PART THREE
Chelsea pulled into an empty parking spot at a rest stop in what seemed—to her—like the middle of nowhere, exhausted. She hadn’t seen Johan in twenty-four hours; the only sleep she had gotten was a brief nap at a hospital. An hour into her panicked flight away from the hotel, the adrenaline had begun to ebb out of her system, and Chelsea had slowly realized that she was bleeding in a few places, with pain throbbing in many more. Thoughts of Johan—worries about whether or not he was still alive, concerns about where he was, if he was alive, and how she would get in contact with him once more—distracted her enough to keep going until she saw a sign on the highway with the H indicating there was a hospital nearby.
She had decided that two hours away was far enough, if Johan had indeed taken out their assailants. Chelsea had finally checked the glove compartment to find the phone and the money; much, much more of it than she would have guessed that Johan would have felt comfortable just leaving in the car. Her fingers had trembled as she attempted to count the contents of the envelope, but there was at least a thousand dollars in it. Chelsea had stuffed the envelope into her purse, slipped the phone in her pocket, and limped into the hospital.
After waiting for what seemed like an eternity—but was, she found out later, only an hour and a half—Chelsea had been called back. In addition to the cash, she’d found a note in the card to submit any bills to a particular agent, and had provided that person’s contact information to the hospital; they must have called and confirmed it, because they were more than happy to x-ray seemingly every inch of her body, run a full panel of blood tests, and examine each injury in minute detail. Chelsea had a badly sprained ankle, a partially torn ligament in her knee, a bullet graze on the back of her shoulder, and bruised ribs, all of which she had struggled to explain with as little detail as possible.
Against medical advice, she had simply let them put an air cast on her sprained ankle, a brace on her injured knee, and a bandage on her bullet graze. There was not much they could do about the bruised ribs, but the hospital had prescribed her pain medication, which the on-site pharmacy had filled. Chelsea had stuffed that into her purse and went on her way, in spite of the encouragement of the attending doctor to stay for a few hours of observation, and warnings that she might injure herself more if she was too active.
She had managed to stay on the road in spite of the gnawing pains that seemed to come from all over her body, stopping every so often to get coffee. Chelsea hadn’t even wanted to find a hotel to stay at; she had no idea where Johan was, had no idea where she should be going, no idea if the people after her were on her trail once more. She also knew that if she stayed alone in a hotel, she wouldn’t be able to get decent sleep anyway. She would toss and turn, likely sending twinges of pain through her legs and torso every time she moved, worrying about the lack of contact with Johan, wondering what she would do with herself if she found out that Johan was dead.
Chelsea had called as many times as she had dared, using the odd phone with its singular number in the address book. Each time, for the first twelve hours of her flight from the hotel, she received a message that the person she was attempting to call was unavailable; that they had not established a voice mail, and she should call back later. Chelsea reasoned to herself that if Johan had been killed, most likely the people who’d attacked them would have gotten the phone; they would have tried to convince her to meet them somewhere. She refused to think that it was just as likely that Johan was dead, the phone left behind, nothing for her to do and no one for her to reach. Eventually, Johan would call her back.
After they had been separated for almost twenty hours, Chelsea had begun to lose hope. She made one final call to Johan as a Hail Mary, and was shocked enough to nearly trip over the hose to the gas pump as she walked back and forth as the call connected. “Where are you?” Johan had asked immediately.
“I have no idea,” Chelsea had said wryly. “I’ve been driving steadily for…I don’t even really know how long anymore. Ten hours at least.” She heard Johan sigh.
“You didn’t even stop to sleep?”
“Coffee and fear, they do a pretty good job of keeping a person awake.” Chelsea wanted—almost needed—to ask Johan how he was, if he was injured, if he had slept.
“The longer you go without sleep the more likely you are to do those assholes’ work for them by crashing into a pylon,” Johan said sharply. “Are you at a gas station or something?” Chelsea started to ask how he had guessed, but realized it was one of the few sensible places for her to be, if she was sticking to the road; she wouldn’t be calling him if she was driving on the highway at the maximum legal speed. She admitted she was. “Is anyone there with you?” Chelsea had glanced around. There was one other person, two pumps down. “Ask them what city you’re in.”
Suppressing the embarrassing feeling that she would definitely come across as a complete idiot, Chelsea followed the instruction. The woman at the other pump told her that she was in a town called Green Tree. When Chelsea passed that information to Johan, she heard him cluck his tongue against his teeth, considering. “Hold on,” he said, and Chelsea heard the sound of something rustling, movement on the other end of the line. A few moments later, Johan spoke again. “You’re about two hours west of me, unless you’ve really made good time and are in a totally different Green Tree,” she could hear him smiling. “Turn around, come east, we’ll meet at a rest stop and I’ll get you to a hotel.”
“What rest stop?” Chelsea thought longingly of the pain pills in her purse; but while she had to drive, she couldn’t let herself take the risk of having one, or even half of one. Johan gave her a highway exit number and told Chelsea to call him when she arrived; he would probably already be there, but he wanted her to confirm it before she got out of the car.
Now, finally arrived, Chelsea picked the phone up from the passenger seat, unlocked the screen, and found the only number in the contact list. She yawned as she held the phone to her ear, listening to it ring once, twice, and then stop—the call connecting. “Are you here?” Chelsea nodded before realizing that obviously, Johan couldn’t see her over the phone.
“Yeah, I’m here. I think. Exit 96B, right?”
“I’ll come to the car.”
Chelsea tilted her head back against the headrest, letting the phone slip from her fingers. She couldn’t remember ever being so exhausted in her life. Her ankle, her knee, her ribs, almost her whole body, it seemed, throbbed with pain. Chelsea wanted nothing more than to soak in a hot bath for about an hour and sleep for ten hours following that. Preferably under the influence of hospital-grade opiates.
She almost fell into a doze, and jumped when she heard the soft tapping at the window. Looking out, Chelsea saw Johan—unmistakably it was him—standing at the driver’s side door, peering in with the faintest trace of a smile curving his lips. She summoned up the strength to unlock the door and Johan opened it, quickly reaching across her to unbuckle her seatbelt before pulling her out of the seat with only a small show of effort. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her eagerly on the lips, his hands tightening on her. As he brushed against her bruised rib, Chelsea yelped, clenching her teeth as she broke the kiss. “How badly are you hurt?” Johan asked her, concern in his bright eyes.
“Bruised rib, torn ACL, sprained ankle. There’s a bullet graze somewhere that they bandaged up for me, and I accidentally cut myself while I was stabbing one of those guys to death—at least I hope he’s dead.” Chelsea sighed, smiling wryly. “What about you?” Johan shrugged.
“Bullet graze on my shoulder, a few bruises here and there, one of them got me with a knife across the leg, but it’s stitched so it’ll heal.” He kissed her lightly on the lips. “I take it you stopped at a hospital somewhere?” Chelsea nodded slowly.
“I gave them the contact for the billing, so they subjected me to every test they could justify,” she said with a sigh. Johan laughed.
“Yeah, I’d expect that.” He hugged her gently. “Come on, get everything you want out of this car. We’re abandoning it.” Chelsea was too tired to question it; with Johan’s help she got her purse and the few possessions she still had in the car with her when she’d fled the hotel. “I got your luggage out of the hotel in one piece,” Johan informed her as he led her towards yet another anonymous—yet subtly luxurious-looking—car.
“Oh, that’s great,” Chelsea said, only then realizing how much she had left behind. “Probably a huge bill.” Johan shrugged, wincing slightly.
“It’s paid for.” Chelsea nodded again, too tired and in too much pain to argue or even press the question that had been plaguing her from the beginning of their flight from her home town. “Do you want me to carry you?” Johan looked at Chelsea as she limped.
“You’re injured too,” she pointed out tartly. “I’m hurting, I’m not half-dead.”
“I hope they gave you good pain pills.”
“They did. The best. I think.” Chelsea shook her head slightly to clear it. “I haven’t been able to take them because I’ve been driving, but I want to say it’s Vicodin. I’m really thrilled.” Johan chuckled.
“I’ve got a hotel for us. In about thirty minutes you’ll be able to take one of those magical pills and drift away for a while.” Chelsea nodded, too exhausted to speak. Johan opened the passenger side door and collected everything but her purse from her, stowing it in the back seat as Chelsea gingerly climbed in and fastened her seat belt. Within a few minutes, they were driving out of the rest stop and towards their destination.