Quiver (a Suspenseful Romance Novel) (10 page)

“
K
ate
!” A muffled cry sounded through the water. Hands plunged through the salty brine and momentarily brushed my icy skin.

There was a second attempt, and a hand latched onto my unresponsive wrist and tugged me up above the surface.

I choked on the water trying to escape my lungs and rasped a few shallow breaths.

A thick arm was wrapped around my neck, towing me along. I didn’t have the strength to fight any more, and I let him pull me. Droplets of water splashed onto my face as we moved.

“Nearly there,” I heard him speak, breathing hard. A few more lengths and my bare feet grazed along the rocks leading up to the shore.

I struggled to stand, the waves buffeting my torso, and Eric let go of me. I crawled up the bank, out of the river and away from him, my hands grabbing onto tufts of grass and soft mud.

On hands and knees I coughed up more water; my lungs and throat felt as raw as sandpaper. My hair was plastered against my face, dripping onto the muddy bank, and my handbag swung beneath my body, somehow still attached to me.

I needed to put as much distance as I could between him and me, and I scrambled to my feet, rubbing every inch of my skin to induce some warmth. I shivered uncontrollably and walked up to the path that followed the edge of the river. I had to keep moving.

“Kate, you’re going the wrong way,” Eric said, jogging to catch up to me, reaching out a hand to touch my arm.

“Don’t you fucking touch me,” I whirled on him. His eyes looked pained. He didn’t respond.

“You killed him! How could you shoot Max? Your brother?” I was beyond rage. My fists slammed against his chest, beating him, wanting to hurt him as much as he’d hurt Max. As much as he’d hurt me.

“Step-brother,” he whispered, as he let me thrash my fists onto his soaked body. But I soon lost the strength in my arms - it was like I was stuck within a dream. No matter how much I wanted or needed to fight, I couldn’t muster any force into my punches.

“I hate you! I wish I’d never met you!” I yelled and crumbled to my knees, sobbing, wailing. Eric ducked down and wrapped his arms around me, feeling every shudder of my body as I cried.

He rubbed my back and stroked my waterlogged hair as my sobs died away. I was like a limp, drowned ragdoll; my limbs no longer wanted to move.

“We have to go, they’ll be coming for us,” he said gently as he picked me up into his arms and slowly walked away from the water’s edge.

“I promise, this time, I’ll keep you safe.”

M
y hands clung
to him unwillingly. I didn’t want to need him but I wrapped myself around Eric, my head resting upon his shoulder as he carried me away from the water’s edge. The hollow space that swooped from his bare neck to his firm chest cradled my head just right. We fit perfectly together, infuriatingly so, and one touch from him was enough to send me crazy. But I needed to remind myself what he had done. Eric had brutally shot and killed my reluctant captor: my friend, Max.

The thought of Max’s bloody body flashed before my eyes and I squinted them shut as I buried my head once again against the cold, damp material of Eric’s shirt. A tear escaped from between my eyelashes and joined the rest that streaked and dried on my face.

Eric was walking as quickly as he could along the river’s path, with me held in his arms like a sack of wet cement. Tall, dense trees lined one side and periodic shafts of light beamed down from lamp posts along the way.

Eric suddenly halted.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

“Shh, let me listen,” he replied as he peered into the darkness at the path up ahead.

Sirens in the distance wailed by on a nearby road: a road which we couldn’t see. We were blind to what might be coming.

I shrugged, too tired to care. “They’re miles away.”

“Not the sirens.” He released the hold he had on my legs, and my bare feet touched the rough surface of the path. “Kate, someone’s coming,” he said with alarm.

He grabbed hold of my hand and pulled me into the tree line. The soles of my feet grated against the rocks and broken twigs as we fell behind a thick trunk and overgrown bush.

My feet stung from their ordeal, and I was sure they were bleeding but I clamped down hard upon my tongue to prevent from crying out.

Eric pushed me against the bark and crouched beside me, listening.

“You’re being paranoid,” I muttered. I wanted the whole evening to be over. I would have done anything just to have been able to crawl into a hole right there and wait for dawn. I didn’t know how much more I could take; it had all been too much and my body and mind were exhausted.

Was there someone still after us? Max was dead and Quadrello’s thugs surely thought we’d drowned in the river.

“Shh!” he hissed.

Moments after he said it, I heard the tell-tale sound of running feet approaching fast—multiple sets scuffing their shoes against the gravel. My eyes went wide and I looked to Eric. But his attention was acutely fixed to the trail that ran alongside the river.

I tried to tell myself it was probably just a late night jogger out for a run, but the hot ball of dread rolling around in the pit of my stomach deemed otherwise. My sense of time was completely out of whack but I knew it was far too early in the morning, and this route far too dangerous, for anyone to be out taking an innocent jog.

Eric’s hand pressed against my shoulder.

“Don’t make a sound,” he whispered.

The footsteps were getting closer as I sat shivering in the dirt. I closed my eyes, waiting for the nightmare to be over.

Scared out of my wits, instinctively my eyelids flew open and I saw, through the jumble of leaves, two men approaching. They were definitely not runners.

They came closer. The light from their torches in their hands flashed upon and illuminated their sweaty faces and close cropped buzz cuts.

“This is a waste of bloody time,” one man grumbled.

“I know, but the boss says we look, so we look.”

“Alreet! But if they did make it, who’s to say they came this way. For all we knaa they’re on the opposite goddamn shore.”

“Just keep checkin’, will ya? They might wash up.”

Torches swayed in their hands, arcing to and fro as they passed our hiding spot. My heart beat a thunderous tune and Eric tensed up like a coiled spring. I thought he was going to vault up and out, giving us away.

Minutes passed and I let out the dire breath I’d been holding and gasped for air.

“Eric, let’s go,” I urged. He shook his head, not looking back at me, and kept his eyes pinned ahead.

My bones were frozen solid and my teeth chattered uncontrollably. I clenched my jaw but still the noise continued.

Finally, Eric moved quietly and hovered over my tired body, rubbing his hands up and down my icicle-like arms. I flinched at his touch and gazed up at him.

“Do you think you can run?” he asked, his tone clear and direct.

“I don’t think so.” I shook my head.

“You might have to. Those two won’t have walked all the way here. They’ll have a car somewhere down near the start of the path.”

“Then why would I need to run?”

“Do you know how to hot-wire a car?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

His head motioned from side to side. “Well, neither do I. We’re gonna need their keys if we’re going to get out of here in one piece.”

“Oh.” I took his hand. I wasn’t ready to forgive him, but I wasn’t ready to lose him either. “You can’t go after them. There’s two of them—”

“No arguing; I wasn’t asking your permission. Stay here.”

Eric rose to his feet and looked away.

“Wait.” How could I tell him to be careful when all I felt at that moment was anger?

“What?”

“Never mind,” I said and disengaged from those clear blue eyes.

He hesitated, ducked back down and took hold of my chin, tilting my head up towards him. His lips brushed mine and sent a new shiver down my already shaking spine.

“Kate, I will never leave you again,” he said.

Eric’s hands parted the branches as he made his exit to the path beyond the trees and I watched from the sidelines as he disappeared into the dim morning.

I
felt useless
. I was useless.

The night was getting colder. I hugged my knees, trying to summon any kind of warmth, but my body had already turned to solid ice. I couldn’t sit any longer waiting for him to return. I needed to at least walk about, even if it would be agony on my naked feet.

I braced myself against the trunk of the tree and forced myself up using what little strength I had remaining. Who knew running for your life could be so exhausting?

Once vertical I crept cautiously out from the protection and cover of the foliage. I stood on the verge, making sure I kept my feet on a soft muddy patch, away from the harsh loose stone path.

I nibbled at my fingernails and squinted into the distance, looking for any sign of Eric. Cocking my head, I strained my ears, listening for sounds that weren’t the rustle of leaves or the swish of the river lapping up against the bank. But it was no use; it was like a bubble of silence had enveloped me and all I could hear were my short, shallow breaths mixed with nature’s voices.

Something had gone wrong; Eric had been gone far too long. Why had I let him go?

Panic rose from deep within my belly and up to my throat. I was going to be sick, I was sure of it, and I doubled over.

Should I go after him? Seal my own fate? I knew I couldn’t wait for him forever; if Eric had been… no, I couldn’t think like that, but if he had been hurt, what use was I going to be to him? There was no way I could have put up a fight in my fragile and waterlogged state.

The best shot I had was to go — salvage, if I could, the handbag stuffed with the money Max had given me, which had somehow survived the drenching in the Tyne, and run as far away as possible, out of the reaches of the Quadrello family.

I forced myself to wait and started to count mindlessly, my tongue tripping over the numbers, missing several in a row. But it kept me busy, kept me rooted to the spot, prevented me from fleeing.

Suddenly it was as if the bubble had burst and my hearing became attuned to sounds farther away from me. Each time I heard the snap of a twig I thought Eric was coming back, only to be disappointed that it was a stray leaf making its way across the trail or a darting critter which I could not see.

I gave up and stopped counting. I couldn’t lose Eric too, I thought. I would never forgive myself if I just walked away. Not knowing what had happened to him would be torturous.

My feet squelched and mud squeezed between my toes as I walked along the edge of the path. The soft caress of the damp grass tickled my ankles, causing me to jump every so often as I imagined thousands of leggy insects crawling up and onto my skin. But I kept marching forward, avoiding the gravel path.

I rounded a slight bend and hesitated forward as snuffle-like grunts emanated from up ahead.

Two silhouetted lumps lay unmoving on the ground and another lump, off to the side, squirmed away, wet coughs spilling forth.

Oh god!

“Eric!”

My body took over and I charged forward to the dark shape, smaller than the other two, which twisted on the path. His pale hand reached out. He was alive and moving! His shirt was no longer white… not again, I thought, as images of dark blood coating Max’s clothing earlier on in the night flashed before my eyes.

I reached his writhing body and my hands fell upon his chest. A thick and slippery substance coated my hands. Upon a quick inspection I deemed it wasn’t blood. The struggling light from the lamppost a few yards away revealed a tinge of brown, not red; only mud, thank god.

“Eric?” I said, trying to get him to turn over, to uncurl out of his ball-like state. He was like a turtle who’d retreated back into its shell for safety.

He moaned and finally lifted his head away from his chest. Oh no.

I closed my eyes, not wanting to see his beautiful face smashed beyond repair. This was all because of me…

My hand carefully stroked his hair at the edge of his forehead. This time there was no mistaking it; blood coated my fingertips and his scalp.

“Eric, we have to get you up.”

He grumbled and kept his place on the ground.

“Goddammit, Eric, get your ass up now!” I yelled at him. I looked towards the other two bodies; they remained unmoving, thankfully.

“OK,” he agreed and his jaw clenched. “You’re gonna have to help me,” he muttered through partially swollen lips.

I slipped my arm under his and around his chest and braced myself. I heaved with the last dwindling stores of energy my body was keeping in reserve. We stumbled, swaying like drunken fools. I was like a flimsy, badly made crutch, bending under his weight. Close to snapping.

We limped slowly away from the two men.

“Wait,” he coughed.

“No, Eric. We have to go. We have to get you to a hospital.”

He halted, not allowing me to proceed any further. Dead weight in my arms. There was no way I would be able to drag him.

“The keys… we need their car keys.”

“Shit.” I considered the practicalities of what needed to be done. There was no chance of me being able to lift Eric up from the ground again. “OK, lean against this,” I said as I motioned towards the lamppost.

I positioned Eric as best I could and let his full weight lean upon the metal shaft.

“Don’t sit down,” I warned, and retraced my steps towards the lifeless men.

My thighs burned from the exercise as I walked swiftly towards them. Two conflicting thoughts buzzed inside my head. On the one hand, I hoped these guys were dead, but on the other, I really didn’t want Eric to be a cold-blooded murderer. He’d already shot his stepbrother tonight I my defence; I couldn’t handle any more loss of life.

Please just be unconscious
, I thought.

I swallowed and steadied my breath as I reached the first body.

The man would’ve been good-looking if it hadn’t been for all the blood pooling around his eye sockets and dripping down onto his face.

Good thing I wasn’t squeamish, I thought as I tried to bend my stiff, exhausted body down towards the man. My knees made contact with the path and sharp prickles of pain from the jagged stones shot up my leg.

I let my hand travel across the man’s torso, expecting at any moment he’d wake up and grab my arm.

You can do this.

I peeled back his suit jacket and gently felt for any sign of keys. The right side of his jacket bore no extra weight and I reached for the other side. The pocket was empty.

Feeling bolder now, I turned towards his legs to inspect his trouser pockets. My hand slipped down his side, finding him still warm, and into his right pocket.

Not expecting to find anything, my hand recoiled away and out of the clothed hole as it touched a sharp, cold spike.

Jesus, I was going to give myself a heart attack at this rate, I thought.

I reached in again, cautious this time, and found what had poked me before. The keys jingled as I pulled them out, and I grinned at my prize.

The man’s hand suddenly came to life and swiped at me, and I screamed and fell back onto my rump.

The man grunted and spluttered as blood oozed out of his slack mouth. He waved his arm again in my direction as if trying to claw his way out of somewhere, then flopped back down to the ground, still.

I scrambled back, breathing hard, but the man never moved again.