BABY FOR A PRICE

by Kathryn Thomas

  My ears pricked as I thought I heard footsteps approaching the door and the woman’s ears did, too. I was pretty certain I recognized them as Anthonys - he had a very specific gait, slow and steady, and I closed my eyes as they approached. Please, don’t let him be hurt. Please, don’t let him get hurt coming to save me. But they stopped as they reached the door, and then vanished completely as if they had been some kind of trick of my panic and fear. The woman glanced over at me, and we made eye contact for a moment as if she was half-expecting me to confirm or deny what she’d heard. I tried to keep my face impassive, hoping she wouldn’t read anything into it, and she looked away and headed for the door.

  “Try anything, and I’ll kill her,” the woman warned, gesturing with her gun towards Lily. Lily let out a whimper as the woman opened the door and stepped outside, and I looked over at her.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I murmured, but my comfort was hollow. I couldn’t promise her anything, couldn’t truly tell her that nothing bad was going to happen with any conviction. Because the truth was, I didn’t know. All I could do for now was obey what this woman ordered us to do and hope that was enough to keep her appeased. To keep us both alive.

  I watched helplessly as the tears dripped down Lily’s face and stained her front. I had never seen her like this - in fact, I couldn’t remember ever having seen her cry in the whole time that I’d known her. Both of us were the reserved type, the kind of people who would rather die than end up showing our emotions to anyone. And, well, it looked like I might get my wish this time around.

  “Lily,” I murmured urgently, glancing over at the woman to make sure she wasn’t listening in to our conversation. “I just want you to know, whatever happens, I love you.”

  “I love you too,” she blurted, and something about hearing the words come out of her mouth made the whole situation that much more real. I sucked in a lungful of air to keep from crying, trying to focus on what we could do to stay alive. I wasn’t dying here. I wasn’t dying for no good reason. I wasn’t going to end up like Lia, dead and gone over something I never had any control over. I didn’t want that to be my life. Or my death.

  Lily stopped crying and managed to lift her head up, scanning the room for the woman. I was pretty sure she had been so lost in her own fear and panic that she hadn’t even noticed she’d left. Lily shivered as a gust of cool air hit her, and she peered over at the door. She was closer to it than I was, so she could probably make more out.

  “What can you see?” I whispered urgently. I didn’t want Saffron to hear us, but I needed to know.

  “It’s dark, I can’t see much,” Lily responded hurriedly. “But I think-”

  “I can hear you talking in there,” Saffron called in a monotone. We immediately shut up, and I was left trying to figure out what Lily thought she had seen.

  After a few more moments, the woman made her way back into the apartment, closing the door and making sure the latch was shut tight behind her. Who had been out there? We had all heard the footsteps, but the woman obviously hadn’t found anything otherwise she would have gone after whoever was out there. I watched her carefully as she strode back over to us, checking our bindings briefly - as if we could have rustled free in her absence. Now that I got a closer look at her, I could see she looked a little like me - same jawline, same nose. Little details that hinted to me that maybe Anthony had something of a type.

  Suddenly, I heard footsteps again, and the woman’s head snapped up too. They seemed to be coming from behind the apartment, but that was impossible; it was built straight onto the rock. Saffron frowned as she followed the sound of the footsteps, making her way over to the wall and tracing the spots where the sound was most obvious. She went for the door, but before she got there, a loud hissing noise filled the room.

  “What the fuck is that?” the woman demanded. She looked between Lily and me as if we might have had something to do with it. “You tell me, what the fuck is that noise?”

  “I-I don’t know,” I murmured in response. It was the truth - I was just as unnerved by it as her.

  “You’ve been staying here, tell me, you seen anything that might make that noise? Gas? Electric? Anything?” she demanded, closing the distance between us, getting right up in my face. I shook my head.

  “I haven’t seen anything,” I replied desperately. She was so close that I could smell the expensive perfume she was wearing, and it was making me a little ill with its musky heaviness.

  She didn’t believe me. Screwing up her face, she turned to Lily and lifted her hands so that her gun was pointed squarely at my best friend’s head.

  “Tell me,” she muttered, her voice lower this time. More threatening. Lily looked past the barrel of the gun and at me, her eyes wide yet curiously blank, as if her body couldn’t process all the fear in her system.

  “I don’t know!” I yelled. “Please, don’t hurt her, she has nothing to do with this.”

  “She’s got everything to do with this,” Saffron snarled, cocking the gun. Lily let out a small cry and tears welled in her eyes again. I felt as though I could have torn through my restraints and wrestled the gun away from Saffron myself with the surge of adrenalin that enveloped my system at that moment, but I was still impotent. There was nothing I could do, nothing I could say, to stop this happening. This hissing had just gotten louder, and I was straining my neck looking around and trying to figure out where it was coming from.

  “What are you looking at?” Saffron barked, letting the gun drop as she followed my gaze. “Tell me.”

  My eyes had settled on something at the other side of the room - it looked like a small canister, I had just assumed it was a light or something similar beforehand. But it was emitting a small cloud of something, and the cloud was spreading towards us

  “That.” I nodded in the direction of the canister. I just wanted her as far away from my best friend as I possibly could. She squinted in the direction I was gesturing in, and slowly made her way towards the canister. The gas was lit up in the dim red lighting around us, and I couldn’t figure out why she wanted to get closer to it. I was already beginning to panic about what would happen when the cloud reached us, and she was walking straight towards it? Must have been some of that hitman bravado Anthony was talking about.

  As soon as she got close enough to catch a whiff of it, she jerked back in horror.

  “Motherfucker!” she snapped, apparently to herself, but before she could get any more words out, she fell to her knees. The gun slipped from her hand and landed on the polished wood floor with a loud clatter, making me jump. She coughed twice, a harsh, rasping sound, and then collapsed to the floor. She pulled herself up as best she could, and seemed to focus on something outside the window. She groped for her gun, picked it up, and began shooting wildly at whatever she had seen, bringing the glass down in shards around her.

  That was when I seriously started to panic. If a woman like her could get taken out by whatever was in those canisters, what chance did we stand? I glanced over at Lily, whose eyes were wide and full of panic as she took in the scene in front of her.

  “What do we do?!” I exclaimed, rocking back and forth in my chair as I tried my hardest to free myself from my bindings.

  “I-I don’t know,” Lily admitted, tugging at her own ropes. We watched in a panic as the gas moved towards us, slowly filling up the room. Lily, being closer to the canister, did her best to jerk her chair away from the cloud that was slowly approaching her. She managed to shift herself a few inches before toppling backward and landing with a hard thump flat on her back.

  “Lily!” I called out to her, craning my neck to see her, but she was out cold - I prayed from the fall rather than the gas. It was just me left, and the gas was getting ever closer. Saffron was still shooting, but slower now, as though the gas was incapacitating her at last. Maybe it was making her hallucinate, and that was why she was shooting? I squinted through the window, but I couldn’t see anything out there through the haze o
f gas in front of me. But then, my vision was blurring, and I was too desperate to focus on anything other than getting Lily to safety while Saffron was distracted.

  I desperately pulled at my bindings, and suddenly, the one around my hands unwrapped. It took me a second to register what had happened, but as soon as I did, I reached for the ties around my feet and went to work as best I could. I managed to get to my feet, my head spinning, and I hurried in the direction of the door. But in order to get to it, I had to run through the cloud of gas, and even as I tried to hold my breath, I could feel it sliding down my airways, filling my head with an uncomfortable wooziness. Just as I got my hand to the door, I dropped to my knees and let out a single cough. And then, before I knew it, unconsciousness enveloped me. The last thing I remember thinking before my thoughts drifted away entirely, was whether or not I would ever wake up again. And after that, there was only darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I sprinted back up the steps as soon as I heard the gun go off. My heart was slamming against my ribcage, my mouth completely dry as I tried to figure out where to go from here. I snatched up a rock from the path, weighing it in my hand and cursing my decision not to bring any weapons up here with me. I’d assumed the gas would be enough to see her off for now, but obviously, I was wrong. I heard a crash and the sound of glass breaking and pressed my back against the wall so I could approach without being seen.

  I peered around the edge of the building and saw Saffron standing there. I wasn’t sure whether the gas was messing with her or what, but she was leaning heavily against one of the couches, apparently on the brink of passing out. Seeing her like that left me with a brief flash of a memory of her, eyes rolling into the back of her head as she doped herself up, but I pushed it from my brain as I prepared to throw the rock. I didn’t need any nostalgia or sympathy at that moment in time. I needed action.

  I could see that Lily was already out cold, and Sabrina had somehow gotten to her feet, but she soon collapsed, and I knew that the gas would do a lot more damage than that if I left it any longer. Taking a sharp breath in, I darted out into the open, aimed, and hurled the rock with all the force I could muster directly at Saffron’s head.

  It connected with a soft, dull thump, and she managed to take aim at me one last time and pull the trigger before she fell to the ground. I dropped to the floor at once, and the bullet sailed past me. Glancing up, I saw that she was passed out, and I hurried inside to get out Sabrina and Lily.

  I quickly undid Lily’s bindings from where she had toppled backward on the floor and scooped her over my shoulder. I laid her out carefully next to the door, checking for any signs of a serious head injury and finding none, to my relief. Then I ran back inside and picked up Sabrina. I inhaled the scent of her hair, pressing my nose into her head and breathing a sigh of relief as I got her outside. I was honestly surprised that the two of us were together again, and both of us were alive - at least for now. I had been so set on the notion that I was going to save her and get her out of there that it didn’t even cross my mind how stupid I was being for going after her, or how slim the chances of both of us making it out were.

  I carried them both down to the car, then pulled it around so it was out of sight of the main road. Both of them were out cold - well, that was the point of the gas, after all. It was poisonous in high doses, but the amount they took in they should have been fine after a couple of days sleeping it off. Saffron, however, was a different story.

  I made my way back up to the apartment, glad that it had had time to air out by the time I got back up there. One of the three of us needed to have their wits about them, at least. I climbed in through the window and looked at Saffron lying there on the floor in front of me.

  I mean, she had fought the gas for that long. She was a sturdy thing, after all, still standing after everything life had thrown at her. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t furious with her. I had been the one to receive that picture, the one she’d tortured with the images of the woman I loved in such pain. Not to mention anything she’d done to Lily and Sabrina. I wouldn’t hear about any of that until they woke up, but the fact that she put them in this situation was bad enough. A callous part of me that was larger than I cared to admit to wanted to leave her there, to choke on what was left of the gas, but I knew that wasn’t a good idea.

  For one thing, I didn’t want her to die. It was simple and probably stupid to leave her alive, but I just couldn’t do it to her. The gas would take care of her memories from this night, scrambling her brain so she couldn’t remember much, and that hefty hit with the rock that I gave her would help with that too. She would likely tell Leo she’d dealt with all three of us because his reaction to finding out she didn’t would be worse than anything the gas could do to her. It was a risk, yes, but it was more of a risk letting her die here - that would put me in the firing line even more than I was now, and any hitman that was sent after me would see it as their personal mission to avenge her death. On both a practical and a personal level, I knew leaving her here to choke to death was a bad idea.

  Not that it meant I was interested in doing that much to help her, to be fair. I looked down at her, and let out a sigh - I had to get her out of here. I was okay because most of the gas had cleared, but I needed to get her into the fresh air and the recovery position before she ended up dying on me.

  What was I going to do with her body? That was the question. If I just dumped her at the apartment, the people who were after us might be able to easily trace our tracks. I didn’t have time to drive her into the city myself. Hell, I wasn’t sure I had time to be standing here thinking about it in the first place. I needed to get out of there as soon as I could, but she was going to be a thorn in my side. Just like she’d always been.

  I picked her up and slung her over my shoulder, making my way down to the beach and propping her against a bunch of rocks out of sight from the road. I paced back and forth in front of her, casting looks at her unconscious form - it wouldn’t be too long until she woke up, and I needed to be long gone by the time she did. And I needed to make sure she was far, far away as well.

  Who could I trust with this? As I paced back and forth and racked my brains, I couldn’t come up with anyone. Everyone who I might have considered on my side was always going to take Leo’s interests over mine, which I couldn’t blame them for. I needed someone who was out of the game, who had nothing but their own interests at heart. Someone who was out of the potential splash zone for Leo’s wrath. Someone I had known long enough to know that they would deal with this as calmly and completely as they could.

  I pulled out my phone and scrolled down the list of contacts. No names jumped out at me at first. But then I remembered. Tom. He had been happy to give me all the information I’d asked for when I’d come calling about Leo and the Marinos the first time around. Yeah, it was a risk - Leo had found out I was asking after him, after all - but I needed Saffron out of here, and I needed her out of here now. I couldn’t stand on ceremony and refuse to call Tom on the off-chance that he might spill the beans. If anyone were going to deal with this, it would be him.

  I tapped his name and held the cell to my ear, staring out across the ocean. It was curiously calm considering everything that had just happened. It felt as though a wild storm might be more appropriate weather, but instead, the waves lapped lightly at the beach, and a few birds crowed overhead. Suddenly, I heard Tom’s voice over the line, and it took me by surprise.

  “Ant? What’s up?” He sounded concerned. “I heard that Leo put out a hit on you, I tried to get hold of you, but-”

  “I’m okay,” I replied, relieved. He was telling me things he shouldn’t have been telling me - that meant he was still very much on my side.

  “Thank Christ,” he murmured. “Why are you calling?”

  “I need your help,” I shot back. He knew as well as I did that time was of the essence and that I needed him to get on stuff as soon as he could. He’d probably been here bef
ore at some point - messed up a hit, got on someone’s wrong side, something like that. He’d worked for a bunch of different clients over the years, and he’d made it out alive. That sent a flicker of hope through my system - if he could find a way out, then there was no reason that I couldn’t.

  “What is it?” he demanded, and I heard him get to his feet and begin pacing, as he often did when he was listening carefully.

  “You know the little cove down by the highway as you come out of town?”

  “I know it.”

  “You need to get down there as soon as you can. There’s an apartment built into the rock, and if you follow the steps down you’ll find a woman, who’ll either be passed out or very, very pissed,” I continued. He chuckled without humor.

  “For some reason, I get the feeling you’re probably talking about Saffron.”

  “You’d be right,” I admitted. “When the hit on me didn’t go to plan I guess Leo sent her out to my place to take out…”