Chapter Seven
Seconds to Live
I got what I needed done a lot earlier than I had expected to. I’d made a rush job of it, because the idea of Anna going back to her old neighborhood didn’t sit well with me. I wanted to escort her there and back to ensure her safety.
She’d come to represent so much of my life that I really didn’t know what would happen if she were taken from me. She put the excitement back into living for me. I knocked on her door and after no answer I knocked again. Had she already left?
Anna was still cringing over how much the special daycare agency that she left Kevin with for the day had charged for their services. It didn’t matter that she could afford such care now it still felt wrong.
Daycare providers knew full well the leverage they had over people by and large and they appeared to be taking full advantage of it! She had only needed Kevin watched for six hours today, but she was being forced to pay for the entire week! It was robbery only under a different name in her book.
Such injustices had always rankled and even infuriated her. More often than not the perpetrators of these injustices were overlooked and allowed to continue on unchallenged. Free to continue raking in the money and dealing out abuse to people. That was why she devoted all of her time when she wasn’t working a job or spending time with Kevin to the effort of bringing to justice those who had hurt Kevin.
It wasn’t right what had happened to him and even now the same thing was still being done to thousands, if not millions of babies each year. It was doubtful that she, despite all of her efforts, would ever make any lasting impact, but she was still going to try because it was the right thing to do. As long as she was alive she would be a voice for Kevin and the growing millions suffering just like him.
It didn’t matter if no one would listen to her. She wasn’t stopping her work. A successful, meaningful life, came down to doing the right things in the time that was allotted for each to live. Her continued persistence in seeing that Kevin received justice was simply the right thing to do. Bill pulled up at the curb and she got out.
“Thanks Bill I won’t be long.” She disappeared into the building.
Apparently the clerk was still off nursing his hand and face as there was no one around the front desk. She opened the door to her room and felt a wave of relief course through her.
This dismal threadbare stretch of her life was over! Thank God because it had nearly been the death of her. She stepped forward into the room and a hand closed over her mouth hard.
She screamed against the hand and tried to pull free of its owner, but in a sickening clarity of peripheral vision she saw a hypodermic needle descend toward her neck and jab into it painfully. There was an instant burning sensation and her unknown assailant pushed her roughly to the floor.
What was happening? Had she been drugged? Her chest began to constrict painfully and she clutched at it. Through the pain her eyes fixed on her assailant. He wasn’t even looking at her, but instead was watching his wristwatch.
Rape must not be on his agenda then. Her pained gaze drifted from him to the half open door across the hall. Her eyes found the wide-open, but sightless eyes of Mrs. Reed, who lay dead on the floor of her apartment.
It was hard to breathe let alone talk, but she choked out, “Oh God!”
She’d been poisoned! She was dying! Who would look after Kevin? She didn’t want to die! Kevin needed her!
Her killer looked up from his watch and then at her dispassionately before he stooped down to pick her up. Dimly Anna recognized the dirty walls of the hall going by.
She couldn’t breathe!
Her body was jerking and all conscious thought was fading fast. She saw yellow. Bill! Bill would help her!
She got one glance at the yellow taxi before being slung into the passenger side of a sedan. Bill’s face was bloody and he was slumped over the wheel either unconscious or dead. Bill couldn’t help her and Tyre wasn’t here. Everyone was gone. Kevin was her last desperate thought. Who would pick him up from daycare?
I saw the man dump Anna into the car and I hurtled across the street smashing him into the front hood of the car.
He thrust back and bumped me back a few feet. He turned my way with a feral look, even as a knife seemed to materialize in his hand. He was a trained killer, but then so was I. I closed with him as a knife slid into my own hand from up my sleeve.
We were a flurry of motion and desperate hard fought action. He scored first with a bloody swipe across my forearm, but I had been baiting him and my incoming fist smashed him backward and into the car and as I stepped forward I rammed my blade into his groin, poised next to a main artery. He cried out in pain and savagely I grasped him by the hair and brought his head up.
“What did you do to her?”
His eyes focused on me and he sneered as he spit into my face. I had his answer. He wasn’t the kind that talked so I let the blade slice through the artery before twisting the knife savagely within him. He’d bleed out in seconds. As he lay against the car dying I rifled his pockets for information.
My bloody fingers found a bottle and I yanked it free desperately. I read the label, pantho acid, and cursed viciously. I threw it to the side and it shattered against the curb.
Oh God this was bad! I needed help if I was to save Anna. My eyes took in her still unconscious state. Maybe it was already too late!
My eyes caught a flash of light and then a sound. There was an ambulance several streets over. I acted swiftly on that life line. Jumping into the car I started it with the now dead killer’s keys and jammed it into drive. With a screech of spinning tires the sedan lurched forward churning over the body of the killer with a double thump.
I swerved around obstacles at breakneck speed until I saw a brief flash of light down a side street.
There!
The car was on two wheels as I swung around to go down the side street. The back end of the sedan threatened to outrace the front, but I counter steered it and soon my course was corrected only to have to repeat the steps again as I turned sharply onto the street the light had gone up.
The ambulance was several blocks ahead and I took off for it. There were blaring horns, as I raced around any obstacle in my path. Passing through an intersection an SUV caught the back corner of the car and spun the sedan completely around.
My elbow smashed through the driver side window with the impact, as most of the glass of the window landed in my lap. The car lurched forward again as I slammed onto the gas. I reached my hand across to feel Anna’s pulse, it was thready and barely there.
The ambulance was just ahead. There was an intersection ahead, the light flickered from yellow to red and vehicles began to stop even as more of them came turning into the oncoming lanes. There was no way through!
“Hang on Anna! Don’t leave me now!”
I swung the car into the narrow space between the two parallel parked cars along the street. I thought that the front axle of the car broke when it hit the curb of the sidewalk, but we kept going on.
People dodged out of the way frantically and flattened up against building façades as I drove down the sidewalk heedlessly. I took out a parking meter as I swung back into the street again. The car came down with a loud thump as the front end dragged pavement when we came off the sidewalk curb. I sheered the front corner off of a van and narrowly missed being hit by several other cars, as I dodged through the intersection.
I roared up behind the ambulance. They weren’t likely to stop for any reason with their lights flashing so I didn’t waste my time. I drove up alongside and brought the driver side door directly over into the front right corner of the ambulance with a crunch of metal and busted headlight glass.
The driver tried to swing away and avoid me, but I stayed with him herding him toward the protruding bulk of a Greyhound bus parked along the street. The ambulance screeched to a halt and I let the seat back and flipped over into the backseat. With my back against the seat I kicked up with both legs and popped the back window out of the sedan.
Crawling through I fell over the side of the trunk to the pavement. Gaining my feet I pulled a pistol and held it up as the driver of the ambulance who was swearing a blue streak approached me. Seeing the gun he stopped and his hands drifted upward. I was already moving for the back of the ambulance.
I threw the doors wide open with my gun prominently displayed. An EMT shrieked in fright as I viewed the occupants of the van. I really hadn’t wanted to endanger someone else’s chance at continued life by stopping the ambulance, but even if it did I’d do it again, if it meant saving Anna’s life. She had come to mean the world to me.
A boy of about twelve with what looked like a busted forearm stared at me his eyes huge as he focused in on me, especially the gun in my hand as all the pain he was experiencing was completely forgotten for a moment.
“Sorry kid!” I said by brief way of an apology before addressing the EMT, “Calcium di-sulphate get it now!”
She quickly got it for me and I ran to Anna’s side of the car. The calcium would neutralize the pantho acid that was triggering a massive heart attack within Anna. I hurriedly injected a full syringe into Anna’s arm.
I only hoped it wasn’t too late already, as her pulse felt like it was barely registering under the pressure of my finger at her neck.
“She should be in a hospital mister!” Said the ambulance driver peering over my shoulder at what I was doing.
I couldn’t have agreed more with him.
“I can take her along with the boy!” He said.
I voiced my gratitude and had started to scoop up Anna’s limp body into my arms, when I heard a screech of tires sound out further down the street. That would be the police most likely come to drag me away. I glanced over my shoulder just to make sure. It wasn’t the police.
A big black SUV was surging directly towards us. The killer must’ve had a backup team. I turned to the approaching SUV pulling my second pistol free as I did so. Sighting down both pistols in front of me I pointed them like I would my index finger and then I let them begin to talk.
The windshield shattered and the SUV swerved. As it swerved I shot out the inside tired and that combined with the erratic swerve helped flip the SUV over. It tumbled several times and landed on its roof.
I had replaced my clips with fresh ones while I watched the carnage of twisting metal and shattered glass unfold. I brought both pistols back up and began unloading them into the remaining live occupants of the mangled SUV. They would never bother my Anna again. I made sure of it.
I holstered both pistols and turned back to Anna. The hospital was out as an option now. I couldn’t risk Anna being there with only a patrol cop to guard her, while I sat in cuffs at the local precinct. Anybody with the money to hire trained killers like these could bump her off easy in a hospital room. She was safer with me.
I could hear sirens now. I felt Anna’s pulse. It was stronger and had a steady rhythm to it now. I scooped her up and made my way down an alley and within fifteen minutes I managed to disappear untraceably from the scene. Disappearing was one thing I was extremely good at.
I watched Anna begin to stir on the couch and I could hardly keep my anxiousness for her health at bay. Who would awaken and what would she awaken as?
She could have easily suffered brain injury or perhaps organ damage from such an experience. Would she even know me? Would she be able to take care of Kevin? I found that it didn’t really matter if any of those things were true, because I would take care of her and Kevin.
I so desperately wanted those sparkling green eyes to open and recognize me though. It was important. Why was it so important? Because I loved her and I wanted to be remembered by her as the one she loved.
Even if her memory was gone I would show my love for her by caring for her, even if she had no love for me. She stirred more and my fingers clenched harder together. Her eyes opened and took in the apartment before finding me. Tears started to well out of her eyes and her arms reached for me and I was suddenly on my knees holding her as she sobbed into my neck, her arms holding me tight the whole time.
She kept calling out my name going in between Tyre and Nicolai and then back again. Either was fine to me. I’d been Tyre for so long it felt strange to hear Nick sounded out again in reference to me. I held her and tried to calm her down.
“I thought I was dead! I thought I’d never see you again!”
I saw a look of horror pass across her features and I guessed the root cause of it and held her down as she tried to rise up.
“Kevin is fine! I found the paperwork for where you left him and since you made me as a contact for him I was able to pick him up. He’s in the other room playing on his iPad. I fed him some of that gluten-free stuff that you bought for dinner. You don’t need to worry about him okay!”
She relaxed back down to the couch. Her hand came up to touch my face and I grasped it lightly as I kissed her palm. Her eyes were completely naked with earnestness, showering me with unmerited affection.
“Thank you!” Was all she could say over and over again.
I could tell by a tightening of her features that she was in pain.
“Does your head hurt?” She nodded slightly.
“I don’t want to give you anything for it right now, but perhaps I will a little later. Your body’s been through a lot and I think it’s best to just rely on letting it recover for you on its own for now. I’ll go and get a cold wash cloth.”
Her eyes followed me as I left and never seemed to leave me even when I was out of sight.
I pressed the cold rag onto her forehead gently. She seemed a little cold so I pulled a lush blanket out over top of her. Her hand caught mine and I looked at her.
“Please don’t go!” She said desperately.
I sat back down pulling my chair closer having never let go of her hand, “I’m not going anywhere and that’s a promise! I’ll be right here for you when you wake up okay?”
Her eyes looked troubled, “The man that….?”
Her voice trailed off and I squeezed her hand, “Will never bother you again I made sure of that.”
A look of relief washed across her face.
“Anna when you’re up to it later I need you to tell me everything, especially as to why someone would want you dead.”
She nodded.
“Now go to sleep and dream of me.”I said.
She smiled and I was overjoyed beyond what words could express at seeing that irresistible smile again. Everything was going to be okay.
Her lips curved sensually, “And what are you going to be doing while I dream of you?”
With no hint of the teasing tone that was in her voice I responded simply, “Sitting here as I simply watch you continue to breathe.”
Her face gentled, “I love you Tyre!” She whispered up at me just before her eyes closed.
“I love you too.”
I didn’t think she’d heard me until I felt her fingers squeeze mine. She didn’t wake up again until 10 p.m. and I could see she was feeling better.
She was hungry so I gave her a little food and something to drink. After she was done I scooped her up off the couch. Her hand slipped around the back of my neck as one of her eyebrows rose in a suggestive unasked question.
“Don’t get any ideas! Your heart has had more than enough exercise today.” I said as I laid her down on the sheets of the bed, which I had pulled the covers of back earlier.
She lay there and smiled beckoningly and I moved back several feet unconsciously and her smile widened.
“You should lay on your right side, because it’s easier on your heart.”
“Yes doctor, but aren’t you forgetting your promise?”
“Promise?”
“You promised not to leave me.”
I pointed to a chair in the room, but she shook her head no and patted the bed beside her. I started to shake my head no, but she cut me off with her words.
“If you’re not going to keep your promise then I’m not going to listen to your commands.”
I swallowed, she wasn’t playing fair. I pulled my shoes off, “Okay, but no kissing or anything else got it!”
“Yes doctor.” Her triumphant smile never dimmed as she moved over onto her right side away from me.
I lay down beside her and pulled the blankets up. It was an odd feeling laying next to someone.
“I’m cold.”
How could she be cold? She had a sheet, a cover, and a blanket in between. I had survived -30 degrees nights in Russia as a kid with little more than a torn blanket!
I reached out and felt her arm. It was cold. I rolled over onto my side and cautiously moved closer. She grabbed my left arm and held it against her belly as she scooted back against me.
She’d tricked me the little rascal! I gritted my teeth hard, as I felt her nuzzle her bottom into me. Didn’t she realize how acute her torture of me was?
Yes, was the resounding answer and she was loving every second of it. My grimace faded away as I felt her drift away into the sleep her body needed. Yes this was torture of the sensual variety, but I was glad to suffer it. I’d come so close to losing her today and I would be grateful for every moment more that I was privileged to spend with her. Surprisingly I began to drift off to sleep myself with the smell of her hair enticing my senses.