Into the Flames (Perilous Connections: Book Two) (19 page)

I can’t bear
it and I rush towards the door and burst in.

Emmanuel turns and points his
gun at me.
I toss myself to the side as the deadly whistle of the silencer’s bullet speed
s past
.

I drop like I was taught to drop and in on
e fluid motion I propel myself behind a
couch.

Emmanuel
laughs,
a
rough
,
deeply amused sound. He’s
always had the
shit
tiest sense of humor.
“Ah …
Blackthorne
.
The man I’ve been longing to see.”

I clutch my woefully outmatched wood and
start searching the floor.
I can see Stacy’s
legs,
hear her crying, but it’s not the hysterical sobbing I would have expected from her. Great time to find some self-control Stacy!

I dare
not
peek
my head above the couch
, not if I don
’t want it to resemble the split
skin of an overripe water
melon. I suck in a sustaining breath.
“Cant’ say the same for you
M
an
n
y.
” I snort as I
hear his swift intake
of breath.
I’
m
an idiot for trying to taunt him at a time like this
.

But Daphne?
Where is Daphne?
I cannot let myself believe that she’s already … I can’t let the thought form.
“What can I do for you Emmanuel,
since you’ve been trying to wreck my much needed vacation for a year now?”

“I think
you
know the answer
to that
Blackthorne
. Come out from behind the couch and we can talk about this.”

I chuckle
. T
he
ash must be having a damaging
effect on Emmanuel’s
reasoning. If I come out
I
’ll
be dead before I can draw breath to speak.

There is a shift in the room as if h
e’s turned.
“Stacy
,
get lost before I do you in for ma
king me wait so long,” he barks at her.

I close my eyes at
the
b
ite of rage that nails
me
to the spot. Stacy? The stupid bitch! She’d been sent to look for me?
How lon
g has she been working
f
or Pablo and Emmanuel?
F
rom the start?

Stacy whimpers in the background but I se
e her start making for the door. “B
ut
… but
the ash
is falling and the
ra
dio says the lava stuff is
gonna
come out.”
She finishes feebly.

Emmanuel shrugs carelessly. “W
ould you rather take your chance
s
with lava or
me?
”

Stacy shrieks and
there is a pounding of feet as she makes her exit.

I cannot hold back my need
to
know any longer. “
Where’s
my wife and her family
,
Emmanuel?”

His loud laughter fills the room, hideous and more corrosive
than anything the volcano can put out.

I tense painfully
, the wood bites into my palm and
my breath hitches
painfully
in my throat.

Emmanuel’s laughter recedes slowly. “Why
Blackthorne
, what do you think? They’re dead of course.”

A hoarse cry of pain splits
the air around me and I move without thinking toward
s
Emmanuel.

Chapter Eight

Daphne

An interminable while
later I stagger into the familiar
yard with the black board house. Aubrey clings
to my arm like a limp doll. His face
is ghastly, covered by a thick coating of ash which sits on the skin no matter how much you try
and dust
it off.

Aubrey’s
breath
echoes l
oudly from his wide open mouth
as he tries to suck in
enough air. H
is eyes are ha
lfway close, the lashes outlined
by the ash weighing them down.

I want to cry at the
sight. T
his
is
my
fault.

I turn and Elaine is hauling her body forward painfully, the
effort has cost her much. She’
s never been ent
husiastic about exercise. I’ve had to
wait dozens of time as sh
e valiantly struggled behind me.
But one of those times she’d called out a warning and had raced forward to grasp my shoulders, yanking me back from pitching headlong into
a ditch she’d seen
earlier.

The bitterness that I’ve nu
rsed over the years towards her started to fall away at that moment.

And she’d unders
tood because all she’d said was
. “I’m sorry for everything.”

I nodded too choked
up
and weary to speak.

But
as I put one foot in front of the other
heading for the house
I wonder how forgi
ving Nate will be when I return
. In front of the house I spot the filmy outline of a small car and my heart leaps.

But why on earth would the authorities
send a small car to pick up several people? Perhaps they thought there was only a couple here. In times of panic
,
inform
ation often gets misrepresented. The car is still on and I open the door and
place Aubrey gently inside.
Elaine enters from the other side.

“I’ll be right back.”

Sh
e nods.

I make my way slowly to the house which looks like a ghost floating atop a hill.

A crash sounds from inside, causing
my heart to race. Nate! I’
m running without a sense of
movement.
I shove open the door and scream at the sight before me.

Nate is on his knees
… Emmanuel is
standing over him and their hands are locked around a gun.

A cry rips itself from my throat as I race forward, both men turn to stare wildly at me.

“
Noooooooo
!”
Nate’s cry shatters the night but I don’t think. I launch myself at Emmanuel, wh
o turns like a snake to face me. His mouth contorts in unadulterated rage and he points the gun at
me and seconds later a fi
erce pain erupts in my shoulder.

I sl
ump to the ground, landing on the injured shoulder.  Fierce a
gony te
ars through my shoulder, stealing the breath from my lungs.
I
t’
s
so great I
can’t
summon the strength to
cry out.

My vision immediately starts to falter but
then there is
another
series of
thud
s, followed by
a po
pping sound
. Through a
supreme effort I turn my head to follow the sound.

I blink as two bodies come into light.
Nat
e is slumped over Emmanuel who
is staring right at me, his eyes still
holding traces of rage but they’re
fading.

Nate hauls himself off of Emmanuel’s body and I see that his shirt is covered with a big red blotch.

I cry o
ut and reach weakly towards him. O
ur eyes connect and he scrambles towards me, pulls
me
into hi
s arms. A wrenching groan comes
from my mouth at
the
fresh
agony
which flares in my shoulder,
my eyes close of
their own
accord.

“
Oh G
od, no …. Please no…
Daphne?
Daphne
look
at me.”
Nate cries out
hoarsely
above me
.

I try to,
every fiber of my being struggles to reach up, past the pain to look at him but I can’t seem to find the stre
ngth. The pain is unlike anything I’v
e ever imagined possible. I can’t
fight my way out from under
its
cr
ushing burden
.

As I sink below the darkness pressing me down, I hear the far off cries of Aubrey, Elaine, and
then there are more voices,
authoritative, harsh
voices
. B
ut I cling to the one which mea
ns the most to me.
Nate
is
sob
bing my name
,
his hands gentle on my face as if we’re making
love, I hold onto the sound
until I have to let it go and everything goes black
.

Coming Soon

The conclusion of Na
te and Daphne’s journey to f
inding love and escaping the danger
.