head. “Okay.”
He looked into her eyes and touched his lips to hers.
“I have to put the hood back on you,” he said, picking the dirty sack up off the floor.
“I know,” she replied.
“You know what you’ve got to do?”
“You tell them I’m sick, that I’m bleeding. I moan and wail. Hopefully one of them will come over, and as soon as he’s near enough, I stab him with the nail. You’ll disarm him and…”
“If two of them come, Autumn, you might have to kill one of them. Just grab their weapon and shoot it.”
“I don’t want to think about that,” she answered.
A shiver jerked up her body and she knew he’d seen it. She wanted to be brave, but shooting people and stabbing them with nails wasn’t ordinarily in her job description.
“I know you can do it,” he whispered.
She laced her hands together behind his neck and drew his face to hers again, relishing his scent.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded and closed her eyes as he replaced the hood.
“Help!” Nathan yelled at the top of his lungs. “She’s sick! Come on, you bastards! She’s bleeding in here!”
The room they had beaten him in was a long way up the corridor. He didn’t even know if they would hear him.
“Help!” he yelled again. “I said she’s bleeding! Help her!”
“Do you think they can hear you?” Autumn asked.
“Sshh…do you hear that?” Nathan asked.
He held his breath, hoping he hadn’t imagined the sound. It had been faint, but it was a sound he was accustomed to detecting at a distance.
“What is it?” Autumn whispered.
“Can you hear it?”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Helicopter. Someone’s coming for you,” Nathan said, smiling at her.
“Coming for us,” she insisted.
“Sshh, footsteps. Lie on the floor. Stick to the plan,” Nathan urged quickly.
Her heart banged against her rib cage in double quick time. Was someone really coming to their aid? How could Nathan be sure? He couldn’t, but he believed it was true, and that was enough to fill her with hope. She took a deep breath and prepared to put on the performance of her life.
She heard the bolts on the door being opened and tried to listen to how many sets of feet were entering the room.
“Autumn’s sick. She’s in pain, and she says she’s bleeding. You need to get her some medical help!” Nathan yelled from behind his hood.
She let out an anguished cry and rolled herself about, careful not to show that her hands were untied. She fingered the nail in her palm and tried to heighten her senses for when one of her captors came close.
“We are moving you,” Tariq’s voice informed.
Autumn let out another scream of pain. She had to get him to come closer to her. Was it just Tariq in the room with them? One not two?
“Please, just take a look at her,” Nathan begged.
Autumn heard Tariq step nearer to her and she whimpered.
“Water…please, I need water.”
She hoped she sounded desperate enough. She waited, then she felt the hood being lifted off her face. There was Tariq, the man from the church who had lured her into a room to be kidnapped. He offered her a bottle of water.
Without hesitation, she stabbed him in the shoulder with the nail, leaped up from the floor, and moved out of reach.
Nathan drew off his hood, and before their captor could react, he punched him unconscious and wrangled the machine gun away.
Autumn hyperventilated with shock, her hands shook, her body trembled.
Nathan pulled off her hood and discarded it on the ground.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded, unable to speak.
“Listen, just stay close to me,” he said, taking her hands and moving them to the belt loops of his pants.
A reminder of the time she’d run across the car-park of the motel when they’d first met came to mind. She’d hated him then, despised what he was doing to her, longed to get as far away from him as possible. Now, she felt the exact opposite.
Her heart was thumping so hard, it physically hurt her chest. Nathan crept forward, and she moved with him, holding onto the waistband of his pants. They moved along the corridor then stopped when they reached the door. Nathan looked over his shoulder at her.
“I’m going to open the door,” he whispered. “You ready?”
She nodded, but was sure her frightened demeanor gave her away. She wasn’t ready, but what choice did she have?
He put his hand to the door knob and took a breath. How should he
broach this? Should he open the door slowly, hope the movement didn’t catch their attention, or should he burst through it, ready to shoot whoever threatened them?
“I love you, Nathan,” Autumn’s trembling voice stated.
He closed his eyes, felt her fingers firm on his hips. The despair in her tone burned into his chest. He needed to get this right.
“Don’t go getting sentimental on me. This isn’t the time or the place,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.
Autumn blinked up at him. “Promise me, when we get out of this, we’ll go to the Seychelles. You can teach me to fish, and I can teach you which wine goes best with it.”
“I thought we were eating chips in Hull.”
“There’ll be time for both, won’t there?”
The idea of spending time with her out of this crazy situation stopped his heart from beating in fear, and made the adrenaline rushing through his body less painful, but more passionate.
“Keep hold of me,” he ordered her.
She knew she shouldn’t, but when he pushed the door open with force, she closed her eyes. She looped her fingers around the edge of his pants and molded her body to his.
The door banged open against the wall, then all Hell broke loose. She heard gun fire, Nathan’s body jerked with every round he fired from the machine gun, and someone screamed.
It was a heart-stopping, gut-wrenching scream from the depths of someone’s soul. It took her a second to realize that the scream was coming from her.
Her eyes were open now, and Nathan had dropped to the floor, taking her with him. She was lying on her back, next to him, her thumb still caught in the loop of his waistband. There was no more gunfire, no one standing, just light flooding in from an open door on the far wall, and what seemed like millions of dust particles floating through the air. She removed her thumb and tried to move.
What had happened? There was one person lying on the floor a little way from them. Was that the leader? He wasn’t moving. Why was the door open?
“Nathan? Nathan, they’re dead or gone. There’s no one here. We can leave! We can go and find that helicopter. I can hear it!” Autumn said, shifting on her side and touching his arm.
He didn’t answer her. She shook his arm and hauled herself up into a sitting position.
“Nathan…we can go. They’re coming to help us,” Autumn repeated.
Her eyes were drawn to the floor and the dark red puddle of blood coming from underneath Nathan.
“No! No, not now, not now…Nathan.”
She pushed at his shoulder and turned him over onto his back. The blood seeping through his torn shirt at an alarming rate took the air from her lungs.
“No! Oh God, please! No! Nathan! Nathan, wake up!”
His eyes were closed, and blood was pumping from a wound in his stomach. She didn’t know what to do! What should she do?
“Nathan, please! Open your eyes! Please, open your eyes! Oh God, I don’t know what to do!”
She was rambling now and behaving exactly how someone shouldn’t behave in a crisis. She had no clue what to do. This wasn’t good. She needed to stop the bleeding, but how should she do that? She had nothing to use to stop it. Her dress. She had her dress.
She pulled it over her head, folded it in half, and pressed it down against the gushing injury. Was that the right thing to do? She seemed to remember that keeping pressure on something was the right course of action, but what if she’d got that wrong? What if she made it worse?
“Please, Nathan, open your eyes.”
Tears snaked down her cheeks as she held her dress against his stomach and looked at him for any response. Was he even breathing? How could she tell? She looked at his chest. There was no obvious movement. God, what did she need to do?
“This is attention-seeking of the highest order, you know, and that’s really my field of expertise, not yours, so just stop messing around,” she ordered.
Nothing. No response. She’d tried being emotional. She tried being angry. What was left?
“Nathan Regan, if you don’t open your eyes, I’m going to have to sing. ‘Broken Pieces’, all the verses and four renditions of the chorus. I’m sitting here in my underwear!” she told him.
The blood flow didn’t seem to be lessening, despite her hand becoming numb from holding her dress in place. And then it happened.
His eyes flickered open.
Chapter Forty
He felt as if his guts had been ripped open, and he was losing sensation down the left side of his body. He felt ice cold, like someone had immersed him in snow.
As his eyes opened up, a stabbing pain started to build in his chest, but it wasn’t enough to distract him from looking at Autumn.
Her bruised face was wet with tears, and her lips trembled, her teeth chattering together as she gazed at him.
“Oh, thank God!” she exclaimed. “Thank God! Nathan!” An expression of joy lit up her face.
He reached his hand up to cup her cheek. She leaned her head into his palm and closed her eyes to his touch.
“I thought I’d lost you. I thought after everything we’d been through…” she started in a rush.
“I want you to get yourself to those music awards. And I want you to win…those awards,” he croaked.
Every movement he made, no matter how slight, sent pain shooting through every part of him.
She swept his hair off his forehead. “I will, and you’ll be there with me—not as my bodyguard—as my partner, as the man I want to spend my life with,” she insisted.
“I want you to thank Tawanda…not just for this mission…for every other time she bailed me out of trouble,” he continued.
He saw the look of happiness leave her face as she realized what he was doing. He wasn’t stupid. He had faced death before, but not like this. He felt as weak as a kitten, and the small amount of strength he had left was fading fast.
“You’re saying goodbye. Stop it!” she ordered.
“After you’ve won those awards, I want you to think about what you want to do with your life. You’re talented…and beautiful…but don’t waste time turning up at parties you don’t want to go to just because you think you should. Find out who you are, Autumn. Find out who you want to be.” He struggled to eke out the words.
“I won’t let you leave me. I won’t. You can’t leave me!” she yelled, though her voice faltered. “People don’t leave Autumn Raine!”
“Give your mother a chance. She’s kept secrets her whole life. I think she did it to protect you.”
He wheezed and began to cough. Every convulsion made the blood spurt out of the wound faster. He struggled to breathe.
“Please, Nathan, I can get help. There must be a damn phone in here somewhere.” She got to her feet. “I’ll find one.”
“No, don’t leave me,” he said, reaching for her hand and gripping it in his.
She burst into tears and laid her head against his chest, breathing in the scent of him. It was still there, his cologne, his perspiration, much stronger than the smell of his blood. This couldn’t be the end. She wouldn’t let it be the end. She needed him, and she was sure he needed her, too. They’d had no time to figure out what they could be together.
She raised her head to look at him. “Let me go and get help. I heard the helicopter, too. I could go and look.”
“It’s too late,” he insisted. His voice was nothing but a rasp now, barely audible, unlike his breathing which had become noisier with every motion.
“What’s going to happen now?”
“What?”
“My dad didn’t come. What’s going to happen? Am I going to be running from kidnappers all my life?” she asked.
At the moment, she didn’t really care what her future held. But, she didn’t know how to make this situation better. She wasn’t sure that idle talk was the answer, but she couldn’t just sit there and watch him slip away. It was better he stayed conscious, and the longer she could keep him with her…well, h
elp might come.
“He’ll come,” Nathan said.
“But he was too late, to save you.”
“He wasn’t coming to save me. He was coming to save you…but that was my job,” he responded with a smile.
She watched his eyes close, then the loud breathing stopped and she panicked, dropping his hand.
“Nathan! Nathan, wake up! Nathan! Oh God! No! Please! Nathan!”
She shook him, took him by the shoulders and shook him as hard as she could manage, but his body didn’t react the way it should.
“British Army! Put your hands above your head!”
Autumn let out a scream of terror as half a dozen troops dressed in black combat clothing stormed into the room. They were aiming machine guns at her, gas masks covering their faces.
“Miss Raine, your father’s waiting for you. Let’s go,” one of the men said, grabbing Autumn’s arm and hauling her off the floor.
Autumn pulled away from the soldier. “You need to help this man, Nathan…he’s my…he’s my security,” she said.
Another soldier knelt down by Nathan’s body and shook his head at his colleague.
“You need to help him. You need to do heart massage or something. He was breathing, just a second ago. He was talking to me. Stop pulling my arm and let me go to him! If you won’t do anything, I will!” she shouted as fresh tears flooded her face.
The soldier grabbed a black jacket from his colleague and put it around her shoulders to cover her up. “Miss Raine, this area isn’t secure. We need to get you back to headquarters.”
“I’m not leaving him! I’m not going anywhere until you get an ambulance! I don’t believe there’s nothing you can do! I don’t!”
She folded her arms across her chest and tried to look as defiant as she could. It was a hard look to pull off when her heart was breaking in half.
“Flynn, start CPR. Give it five minutes, then call it in,” the soldier relented.
“I’ll help.” Autumn dropped to her knees beside Nathan.
“That I can’t allow. We need to get you safe,” the soldier ordered. He took hold of Autumn’s arm and dragged her back up to her feet.
