Exception to the Rule (24 page)
Kimmer squirmed to get her hand on the stun gun, and couldn’t find her pocket. She fought to pull the little knife from her jeans, and couldn’t reach it. She aimed an instant of frantic thought at Rio, and knew he had his hands full, that he was counting on her to handle Slick on her own.
Trusting her.
And then Slick moved his knee to her arm, pinning it just above the elbow into instant numbness and freeing his own hand to reach inside his jacket for a knife, a slim street weapon that flicked open directly before Kimmer’s face. And while his expression twisted with mean triumph, Kimmer snarled her own victory right back at him—for with the war club thong slipped over her wrist, she didn’t need to feel her fingers; she needed only to bend her elbow.
And this time she didn’t use restraint.
She heard the bone break. Slick’s bone, a sound almost obscured by his cry of surprised pain. He rolled to the side and Kimmer followed with fierce intent, wrenching the knife from his hand to jab it at his neck, just barely breaking skin.
Slick froze, his breathing a pained, shortened grunt, his eyes wide with disbelief, his mouth in an ugly rictus of fear—all perfectly visible as light flooded the area, shining directly into his face and splashing a world of dark shapes and darker shadows into a startling chiaroscuro assortment of scattered images.
Kimmer blinked, scrubbing gloved fingers across
her eyes without so much as twitching the knife. The light wavered slightly; footsteps approached. And then Leo said, “You need some help with this one?”
They hadn’t waited. They hadn’t stayed in the truck, out of the way, safe and sound and watching the rest stop exit. Dammit. And thank God, for in a sudden rush, adrenaline strength abandoned Kimmer for adrenaline shakes. With all the casual attitude she could muster, she said, “Yeah, I’m through with him—maybe you can escort him to the parking lot and sit on him. Try not to break him any more than he is.” She eased back, waiting to see if resistance lurked behind Slick’s still stunned expression, and then added, “On the other hand, who really cares?”
But Slick only let his head fall back into the dirt, and as Kimmer dragged herself to her feet to let Leo and Bob move in, she reluctantly shook her head. “So tempting. But don’t mess with him unless he resists.” She gave Leo a pointed glance, finding him half covered by Bob’s heavy-duty flashlight. “And trust me, I know just which marks I’ve already put on him.”
“Yeah?” Bob gestured at her coat. “Looks like he got his licks in, too.”
“What?” Kimmer looked at herself and found insulation sticking out of a hole in her coat, suddenly became aware of the wet warmth trickling down just inside the curve of her hip and then again along her flank. Then she felt the burn, the skim of it along flesh. “Dammit, that was a new coat.”
“Hard to hide those bullet holes,” Leo said, a dry humor she wouldn’t have expected from him as he reached down to haul Slick to his feet. “C’mon, asshole, there’s a cold wet spot in the parking lot waiting for you.”
Kimmer slipped the club from her wrist and back into her pocket, pulling off her balaclava to scrub her hand through her hair as she found her way back to where she’d started. She found the other two bubbaboys dragging an unconscious City Shoes away, but they’d left a flashlight propped in the crook of a tree branch and it was easy enough to spot Carolyne, sitting on the ground with her knees up and her head between them. And Rio, who stood beside her with his big hand resting on her head in an easy gesture of comfort, blocking her from Scott—who sat on his other side, his slicked hair disheveled and his expression more so. It could have been an afterthought that Rio’s foot was firmly planted on the tail of Scott’s coat, but Kimmer doubted it. She traded a glance with Rio, a quick thing that held mutual relief and gratitude and even the promise of a more thorough exchange later on.
Scott seemed oblivious. Scott, caught up in his own internal world of maneuvering events to his advantage, no doubt
was
oblivious. “Look,” he said, gesturing helplessly with his still bound hands. “Things turned out okay, didn’t they? I bought you some time, right?”
Kimmer thought of that moment when this little battle would have ended before it truly started, had Scott not received Carolyne as a prisoner instead of a refugee. Had he taken a chance and run for it, cuffs and all, as soon as Carolyne reached for him. Kimmer put her hands low on her hips and cocked her head at him, wondering if he was smart enough to shut up right then and knowing he wouldn’t be.
“It’s not like I’m really part of this,” Scott said. “I didn’t have any choice, did I? I mean, they said if I’d help, they’d make sure she wasn’t hurt.”
Carolyne, head still down, made a muffled noise of dismay. Kimmer put a hand to her burning side and crouched down beside Scott. She kept her voice low and menacing. “Tell you what, you little weasel, why don’t you just make a try for it? Let’s see how far you get, shall we?”
Scott responded with a startled stare, and then a foolishly quick once-over of her, a calculation of how far he might get.
“Go ahead. I’m done here tonight,” she said, as inviting as the spider to the fly—and was surprised when Rio lifted his foot off Scott’s coat in a tacit permission. “Oh, but here’s the thing…
I’ll never quit chasing you
.”
His flare of hope faded; he subsided, settling his butt more firmly on the damp ground.
Kimmer stood and looked down at him. “I thought not,” she said. “And now you get to find out what it’s like to go to trial for treason.”
Rio gave her a sharp look, knowing as well as she that the circumstances wouldn’t support such charges. Scott had been too ignorant of the stakes, as Carolyne had intended. But kidnapping, oh, yeah, there were felony charges lurking for Mr. Boyle. And meanwhile, if he thought he was into treason…
Let him chew on it a while.
Leo returned, eyed the three of them and wordlessly offered his cell phone.
“Thanks.” Kimmer took it, nodding at Scott. “He goes with the other two, if you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” Leo looked at her in a manner that made her recall just how much he’d enjoyed finding ways to humiliate her back in those days when her life was all
about humiliation and fear. This time around, she’d found a way to use that…but she still wanted to take a shower.
But Leo didn’t notice and wouldn’t have cared. “I reckon I don’t mind at all. This is an evening I can tell to my grandchildren.”
Ugh. Leo with grandchildren. Kimmer didn’t even want to go there. She stood aside and watched him escort Scott from the woods, and then stepped into the circle of uneven light.
“Hey,” Rio said quietly, straightening to remove his hand from Carolyne’s head but leaving his leg snugged against her side; she leaned on him.
“Hey,” Kimmer said quietly, as though Carolyne weren’t there at all.
He nodded at her torn jacket. “Doesn’t look good.”
She frowned, unzipped the coat and pulled her shirt free of her jeans to expose the tender flesh of her belly to the cold air, showing him. “That’s what I thought,” she said. “Just sort of skipped under the surface. It’ll hurt like hell tomorrow, I bet.”
“Hmm.” Rio scrutinized the spot a moment longer. “Nice abs, though.”
“You think?” Kimmer pulled the shirt up a bit farther to check out the definition there. “I suppose.”
“You go ahead and
suppose
all you want. I
know
.” He took a deep breath, finally relaxed again now that Carolyne was safe. Finally allowed himself to show the pain—and Kimmer knew what it meant when he gave that subtle stretch of his back. She wasn’t so sure what it meant when he tipped his head in a minimalist “Come on over here” request—but when he did it again, she
went to him—and when he held out his arm, useless hand and all, she moved into the opening, easing up against him while he settled the arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close. “There,” he said. “That’s better. Let’s just do this for a while.”
She had no idea it could feel so good. The embrace itself, the unspoken words behind the embrace.
We did good. We did it together. It can be this way for us
. She absorbed the moment, intensely aware of his breathing, of the comforting weight of his arm, of her burning side, of Carolyne’s slowing sniffles and the moment she lifted her head to look out toward the parking lot. Rio knew it, too, and took a deep, careful breath, giving Kimmer’s shoulders a tiny extra squeeze. “You ready?”
Ready? To accept all she’d learned these past days, all she’d been given, all she’d been offered? Everything that this moment embodied…the connection, the family, the trust…a new way to live.
And Kimmer surprised herself, looking up so there could be no mistake between them.
“Yes,” she said, “I am.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5125-4
EXCEPTION TO THE RULE
Copyright © 2004 by Doranna Durgin
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