Burnt (24 page)

‘There's a bomb,' she whispered.

His heart kicked into high gear as he followed her gaze down to the silver tape wrapping a nasty-looking tangle of wires to her chest. ‘Who did this?'

‘It was Charles. I thought it was you – he had your phone.'

His suspicions had been confirmed, but there was no time to ponder it now. ‘It's going to be okay. Where is he?'

‘He said he was going to your dad's place. He left a while ago –' She broke off with a sob. ‘Seb, he plans on blaming you for all this. You have to get out of here and check on your dad and make sure the police know it wasn't you.'

He froze at the mention of his father, but had to focus on his priorities: Bec, wrapped in a cocoon of explosives, was his main concern now. He'd deal with anything else later. ‘I'm not going anywhere. The guy's a nut job. The cops will figure out he was behind it one way or another.'

‘Didn't you hear me? He's planning on blowing up the shed – if he's watching, he'll set it off –
please
, Seb. Just
go
.'

Seb ignored her, his attention on the contraption, checking the area for trip wires or anything that could possibly trigger the bomb. It wasn't out of the question for someone to blow it up remotely, but there was something primitive about the parts that suggested the man behind this wasn't using anything as sophisticated as a remote detonation device.

Of course, the trigger was quite possibly attached to Bec, and he examined the crudely wrapped contraption on her chest, his mind frantically racing while he kept his movements calm. He looked down at her and felt a brief, sharp kick in his gut at the terrified expression she was trying so hard to disguise. He pushed away the urge to rip the thing from her body and just get her the hell out of harm's way. He had to focus. He had to ignore the fact that the woman he loved – had always loved – was strapped to a crapload of explosives that could blow at any second.

‘Seb, please. Get out of here.'

‘I'm not leaving you, Bec, so just shut up and let me think … please,' he added when he saw the flicker of hurt cross her face.

He wiped his forearm across his brow to remove the sweat. His eyes squinted tight in concentration as he peered into the bomb's innards. The
tick
,
tick
,
tick
was a constant warning that time was running out.

‘Something just doesn't look right.' He sat back for a minute to get a grip on his pounding pulse rate. This thing wasn't set up like anything he'd ever come across before, and the thought unnerved him more than he cared to admit. What he wouldn't give to have a good ammunition tech on speed dial right now. While he had experience with explosives, he was no ammo tech.

Fuck.

A trickle of sweat ran down the side of his face and he swiped at it with his wrist irritably, snatching a quick glimpse of the numbers on the bulky watch he wore at the same time.
Think, Taylor, damn it.

Rebecca let her head rest against the pole. That damn ticking noise was driving her insane. With each tick, she felt her nerves stretch until she was sure they'd snap.

Why was this happening?

Her thoughts wandered to two small, precious faces and she quickly slammed the door on the image. There was no way she could allow herself to dwell on the thought of never seeing them again. She blinked away frightened tears. Falling apart was not going to help the situation. Seb had enough to cope with without her crumpling into a hysterical mess at his feet.

Poor Seb, she thought, lifting her head to watch him. This was so cruel. To be here was horrific enough, but for her to be the cause of putting him in this hopeless position was nothing short of emotional torture.

Exactly how Charles had planned it.

It was hard to imagine someone hating another person enough to do something like this.

She wished she'd had more time with Seb. She wished she hadn't wasted the last few days stubbornly refusing to be the first one to apologise. It all seemed so stupid and immature now they were faced with something as fundamental as this life-or-death situation.

Her hands were numb. They had been for hours. Her shoulders ached from being tied in the same position for so long. The tape strapping the contraption to her chest restricted her breathing. The more she focused on the feeling, the worse the sensation got. Her breathing became laboured and fast and she knew she was at a very real risk of hyperventilating.

‘Seb,' she panted, ‘just get my hands and feet free and get out. I'll rip the damn thing off and take my chances.'

He spared her a grim look, before going back to ignoring her.

‘Seb, I'm not kidding. Untie me – now!'

He must have registered the panic in her voice then, because his head snapped up and his gaze zeroed in on her frightened face.

‘Calm down, Bec, you can't just pull it off; it might have a tripwire set. Tell me what he did, what you saw – anything.'

Bec's frazzled mind immediately went back to the last time she saw Charles and tried to replay everything he did with the explosive. ‘He just strapped it to me.'

Seb got in close to peer at the thing, so close that his short hair tickled her chin and the adrenaline-induced scent of warm spices and sweat coming from him, so achingly familiar, somehow managed to calm her.

‘Okay, I don't think there's any booby traps,' he said, easing back slightly to look her in the eye.

She saw the glint of humour cross his features and sent him an exasperated glare – even under pressure the man was able to find some things amusing. ‘Nice choice of words.'

After a flash of that bone-melting grin that prodded the butterflies inside her back to life for a fleeting moment, his expression returned to professional mode and he was all business again.

‘Here's what we're going to do.' He removed a lethal-looking knife from his pack and quickly freed her legs from their bonds. ‘I'm going to cut through the tape carefully, and you're going to have to hold real still. Then when I give the word, you're going to roll as far away across the shed as you can, okay?' He placed one hand across the rope where her hands were secured, holding her gaze steadily. ‘You don't look back, you don't try to run, you just roll as far and fast as you can, okay?'

Swallowing nervously, she managed to give a jerky nod, ignoring the pounding headache that hadn't gone away, and concentrating on keeping her panic under control.

He moved the knife up and sliced through the rough rope binding her limp wrists, lowering them carefully before they could fall painfully to her sides. She couldn't help the small whimper that escaped as blood rushed painfully to her extremities.

‘Hold still.' He began carefully slicing through the tape around her chest and slowly peeling it away, a layer at a time. He was working at an excruciating pace, his movements steady and precise, but Rebecca wished he'd just rip the whole thing off and get it over and done with.

Finally, he sat back slightly and lifted his gaze to rest on her face. ‘Okay. You ready?'

She began to nod her head, then stopped. ‘Seb!'

He froze, his gaze darting from the explosive to her face.

‘I –'
What? Love you?
Did she really want to go out on some sappy, B-grade movie script, a last-minute pledge of undying love? And yet, what if they didn't make it? Wouldn't it be worse if she never got to tell him that she loved him?

‘Bec,' he said quietly, watching the debate raging through her tell-tale expression, ‘not now. We're going to be fine. Trust me, okay?'

What could she say to that? Of course she trusted him. Maybe she was being a coward by keeping her admission to herself, but then again, now was probably not the time to distract him.

‘Okay. I'm ready.'

‘As soon as I tell you it's clear – you roll.'

He sliced through the remaining piece of tape and took a deep breath before eyeing her calmly and lifting the device away from her body.

‘Clear.'

Something heavy fell over Rebecca, and then an almighty roar echoed in her ears and a shockwave hit her body. It took a moment to realise that the weight across her body, squashing the breath out of her, was Seb, protecting her from the worst of the blast with his own body. Timber and debris rained down around them. It seemed like hours before it was over, and yet she knew it had only been a few brief seconds.

Fire crackled as it burned the dry timber of the structure – what remained of it – around them, and Rebecca struggled to breathe. She tried to push at Seb, and when that didn't work, she wriggled her body until she could slide out from under him and take a deep breath, filling her lungs with precious oxygen. Everything ached. Her chest hurt and the smoke made her cough uncontrollably.

Looking over at Seb, it dawned on her that he was lying very still, and she reached over, pressing her fingertips against the inside of his wrist, searching for a pulse. Relieved to locate it strong and sure beneath her fingers, she struggled to her knees and leant across him, calling his name. She froze when she noticed blood splattered down his leg.

‘I'm really getting too old for this crap you know,' he groaned, tentatively beginning to move his limbs as he squinted up at her with a grimace.

She let out a shaky breath and dropped her head in relief, muttering a curse at the fright he'd given her. ‘If this is your idea of fun, it's no wonder you're still single.'

‘I don't know,' he said, ‘women are getting harder and harder to impress nowadays.' He bit off a rough expletive as he tried to sit up and Rebecca put a hand on his shoulder, holding him still.

‘You've been hit by something. Let me take a look.'

‘It's not too bad – just stings like a bastard,' he grunted, reaching behind him to touch his leg.

‘Just let me take a look,' she said, slapping his hand away. ‘There's some small fragments lodged in your thigh. I haven't had much experience with shrapnel wounds before. Should I try to get them out? They're only tiny.'

‘No, just help me get out of here. There could be drums of leftover fuel still about. I don't feel like getting blown up a second time today.'

Carefully, Rebecca stood up, helping Seb to rise. He stopped to retrieve his pack before they limped from the shed together.

‘We need to get as far away from here as we can.' He'd switched back into vigilant soldier mode, stopping to scan the clearing carefully. ‘We have to make a run for it across to the tree line, okay? Think you can make it that far?'

Bec gave a quick nod and he flashed a smile.

‘Good girl. Once we're back at the car, we'll patch up our war wounds.' He tried to twist his grimace of pain into something resembling a smile for her sake.

They hobbled across the clearing and into the scrub that surrounded the homestead. Without needing to take care to keep quiet, they made faster time getting back to the front gate, but the sight that greeted them was far from encouraging.

All four tyres on his vehicle had been slashed, and just to make sure it would be undrivable, Green had ripped out every lead, cut through wires and smashed the radiator. The violence of the vandalism showed the extent of the man's rage.

‘Looks like he was covering his bases in case the bomb didn't work.' Seb swore savagely as he tried to figure out their next move. His gaze settled upon Bec. Now that they were out of the dim shed, he could see her face more clearly. The blood at the cemetery played on his mind – he'd already been tormented by too many grisly images but the sight before him seemed less serious than he'd anticipated.

‘Are you hurt anywhere?' he asked, his eyes already on a spot of dried blood on her hairline.

‘My head must have hit something when I fell back at the cemetery, I may have had a slight concussion – I had some of the symptoms when I came to, so maybe it was from that.'

Gently he tilted her head back to look in her eyes. He probed the head wound with his fingers; it was deep but not life threatening. She'd need to get it looked at once he worked out a way to get them out of here.

‘We'll have to head back into town on foot. There aren't too many occupied houses out this way any more, most of the farms are leased cattle runs nowadays, so we might have a bit of a hike before we come across somewhere to call for help.'

Rebecca clutched at his arm urgently as he began to turn away. He noticed her eyes widening in alarm and his gut automatically clenched.

‘Seb – your dad. Charles said he was going over there, after he called you. We have to get to the police. Is there any reception over here? I don't have my mobile.'

Seb stopped, hand braced on his bull bar, head bowed. ‘There's no reception anywhere this far out, and looks like he's mangled the CB in the four-wheel drive.'

The shadows were deepening. The day was getting away from them and they were stuck here in the middle of nowhere with no vehicle and no communication with the outside world. Was Green sitting out there somewhere even now, watching them? Seb saw a shiver race through Rebecca's body.

‘What are we going to do?' she said. ‘Do you think he'd really hurt your dad? He could be bluffing – messing with your head.'

‘I can't take that risk. Who knows what he's capable of?'

‘There have to be a lot more certain ways of blowing someone up than what he set up back there. Maybe he's just making a statement … or something …'

‘Did it
feel
like he was just making a statement to you?'

Rebecca winced. ‘No. He – he was definitely serious about making you pay for the past. There was mad look in his eye as he spoke about you – about
us
.'

‘We can't stay here,' Seb announced briskly, straightening and pushing away from his disabled vehicle to snag the backpack he'd shrugged off earlier. Pulling a compass from the leg of the cargo pants he wore, he moved in a slow arc to get their bearings. ‘If we head southeast and cut through the national park, it'll take us back to Dad's in a more direct route than following the road back into town.'