Chosen (26 page)

The parking lot was nearly deserted so finding a spot in front of their room wasn’t an issue. He carried everything in to the room before he disturbed her. Hurting her was the last thing he wanted, but moving her was necessary. He scanned the area to make sure no one was around, then opened the back door, catching her back so she didn’t fall out as the door opened. She groaned as she fell back into his arms.

“Sorry.” He slid her out and into his arms. She cried out in pain. “I know. I’m sorry.” He almost wished he stuck around and tried to take someone’s narcotics, but he knew they’d check his ID for that. It never would have worked.

“Will?” Her speech was slurred as she came around.

The door was only a few short steps from the SUV. He went through the door and shut it behind him with his foot. “Yeah?”

“Where are we?”

He hated to tell her, but there was no way to hide it. “We’re in Denver. In a motel.”

“Not a hospital?”

“No.” He didn’t want to lay her on the filthy bedspread. The whole goddamned place was a potential infection cesspool. He bent over, still holding her as he pulled back the bedspread, but he jostled her in the process and she cried out again. “I’m so sorry, Emma.” He was sorry for so many things. After he laid her down, he knelt next to the bed and stroked her hair. Her face was pale, her eyes outlined by dark purple crescent moons. Her breath came in rapid pants.

“I can’t take you to a hospital,” Will said. “I’m afraid they’ll find us there.”

“Okay.” She closed her eyes. “You know best, Will.”

Her words were like a punch in the gut. Did he know best? If he did, they wouldn’t be in this situation. “I have to clean out your wound, Emma. It’s going to hurt. I’m sorry.”

“I told you already, quit saying that.” She paused and bit her lip. “Do what you need to do.”

He cut her jeans all the way off with his pocketknife. Her leg was swollen around the wound and the hole oozed blood. He turned on a lamp by the table, jerked off the shade and held it over her leg. When he bent over and looked closely, he saw a few pieces of her jeans inside. He knew they had to come out, but he also knew there were probably some even deeper that he couldn’t reach.

“Okay, time for another round of drinks. But first some water.” He found a water bottle and reached around her back, pulling her up to drink. He held it to her mouth and she drank with her chapped and swollen lips. She stopped, panting from the exertion.

“Now, time to belly up to the bar.” He tried to sound jovial, but failed. He held the bottle to her mouth and poured.

She swallowed and coughed. “What, couldn’t spring for the good stuff?”

He smirked. “You must not be a drinker. This
is
the good stuff. Nothing but the best for you.”

She panted and he waited for her to catch her breath. “You know…they say… it’s bad…to drink…alone.”

“I think we’ll make an exception in this case.” After he was satisfied she had enough to help with what he was about to do, he laid her back down. He washed his hands and the tweezers with hot soapy water. He bent over scalding his hands in an effort to sterilize them, agonizing over the fact that he was going to hurt her. He lifted his head and saw his reflection amazed to see the face of a man who cared. How long had it been since he’d cared about anything?

Goddamn it
. He wanted to throw something, no to kill someone, the person who did this to her. He realized he had already done that, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted the person behind this fucking mess. He took several deep breaths in to calm down.

When he went back into the room, he found her asleep, her breath now slow and steady. He hoped she stayed unconscious, but as he poured the saline into her wound, she began to scream in pain. If someone had ripped a hole in his own leg it would have been easier than listening to her anguish.

He stopped. “Emma, sweetheart, I know it hurts, I know. But you can’t scream or someone might call the police.”

“I’m sorry,” she choked out through a sob.

He was about to implode from guilt. “No, don’t say you’re sorry. It’s not your fault.” He sucked in a ragged breath as he rubbed the back of his arm across his forehead, trying to regain control. He began to wonder if he could actually do this. What were his options? Leave the fabric in there and ensure without a doubt that she got an infection or try to get it out and hope she didn’t. It had to be done.

“Okay, we’re going to try this again,” he said, trying not to sound so grim. “I know you can’t help screaming so you have a couple of options. First is you can cover your face with a pillow and you can scream into it. I’d rather try that first.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe we should wait to do this,” he said, although he knew he was putting off the inevitable.

“No… just get it over with.” She grabbed the pillow and dragged it over her face. Will flipped on the television, turning the volume up to help drown out her cries, then washed his hands again. This time he pushed on, ignoring her cries and trying to see through the blur of tears in his eyes, until he was finally satisfied that he did the best he could with two bottles of saline and a pair of tweezers.

He pulled the pillow off her face.

She looked up at him, her face red and wet, her eyes swollen and glazed. “Thank you.”

Will’s tenuous grip on control snapped. After what he just put her through, she
thanked
him. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he choked out. “I’ve got to get something out of the car.” He swiped the room key off the dresser and shot out the door, shutting it tight behind him. He leaned against the brick wall and covered his face with his hands, still covered in her blood. He slid down, ignoring the pain of his skin scraping against the brick, and for the first time in years he cried. It began as a trickle but once unleashed, it turned into gut-wrenching sobs. Of all the people he had hurt, and there were more than he could ever count, she was the one he regretted the most.

It shocked him that he cared. After so many years caring about only himself, he finally found someone he cared about more. But that wasn’t accurate either. He stopped caring about himself the day his father turned him away. Will had lived without a purpose for the last three years, wandering through his life, living for the moment, but not really living at all. Before his court-martial, his life had been one endless con, trying to live up to who his father wanted him to be. But that ended in disappointment on both their parts. His father blamed him for a multitude of sins, most justifiable, yet here was Emma, who had every right to blame him, and she didn’t. He hurt her because of his own negligence and she thanked him for it. How fucked up was that?

He had been waiting for her. He didn’t know it before, but it was true. His whole life he had searched for some type of meaning and purpose. It wasn’t the life his father groomed him for since he was a boy. It was her. Between the mark that Jake burned into his flesh and the glimmer of belonging she offered, he found it. Emma gave him a reason to live. The irony, of course, being that he discovered this as she might die. And it would be his own fault.

He sat with his legs extended, back to the wall, and watched the sunset over the graffiti-covered strip mall across the street. Only five days ago, he met her in a parking lot at sunset, yet it seemed so much longer ago. It all came full circle.

A car pulled into the lot, the pulsating bass of rap music blasting out the open windows. The two men inside glanced at him as they pulled into a parking space several units down. Will realized he had been out here longer than he intended. He should be inside watching over her, especially after what he just put her through. He wiped his face, stood up and took a deep breath before entering the room.

“Will?” Emma whispered.

He knelt down and stroked her hair. “Shh… I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

Her mouth lifted into a tiny smile, her eyes full of tenderness. “It’s not your fault.”

He closed his eyes as he sucked his breath in.

“Will.”

He looked at her only because she wanted him to.

“I don’t blame you. Please don’t blame yourself.”

“Emma…”

“No, wait. There’s something else. If something happens to me…”

“No, Emma, stop…”

“Will,” she said firmly, in spite of her weakness. She stopped to catch her breath before continuing. “If something happens to me, promise you’ll find Jake.”

“Emma,” he didn’t care that his voice broke. He still didn’t believe Jake was alive, but now wasn’t time for a debate. “Nothing’s going to happen to you. I won’t let it.”

She smiled again. “I know.” The trust in her eyes shattered his already cracked resolve. “But in case you’re not around and something does happen, please promise me you’ll find him.”

“I promise,” he finally choked out. At that moment, he would give her anything.

“Thank you.” She closed her eyes.

For the rest of the night, he sat in a chair by the bed, keeping watch as her wound turned red and hot, and red streaks branched out from the opening. She became feverish. Two more doses of antibiotic and ibuprofen didn’t help and he knew things were desperate. Even after mulling over his options during several sleepless hours, he weighed them one more time before accepting it was his only choice. Just before sunrise, he dug out the cell phone buried in his pocket and checked his contacts, thankful the number he needed was still on the list. His thumb hovered over the send button. Once he hit send, it couldn’t be undone. After all the years of brash decisions, he had to be sure of this one. He sighed and pressed the button, hoping he hadn’t just signed their death sentences.

They told him to meet them at Centennial Airport in an hour and they would be waiting with a helicopter.

He drove up to the service entrance and entered in the security code they gave him. The metal gate slid open and he drove through, his chest tightening. A hundred feet in front of him sat a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter on the tarmac. He had spent enough time in them to recognize one. The blades spun, ready for takeoff and two men in military uniforms stood next to the open doors. A civilian helicopter he expected; a fucking Black Hawk he did not. This whole situation had government ties. He wondered again how it involved Emma. If the government wanted her, he didn’t see how he could get her out of it. He steeled himself and drove the SUV around so the back doors faced the side of the aircraft. He got out, rifle in hand. He wasn’t pointing it at them, just letting them know he had it.

They seemed unfazed by the gun. A quick glance of their stripes told him they were Army.

“You boys waiting for a delivery?” Will shouted over the whir of the blades.

“So we’re told,” one said.

“Any of you Kramer?” Will asked, but he already knew the answer.

“No.”

“Before I make this transfer, you need to know I deliver her to Kramer himself. He’s the one who hired me and after what we’ve been through, I trust no one. She transfers directly from me to him.”

“We have orders to deliver you both. We hear she needs medical attention.”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“Where is she?”

Will walked to the back of the SUV and opened the doors. Emma lay on the floor in the back, unconscious and covered with a blanket. “You boys got a stretcher? She sure as hell ain’t walking.”

The men pulled a stretcher from the helicopter. The one who looked like a medic peered inside the back of the vehicle.

Will stood to the side. “She got shot in the left thigh, a Glock by the looks of the gun. About thirty-foot range.”

The medic climbed in and pulled back the blanket and bandages to examine her wound. “This looks more than a few hours old. When did she get shot?”

“Yesterday.”

“Looks like it’s been cleaned, though.”

“I did the best I could with what I had. I’m sure I didn’t get it all.”

The medic accepted his answer with a nod. “You did a decent job, but she’s got an infection.”

“She dragged it through mildewy dirt. I’m sure there’s all kinds of nasty shit out there.”

The medic motioned for the other guy to help him move her to the stretcher. Will tried not to tense when they touched her, but he held his finger on the trigger of his gun. It was pretense. He’d never get away with shooting an Army helicopter crew, but it made him feel better, nevertheless. She cried out as they picked her up. He pretended not to care and watched as they began to move into the helicopter, trailing behind them.

“You gonna take care of that?” the other guy asked Will, pointing to the SUV.

“I don’t give a shit what happens to it. It’s not mine.” He entered the aircraft and sat next to Emma as the medic started to work. The medic glanced up and pointed to the front. “You can sit up there.”

“Let’s get something straight here. I go where she goes. I stay where she stays. If she goes up front, then I go with her, but she looks like she’s staying back here. So this is where I sit.” He laid the rifle across his lap. “You’re going to tell me everything you do before you do it. Is that clear?” Will shifted the gun slightly to reinforce his point.

The medic spoke in a hushed voice into the microphone on his headset, casting a glance toward Will. He waited for a response, then grimaced.

“You would make my job a lot easier if you let me just do it,” the medic said.

“I don’t give a shit what you want. My job is to deliver her alive. Her condition is already compromised and I don’t get paid to deliver her dead. So forgive me if I try to insure my investment.”

He shook his head in disgust. “I’m going to start an IV. Is that okay with you?”

“I want to see everything before it touches her and that includes a goddamned Kleenex. Got it?”

The medic’s face turned red while his jaw clenched. “I’ve been ordered to humor you. So, fine. I’m tying this around her arm so I can find a vein. Then I’m going to stick a needle in her arm to start an IV. Do you want to see the needle?”

“Did I fucking stutter? I said I want to see everything.”

He grunted in irritation and showed Will the needle, still in the package, and searched for veins in her right arm and hand. “I think she’s dehydrated. I’m having trouble finding a vein.”