Page 149 of Finding Noah

As it turned out, Benjamin was very stupid.

“The cops are at my place right now?!” He turned the gun away from me to press the side of his hand against his head. He looked afraid, weak and petrified, as he listened to whoever was on the other end. Then, his face was overtaken by upset as he spun around to face the door. “Fuck!”

His scream was that of a helpless, wounded animal. He pulled his phone away from his ear to jab a finger against the screen, letting it drop to the floor, and then he turned toward me.

“The cops are questioning my wife,” he said in a tremulous voice. “They found your fucking car on my property.”

I didn’t dare speak as he walked toward me and stumbled, tripping over the leg of the wooden chair he often sat in. It teetered onto the bed, settling a couple of inches from my feet. I stared at the chair, the way Benny stood between its extended legs. I could kick it. I could shove it into his legs. But what good would that do? It wouldn't kill him. It wouldn't even incapacitate him. Without the use of my arms or full range of my legs, I couldn't take him down. He'd just be more angry, more likely to shoot me in the head—or worse—and leave.

Unless …

My gaze fell to my legs.

“They know I got ya, Noah,” Benjamin said calmly, not moving another inch closer. “They're gonna get me too. So …”

He raised his gun-holding arm. “It's time we said goodbye.”

I released the stale air in my lungs as I stared into the barrel of the pistol.

I could die now, I thought. But if the man in black is coming … if I could be saved right now …

Without another thought, I twisted as far as my binds would allow and shoved my legs against the back of the chair. My strength was much less than it was before my capture, but it was enough. Benjamin grunted and tumbled forward, the gun firing amid his fall, but the bullet missed its target.

“You son of a bitch,” he grunted, landing against the foot of the mattress.

Ben had made a mistake when he allowed enough slack to maneuver my body, to roll me over and spread my legs. Because, with little leverage and not much strength, I shimmied from my position to lay those legs over his head. He tried to get up, tried to move away, but luck was on my side this time, and he lost his footing. He slipped against the floor … just enough for me to maneuver into something like a triangle choke, with his head between my legs.

With a squeeze of my eyes, I mustered the little control and power Ben hadn’t taken from me to hold on as tight as I could as he scrambled, cursing all the way.

Something fell to the floor.

The gun.

He's unarmed.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I tried to tighten my hold, using the adrenaline and will to live to choke the life out of him, but my strength was rapidly depleting.

Yet so was his, and the two of us battled through a race against the clock, for the second time in both our lives, knowing one or the both of us would be dead in the end.

Until Benny stopped, and I didn't.

Unable to hold on any longer, I released him, gulping for air between tearless sobs. He could've been playing possum, lulling me into a false sense of security, but he didn't move, didn't attempt to get up.

I glanced down to watch him, unwilling to blink as I studied his lifeless form and …

A shallow breath shifted through him, and I cried out with frustration.

He was alive. Unconscious but … alive, nonetheless.

I had mere seconds before he awoke. Seconds before he regained his strength. Seconds before he found his gun, wherever it had landed. Seconds before he fired and didn't miss.

“Fuck!” I cried out again, desperate without any other choice but to lie here and take whatever he was going to do to me. Just as I had for the days he'd held me here in this room. All of that, all of this … to just die.

But I tried, I told myself, staring at the ceiling, waiting for Benjamin to regain consciousness. I tried, and that was more than I could say for what I was going to do earlier.

I didn't give up.