Fire Born (Firehouse 343) (30 page)

Then something—or rather someone—caught his eye. A man of about six feet, his curly blond hair a bit shaggy and falling into his eyes, was standing at the edge of the crowd still gathered around the police barricade.
He kept glancing between the tow
truck and building 1095. Chris narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out why the man seemed out of place, because everyone else was staring at one or the other...

…but not both.
Though some of the people did look back and forth, the
majority of the crowd were
either focused on the car or were looking up toward the door to apartment H. The shaggy
blond’s
gaze switched back and forth as though he were a spectator at a tennis match. And now that he was focused on him, he noticed that the man kept shuffling his feet.

Chris turned and started toward the barricade. He was certain that the stranger knew something, and he was determined to find out what it was. He might even be Larry, coming back in the hopes of snatching Jessica as well. The idea that he could be sent renewed fury blazing through him, and Chris started to walk faster.

The stranger took notice. His eyes widened, and clearly frightened, he turned and took off at a run.
Chris yelled “Move!” at the crowd and took off after him, vaulting over the barricade as they scattered. The stranger weaved in and out of the stragglers milling about, pushing people aside in his hurry to escape—for Chris they simply got out of the way. He was vaguely aware that there were others running behind him, possibly the police, but he didn’t waste time looking over his shoulder to find out.
Pouring on as much speed as he could muster in the heavy bunker gear, he charged forward, the distance between them growing shorter.

By now they had run to the entrance of the complex. The stranger veered into the lane, likely hoping that his sudden change in direction would slow his pursuer down. What he hadn’t counted on was the large Ford truck turning in at precisely the same moment. He was hit and thrown about fifteen feet back in the direction from which he’d come. Chris stopped short at the curb, flailing his arms momentarily to stop himself from also being hit as the driver of the diesel-powered vehicle slammed on the brakes. As soon as he’d gained balance, he ran back to where the blond stranger lay groaning on the asphalt.

“I couldn’t stop in time,” the truck’s driver declared as he dropped out of his car. “He ran right out in front of me!”

Chris ignored him and
knelt next to the
blond
man moments before two uniformed officers joined him. One of them radioed for the on-scene detectives
and requested an ambulance
as Chris looked into the eyes of the man he’d chased.

“You’re Larry, aren’t you?” he
asked.

The man nodded and then coughed, sending blood and spittle into the air and rolling down the side of his face.

“Tell me where Martie is. Where did you take her and Ronnie?” Chris demanded.

Larry shook his head. “H…he’ll kill…me,” he wheezed.

“Looks to me like you’re already in danger of dying.
‘
Fess up now and meet your maker with a clear conscience. Where are they?”

Larry shook his head again and Chris grabbed his shirt, lifting him up off the ground.
“Tell me where Martie is, Larry!”

“Chris, back off!” Scott yelled as he ran up to the scene.

He ignored him. “
Where is she
?!” he screamed, shaking Larry like a rag doll
.

Scott grabbed him by the arm. “Let him go, Chris, and back
off
!”

He was joined by one of the uniformed
officers,
a burly fellow who took Chris’s other arm in hand. Together he and Scott pulled at Chris, who tried to maintain his grip on Larry’s shirt and shrug them off at the same time. Desperation entered his voice as he said, “Just tell me where you took her! Tell me where they are!”

Larry’s eyes widened as he looked up at them. He started to gurgle and cough, causing more blood to spill from his lips. His eyes rolled back in his head and his chest stopped rising, and then he went limp. Chris set him back on the ground and started chest compressions as soon as Scott and the officer released him.

“No you don’t, you son of a bitch!” he yelled as he pushed, noting absently that Larry had suffered a number of broken ribs when the truck had hit him, and that the blood he’d spit up was the likely result of a punctured lung.

“You’re not clocking out on me, Larry,” he said, still pushing rhythmically. “I’m not going to let you die until you tell me where they are. Wake up, damn it. Wake up!”

***

Martie nearly jumped out of her skin when Graham reached into a pocket and pulled out a folded knife. Staying calm with her shirt open and a killer on her lap—a man she thought she knew—was becoming more and more difficult.

Graham unfolded the knife,
then
traced a finger down her cleavage, making her skin crawl. “I’ve wanted to see these beautiful breasts for so long. Do you mind if I have a look?”

Without even waiti
ng for a response, he hooked his
finger around the middle
of the bra
where the two cups met and pulled it out. He then carefully slipped the knife between the fabric and her skin, saying, “Don’t worry, I won’t cut you,” as he jerked it toward himsel
f. The lace and cotton split
, and his breathing became ever
more shallow
as he stared at her chest, folding the knife against his leg and putting it back in his pocket before reaching up and slowly peeling the cups of her bra away from her skin.

“Oh my God,” he said reverently. “You’re beautiful, Martie, do you know that? Your tits are so fucking beautiful.”

He cupped his hands around them again, and Martie bit her lip to keep the rising bile in her stomach
from reaching her throat. Graham began to knead her breasts, his thumbs once again brushing against the nipples. At the same time, she felt his hips beginning to move, gyrating slowly back and forth as his ministrations excited him.

“They feel so good in my hands, baby,” Graham told her. “I love your tits. I want to fuck them—oh my God, I just have to fuck them!”

He stood then and unzipped his jeans, shoving them and his briefs down and exposing his partially erect penis. Swallowing against the threat of vomiting, Martie’s eyes widened, horrified that she was about to be sexually abused—and that there was nothing she could do about it. Graham grabbed hold of her breasts again and
stepped forward, bending slightly at the knee as he laid himself against her skin and closed her
flesh around his.

I will not cry, I will not cry
, she vowed to herself, closing her eyes and biting her lip again so that she didn’t have to watch. She wished she could turn off her sense of touch as easily as that of her sight as Graham began to move, sliding himself up and down between her breasts. He began to moan, and his grip on her became painfully tight as he began to pump faster.

“Oh man, this feels
so
good!” he declared. “Oh Martie, you make me so hot. I can’t wait until you’re ready for me to fuck you for real. It’ll be so good, baby, I swear. I’ll make you come so hard you’ll forget every other loser you ever slept with.”

Martie doubted that. Her eyes stung with unshed tears and she was forced to release her bottom lip or she’d draw blood.

“Kenny?”

Graham growled angrily, but he didn’t stop. “What the fuck do you want, Veronica?”

“I want you,” she replied.

Her assailant stopped moving, and Martie opened her eyes, looking around him at Ronnie as he turned and looked over his shoulder. “What’s the matter, Veronica? Are you jealous I’m giving my dick to another woman?” he asked her.

“I don’t know about jealous, baby, but it sure is making me hot,” Ronnie replied. “I never thought that watching other people would turn me on so much.”

What the hell is she doing?
Martie thought
.
She can’t be serious
.

Graham stepped away from her and before she could act on the sudden impulse to kick him in his exposed balls, he turned and sauntered across the room to stand before Ronnie, who sat perpendicular to Martie. He took his member in his hand and began to stroke himself.

“You want this, huh? You miss it, don’t you? Tell me, little whore, do you miss my dick?”

Ronnie nodded. “Yes, I… Your little whore misses your dick.”

Graham chuckled. “Prove it. Suck my cock, you dirty whore.”

With that
he stepped forward, his legs on either side of Ronnie as he had stood over Martie, who watched with increasing horror as the other leaned forward and placed her mouth around Graham’s penis.

She couldn’t believe this—was sickened by what was happening right in front of her. Graham had threaded his hands into Ronnie’s hair on either side of her head and was now rhythmically thrusting himself in and out of her mouth. She had closed her eyes tight, and the tear that escaped from the corner of the eye Martie could see told her that she wasn’t doing this because she wanted to
: she was returning the favor. Martie “waking up” had saved her from a possibly brutal rape, and Ronnie was now trying to spare her the same fate.

Something told Martie that Graham wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t be satisfi
ed with just a blow job. He’d been
going on and on about how much he wanted to fuck
them
, and she instinctively knew that one or both of them would end up being his unwilling partner if Larry didn’t hurry back soon. On the one hand, she would welcome the interruption, but on the other, she hoped he was thwarted by the police, that little Jessica was already
safely ensconced in protective custody.

She needed to do something. She was proud of Ronnie for her sacrifice, but she couldn’t let this go on much longer—but what could she do with her hands tied behind her back?
She’d already tried the rope binding her
wrists
together and her body to the chair. Larry had done a thorough job on the
knots, as she couldn’t get loose even a little.

Think, Martie!
she
scolded herself.
You’ve got legs, don’t you?

She took a few deep breaths to shore up her nerve, and judged the distance between Gr
aham and herself to be about five
feet. She could run
at him and head-butt the
bastard,
knock him over
…b
ut then what?

Cross that bridge when you come to it and just
do
something!
she
yelled at herself silently, and taking one more breath, she made her move.

Martie launched herself across the room and slammed into Graham’s side as he turned toward her, surprised that she’d moved. They went down in a tangle, knocking Ronnie over in the process. Rolling to try and get back to her feet, ignoring the pain in her shoulder from the fall, Martie grunted as she struggled to stand upright.

“You bitch!” Graham screamed, reaching for her before she could move away and grabbing her by the hair. “You lied to me!”

Martie hissed as he yanked her back to the ground. “You lied to
me
, you bastard!” she yelled back, bracing herself just in time as he swung his left foot and kicked her forcefully in the stomach. She grunted, tears stinging her eyes as the pain seared across her midsection. Graham got down on one knee
and grabbed her by the hair again, lifting her head and leaning close.

“How could you do this to me—to us?” he seethed, slapping her hard with his free hand. “I had such plans for us! I would have made you happier than your wildest dreams, Martie—how could you betray me?!”

She spit at him. “How could you betray
me
, Graham?” she retorted bitterly. “How could you betray your wife, your family? How could you betray the oath you took to protect and serve?”

Rather than reply, he hit her again.
More p
ain lanced through her skull and she blinked against the spots dancing before her eyes.

“We would have been great together!” Graham raged. “I wanted you willing and compliant—you’re too good to be forced, Martie. Or so I thought. Now I’ll have to take what I’ve wanted from you for the last ten years whether you like it or not!”

He reached for the ropes binding her, and Martie struggled, bringing her knees up to try and strike him. Graham pulled his hand back in a fist and punched her, and an agony so blinding that she nearly passed out
radiated all over her skull
.

Too disoriented from the blow to fight, Graham managed
to untie her. He
had just shoved
the chair out of the way and rolled her on
to
her back when Ronnie cried out wildly and threw
herself
at him. As they struggled with each other Martie struggled to stay conscious, knowing that it was crucial to
hers and Ronnie’s survival.