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“Dinnae gie a fuck, I need tae see him. He’s my mate, sassenach. It’s no’ right, us bein’ stuck up here.”
From the bed, I watch him slip on a fluffy black robe. He melds into the thick shadows, becoming almost imperceptible. I realize I can’t let Finlay do this by himself, so I slip on a nightdress and grab a robe of my own, throwing it over me and fastening it around my waist. Finlay gives me a wary look but says nothing. I sense his disapproval, but also his understanding that he has no right to tell me off when he’s the one bounding down to Luke’s bedroom at the small hours of the night. All I want is to be by Luke’s bedside, and ideallyinbed with him, pairs of arms enveloping me and holding me secure and warm. I don’t care if it’s the stuff of fantasy nowadays, I just want to be with Luke to whisper to him that everything’s going to be okay.
We leave our room, and instantly I know our trip is both stupid and selfish. Luke stubbornly lives by himself and entertains no others, except MacKechnie, and only then seemingly as a professional courtesy. To try to enter his room in the dead of night, even out of love and concern, feels like a violation. Nevertheless, we press ahead, tiptoeing in the dark and creeping slowly downstairs.
“Did you hear somethin’?” Finlay whispers, so soft I barely make him out despite his lips brushing the shell of my ear. I listen for noise, anticipating, but nothing comes. The ends of Finlay’s hair graze my cheek, and I realize he’s shaking his head. “Creaky auld hoose.”
We continue to tread down the soft carpeted stairway until we reach Luke’s floor.
And that’s when we realize something is badly wrong.
A shadow shifts against the back wall, somehow darker than any other in the hallway, the scant trace of post-midnight light from behind the drapes revealing the black shape of an unknown human.
“The fuck is that?” Finlay breathes, pressing me against the wall as we peer around the staircase to the figure at the other end of the hall. “Someone’s there.”
Terror floods my body. I press my palm to Finlay’s mouth, paranoid about attracting the shadow’s attention. The two of us wait in stiff, frozen silence, listening, analyzing, not breathing even once, aware of Luke currently sleeping behind one of the doors on this floor. There’s a hissed curse — a male voice, deep and growling and thoroughly unrecognizable. Only then does Finlay tense beside me. He waits a few seconds, trying to assess the situation, and again there’s another frustrated‘Fuck,’ followed by the hiss of man-made fabric and a soft clicking noise.
I’m shaking, I realize. Finlay puts a firm palm on my shoulder, pinning me into place by the wall, as he slowly steps forward. He slips off his robe, and I watch him remove its tie, gradually liberating it from the belt loops, his eyes narrowed on the intruder the whole time. Finlay wraps the tie carefully around both of his fists, tightening it into a severe line, and edges further down the hallway with his makeshift weapon.
He says nothing. But he moves down the long hall with the calm, steady grace of a lion preparing to pounce. My heart is in my mouth, my eyes trying to unpick two sets of shadows from the darkness. I can’t make out what’s happening — but then I hear it, and it’s awful.
“The fuck are ye daein’ here?” Finlay snarls, and from the answering choked gurgle, he must be strangling the man.
The intruder strains against the tie around his throat, panting. “You don’t wanna do that…” He gasps for air, and a small scuffle breaks out, but the man is too weak to overthrow Finlay or even grapple him. “I’m warning you, I’m armed.”
“Well, I dinnae need tae be armed tae kill ye,” Finlay replies silkily through a grin I imagine to be predatory. The hair creeps up the back of my neck. “Who are ye wi’?”
“Fuck off!” The man growls around the stretched cord at his throat. He makes another choking sound before answering through gritted teeth, “Who d’you think?Antiro. Always!”
“And how did you find us?”
“Fuck you,” the man spits, writhing between Finlay’s locking arms, and from the sudden hitch in his throat, Finlay must have yanked the cord even harder against him. “Car outside,” the man answers quickly, playing nice, “wasn’t there before. House… under obs. We knew it’d behim. Bastard prince!” He struggles against the bind, and this time his foot collides with the wall. In a breathless mutter, he adds, “I’ll take us both out.”
“Ye’ve nae muscle,” Finlay sneers doubtfully. “Areyouthe best Antiro’s got?” He pauses, and in the dark the silence is maddening. “Whit’s this?” There’s the sound of patting, of thick padding. Metal snicks open. “A wee blade? Some kinda switch knife? Aye, I think I’ll take that…” There’s another struggle, and then the thud of a body. I glance at the door, wondering if the commotion has awoken Luke.
“Fuckin’weak,” Finlay mutters, sounding almost disappointed. From the angle of his voice, I can tell he’s the one on top.
But then, slyly, the man beneath him murmurs, “You don’t know what I’m wearing. You can’t see.” There’s a long moment of silence as Finlay’s hand skims the man’s front. “It isn’t Kevlar if that’s what you think.”
I see then, through the dark, the moment Finlay’s back stiffens.
“Wires,” I hear him breathe, and in his tone there’s a thread of panic.
Wires, I think faintly to myself.Wires…
He hauls the man upright again. “Yer hand’s free so it’s no’ a dead man’s switch.” Finlay’s voice has tightened significantly, but there’s relief as he pats down the man. I frown — no. No, this can’t be happening. It can’t be what I think it is. In an urgent voice, Finlay calls to me, “Sassenach, the light.”
My hand scrambles up the glossy wallpaper, scrabbling for the nearest switch. When I flick it, both of them are exposed by the sudden yellow glow.
The first thing I see is Finlay, his teeth bared, the cord a prominent black line against the intruder’s throat. The man himself is scrawny and small but with a significant belly, freckled like Danny but with a face like delirious thunder. And then my gaze drops to where Finlay’s focusing, to where his wide green eyes are trained in alarm.
Holy shit.
A vest. Black. Padded. With a red wire coiled around the man’s arm and a switch lightly hanging at its end. The man’s fingers tremble around it.
My heart skips a beat. And another.
“Whit are ye,” Finlay asks, muttered, fast-paced, the time around us somehow dwindling to milliseconds. “This a’ you, or are you their patsy?”
