Ball & Chain

“Oh Jesus,” Ty breathed as he shined the weak light of his flashlight into the night.



Kelly jammed the ring onto his finger, then cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Nick!”



His voice was swallowed by the pounding surf below and the downpour from above. They all waited, holding their breaths, desperate for a return call. Ty couldn’t tell the difference between the beat of his heart, the sound of the surf and rain, and his desperate desire to hear his best friend’s voice. All the sounds of that moment were, to his ears, Nick crying out for help.



The touch of Zane’s hand to his shoulder spurred him on, and they followed the sound of the gunshots, holding to the swiftly dissolving trail, watching it zigzag like Nick had been dodging something. It came nauseatingly close to the edge at times.



The wind and rain whipped at Ty’s thin shirt, whistling in his ears, stinging his eyes until they teared. He had no doubt those gunshots hadn’t been heard inside the thick walls of the mansion.



They climbed the incline that led to the crumbling ruin of the lighthouse on the hill. When they hit the top of the hill, the scene before them kicked Ty’s instincts into gear, and he and Kelly both threw themselves to the ground. Zane followed suit, and Kelly pulled Emma down so they wouldn’t be seen.



A man stood at the very edge of the jagged cliff, holding something bundled in a white blanket that practically glowed in the moonlight. Ty could tell it was Nick merely by the set of his shoulders. Another man stood with his back to them, pointing a gun at Nick.



“Give me the kid, and no one gets hurt,” the man with the gun shouted into the wind. His accent was Scottish.



Ty’s breath left him in a rush. “Amelia,” he gasped. Nick was holding Amelia, clutching her to his chest to protect her.



If Nick said anything, his response was lost in the wind.



“I don’t need her alive!” the gunman shouted. “I just need pieces of her to send to her granddaddy!”



Zane grabbed at Ty’s arm and back, trying to keep him from getting up, but Zane wasn’t fast enough. Ty lunged to his feet and charged the man. He hit him from behind. The gun went off as Ty and the gunman tumbled to the ground.



Ty rolled several feet away, flattening out in time to see Nick, his side bloodied by the stray shot, lose his balance and fall over the edge of the cliff with Amelia in his arms. Ty scrambled to his feet and dove toward the edge of the cliff, grasping desperately. His fingers found Nick’s, and their hands clasped together, the momentum dragging Ty several feet in the wet grass and ripping something apart inside his shoulder. He dug his toes in, managing to stop their slide. He wound up with his chest at the edge of the cliff, his shoulders and head hanging over, and his fingers wrapped around Nick’s forearm.



Nick hung from one arm, grasping Ty’s wrist in an iron grip. He swung freely over the jagged rocks and the frigid ocean below. A teddy bear fell away from his other hand, the white blanket fluttering after it. Nick watched them fall, then grimaced up at Ty.



“Give me your other hand!” Ty shouted.



Nick reached up and fumbled for Ty’s other hand, but when he moved and his weight shifted, Ty began to slide again. The earth beneath him was soft and muddy, the grass wet.



Nick cried out in pain and dropped his hand, shaking his head. “Let go, Ty!”



“Fuck you! Find a foothold until we get help!”



Nick tried to reach out for the cliff’s inverted face, but as soon as he moved, Ty slid yet again. The cliff was too far away for him to touch it, much less grab for anything solid.



“Ty!” Nick shouted. “We’ll both fall if you don’t let go!”



Ty shook his head, flat out refusing to accept that. He tried to pull Nick up, but his separated shoulder screamed even when he flexed his muscles in preparation for moving. He felt a hand at his belt, heard Emma shouting at him.



Ty opened his eyes again, meeting Nick’s. “I can’t lift you, you’re going to have to climb.”



“I can’t climb,” Nick said through gritted teeth. Even hanging by a thread over certain death, he sounded annoyed with Ty for being an idiot.



“Try!” Ty shouted.



“I can’t climb if you’re the thing I’m climbing because you’re not attached to anything! Fucker!”



“Try it anyway, Jesus Christ!”



Nick made one more attempt to reach for Ty with his other hand, but it merely pulled Ty closer to the edge. Gravity tugged at him, taunting him, beckoning him toward the sea as the top half of his body slid over the sloped edge. The earth beneath him began to crumble, falling into Nick’s face and hair.



Nick shook it away. He looked back up, meeting Ty’s eyes. He sounded calm when he spoke. “Let go, Ty.”



“I’m not letting go,” Ty told him. “I’m not.”



“Don’t make me be the reason you die,” Nick growled. He relaxed his fingers, leaving Ty to cling to him alone.



Ty let out a whimper as he tightened his hold. “Don’t do this to me, Nick, please don’t.”



“Let go.”



Ty shook his head.



“Let go!”



“No! I have help, they’re coming! Just hold on!” Even as he spoke, though, he could feel himself slipping. Where the fuck were Zane and Kelly? He shouted over the roar of the ocean, “Help!”



Nick reached down, fumbling for his belt.



“What are you doing?” Ty asked.



He pulled a knife from a sheath, looking up at Ty with a grim smile.



“Don’t you do it,” Ty said. “Don’t you stab me, you fucker!”



Nick flicked the knife over his fingers, the blade catching the reflection of a streak of lightning.



“Zane! Doc!” Ty shouted. He shook his head at Nick. “Don’t you fucking dare stab me with that knife!” He tried to slither backward, desperate to get more purchase in the ground, to hold Nick there until more of the others came to their aid. Emma didn’t weigh enough to keep them from going over the edge.



Nick’s green eyes were unreadable, the knife in his hand. Ty shook his head. “I gave you that knife for your birthday, you motherfucker!”



Nick made one last lunge, swiping the knife through the air, aiming for Ty’s forearm, aiming to create a scar that Ty would carry in his nightmares for the rest of his life. The motion of his body pulled Ty even closer to the edge, and Ty squeezed his eyes closed because he would be damned if he let go when that knife sank in.



He wasn’t letting go.



Zane heard a sickening crunch when Ty made contact with the man. He didn’t know if it was Ty’s bones breaking or the other man’s, but the way the man sprawled told Zane those cracked bones probably belonged to him. The gun went off when Ty hit him, then again when he hit the ground. Zane felt a bullet whiz between himself and Kelly, narrowly missing both of them. Neither man took cover, though. They both bolted forward to attack.



Zane grabbed the gun as it skidded across the wet grass and backed away to train it on the mystery attacker. He needn’t have bothered because Kelly pounced on the man, hitting him over and over until his knuckles were bloody and raw and the man was nearly unrecognizable.



“Kelly!” Zane shouted, moving closer as Kelly continued the thrashing.



“You mess with my fucking team!” Kelly shouted. He grabbed the man’s shirt and pulled him off the ground, throwing himself into the next punch. “Chase him off a fucking cliff and think that can kill him!” He threw another brutal punch, then pulled him up and put their faces close together. There was no way the man was conscious. He gurgled as he breathed. His eyes rolled into the back of his head.



“Doc!” Zane shouted.



Kelly sneered at the killer, and he hissed when he spoke. “I’ll show you how we deal with your kind, you sniveling little son of a bitch.”



Zane stuffed the gun in the back of his belt and went to pull Kelly off the man before he could beat him to death. Kelly tried to break from Zane’s grasp, but Zane shouted at him. “We have to help Ty and Nick!”



Kelly stopped struggling immediately, and his head whipped around. It was then that Zane noticed Ty stretched out, hanging over the edge of the cliff. Emma had Ty’s belt in her hands, pulling with all her might. Zane could see her boots creating furrows in the grass as they slid over.



Zane and Kelly both scrambled to the cliff. Zane threw himself over Ty’s back, hoping his weight would slow the inexorable pull of gravity. They got there just in time to see Nick draw his knife. Kelly reached over the edge, catching Nick’s forearm with his hand before Nick could strike.



Kelly yanked the knife out of his hand and tossed it into the night. He grabbed his arm with both hands. Ty screamed in pain when he tried to help, but neither man let go. Zane slid his arms under Ty’s and used him as if he were a rope. The three of them worked together to pull Ty and Nick from the brink.



Once Ty was on solid ground, Zane let go of him and grabbed at Nick’s shirt, then his belt, helping Kelly haul him over. Nick scrabbled at the wet grass, looking for purchase, but he never found it. He and Ty both would have gone over for sure.



When they got far enough away from the cliff, Nick sprawled on his back, breathing hard. Kelly fell onto his ass and put a hand on Nick’s stomach, laughing in relief. But Zane crawled toward the edge, his panic enough to override his fear of heights. “Did Amelia fall?” he cried.



“It wasn’t her,” Ty groaned. He was rolling around in the grass, holding his right arm. “It was a decoy.” He sat up, wincing. Some of those cracking bones had obviously belonged to him. He glared over at Nick, who was on his back, a hand held to his stomach. “Asshole!”



Nick responded with a weak laugh. Kelly knelt next to him and shined his flashlight on his torso. His shirt was bloodied and torn.



“Is he okay?” Zane asked.



Kelly shook his head and shoved his flashlight into Zane’s hands. “He’ll be fine. We need to get him inside though.”



Ty crawled closer. “Is he conscious?”



Kelly tapped his fingers against Nick’s cheek.



“Quit it, Jesus Christ.” Nick swatted at Kelly’s hand.



“Yeah, he’s conscious,” Kelly answered.



Ty leaned over him. “Where are the kids, Irish?”



“I found a place to stash them,” Nick answered. His words were a little slurred. “Gave the oldest one a gun and told him to shoot the next person who came around the corner.”



“What happened?” Zane asked.



Nick lifted his head, looking at the man Kelly had beaten half to death. “Guy took out the Snake Eater at the door, sent the nanny in for Amelia. The oldest boy wouldn’t let her get to her; that’s when I walked in.” Kelly took Nick’s arm and helped him to his feet. They all clambered off the wet ground and moved further away from the treacherous edge of the cliff, going to stand over the groaning form of Nick’s attacker.



“It’s Jockie Fraser,” Ty said, eyes wide.



“Who the hell is that?” Emma asked.



“The groundskeeper.”



“Wait, so the groundskeeper and the nanny?” Kelly asked. “This is an island thing and not a Snake Eater thing? Damn it!”



“You owe me twenty bucks,” Nick told him.



“Fucker!” Ty shouted as he tore his eyes away from Fraser to look at Nick again. Zane could see the warning signs coming. Ty grabbed Nick’s shirt, heedless of either of their injuries, and shook him. “You tried to stab me so I’d let you go!”



“I would have taken you with me, Ty!”



“Stab me so I’d let you fall!” Ty shouted, not appearing to hear anything anyone else was saying as Kelly and Emma both tried to calm them. Zane moved forward, putting a hand on Ty’s shoulder that Ty didn’t even notice. “Don’t you fucking remember the last time?”



“Yeah, I remember shoving a friend off a cliff to save your life!” Nick cried. He pushed away from Ty, holding his bloody side.



“Stupid, selfish fucking son of a bitch!” Ty took a swing before Zane could stop him, catching Nick under the chin.



Nick staggered backward into Kelly, who barely managed to catch him and keep him on his feet.



Zane lunged, wrapping his arms around Ty before it could turn messier. Ty was breathing hard, almost gasping for every breath, and he was very nearly sobbing. Zane placed himself between the two of them. Ty rested his chin on Zane’s shoulder, then lowered his head, and Zane hugged him close, not sure what else to do for him but make sure he didn’t try to hit anyone else.



Nick had his hands on his knees, apparently trying to shake the cobwebs after Ty’s punch. Zane knew what a sucker punch from Ty felt like. Not many men could come back from one, certainly not quickly. Nick’s angry face was highlighted by a streak of lightning that hit too close for comfort. The rain was still torrential, obscuring their vision, making it hard to hear.



“Do you have any idea what it would do to us if you fell?” Ty shouted at Nick, his voice breaking. “What it would do to me?”



Nick shook his head, looking wobbly. He hadn’t tried to straighten up yet. He fell to his knees, and before Kelly could grab him, he tumbled face-first into the grass.



Kelly knelt beside him, a hand on his cheek. “Well, that’s just fucking great, Ty!”



Zane held Ty tighter. His entire body was trembling. It was like trying to hold on to a bolt of pure energy.



“What about the kids?” Emma shouted over the sound of the storm and the crashing waves below.



“Those kids could be anywhere. How the hell are we going to find them before someone else does?” Zane snarled. He pointed at Fraser. “We all know there are more people on the island working with that asshole.”