Page 91 of Keep Me Safe
I didn’t understand what he was doing, but I obeyed. I fought against the burning pins and needles to part my lips, and no sooner than it was done, the fabric he’d twisted into a rope was in my mouth.
“Bite down.”
He didn’t need to tell me, because he shoved me over onto my stomach and tied the pillowcase into a gag, making me scream into it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, scooping me up and draping me over his shoulder.
My vision went black.
Perhaps I’d passed out from the pain, but unfortunately, I came to mere seconds later in the doorway, where every step he took set me on fire over and over again. When would I benothing more than ash? I hung limp, and the fighter inside me who never gave up? She was nowhere to be found.
I wished I would die, wanted it to end.
He trudged out into a narrow hallway and headed away from the gunfire.
The pain was more acute now, but stabbing rather than burning, allowing me to regain the tiniest shred of movement. My head turned just in time to see a man, dark hair and olive skin, approaching us from behind with a gun.
Screaming did no good with the gag. I bit down as hard as I could and made a fist, banging it into Ethan’s leg in a furious rhythm so he would know it was intentional. He swung around, and a gunshot erupted, followed by the sound of something heavy falling to the floor.
“Fucking hell,” he said under his breath, then rolled back the way he’d been going, giving me a view of the man he’d just killed. The body was a bloody heap, blood spattered across the wall.
This time, Ethan moved much faster and rougher. I screamed in agony into the gag.
It was warm outside. A pleasant summer day, great for burning alive and gunfights.
We were in the woods a moment later, and he laid me down, taking the gag off and giving me a reprieve while he knelt over me. I struggled for air through my clenched teeth, eyes closed, wondering how long he would let me remain like this. The absence of pain gave me a kind of euphoria.
“Whose blood is that?” I asked. When he’d rolled the pillowcase up, there had been blood covering his hands.
“Most of it’s from the man watching the back door.”
Most, not all. It was likely we were resting here in the trees for him as much as for me. He had a hand pressed to his waist, right below where the vest stopped, but blood leaked out.
“Did you get shot?”
“Knife.” He glanced at the wound before covering it again and sounded disgusted with himself. “That’s what I get for being slow.”
A stick cracked under foot.
Ethan’s gun snapped in the direction the sound came from, grimacing in pain, and he probably moved slower than he wanted to.
Oh, shit.Shit!
A large man crashed through the woods, dashing toward us with a gun raised?—
From the side, a gunshot ripped through the air, the sound making me flinch. The man running at us spun sideways, red spraying from his chest as he went down.
Ethan’s attention turned to the shooter. I couldn’t move to see who it was, but he let out a breath, lowered his weapon, and said something harsh in German. The voice that answered back... was I delusional from the pain?
It sounded like Shawn.
Footsteps brought the man closer, then Shawn came into view, and I wanted to cry. I wanted to fling myself into his arms—but didn’t dare move. What was he doing here? Had he just killed a man? The thought was gone when he pulled me up into his arms and I had to fight not to scream.
“Don’t touch me!”
He set me gently back on the dead leaves and uneven ground, not understanding my reaction. His face was full of concern and his unblinking gaze refused to leave mine.
“She’s been dosed with a neurotoxin,” Ethan said. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
