Being Amber (23 page)

“Your parents are out for the evening. They won tickets to the Fourth of July concert and fireworks program in the Emerald Zone. How lucky are they?” Caroline said with an even mix of evil and sarcasm that told Jaci it wasn’t luck at all that took her parents away from home that evening.

* * * *

Rock sat with Brady in the ninth floor apartment that was used as their task force base of operations. He and Brady relaxed while they listened in on Jaci and Emily. As far as Rock was concerned, it had already been interesting listening to Emily without her having the slightest clue that his ears were all over that place.

His amusement was precisely the reason that he didn’t catch on immediately to what was happening after Caroline arrived. His stomach sank like a stone when he heard Jaci identify Caroline as the murderer. As soon as he realized what was going down, Rock flew out of the apartment, hoping he wasn’t too late. He sprinted his way down to the fourth floor, directing Brady, who was right behind him, to com Xander and Jordan.

Rock’s heart drummed furiously and his ears rang as he made the excruciatingly slow descent from the ninth to the fourth floor.

Shit
.
Shit!

He pushed through a small crowd after the elevator door opened and rushed to the apartment. The door was closed and locked, but Xander had the foresight to reprogram the palm scanner to allow all of the task force team to get in.

When the door crashed open, he saw Emily immediately. She lay face up with her wide eyes staring right at him as he came through the door. A dark red pool of blood surrounded her on the floor. The knife she’d been stabbed with still stuck out of her chest.

“Oh fuck, Emily!” he roared as he ran over to her. “No! No! No!”

He assessed her condition in a split second. She was still alive. Her gaze tracked him as he moved around her.

Frantically, he looked around for something to stop the blood flow and ran to the bathroom for a towel before returning to her.

He knelt in the sticky, red puddle surrounding Emily’s body and pressed the towel around the knife wound, trying desperately to stall the flow of blood.

“Stay with me, Em.” He looked into her eyes, and she looked right back at him, a glimmer of a smile on her face.

“S-sorry…” She took a labored breath and made the cute frown face he loved so much. “We’re not married now.”

“Are you finally saying yes to me? ’Cause if I’d known this was all it would take, I’d have stabbed you a long time ago.”

Her eyes sparkled when she smiled at him. “Too late, I think.”

“It’s going to be okay, baby. It’s going to be okay,” he whispered as he stroked some curls away from her face. “I got you now.” Her face was pale. Sleepy.

“Love you, Rock.” Her words gurgled and then she coughed, spraying blood from her mouth.

Rock brushed his lips over hers. “You’re going to be fine. Help is on the way.” He pressed his cheek against hers. It was cool compared to the heated skin of his face.

He stayed there with her, cheek to cheek, eyes shut tight, whispering encouragements in her ear and stroking her curls with his free hand. The warm, wet stickiness of her blood seeped through the towel he held to her wound and through the denim of his jeans.

Blood was everywhere. He was drowning in it. Cupping the back of her head, he lifted it slightly off the ground as the thick, garnet puddle inched closer to her hair.

His lips stayed right next to her ear. “I’m so sorry, baby. I should have protected you better. Stay with me. Please, Em. Please.” He kissed her temple. “Don’t leave me. Do. Not. Leave. Me.” He was desperate and tormented by the thought that tried to take root in his mind. She was dying. “God, I love you. Don’t do this. Please,” he roared. The guttural sound rose from the fresh place of pain that swelled inside of him. It bounced off the walls and the floor, echoing back at him, mocking him.

“Please.”

There was a soft touch on his shoulder. “She’s gone, Rock.”

He felt wild inside and turned on the man standing behind him. “Get away from me, Brady. I mean it. Get the fuck away!”

Barely hearing the man retreating out the apartment door, Rock sat on the floor, pulled Emily into his lap and gingerly removed the knife protruding from her torso. He comforted her lifeless body, rocking her and whispering in her ear. “You’re my beautiful girl, Em. You’ll always be my beautiful girl.” Tears rolled and sandwiched between his cheek and hers.

At that moment, he couldn’t imagine ever being able to leave her. He couldn’t bring himself to break the contact, because he knew once he did, he’d never touch her again. His heart told him letting go of her was not an option.

He stayed with her forever in the silent emptiness of that room. From the noise, he was vaguely aware of the activity on the other side of the apartment door. But nothing mattered except these last moments he spent with her alone. He was grateful for them.

When Rock finally pulled his cheek away from hers, she stared up at him with unseeing eyes. He closed them and kissed her lips. “Love you, Em.”

* * * *

Xander placed his ear bud into his ear and turned on his com when he left his mother’s house. He was met with a barrage of coms from Brady and Jordan and stopped listening to them after the first couple. He wanted to talk to a live person instead.

“Call Brady.”

Brady answered immediately. “Dude, where have you been? Never mind. Meet us at headquarters. We’re on our way there.”

“Is Jaci okay?”

“I’ll see you in a few.” He disconnected.

Panic with a side of nausea ambushed him. Something had gone to shit and whatever happened was bad enough that Brady didn’t want to talk about it over the com.

The transport seemed to take forever to get to headquarters, and he spent that time trying to prepare himself for the worst. Wasn’t that how life worked? Just when it seemed as if everything he’d ever dreamed of was within reach, it was jerked violently out of reach. He closed his eyes. It was as if he’d sentenced Jaci to death as soon as he’d decided to love her forever. He shook his head, assuming the worst.

When he finally got to headquarters, he found the team in the briefing room.

Rock sat in the corner of the room, staring off into space and covered in blood. Xander couldn’t hold back the explosion that had been growing inside of him.

“What the fuck! What happened? Where’s Jaci?”

Brady stood, grabbed Xander by the arm, and pulled him into the corridor. “Emily’s dead.”

He stopped walking and looked at Brady. “How?”

“Caroline stabbed her in your apartment. It’s Caroline, Xander. Caroline is the one killing the fallows.”

“Jaci?”

“Caroline has her. Took her to Sapphire. We tracked her com there. Xander, they were moving so fast, they had to be in a car. It drove right through the border crossing. Never stopped.”

Finally, the random pieces parts of information regarding the fallow cases mixed and solidified into a concrete fact. The Gov was behind the fallow murders. And the Gov was the only threat he could not protect Jaci from.

* * * *

Jaci was relieved to see her parents’ house was dark when the car pulled up the driveway. She tried to escape the insane woman’s grasp when the rear door opened, but she had no place to go. Caroline pulled Jaci from the back seat by her hair and the driver gripped her arm to help drag her inside the house.

“Go park the car down the street and wait for me there. I’ll be done here in a few minutes.” The driver nodded and left without a word or glance at Jaci.

Caroline still gripped a huge tangle of Jaci’s hair and easily controlled her with one hand. She pulled her knife from her pocket and brandished it in the other.

“Nice,” Caroline said, looking around the kitchen when they walked in. She tugged on Jaci’s hair. “Take me to your bedroom.”

Slowly, Jaci led her down the hall and into her old room. Caroline laughed out loud when they turned and entered. “Looks like they couldn’t wait to get rid of you,” she said, when she saw the newly redecorated office.

The comment cut deep, but it also did something else. It pissed Jaci off, changed her frame of mind in a rudimentary way. With every passing second, her anger grew exponentially, until rage boiled under her skin.

She was done being a victim. She refused to cower in fear. If she was going to die, she was going to go down with a fight.

Without another thought, Jaci allowed her survival instincts to take over. She fisted her hand and landed a hard right hand punch to Caroline’s eye. The bitch’s grip on her hair loosened immediately. Jaci yanked her head free from Caroline’s grasp with a rip of pain as her hair freed itself from her scalp.

She ran full speed back down the hall toward the kitchen and then yanked the knife drawer open, finding a wide assortment, from butcher to steak.

Caroline had been stunned, slowed down, but now as Jaci turned toward where she’d left the other woman, her figure stepped into the hallway.

“I’m going to kill you.” Caroline snarled. She cupped a hand over her eye and continued down the hall toward the kitchen.

Jaci grabbed a knife from the drawer and whipped it end over end at Caroline. The knife sailed wide right and slapped against the wall next to the doorway that led down the hall. She’d missed completely. Jaci grabbed and whipped another one and this time it connected. It was still wide right, but it grazed Caroline in the shoulder before falling with a clank to the ground.

“Not good enough, bitch,” Caroline jeered, as she sped up her gait, rushing forward toward Jaci as she made her third throw. This time, with Caroline merely feet away, Jaci’s aim was true. The knife landed in Caroline’s throat and stuck there.

The woman’s surprised look was the last thing Jaci saw as she escaped the house through the back door at a dead run, doing her best to keep to the shadows of the dark backyard.

She ran and did not stop, didn’t look back to see if anyone followed her and didn’t have a clue as to what to do next. Changing direction, she headed toward the Amber Zone, staying off the streets and sidewalks. She wove her way through the shadows of the neighborhood she grew up in, hiding from the beams of occasional headlights and darting away from any people she saw.

After twenty minutes of running, Jaci wheezed with her lung’s demand for more oxygen. Her legs trembled and grew more feeble with each step.

She needed to stop.

Jaci hid behind a strip mall dumpster and touched her com. “Call Xander.”

“Where are you?” His voice was frantic.

“I got away from Caroline. I’m making my way back to Amber. I’m going to need help getting back through the border gate. I’m heading toward Gate One. Can you help me?” she asked, breathless and panting from her run.

“Jaci, listen closely, dump your com now and move as far away from it as possible. If you can, put it on something that’s moving away from your location. Somebody will meet you at Gate One. Go along with what they’re saying when you get there. You got it?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to be okay,” he said calmly and with authority. “Now, go get rid of it.”

“Xander? I–” Jaci choked on a sob.

“I’ll see you in a couple of hours.” He disconnected.

Jaci looked around. The street was empty and dark.

She quirked her lips into a scheming smile. She knew exactly where to go to get rid of the com. She ran another block up and entered the only fast food restaurant around. Jaci entered through the side door, and the greasy aroma of tacos flooded her nose.

She slipped into the single person ladies room and locked the door behind her. She pulled the com from her ear, threw it into the toilet and flushed. She watched it to go down, and then flushed again to make sure it would stay down. When Jaci opened the door to leave, she turned the lock in the doorknob before pulling the door closed behind her. Just in case the com didn’t go far, they would have to waste a few minutes getting the door open before they realized she wasn’t there.

She snuck out of the restaurant, wondering if anyone was following her yet. She speculated as to how long that man would wait down the street for Caroline before he went looking for her. Caroline had to be dead. The knife blade sank deep into the base of her throat. She’d gone down fast. She wondered if he would leave her lying there dead in her parent’s kitchen, or would he call the police or National Guard to cover their tracks?