AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m going to be famous,” the man declares boldly, but still his hand trembles beside the switch. I can’t tear my gaze away from it, partly because I don’t want to see the fear in Finlay’s eyes. My magnificent warrior, who flirts with pain and death, is now suddenly forced to confront his mortality head-on. This can’t be happening. We’d been discussing our futures, the rest of ourlives…
“You huvnae done it yet,” Finlay states carefully, voice stoic and calm. I sense his breathing alter as he tries to control his reactions. “Ye’ve had plenty opportunity, instead o’ baith o’ us standin’ here listenin’ tae me bletherin’ on. I dinnae think ye’re that convinced.”
What thehellis he doing? Goading the guy into blowing us all up? Has Finlay never heard of reverse psychology?
But it’s not just the man’s hand that’s trembling, I realize. It’s all of him, vibrating with nerves — and Finlay’s pressed tight against him, feeling every scared little quiver.
“Ye did well tae find us, I’ll gie ye that. That’s a lot o’ intellect goin’ tae waste if ye’re daein’ this.”
Despite the smoothness of Finlay’s compliment, blackness prickles my vision, making it fade and shrunken. I don’t want to die. I don’t want Luke and Finlay to die. I don’t want this coward to be the one responsible for slaughtering the best men I know.
I cling to my breath as the world narrows to a tunnel.
“Whit’s yer name?” Finlay asks in a tone so honeyed it’s as if he’s met a new best friend. I blink rapidly, trying to focus on the broken automation of my lungs. In, out. In, out. I don’t know how Finlay’s managing, but this seems to be his strategy, sweet-talking the man into not blowing us up. When he doesn’t answer, Finlay’s mouth continues at a mile a minute, “Rude o’ me no’ tae ask. I like the name Sky. I think if I had a lad, I’d call him that. Whit d’ye think? Names for yer future kids — ever thought o’ that? Or have ye got any kids, family…? Naw?”
The man’s teeth are now chattering as if he’d wandered in from the cold.He’s not going to do it, I think to myself, a desperate flush of hope. He looks as petrified as I feel, and as Finlay croons sweetness and light into his ear, words about his dazzling future, his enormous potential, the beautiful offspring that’ll never exist if he chooses detonation… The longer Finlay keeps the man focused on everything he’ll be missing out on, the more the vicious spark in his eyes deteriorates and dies.
“Come on,” Finlay breathes with deliberate clemency, as he carefully fingers the edge of the man’s jet-black vest. I don’t know how he can keep himself under control like this. His hands aren’t shaking even half as much as our would-be bomber. “Let’s gie a’ this a by, eh? Ye dinnae want this. Think o’ a’ the stuff ye’d huvtae sacrifice — like yer favorite foods. Whit’s yours?” Without waiting for an answer, Finlay plows on, “Mine’s probably custard — ye know, the kind wi’ the skin still on it? Aye. Aye, that’s the stuff o’ magic.” The man in front of him appears frozen. I’m not even sure he’s paying attention to Finlay, instead letting Finlay’s soft, upbeat voice wash over him. “Let’s get ye oot o’ this, eh?” Finlay delicately begins to peel the vest from his body. I stare at him in horror. “Ye’re okay, pal,” he says, over and over again, as the man stands as unmoving as a carved statue, saying nothing. “Ye’re okay—”
BANG!
I let out a startled scream, my hand clasping my mouth.
For a wild moment, I think the vest has exploded, and a breathless sob tears at my throat. But then I see MacKechnie poised at the other end of the hall, his arm pointing, his expression murderous. A black handgun glints lethally in his grasp.
And behind MacKechnie, in a pair of ivory silk pajamas, is Luke. He’s staring at Finlay in a way I’ve never seen before: part disbelief, part wonder.
My head swings back to the man. He lies slumped between Finlay’s arms, his head rolling onto his shoulder, a bullet hole fresh in his forehead. It’s the most graphic thing I’ve ever seen — the red gushing hole, the exposed layers of flesh. My stomach churns as I stand frozen in place. My mouth hangs open, but no sound comes out. My whole body trembles with horror and disgust, my legs turning to rubber as I try to comprehend what just happened. My eyes are so wide, so unblinking, that my eyeballs grow tight and physically painful. Finlay, spattered with the man’s blood, stares down at his lolling head in stunned silence.
Without taking a breath, MacKechnie darts across to him. “Touchnothing,” he snaps, and Finlay stands frozen to the spot and shaken, his eyes landing on Luke, who appears cautious and graceful by the back wall. Finlay’s lips are trembling as he clutches the dead man to himself, all his suppressed fear rising to the surface like a broken dam.
“You,” MacKechnie fires coldly at me, all business. “First aider. Stanch the blood.”
It’s strange, but with this one order, my mind clears. My vision sharpens, my fear dissipates, and finally I blink. I nod, and enter the nearest room, searching the en suite for towels. By the time I return to the hall, MacKechnie’s managed to ease the vest from the man, and the black padded contraption lies quarantined, a significant distance away on the floor. A red wire trails from it like the blood from the man’s forehead.
“Shit,” I hear MacKechnie mutter as he inspects the vest. “He’s got a timer on this thing.” His voice is fraught but he takes a steadying breath. He glances over his shoulder at Luke. “I have training but I still need permission to dispose of the threat, Your Highness.” His expression is deliberately impassive when he pauses. “There is a small chance something could go wrong.”
Luke picks himself off the wall, his face carved with deep concern. “How long?”
“Two minutes.”
“Not enough time for us to leave the vicinity,” Luke murmurs, gazing at me, gazing at Finlay, confronting death like a trooper. “You two could run…”
“No,” I blurt, overwhelmed by the sensation of seconds ticking down. It’s as if I hear them in my head, a real-life hourglass running down to nothing, a pendulum slammed in rejection between ferocious extremes. “I trust MacKechnie.”
Finlay says nothing, his eyes still glassy, his mind shaken long before now.
Luke crosses over to us. He crouches beside me, gripping Finlay’s hand as though for comfort, with an arm swung over my shoulders. He pulls the two of us close to him until we’re a trio united in fear, each shivering and scared as the seconds slow and slow…
I relax against Luke, breathing him in. If this is it… If this is to be the end of us, of me, then I go down with the men I’ve loved. We go down trying to protect our brother, our chief, our king. Truly, there is no better, no more honorable way, to die.
I’m kneeling beside the dead man with my stack of towels. And for whatever reason — mercy or whatever, I don’t know — I start to wind one of the soft cotton sheets around the man’s head. Having a task, doing something, calms me instantly. I try not to focus on the man’s contorted face, on the wound, on the blood fountaining across his skin.
That could be us, I think to myself and shut it down, deliberately dwelling on nothing.
Hastily, I tie the towel around the man’s head like a bandage. It soaks up his blood like soil. My memory flashes to home, to the devastation following the hurricane, the makeshift hospital I’d spent far too long inside, containing the weeping wounded and the dead. My dad… The sheets of sterile white wrapped around men, women, and children. Around family, friends, and neighbors. My jaw tightens as I wrap the man’s head securely.
Blood streaks Finlay’s face, his body. He’s drenched head to toe in the red of a dead man’s blood, and I swallow. “You can let him go,” I murmur. But Finlay doesn’t move. He seems unaware of his surroundings, of anything that happened following the gunshot. He gazes hopelessly down at Luke like Luke is in some way his anchor.
