Protect Me (25 page)

Her
side was really starting to hurt now, a combination of a sharp pain near her
kidney and a dull ache that spread out over most of her torso. She ignored it
and moved down the goon’s body. She tied his ankles together the same way.

When
that was done, Hope gave herself a single moment to pause and inhale. Agony
flared out from her side and she choked on the breath; Hope closed her eyes and
forced herself to exhale slowly. So, that was at least a cracked rib or two.

She
opened her eyes again and drew a knee up carefully.

Before
she started to push herself up, a familiar hand reached into her field of
vision.

Hope
craned her neck up, taking care to move only her neck, not her torso. It hurt
anyway.

“Ah,”
she started to say, but talking hurt more than she expected, and she grimaced.

Rick
stared down at her, dark eyes wide and worried in his pale face. He kept the
one hand extended toward her, but the other was settled on the hilt of his
knife, which was unsheathed in his hand.

“Thank
you,” Hope managed to gasp. Rick’s eyes narrowed.

“For
what?” he asked, an unfamiliar note of bitterness in his voice. Hope drank in
the sight of his face, a reminder of better things in the midst of all this
pain and ugliness. She wished that right then, under the lingering effects of
the adrenaline, she had the chance to talk. Here, where she knew what to do and
how to do it, maybe she could find the words to tell him how she felt.

But as
ever, wrong place and wrong time.

“For
trusting me to take care of it,” she said succinctly, and placed her hand in
his. Hope managed to hide the worst of her winces as she slowly leveraged
herself up. “If you’d jumped in with the knife, Mr. Six by Six here would’ve
grabbed it, grabbed you, and then creek, paddle, you know the rest.”

She
traded an instant white-hot flare of pain for a glance up at Rick’s face; he
looked startled by her words, and the lines around his mouth softened, though
his eyes were still very dark. When he caught her looking, Rick’s fingers
tightened around hers and he dropped his head for a swift, soft brush of a kiss
against her lips. They didn’t really have time for it, but Hope let him anyway.

Just
for a second, then she pulled away and slipped her hand out of his grasp. She
turned away to remove the temptation of giving her attention to Rick when it
needed to go to other things. Like getting them out in one piece.

Hope
turned to Iseul, who was standing with her arms and legs no longer restrained,
smiling a little at the display. Mostly Iseul looked relieved.

“I’m
glad you’re alright,” Hope said, a bit awkwardly.

“Well.”
Iseul flipped her hair over her shoulder and shot Hope a quick smile. “I’m sure
I would have managed on my own, but I can’t pretend I’m not very pleased to see
you.”

The
tension in the cramped room broke; Iseul and Rick started laughing. Hope wanted
to join in but knew it would hurt. She contented herself with a smile and
another long look around the room.

Uneasiness
prickled at the edges of her mind. The room was shadowy, but not so much that
she couldn’t see its emptiness. And Boran was off taking care of any other
potential threats. They should have been as safe as it was possible to be out
here.

And
yet.

“Come
on,” Hope said, interrupting a murmured conversation about something to do with
Rick’s pockets that she didn’t quite catch. “We need to get moving. Rick, you
go in front. Iseul in the middle, I’ll be behind.”

Both of
them gave her a little frown, but didn’t protest. She guessed they were pleased
at the chance to stay in front of her. The truth was though that she could
guard them better with a clear view. Even more luckily, they were up against
enemies who wanted her wards alive. She had little to fear for their health
unless by an accident and far more to fear with her own. Hope was comfortable
with that.

A hand
landed lightly on her shoulder and traveled down her arm. Rick leaned in to
say, “Are you sure that you’re alright?” against her ear. She smiled at him
with only a little effort.

“I’m
fine. In a minute we’ll be out of here and then we’ll be even more fine.”

Behind
her, a familiar and yet unexpected voice said almost sadly, “Hope, you should
know better than to make promises you can’t keep.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It
wasn’t so much adrenaline as a wave of pure denial that hit her. Something was
wrong. The voice was wrong. Or the words were. One of them had to be.

Nothing
but force of training made Hope swing around and look at the door. Not because
she was scared of what she’d find, but because she knew exactly what she was
about to see. And no matter how tough you are, nobody really wants to face the
betrayal of a friend.

Boran
stood there with a gun in his hand and another goon at his shoulder. This one
was less hulking than the other, but only slightly.

“What
the hell are you doing?” Hope said flatly. Rick had gone totally still beside
her. She didn’t look at him or Iseul, who probably didn’t even recognize Boran.

Her
colleague rolled his shoulders into a shrug. He didn’t look vindictive, just
determined, his face set firmly. She knew right then that she wouldn’t be able
to deter him. But Boran wasn’t just some meat shield; he was smart and
experienced. Hope had no idea what was going on in his head, and she might
actually have to figure it out if they were all going to get out of here in one
piece.

“I
don’t want a conversation, just hand over your boyfriend’s invention and I’ll
let you go.” His expression wavered; he looked like he was struggling with
himself somehow. “I did tell you not to get so close to him, didn’t I? I tried
to warn you.”

 “The
rumors claim of a powerful weapon. Something that we country folk cannot
understand, that will make us flee our own land.”
Thabo’s words rang through her head.

Hope
raised an eyebrow. “Warn me that what, you were gonna rob the person I was
hired to protect? That was never going to turn out well. And you’re
double-crossing a job? Really? I thought you were better than that.”

“I
don’t have any obligation to the kgosi.” Boran shrugged. “I finished my
contract for him. Then Gouws offered me more money. It’s as simple as that.”

“You
know it isn’t,” Hope said quietly.

The man
behind him was staring at Hope with wide eyes. He kept raising and lowering his
gun. That made her far more nervous than Boran did: Boran might kill them if
they got uncooperative enough, but someone twitchy like Goon Number 2 could
easily freak out and kill somebody by accident.

“Pretty
small operation you’ve got here,” Hope continued. Maybe if she distracted them
long enough, she’d move from “shocked” into “plan-having”. Maybe she could
bluff her way out. She chanced the slightest glance back at the knocked out
goon behind her, and then looked between Boran and Goon Number 2. “Not exactly
a powerhouse.”

Boran’s
jaw tightened. “Something came up. The rest of the boys are… otherwise
occupied.” He glanced behind Hope and the corner of his mouth quirked up. “But
let’s be honest. I don’t need much backup right now.”

Hope
almost wanted to laugh - he was picking his words carefully, not insinuating
that she was the problem, but that having two civilians at her back was enough
of a disadvantage to put her out of the game. It was the most courteous mugging
ever.

She
didn’t laugh. Instead, she let the hand with the gun drift lazily to her side. Boran’s
eyes followed it.

“Let us
through,” she said. “We know who you are. Just leave now and we won’t be able
to find you… back in Africa, I assume?”

She’d
overestimated his patience. A long sigh hissed between Boran’s lips and then
leveled his gun at Rick’s forehead.

“Give
me the sample of the skin-graft serum. You don’t even know if we’ll be able to
use it. Could be Gouws will just use it as a threat.”

Hope
felt hot and cold all over; completely frozen and burning up at the same time.
She was a terrible bodyguard (even if she was technically fired). Rick should
never be in this situation.

“No,”
Rick said without the slightest hesitation. Boran sighed again, louder, and swung
the gun around to point at Hope’s forehead.

Oh
thank God.

“Okay,
give it to me now,” Boran said. He sounded calm and reasonable - and confident
that this plan would work.

Hope
didn’t turn to look at Rick. She wasn’t worried that Boran would shoot her. Not
yet. Boran obviously didn’t want to kill them or he’d have done it already;
they were basically sitting ducks. He knew that he could threaten Rick and at
the end of the day, Hope would grab the formula from Rick and hand it over
herself.

Selfishly,
she didn’t want to be forced to do that. She wanted Rick to make that decision
on his own. She’d never cared about being the bad guy before, but she didn’t
want Rick to think of her that way.

Their
only chance had ever been to divide and conquer; to grab Iseul and haul ass.
But Boran didn’t just have them held at gunpoint; he’d manipulated the
situation to be exactly what he wanted. He’d put the vial of formula in Rick’s
pocket and planned to take it back out.

Hope
was pretty sure she could save them, but she was also pretty sure that she
couldn’t save the integrity of Rick’s invention. A thousand plans flashed
through her mind. All of them met instant deaths. Sure, she could smash the
vial, but then Boran would just march them back to the mansion and take all of
Rick’s notes as well - or separate them out, make just Hope go get the vial and
leave the two of them behind.

“I…”
She heard Rick struggle; heard it when his defiance collapsed under the weight
of brutal reality. Rick was too smart not to see the same odds she did. He
wasn’t as experienced in the field, no, but he could still figure out what was
about to happen. He could see there was no way to get out of this.

She
didn’t plan on saying “I told you so” when they got free, but she planned on
thinking it a lot.

“Fine,”
Rick said, sounding as close to hopeless as she’d ever heard him.

Boran
made a satisfied grunt of acknowledgement and moved forward. Probably Hope
should have been watching him, but something caught her eye and she turned her
gaze to the goon standing at his shoulder.

The
goon hadn’t calmed down at all. His eyes skittered over the place from left to
right, but not in the calm sweeps of a professional, or even a thousand yard
stare. His focus just jumped from one point to the next without any purpose or
direction. The barrel of his gun was shaking slightly in a way that Hope
really, really did not like.

Slowly
Hope swiveled on her heel, trying to avoid catching the goon’s eye. Rick was
glaring at Boran and slowly reaching into his pocket to pull out the vial.

“Don’t.”
Rick paused, his hand still in his pocket. His face was white, though he didn’t
look scared, exactly. Just desperate. “You don’t know what you’re doing. Look,
if you want money, I can give you money. But don’t take this. It’s not - if
someone manages to reverse engineer it into a weapon - that isn’t something you
guys will want to deal with either, not really.”

Boran
had the gun only barely angled up into a threat. The slightest hint of
frustration crossed his face.

“I
don’t have time for your guilt problems,” he said plainly; Rick flinched. Hope
kept looking between the two of them and the twitchy goon. She felt strung-out
herself. Not being able to make a move was wearing at her nerves in a way she’d
never felt before. All that advice about not getting involved with the client
had been so right. Nothing could feel as bad as this did.

The
goon’s elbow jerked back violently and he raised the gun.

Nothing
could feel as bad except for Rick actually getting hurt.

“Give him
the vial, Rick,” Hope snapped.

Everyone
turned to look at her. The goon’s hand followed his eyes so the gun was
pointing at her instead, which was an infinite relief. Probably Rick and Boran
and Iseul were shooting her meaningful glances that she should be paying
attention to, but Hope could barely tear her gaze away from the goon. Her
fingers were tingling with nerves, and her calf muscles kept clenching and
releasing. She knew something this guy was gonna panic. She could feel it in
her bones. It was torture just waiting, praying that somehow, something would
intervene before this guy could freak out and stick his knife into people she
cared about.

Out of
the corner of her eye, Hope saw Rick’s arm slowly start to move.