AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The music shuts off along with the lights. It’s not exactly unheard of for the studio to shut itself down when we’re still here. The only thing that’s different is the part that I’m still on edge from almost becoming mashed potatoes. It’s what makes me freeze. In the pitch-black, I can’t see anything, and although I know the fire safety lights will come on soon, I can feel my panic set in. Hard. Fast.
“Cooper?” My strangled voice comes out a little more than a whisper that gets swallowed up by the furious beating of my heart. “Cooper?”
“I’m right here,” he replies quietly but makes no audible move to come find me.
A small light flickers on, lighting the space between us, and it’s then that I notice the gun in his hand, and the pounding of my pulse picks up hard enough that I feel light-headed even as I ask, “What time is it?”
“Half ten.”
It’s okay. This is normal, I tell myself as I go to the side and start taking my pointe shoes off in such a hurry that I almost tear them off my feet. After I’ve thrown them in my kitbag, along with my warm-up boots, I slip on my Converse and get to my feet. Never mind that they’re loose, I just want to get the hell out of here. Out of the dark.
“Stay behind me, okay?” Cooper instructs me as he opens the door, his weapon at the ready. “We have backup downstairs, and they’re telling me everything is all right.” Pointing at his earpiece with his free hand, he winks at me before handing me his torch, even though out here in the corridor, the light from the street filters through most of the blackness with the tall windows on either end.
“The fire safety lights should come on soon,” I tell him as we reach the stairwell, and true to my words, they flicker on.
Muted, but so much brighter than the torch. With the light, I take the steps down as fast as he does. When we reach the after-hours fire exit, he bursts through the door ahead of me, and before I can acclimate to my surroundings, I’m being practically thrown into the back of the Range as Cooper takes the driver’s seat and one of his guys gets in beside me before we peel off.
“What’s happening?”
“Nothing. We’re just taking precaution,” Cooper replies, his tone measured in complete contrast to the gun the man beside me is holding at the ready.
He’s lying.
“Wh-why? Has something happened?” Instantly, my thoughts go to Freddie, and I’m so damn cold.
Just like the night he left me, I feel alone and scared, terrified that he’s hurt or worse…gone. Then my fear holds on to everything I know. What happened to Arabella and…Fleur. Fleur’s pregnant too. What if they’re hurt? What if Casper…
“Georgina,” Cooper calls loudly from the front. “Chin up, girl.”
Nodding, I try to take a deep breath to centre myself just as the speakers start ringing loud enough that it pulls me completely from my head.
“Where are you?” Casper’s voice bites through the line, and the smallest fraction of my worry fades, but the fear remains as potent and paralysing.
“What’s happening? Where’s Freddie?” I bluster, incapable of focusing on anything else, not even when Cooper swerves the Range hard enough that I fly across the back bench.
“We’re heading towards South Ken, cutting through Belgravia to avoid main roads and traffic. We can get onto the M4 off the Hammersmith Road.”
“Ryan’s at the house, Wayne’s got Cassie and Arabella at the Sinclair residence. Whatever you do, do not stop.”
“Got it,” Cooper tells him.
I’m sick to my stomach as I listen to Casper give him specific instructions. He sounds winded and angry. There’s so much noise from his end of the line that I can’t make out some of the things he says. Maybe they’re in code. They sound like it.
Why hasn’t he answered my question? The thought whirs and whirs, and the nausea in my belly roils and roils until the air in the car is too thick and too hot. Where’s Freddie?
“Fuck this shit!” His voice rings out around us. Loud. Clear. Raging. And I can breathe.
A gasp stabs into my lungs, the pain so fierce that I sit up straight, holding on to the back of the seat in front of me.
“Cooper, you’re going to take her to Father Byrne. He’ll know what to do. We’re on the road, and I can’t get eyes on you, but the tracker says you’re just off Brompton. I’ve let him know you’re coming.”
“Yes, sir,” Cooper replies without argument, following the side street to the main road and turning straight towards the London Oratory.
“Get inside and get her in the crypt,” Freddie orders, his voice so low and cold that it makes me shudder. “Doesn’t matter what happens, you stay fucking put. You’ve got everything you need to hole up. You’re good.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Casper bites out.
Freddie’s dark laugh sounds around me before he states, “I’m coming to get you, Swan.”
