Run From Fear (47 page)

But Rosie’s weight kept him off balance. He heard Talia scream and saw the flashlight beam go tumbling. He fumbled for his gun, desperately trying to get his bearings.

He tried to tune out the pain and stop his head from swimming as he honed in on the sound of heavy breathing and started to raise the gun.

“Drop it, or I’ll cut her throat.”

Talia
, Jack thought. The small whimper in the darkness sent ice coursing through his veins.

But the flashlight flared to life again and lit on Eugene, the top half of his face covered by what Jack knew were night-vision goggles. He had his hand fisted in Rosie’s hair, the blade of a knife pressed against her carotid.

“Do it, Jack,” Talia’s terrified whisper called from a few feet behind him.

To prove his point, Eugene dragged the tip of the knife across Rosie’s throat. A thin line of crimson appeared against her pale skin.

“Please, Jack,” Talia cried frantically. “Please just do what he says.”

Jack dropped it and kicked it in Gene’s direction. He heard a scuffing sound and then the metallic skitter of his gun disappearing in the darkness.

“Get the light off me,” Gene barked.

The light shining in his face would make the NVGs useless. It was something they could use to their advantage….

“Bring it over here.”

Jack sighed inwardly as Talia obeyed immediately.

“Back to the room.”

They felt their way through the darkness, Eugene taking up the rear as he dragged Rosario with him. It would be easy to turn and charge Eugene and overpower him, but not when he had the advantage of sight and he had a knife to Rosie’s throat.

He walked as slowly as he could back to the chamber, weighing his options with every step. When they entered the room, Eugene barked at them to go stand in the corner. As soon as they did, light from an overhead fixture flooded the room. Jack blinked against the brightness, trying not to let his satisfaction show.

Eugene had just given up his greatest advantage and he didn’t even realize it.

He was sweating, Jack saw, and his hands shook as he pulled something from his pocket. He tossed them at Talia. “You, sit down,” he said to Jack. To Talia, he said, “Tie him up, hands behind his back.”

Talia’s frantic gaze met Jack’s and he gave her a subtle nod as he sank to the floor. She took the ties and tied his wrists behind his back. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s okay,” Jack said, and flashed a cocky grin for Eugene’s benefit. “I’ve gotten out of jams a lot worse than this. No way this little punk is going to take us down.”

“You, shut up!”

Jack could see a vein pop out on Eugene’s forehead. Good. Get him angry, get him careless.

“Legs too,” Eugene demanded to Talia.

Talia crouched down in front of him and started to wind the flex ties around his ankles. “My boot,” Jack breathed so only Talia could hear. He bent his right leg so his pant leg pulled up just enough for her to catch a glimpse of the knife handle.

Talia met his eyes and, making a big show of pulling the bindings tight, managed to slip the knife into the waistband of her underwear. When she stood up, the oversized T-shirt hid it from view.

“Now come here,” Eugene said, running the tip of the knife teasingly along Rosie’s cheek.

Talia obeyed, crossing to him on shaking legs as she wondered how they were going to get out of this. With Jack secured, Eugene let Rosie slump to the floor. Relief flooded her veins. With Rosie out of the way and Jack’s knife in her possession, she might actually have a chance of taking him down.

Eugene circled her. “You know I never wanted to fuck
with an audience,” he said as casually as if he were discussing the weather. “But fucking you in front of your boyfriend, I think that will be fun.”

He lunged for her, and she heard Jack’s roar of anger as Eugene knocked her to the ground and put his knee into her chest as he fumbled for another set of ties. She knew if he tied her up again, she was finished. She squirmed out from under him enough, adrenaline surging through her. She caught him with a knee to his chest with enough force to knock the breath out of him.

He staggered back and she surged to her feet. Without hesitation, she reached under the shirt, grabbed Jack’s knife, and charged full speed ahead.

At the last second, Eugene ducked and dodged, his hand chopping down on her forearm with blinding force. The knife slipped from her numb fingers and clattered to the ground.

Eugene snatched it from the floor before Talia could make a move. “You stupid bitch. You think I wouldn’t know he had another weapon hidden on him?” He chuckled and launched himself at her. Weak from the days without water and food, Talia wasn’t fast enough to avoid being tackled to the floor.

Her head hit the concrete with enough force to make her see stars. She could hear Jack’s voice but it sounded very far away. She saw Eugene’s mouth, open, snarling in rage. His knees dug into her biceps, pinning her to the ground. He gripped the knife in two hands and raised it high above his head. Though she bucked and strained with all of her strength, she knew it wouldn’t be enough.

The knife started its descent and there was an inhuman
roar and suddenly Eugene’s weight was gone. She rolled to the side and saw Eugene flailing with the knife as Jack somehow maneuvered his bound legs around Eugene’s neck.

The knife sank deep into Jack’s upper thigh but he didn’t even flinch as he flipped Eugene’s body over onto the floor. A snapping sound echoed through the chamber and Eugene went completely still.

“Is he dead?” she whispered.

“He should be, since I snapped his neck,” Jack said, grunting as he pulled the knife out of his leg and handed it to Talia.

Talia reached out with a shaking hand and cut the ties around Jack’s feet and hands.

“Oh my God, your leg.” Blood was pumping from the wound at an alarming rate and Jack’s face was pale as he looked down to assess the damage.

“Shit. Looks like he nicked an artery.” He took off his shirt and pressed it to the wound. “Gotta stop the bleeding.”

“You can’t die, Jack. You can’t die for me. Please, I love you. I love you,” she sobbed.

His blue eyes flickered and she thought she saw the ghost of a smile on his face. She heard masculine voices shouting at the door, but she kept her gaze glued to Jack’s face. Frantically she pressed the cloth against the flow of blood, tears streaming down her face as she felt it soak her hands in an unrelenting flow.

She had a flash of Jack pulling her out of Nate’s basement, knew in that instant how sick and helpless he must have felt as he desperately tried to stop the blood from pouring from her body.

And now that she finally understood who Jack was and what they could be together…“Please, please, don’t leave me,” she sobbed as his blood saturated the cloth and coated her hands. “I love you, I love you so much. You can’t leave me like this.”

J
ack coded twice in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. When they arrived, she barely had time to breathe before all three of them were whisked away for treatment. Talia squirmed impatiently as the doctors rebandaged the cut on her rib cage and cleaned and dressed the raw wounds circling her wrists from the FlexiCuffs.

Rosie was being treated two doors down, and the nurses assured Talia she was going to be fine. But no one would tell her anything about Jack. Not whether he was in surgery, if it was going well.

If he was dead.

Oh, God, she wouldn’t be able to stand it. But there had been so much blood, and he’d been so pale…

When the nurse brought in an IV, insisting Talia needed to be treated for dehydration, she convinced them to take her to Rosie’s room instead of trapping her here for however long it took for the plastic bladder to empty.

Her heart squeezed in her chest at the sight of her sister in the hospital bed. Bruises showed luridly against her pale skin, and like Talia’s, Rosie’s wrists were wrapped in gauze bandages.

Her lip curled at the thought of the man who had done this. That was the only bright spot to her day, that Eugene was dead.

“Hey,” Talia said as the nurse moved a chair next to the bed and set up the IV pole next to it. Talia winced as the heavy needle slid into her arm. She reached over and covered Rosie’s hand with hers. One small bright spot in the day’s events was that Rosie had started to come out of her self-induced stupor during the ambulance ride. Unfortunately, it also meant she became acutely aware of the abuse her body had suffered. “Feeling okay?”

“Never better,” Rosie said sleepily.

“We gave her some Percocet for the pain,” said the nurse, a plump bottle blonde in her fifties. “She may be a little out of it.”

“For the bruising?”

“That, and tendons in both of her shoulders were severely strained from having her wrists tied behind her back for so long.”

Talia swallowed back a sob and brushed a lock of hair from her sister’s cheek. So much suffering. So much pain Rosie didn’t deserve.

The nurse told Talia to call her when her bag was empty and left them alone. Rosie’s eyes were closed and Talia thought she was asleep, when she said, “Jack okay?”

“I don’t know.”

Rosie slid back into her Percocet haze. By the time Talia was almost finished with her dose of fluids, Susie arrived, bringing with her a bag stuffed full of clothes for Talia to choose from. “How did you even know I was here?” Talia asked, shocked and touched that Susie had rushed over.

“Alyssa called me—she’s on her way but she wanted to wait for Derek to get here.”

“I know everything will be falling off you,” Susie said as she handed Talia the bag, “but anything is better than having your ass hanging out.”

“You are the best,” Talia said, and pulled out a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt. She started for the bathroom and paused to give Susie a fierce hug. “Thank you.”

She quickly got dressed and went with Susie back to the desk to see if she could find out any more information about Jack. Ben and Alex slouched side by side in orange plastic chairs, their long legs sprawled out in front of them. “Any news?” she asked hopefully.

They shook their heads in unison.

Though she knew it was futile, Talia approached the nurse on duty. “My friend who was with us, the one with the stab wound? Can you please find someone to give us an update on his status?”

The nurse shook her head and politely but firmly told her she was not at liberty to share the information at this time. The police, who were nice enough to wait until she was finished with the doctors to pepper her with questions, took her statement about the events of the last few days.

She recounted the experience in a flat, matter-of-fact tone. Almost as though it had happened to someone else.

She knew from brutal experience that it would all hit her soon enough. The nightmares, the panic attacks.

But right now, all she could think about was Jack.

She listened as Alex and Ben gave their own statements, both in regard to how they’d found Talia, Rosario, and Jack, and also what they’d found when they’d gone to
Eugene’s house. Namely, the body of a woman stashed in the garage freezer.

As the police wound up their questioning, the waiting room filled with all the rest of the Gemini employees and spouses, except for Danny, who was home with Caroline. “I’m keeping this line open,” Danny said when he called. “Let me know as soon as you have an update.”

“I will,” Talia said, her voice cracking. She hung up and dissolved into sobs.

“Hey,” Ben said as he wrapped her in a tight hug. “Jack’s a tough mofo. No way a little weasel named Eugene is gonna take him out.”

Talia let out a watery laugh and took the tissue someone offered to dab at her eyes and nose. Susie slid her arm around her shoulders and guided her to a chair. “Sit down for a second and eat something.” She pressed a Diet Coke and a granola bar into her hand.

Though she hadn’t eaten for days, she couldn’t choke down more than a bite of the bar. But she couldn’t gulp the Diet Coke down fast enough.

Finally, hours later, a doctor appeared and asked who was with Mr. Brooks. He looked a little surprised when all eight of them, including four men well over six feet tall and built like comic book superheroes, stood up.

“He made it through surgery,” the doctor said.

Jack was alive. The relief nearly knocked her to the ground.

“But he lost a lot of blood and he’s still in critical condition.”

Talia choked down a sob as she digested that piece of information. “Can we see him?”

“As soon as he’s out of recovery, we’ll be moving him
to ICU. Once he’s there, you’ll be able to see him during normal visiting hours.”

Talia nodded and went to check on Rosie. Though she was mostly out of it, she gave Talia a bleary smile at the news Jack had pulled through surgery.

By the time Jack got out of the recovery room two hours later, Talia was nearly tearing her hair out with impatience. Visiting hours in the ICU were very strict, she quickly learned, limited to a maximum of two people for half an hour at a time, with the last window at 10:00 p.m.