InnocenceForSale.com/ Bree, page 83
“Catch them,” he said. “You’ve got four minutes, tops. And counting.”
I turned around and barreled down the hill towards our waiting cars, glancing up at the sky in terror every few steps and hallucinating one of the stars getting brighter and brighter. At least… I hoped to fuck it was a hallucination.
Eric
Some of Jace’s soldiers saw the look on my face, the way I was running, and reached for their guns. I shoved one out of the way and flung the driver’s door open on one of the cars.
A second later, Austin’s huge frame was beside me in the passenger seat and the car was flying backwards before the door was closed. I swung the wheel around, doing a j-turn that slammed the door shut and had Austin leaning on me hard, and floored it down the hill.
The headlights bounced crazily as the car went airborne over a speedbump and then hit the road, sending sparks flying as it bottomed out. Austin braced himself against the roof while getting his seatbelt on and I squeezed every ounce of power out of the engine that I could.
I turned a hard left at the bottom of the hill, sending the car into a drift that almost landed us in a ditch, but I pulled it back in time and we fishtailed for a few seconds as I regained the momentum that the turn had cost us. Austin had his gun out already.
This was a fucking nightmare, it had to be a nightmare. If I stopped their car in time, how could I get to Eliana before the people who were already in the car with her?
The best case scenario was that this was going to be a hostage situation. What to do then would depend on how close to the blast we were. How close was too close to survive? Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I wished Ryan or Dan were fast enough to get to the car to tell me that now. Fuck it. I’d have to worry about stopping them first and then think about shooting or talking.
The car went airborne again over a slight rise and then down into a small dip. A few more of these and we’d be out on the flat ground. We were down in the last dip when a streak of fire shot down from the sky like a giant tracer-round and turned the night into day.
“No! Fuck! NO!” I yelled over and over until I thought I was going to shatter the windscreen, slamming my hands on the steering wheel.
We came over the last rise and, a split-second later, a shockwave rocked the car enough that we fishtailed again. The entire desert was gone in a cloud of dust, except for a distant fireball that was rising into the sky incalculably larger than the one I’d unleashed on the Smoke Devils.
With the car under control once more, we plunged into the dust and I concentrated furiously on what little I could see of the road, still screaming a constant stream of expletives. Austin was deathly quiet under the tortured whine of the engine.
The sound under the tires changed for a second as we crossed the bridge over the split in the ground and then went back to normal on the other side. Out of nowhere the car appeared right in front of us, sideways on the road with the headlights pointing to the left and right.
“Fuck!” I slammed on the brakes, sending us into a skid that only stopped when we rammed the side of their vehicle at relatively low speed.
I jumped out, my gun was drawn before I even thought about it, and I leaped on the hood of our car on my knees to be able to cover everybody in the front and the back at once. I took a deep breath to tell everybody not to move and was choked by the sand and dust all around us.
With my right hand holding the gun and my left arm across my face to try to filter out some of the airborne grit I squinted my eyes into the car. The driver’s window was blown out and so was the rear window on the passenger’s side.
Blood was splattered all over the windscreen and of the three people in the car, none of them would have listened to my instruction even if I had been able to yell it out. None of them were moving anyway because they were all dead. None of them were Eliana either.
The rear passenger’s door was open. There was a fourth passenger in this dusty hell somewhere.
“Eliana!” I called, taking a breath against the crook of my elbow and then screaming her name again.
I stood on the hood of the car, yelling in every direction, and straining my eyes through the grit for any sign of movement. There was nothing but an ominous rumble from the site of the Mondalo crater.
Austin stood in the wedge of space between the car and his open door, gun at the ready, as I jumped to the ground and circled the car load of dead Mobsters. Had there been some kind of standoff inside the car as they drove?
I had to physically force myself to walk around the rear bumper of the car, dreading that I might see her body on the ground, or a trail of blood leading off into the gloom. Was she out there? All alone? Hurt? Because I had to be here to see Vito’s demise?
If I had been with her, the Pirozzis wouldn’t have been able to muster enough men to take her away from that hotel room. This was my fault. Kendall was right… live for revenge and hate, and you will create what destroys you.
There was no body on the ground. No blood. There were footsteps leading off the road to the right.
“Eliana!” I called, and listened.
And listened.
And listened.
“Eric?”
“Eliana!”
“Eric!”
I ran blindly off the road in the direction of her voice and almost ran into her, my eyes blurred with dust and tears as they were. I dropped my gun and buried my hands into her hair at each side of her head, gripping her tight to make sure she was real.
Our foreheads pressed against one another and we slowly crumpled to the ground together. My throat was choked up more than I could blame on the dust.
“What the fuck was I supposed to do without you?” I asked.
“I don’t know… what the fuck just happened?”
“You could say that a hand laid upon you in anger has been punished.”
“What does that mean?”
“I can’t explain it right now. Oh fuck. How did you escape?”
“They didn’t search me!” she said. “The guy in the back had a gun pointed in my direction until we were almost at some fence checkpoint thing and I guess he felt safe because he put it away. I pulled my gun out and shot the driver first. I don’t know if that was a good idea.”
“Well, it worked, so we’ll call it a good idea.”
“Then that light… was it a meteorite?”
“No.”
“But it came down right on…”
“Your dad. Yes.”
Eliana’s gun dropped next to mine, from a suddenly limp hand. “Is it over? Is he…”
“Yes. I love you, Eliana.”
“I love you too, Eric. I want to go home.”
“Where’s that?”
“We can decide on the way.”
Eliana
1 year later
I could see Eric’s hands were shaking on the steering wheel and I rubbed his thigh quietly from the passenger seat. Our unnamed baby kicked in my stomach. He or she had been particularly active all morning. Maybe they could sense my excitement.
A small town like Winsome probably wouldn’t have been able to support a store as niche as Winsome Antique Luggage under normal circumstances, but I knew Eric had found ways to sneak money to the owners over the years. As such, the store his parents owned looked like it belonged here, like it had been around just as long as the café to the right or the post office to the left.
With Eric’s name and face plastered all over the news for my abduction, it had taken a dedicated smear campaign on my father to erase him from the public consciousness. Even so, his parents had been under very close government surveillance ever since.
It was only recently that Dan managed to crack all the nuts that needed to be cracked to reassign Federal agents and resources elsewhere without anybody noticing or new ones taking their places. Today he was ready to make the Winchesters disappear from the official records completely, once Eric gave him the all clear.
Just in case anybody else was watching, maybe somebody who didn’t get the memo or somebody a little less official, we were bringing them a few gifts in disguise. Aside from the news that they were going to be grandparents, we had a little something in the trunk.
On one hand, it was part of our disguise. A plausible reason for visiting an antique luggage sales and repair store. It was an old suitcase in desperate need of repair. And, like the best kind of old luggage, it was a treasure chest.
There was no gold and jewels, but there was money. Enough to get them somewhere warm and the documents that would see them retired there, in pure luxury.
“Let’s make everything right,” I said.
Eric looked at me and nodded, putting on his hat and sunglasses. I did the same, over the top of my brunette wig, feeling like a spy in an old movie.
I waited for him to get the suitcase out of the trunk before holding his spare hand and crossing the road. His palm was sweaty, and I gave him a reassuring squeeze.
After a deep breath, he opened the door. There was no electronic tone in this place, there was a real live bell that jingled.
It was fitting. The walls were filled with shelves upon shelves of luggage of all different sizes and all of them were far older than I was. A speaker connected to an infra-red beam across the doorway would have been completely out of place.
An older woman, sitting behind the counter doing a crossword puzzle looked up and promptly dropped everything she was holding on the ground. It fell with a flutter and plastic-y clatter on the hard floor.
She held her hands to her mouth and gasped. Even after not seeing him in person for so long, his cunning disguise was no match for her motherly senses. He swept his hat and sunglasses off.
“Mom…”
“Robbie,” she called.
“Huh?” came a voice from behind her, through a doorway.
“Robbie, come out here…”
Eric closed the distance and his mom leaned over the counter, wrapping her arms around him like she was never going to give him back to me. I crushed my hand against my mouth, holding in a sob, and wondering if my mother would have hugged me like that if she had a chance.
A man came out of the back room and immediately dropped something that looked like a screwdriver. It clattered down next to the pen and crossword puzzle book, while he came around the side of the counter and hugged his son.
Eric heaved the suitcase on to the counter so he would have enough arms for all of them. With teeth firmly clamped shut, desperate not to disturb the reunion, I took off my hat and sunglasses without dislodging my wig.
“I’m sorry life was like this,” Eric said.
“It’s OK, son,” said his dad. “You’re here now.”
His mother temporarily abandoned her embrace to come around the counter and get a better spot. Eric accepted her back into the hug as soon as she got there.
“I’m sorry for all the times you worried about me and I couldn’t tell you I was OK. I’m sorry you sold your Chevy before I could get the money to you. I’m sorry you had to move away from your home. I’m-”
“Shhhh, son. We’re parents, we signed up for it.”
“For all that?”
“For anything,” said his mom.
Maybe it was the hormones, but I didn’t have the strength in my jaw muscles to hold back a sob. His parents looked at me like I’d beamed in from a spaceship.
“Oh… is this…” started his mom.
“The girl from the news?” finished his dad.
“This is Eliana, this is the love of my life.”
His parents dropped him like he was hot and before I knew it I was sandwiched between them, getting hugs you could write songs about. They were both talking at the same time, and I only caught one of the questions.
“Why did you dye your hair? I thought blonde really suited you,” said his mom.
“I… it’s a wig.”
“Oh good.”
“Eliana, was there something you wanted to say?” prompted Eric.
On the way I’d tried to come up with the best way to break the news to them. I’d settled on pulling up my shirt and complaining that I’d gained some weight recently, but in the heat of the moment I forgot it completely.
“Oh… you’re going to be grandparents,” I said.
His dad beamed with pride at his son while his mother looked at me like I had invented the wheel. She put her hand on my belly and received a good kick for her trouble.
“Oh, you clever girl!” she squealed.
At their beckoning, Eric rejoined the fold and wrapped his arms around all of us. I’d never been in the middle of anything that felt like this. At last, this was family.
“How long can you stay?” his mom asked.
“Not long,” said Eric.
“Stay for the night. Stay for dinner, at least? Please? It’s been so long.”
“No.” His mom’s heart was just about to break when he continued. “Mom, Dad, in that suitcase is everything you need to disappear from this place. Money, passports, new everything. Tickets. The deed to a house. When you’re there, we can visit you any time and nobody in the world can stop us.”
“Oh… wow…” said his dad.
“Does he treat you right?” his mom asked me.
I looked at her, then up at Eric, then back to her. “He’s a good man. But sometimes, he’s still a bad boy.”
* * *
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Stockholm Syndromance Bonus
Still a Bad Boy #4.5
Bonus story featuring Eric and Eliana, set after the events of Stockholm Syndromance.
Eliana
I rested my head on Eric’s shoulder as we walked back to our bungalow. The night sky was clear and the stars stood out sharply while an occasional warm wind puffed past. The moon was bright enough to cast our shadows on the path beside us.
Eric had been waiting for tonight ever since Kendall had suggested each couple take a turn or two volunteering for babysitting duty while we were all on holiday together. It’d give everybody a chance to completely relax at least once or twice, and maybe even sleep in.
Truth be told, I’d been waiting for tonight too. The way Eric and I locked eyes before even responding to Kendall, I knew we were on the same page.
Tonight was our first chance we wouldn’t need to squeeze our lovemaking into a thirty minute nap-window, nor would I need to smother myself with a pillow to avoid turning the thirty minute nap-window into a twenty minute nap-window. Oh, I was going to cut loose alright.
I stole a glance at Eric. He had no idea what I’d managed to piece together from the few stores on the island.
Eric looked down at me and I couldn’t help but give a guilty smile. I’d be a terrible poker player. Thankfully he didn’t call my bluff, he just lowered his hand and gave my ass a little squeeze. I bet that didn’t happen often enough at the high rollers’ poker table.
Life was so weird. What would my younger self think if she could have seen my hypothetical diary entry from today?
Tonight, I left my baby girl under the supervision of the man who hired a contract killer to abduct me, but I only did it so I could have noisy sex with said contract killer and catch up on some sleep, so…
Yep. She’d think I was pretty much crazy, but Jace Barlow wasn’t exactly what I’d imagined him to be, and I was married to the contract killer, so at least we weren’t living in sin.
My smile almost broke out into a laugh.
“What are you thinking about?” Eric asked.
“Life.”
“Must be good to put a smile like that on your face,” he said.
“Must be.” I reached up and pulled him low enough so I could plant a kiss on his cheek. “I love you.”
“You too.”
All kidding aside, I knew little Jessica was as safe with Kendall and Jace as she was with us. Their son, Eli, looked out for her just as much as much as he’d been looking out for his own little sister whenever we all got together, which was happening more and more often.
That was another thing to be thankful for. Kendall was my best friend. My first friend. She, Skylar and Sarina welcomed me into their little clique like it was the most natural thing in the world, but Kendall and I would hang out the most. Even though Skylar and I seemed to have the most in common, with our fields of study and all, Kendall and I simply clicked.
After a lifetime thinking everybody would think I was too weird to be friends with, it was almost overwhelming in a wonderful way. I found my place in the world, and now Eric and I had just a little bit of time to ourselves to recapture the magic of those first few days we were together. Cut loose. No holding back. Oh fuck yes.
We ascended the stairs to our bungalow and Eric unlocked the door. Before it had even clicked shut behind us, Eric had me up against the wall with his hand on my throat.
I swallowed hard, an instant before he kissed me so deeply that I thought I might never catch my breath again. His whole body pressed up against mine, humming with long-restrained need.
My body answered his, trying to enslave me to our own chemistry and make me forget my plan. All I wanted was to feel him inside me, to scream my pleasure… but I managed to do the unthinkable.
“Wait,” I panted.
Eric paused, mid-squeeze of my breast. “Seriously?”
I wanted him to squeeze harder… so I almost said “never mind.”
“I’ll be right back.”
I pushed at his arm and, after a second of pause, he let go. Sliding out sideways I could feel the pull of his body on mine like static electricity.
