by Brook Wilder
One of the men drew out a key, unlocked the padlock, and before Melody could utter a word or a cry for help, not that she thought that would help, they were shoving her, Christian and Amanda into the dark basement in a tangle of arms and legs.
They were still trying to get free of one another when Jose uttered a warning in a low, malicious voice.
“Just wait until Enrique gets back. You are going to regret ever going against him.”
The door slammed shut with an ominous thud, and they all listened in silence, completely unmoving, as the metallic sound of the padlock being put back echoed through the dark room.
Melody rushed to Christian’s side, and they clung to each other as their eyes adjusted to the sudden gloom. There weren’t any windows down there. Just four bare concrete walls and a smattering of old furniture.
She shuddered in Christian’s arms. No one would hear their screams. No one would be coming to rescue them now.
That little bright star of hope gave one last, flickering pulse and then went out inside her. She knew in her heart there was no way they were going to get out of this one. Not unless one of them had a miracle tucked up their sleeve that she didn’t know about.
Despite the despair that filled her, though, it wasn’t in Melody to just give up without a fight. And she had one thing now that she’d never had before. Christian.
She gave him last, hard squeeze before stepping back and trying to get a better look at the gloomy room they’d all been locked in.
“Well, it’s not exactly a dungeon, right?” Melody muttered in the dark.
She was rewarded with Christian’s soft chuckle, before his voice sobered.
“Not quite. But too close for my liking, that’s for damned sure.”
Melody started walking the perimeter of the room, searching for anything they could use. It was bigger than she’d thought at first, with most of it lost to the shadows that clung to the deepest corners.
As she was walking, her eyes slowly got used to the dimness, and she could make out a darker shadow in one corner. A bad feeling filled her, settling deep in the pit of her stomach as she rushed towards it.
“Oh, my god! Bianca?”
A hacking cough reached her ears, followed by Bianca’s familiar, gravelly smoke-roughened voice.
“Damn! He got you too, did he?”
Melody couldn’t speak. She was choking on the pain she could hear in the older woman’s voice. Christian answered for her.
“Yeah. Me too, Bianca,” Christian’s voice said softly from the darkness beside her.
“Bastard!” Bianca coughed roughly again, forcing out the word on a hack.
Melody felt Christian turn in frustration.
“Amanda, can you find us a light? Anything? I can’t see a damned thing.”
A moment later, there was a sound of rustling coming from the other side of the room, closest to the door they’d all been tossed through. After a few seconds and a softly muttered curse, a dim fluorescent glow flickered half-heartedly to life and filled the basement.
“God damn it!” Christian cursed again as they got their first good look at Bianca.
Melody had to draw in a deep, shuddering breath to steady herself. Even in the dim lighting, she could see that it wasn’t good.
Melody felt like cursing too as they helped Bianca to her feet and had to practically carry the other woman over to a nearby chair so that Christian could examine her injuries. He wanted to see how bad they were, but Melody could already tell that she was in a bad state.
Melody swallowed hard, taking in the swollen left side of the older woman’s face and the limping way she walked. Her left eye was so bruised and swollen that Bianca could hardly see out of it.
The older woman put up with the examination with as much patience as she possessed. Which is to say, none at all.
“It’s not as bad as it looks, Christian. Stop fussing over me.”
Bianca tried to wave them all away, obviously uncomfortable under all the scrutiny but Christian wouldn’t be deterred.
“Nothing looks infected, just swollen,” Christian said, and Melody could hear the anger in his voice even though he tried to keep it soft and calm as he spoke to Bianca. “Did they hurt you anywhere else? Your ankle? I noticed your limp.”
Bianca snorted, trying to wave him off once more.
“That was my own damned fault. Tripped in the dark and twisted the damned thing something good.”
“I’m going to move it now. It might hurt a little, but I need to make sure it’s not broken, okay?”
“Is anything I say going to stop you?” Bianca groused, giving him a put-upon look that normally would have sent anyone running towards the door.
But Christian just grinned at her and shrugged.
“No.”
“Well, then go ahead and get this over with. Damned doctors!”
Bianca looked away as she spoke, and Melody’s heart clenched at the look in the older woman’s eyes. Pain, embarrassment, shame.
“Don’t worry, Bianca,” Melody said quietly, trying to distract her from what Christian was doing. “We’ll get you out of this mess. I’m sorry I ever got you involved.”
“Oh, honey, this ain’t on you. This is all on that no-good, rotten, son of a bitch…”
She cut off abruptly on a hiss of pain, as Christian tested her ankle before gently putting it back down again.
“Well, it’s not broken, but you can’t put any weight on it.”
“Hell, I could have told you that.” Bianca swatted his hands away. “I’m not one of your strays, Christian. You don’t need to patch me up. I do just fine for myself, thank you very much.”
Bianca’s voice was suddenly all business.
“The real thing we need to figure out is how the hell we’re going to get the two of you out of here.”
“And you too, Bianca,” Christian said sternly.
“And you, Amanda,” Melody added.
Bianca hissed again, this time in anger. The older woman’s eyes searched the dimly lit basement until they landed on Enrique’s cousin, who had stayed silent and huddled against the far wall during Bianca’s examination.
“You! Did you betray them again you little…”?
“No, Bianca. She helped us,” Melody hurried to explain.
The only thing they had down there was each other. She couldn’t let them fall apart.
“If not for her, Christian would never have known where I was. Or you. He never would have found us.”
“Fat lot of good finding us has been. He’s just as trapped as we are.”
“Maybe not, Bianca,” Christian said slowly, looking deep in thought.
Melody gazed at him questioningly, but after a moment it was obvious that he wasn’t going to explain any further than that.
“What are you planning, Christian?” Melody asked softly, turning towards him so that she could get a better look at his contemplative expression.
“I’m not sure yet. But you’re right about one thing. We need to figure our way out of here. If we wait…”
He trailed off, leaving the words unspoken, but they all knew the consequences of that. If they waited until Enrique found them, they wouldn’t be leaving this place alive. Melody was not even sure what he would do to her after that betrayal.
“Alright,” Melody said, glancing around the room. “Any ideas? We can’t stay. That means we have to figure a way out of here. And we don’t have much time.”
Slowly, they all gathered together, taking whatever random seat they could find as they sat down to make a plan.
Melody had just told the truth. The clock was ticking. And they were running out of time.
Chapter 24
“No. Absolutely not.”
Christian growled the words. The same ones he’d repeated for at least the hundredth time. Over the last twenty minutes, their little group had gone over several plans to get them the hell out of that place and had discarded all of them. Except one.
>
It was one they all kept coming back to every time they reached a dead-end, and it was the one that he detested the most. Mainly because, out of all of them, it was the only one that stood a chance at working. And it was the one that would put Melody in the most danger.
“It makes sense, Christian,” Melody pleaded, also for the hundredth time, or at least that’s what it felt like.
Christian had to fight the urge to growl in frustration again and had to settle for clenching his teeth so hard his jaw ached.
“They won’t hurt me. Not really. Not after what happened…”
Melody trailed off and looked away, but not before Christian could see the flash of painful memory shadow her dark gaze. He reached towards her, tilting her head until she faced him once more.
“Remember what I said, Mel? No shame. Not ever. No guilt. You didn’t do that. You didn’t do any of this. And you sure as hell didn’t kill that man.”
Melody let out a shuddering breath, and Christian had to clench his fists to hold back the anger. Not at her. At the man who had done this to her. The man who had hurt her over and over again.
“No, but he still died because of me, Christian. That won’t ever change.”
“Don’t let it scar you. Don’t let it in. He’s hurt you enough already.” Christian drew in a deep breath. “And I’m sorry, but I can’t let him hurt you again. I can’t let you go through with this.”
The plan they had roughed-out involved using as Melody as bait. She would pretend she was injured and call for help, then play on the men’s fears of Enrique to get out of there. Then she would do whatever she had to convince them to take her back upstairs to the bedroom. With the door and the lock that was broken. They wouldn’t know that, and the hope was that they would ‘lock’ her in and be none the wiser. Then she would be able to get out and call for help.
There were way too many if’s and maybe’s for Christian’s liking. All he could see were all the ways it could go wrong. All it would take was for her to say the wrong thing, look the wrong way. For them to discover that it was all a ruse. And then she’d be trapped somewhere else, separated from them, all alone to face Enrique’s wrath when he got back and found out what had happened.
No. No, he couldn’t let her go through with it. Just the thought alone made him break out in hives and sent panic skittering through his body like a live wire.
“It’s too risky, Mel,” Christian said softly, imploring her to see the agony it caused him, to understand how terrified he was for her, for their child.
“It’s too risky to do nothing,” Amanda cut in, giving them all a harsh look. “If Melody wants to try it, you can’t stop her. She has the right to make choices for herself.”
“You don’t get to talk,” Bianca interrupted sharply, glaring at Enrique’s cousin.
She hadn’t forgotten Amanda’s betrayal of them all those months ago.
“I have just as much right as you do, old woman.”
“Oh, you think so? Well, let me set you straight about something you…”
Amanda and Bianca started arguing, again, and Christian just let it wash over him. His mind was too busy working furiously, thinking in circles, trying to come up with something, anything, that would stop this plan from moving forward. That would stop Melody from putting herself in even more danger than she already was.
“The baby,” Christian whispered, saying the word out loud without meaning to.
“What did you say?” Melody asked just as softly.
Bianca and Amanda were shouting at each other so loudly that neither was afraid of being overheard, but Melody had still picked up his sudden slip.
“The baby,” Christian repeated the words again, already feeling guilty for using it against her, but not any more than he was afraid for her safety. “You can’t risk our child. It’s too dangerous.”
Melody flinched at his words as if he’d hit her, and she wrapped her arms protectively around her belly. He hated the desperate look in her eyes.
“What else can we do, Christian?” Melody shook her head, despair shadowing her gaze. “How else are we going to get out of here?”
She drew in a deep breath before going on.
“I know it’s a risk. But it’s my fault you are all trapped here. It’s the least I could do, sacrificing myself to get you out of here. I owe you that.”
“You’re wrong, sweetheart,” Christian said softly, cupping her cheek with one hand. “We come up with a different plan. We do something else. But whatever it is, we do it together, alright? Together, or not at all.”
Melody stared at him in the dark room, and his heart skipped a beat at the love and spirit he could see gleaming at him from her dark eyes. After a long moment she nodded.
“Alright. Together, or not at all.”
Chapter 25
“Are you sure about this?” Melody asked under her breath.
She’d been watching Christian, and she could see the nerves that jittered through him, ramping up her own. He had been pacing for the last fifteen minutes, mussing his hair with his hands until it stood up on end.
At her softly spoken question, he rushed to her side and picked up one of her hands, cradling it in his own. He looked at it for a long minute, and she realized it was her left hand. He was looking at the wedding ring that still gleamed on her ring finger.
“Honestly? No.” He forced out a bark of a laugh, but there is no humor in it. “I’m not really sure of anything anymore.”
“I am.”
The words flew from her lips with more resolution than she thought she had inside her. Melody stepped closer to him, inhaling his unique masculine scent and feeling strength flow through her. Because of him. Because she knew that she would never lose his love.
“I am sure of you. I am sure that I love you and that I want a life with you.”
She closed the last inch of distance between them, losing herself in the small world that they created together where just the two of them existed.
“I am sure that you are going to love this baby more than anything in the world, and so am I.”
Christian just stared at her, his mouth working and his eyes dark with emotion, but no sound came out. Melody inhaled sharply, a deep breath to calm her nerves.
“You know, on the day that I got the pregnancy test, before I even knew that I was in love with you, Bianca told me something.”
“And what was that?” he asked her hesitantly, pushing a tendril of stray hair behind her ear. “You know you have to take anything that woman says with a grain of salt.”
“I hear that!” Bianca chimed in gruffly from where she was sitting with her ankle elevated as well as Christian could get it.
Melody shook her head at the curmudgeonly old woman. Not even being imprisoned in a damn-dark basement was enough to curb her attitude.
“She said that happiness was out there, that it existed, even when it seemed like it didn’t. And that when I found it, it was worth fighting for.” Melody looked up at him, her heart shimmering in her eyes. “That’s what I’m going to do, Christian. I found my happiness. I found you. And I am going to fight to hold on to it, no matter what Enrique throws at us.”
“I love you, Mel.”
Her chest tightened at the emotion she could hear in his voice. The same emotion that was in her own as she stared up at him.
“I love you, too.”
“Gah, are they always like this?” Amanda said to Bianca.
The older woman just snorted. Over the last hour they had formed an uneasy alliance, but at least Bianca wasn’t trying to strangle Enrique’s cousin any more.
“You should see them at home. They’re even worse when they aren’t in a life-threatening situation.”
Bianca emphasized the last few words, drawing Melody back with a start to where they were and what they were doing.
The sound of footsteps could be heard drawing closer overhead, just like clockwork as the man guarding them made his rounds. Melody loo
ked up at Christian, nerves and adrenaline making her whole body shake, but at least her voice was strong and steady when she finally spoke.
“It’s show time. Are you ready, now?”
Christian let out a low chuckle, but she could hear the nerves in his voice too, could see them in the way his eyes constantly darted trying to see from every direction at once.
