CHAPTER 20: BRETT
When I saw Kerry on the ground under the man I thought I would explode. My heart raced and I lost all sense of sanity. I was my primal, growling self.
It was a self I had never known existed until this moment. I guess we all have it. It comes out when we are cornered, or when someone is hurting those we care about.
I screamed.
“No!”
I had no gun—I never touched one in my life and I never will—but I did have a metal bar. I brought it down over the man’s head with a crash I would never have expected. He fell forward. The knife-hand twisted sideways and I stood on it. He yelled.
I was screaming incoherently, on my knees now. My one hand grabbed the knife and I held it to his throat.
He snarled and grappled with me, clawing at my eyes. We had fallen sideways now, and we were on the floor by the doorway, wrestling. I had no idea what the neighbors thought. I didn’t care. I had to fight. I had to beat him. If I didn’t, Kerry would die.
“You!” I screamed. I felt his hand rake my face. I pushed forward with the knife, but his other arm had grabbed my right wrist and was forcing it sideways. I flailed for balance, knowing that if he pushed me over onto my back, I was dead.
I heard someone scream. I had let go of the iron bar in the confusion, and my one hand was empty, the other hand holding the knife and trying to stab it forward. For the moment, the other man was unarmed. He was strong, though, with the stringy, sinewy strength of someone who has muscle because they use it daily, not the showy muscle of the gym-trained bodybuilder.
He was also swearing, grunting. The knife was far away from him and every time I tried to get it closer, he pushed back.
I felt myself shaking and, to my horror, I started to fall backward. My knee was on the edge of the mat and it dug into it, pressing on a nerve just beside the kneecap. I shifted and fell back.
Then the scream rang out.
The man collapsed. I stared.
I was on my back now, the knife in my hand. The man was lying on the carpet, groaning. Kerry was behind him—a white-faced, round-eyed Kerry who had an iron bar in her hands. She dropped it. Tears ran soundlessly down her face. The man grunted and tried to stand. I knelt on his back. Pressed the knife to the back of his head, just where the neck joined it.
He shifted and swore. I pressed the knife a little harder. He lay still.
“Right,” I said. I was breathing heavily, my chest aching with each heaving sigh. I was shaking. I was sweating. “Do we have something like rope?”
Kerry moved. She went to a drawer. She passed me a pair of tights. I frowned and abruptly I wanted to laugh. I didn’t, though. I tied his hands and got him rolled onto his front.
I looked at him carefully. He had a vast bruise across his head from where I had hit him the first time, and I had a suspicion the skull was cracked. He was bleeding from a cut above his eye and the long, thin one on the neck. He had another vast bruise down the back of his head, a graze that matted his hair red.
“What do you think?” I managed to say between pants to Kerry. “Did we mess him up enough?”
Kerry was silent. She was staring at the guy, at me, her eyes huge. I saw her stumble back and sit on the bed. She looked to me like she was in bad shock—I recognized the signs. I was worried instantly.
“I’ll take him outside,” I said.
I managed to lift the guy up, grunting and sweating. He was heavy, for a compactly-built guy. But I got him up, resting in my arms. He was having trouble staying awake. He lulled there and I had a horrible feeling that the concussion would get the better of him. We desperately didn’t want to kill him—just to send a strong message to whoever he worked for.
“Maybe slap him awake?” I called to Kerry. She looked up at me in blank-eyed horror. I shrugged. As I did so, he groaned. That was a good sign. He was awake.
“Right,” I said.
I carried him through the door, which Kerry had wordlessly opened for me. The one good thing about this being a really rough block of apartments was that the neighbors kept to themselves when they heard people fighting. Nobody appeared in the hallway as I passed. The doors were all locked. Whoever was here was not too keen on getting involved.
The guy groaned as I carried him to the door. I still thought we might have cracked his skull—the swelling looked horrible. I was glad it was starting to get dark, thanks to the time and the rainclouds, so, with my hoodie up round my head, no one was likely to notice it was me. I dumped the guy into my car and drove him through the town toward the roughest part of town. Then I got out.
“Right,” I said to myself. This was the bit that I was scared of—the five minutes during which I was in a dangerous place, wrestling a semiconscious guy out from my passenger seats.
I climbed out, opened the door and pulled his feet. He slid out in a smooth motion and landed in a heap by the car. I dragged him back so I would miss him when I reversed out. Then I shut the door and got back into my car.
I was speeding away when I saw, in my rear-view mirror, how people were coming out to see closer.
I let out a long sigh and drove off. I had to get back home quickly. Kerry was still there. I had to make sure she was okay.
I ran up three flights of stairs to the apartment. Knocked at the door.
“Kerry?”
I heard her feet scuff the floor, and the door opened. I half-stumbled in, shut the door. Leaned against it and then sat down on the bed. I felt all the energy—born of tension and rage—leave me. I couldn’t move a muscle.
“Brett?”
I heard Kerry walk across the floor. She went slowly, then she sat down beside me. I felt the warmth of her leg against mine. I sat up.
“Kerry,” I whispered. She was cold when I hugged her, and she was shivering. I wrapped her in my arms and held her close. I couldn’t thank her enough. She had been so brave! She had risked everything for me. She had literally just saved my life.
The thought was enormous. Not only did she have my heart, this beguiling, beautiful woman of flame and shadow. She also had my life. She had saved me and, if we had not loved each other, that would be an inconceivable debt. As the matter stood, it didn’t feel that way. I would give my life for her in a heartbeat. I always would have. I always would. There was no debt between us. Only love.
“Kerry,” I murmured softly.
She nestled closer. She was shaking a little less, though I was still worried that she was in shock. If I had any sense, I would have called a doctor by now. I just wasn’t sure if I had the energy to stand up, much less do anything else.
I leaned in and breathed into that fragrant red hair. It still smelled of shampoo and warmth and the sweet spicy scent of her. I held her close, drawing strength from the comforting sweetness.
“Kerry,” I said in a low voice. “I can’t thank you enough. You helped me. You saved me. You saved my life.”
She sighed and wrapped her arms round me. Her voice was barely audible.
“You saved me too,” she said.
I sighed and held her close. She rested her head on my chest and I held her in my arms and breathed in the sweet, spicy fragrance of her hair.
I had no idea how long we sat like that, her body leaning against mine, my arms holding her against my chest. But after a time, I woke from my almost slumber as she shifted in my arms.
“Oh, Kerry,” I whispered. “I love you.”
She sighed and looked up at me. Her eyes held mine. We sat like that, my world narrowed to the touch of her hand on my shoulder, the two pools of her eyes.
“I love you too,” she whispered softly. “I love you too.”
I closed my eyes and drew her tight against my chest and promised myself that I’d never let myself be parted from her. Not while we both had breath in our bodies. Life was too short for that.