Read Story: SEASON 2 EPISODE 64

I had to trust that she was still out there and that she knew what she was doing. I wasn’t going to be responsible for losing Shea.

I stepped away from the wreckage and just past the opening with my hands raised, stopping to stand near Astrid, between her and the approaching man. He was now standing about twenty feet from me, a rifle raised in one hand. A pair of zip tie handcuffs dangled from fingers where they gurled around the barrel of his rifle. He took another step toward me.

“I’ll go with you,” I said, turning to face him fully. I could see Astrid’s blonde head just inside my peripheral vision. “I need you to promise me no harm will come to any of my people.”

The man approached another five feet, but didn’t respond. Movement caught my eye, and I glanced just over his shoulder. Fuck… he’d brought company. There was another mercenary, twenty-five feet behind the man with the handcuffs.

Wait… since I wasn’t fighting, that was a good thing, right? The more men hunting me down meant less at the cabin.

Please tell me you’ve got this, Chloe.

The man was now less than ten feet from me. He halted. “We will not harm anyone if you come with.”

He took his hand off the stock to toss the handcuffs at my feet. As he did so, the gun barrel wavered off me and to my left.

“Okay,” I started to say. “I’ll put these—”

I felt something grab at my waist and looked down just in time to see Astrid curling her fingers around the grip of the pistol still tucked into my front. In one swift motion that would have made Chloe proud, she cleared the barrel, took swift aim at the mercenary, and unloaded three shots in quick succession—two in his chest and then one through the man’s head, just above his left eye.

I stared in horror as the man’s barrel started to train on me, but then went wild as several shots fired in rapid succession. His eyes unfocused as he began to crumple to the ground.

Then, everything happened at once.

I heard her scream. I heard multiple men shouting. More shots were fired.

“Fuck!” I bellowed and dove back into the helicopter wreckage for cover. I heard something whizz by my head that sounded like hornets whizzing past me. There was the sound of metal against metal. More shots were fired that I couldn’t see as I retreated into the safety of the helicopter, scrambling to pick up the pistol I had laid down.

More gunfire tore through the air, and I watched in horror as several holes were punched through the hull of the wreckage, daylight spilling in through them like spotlights tearing through a dark theater.

I cursed. I yelled. Lying on my belly as bullets punched through the helicopter’s hull all around me, I spat obscenities in Astrid’s direction as if they were bullets themselves.

The deafening sound of gunfire swallowed all of them.

I was terrified that Shea’s death warrant had just been signed. Afraid that Chloe was a distance away that might as well have been halfway around the world. Scared that this derelict would be my final resting place. Furious at Astrid for carelessly throwing away what I thought was our best chance.

Most of what I felt was that last one.

Whatever affection I had for her had disappeared with the first shot fired. Astrid had lit the fuse to a powder keg, and we were all going to fucking die. I seriously didn’t know how I would get out of this.

Seriously… Chloe’s been around for fucking days, and now that she was gone, this is the moment they decided to attack?

Only that wasn’t true, was it? Chloe hadn’t been around most of the time. She'd been away for the last several days, trying to create the best opportunity for us to get out of here.

We both knew that she couldn’t have been around me twenty-four/seven. That would have likely ended with us never getting out of here. That’s why she showed me how to use a gun… how to carry it. She’d insisted I become familiar with it.

Not only that, but after the kidnapping, I hired Tara for physical and martial arts training, and I had told Chloe that I wanted to learn to shoot. I’d been consistent with my workouts and lessons with Tara but failed to follow through with lessons on Chloe. It required being stranded in the forest to get her to give me a few rudimentary lessons in operating a firearm.

Why would I need all that if I could rely on my security team to protect me one hundred percent of the time?

Because you can’t rely on anyone one hundred percent of the time, you dolt! That’s why you got Tara in the first place!

I felt shame that I hadn’t taken my training more seriously, so I made another promise to myself: If I got out of here in one piece, I would dedicate more time to it and take it seriously.

This was the second time people had come gunning for me. It likely wouldn’t be the last. It was time to put at least a little more of my safety in my own hands.

That didn’t mean I’d completely ignored my training, though. I was much more physically capable than I had been two months ago. I was more agile and strong. And while I wasn’t a black belt or anything, I had stayed relatively consistent with my training. If I fought pre-inheritence Marcus, I would kick that guy’s ass.

These guys weren’t pre-inheritance Marcus, though.

All of a sudden, silence filled the air.

No more shots were fired.

Astrid wasn’t shooting back. Or yelling.

Stewing on my regret, I’d grown quiet as well.

It was eerie after experiencing an onslaught of sound that had annihilated my eardrums moments earlier. It was like leaving a loud bar and getting in your quiet car. The silence was so encompassing that I could almost feel it press in all around me.

And then I heard someone in the distance murmur in Japanese.

Someone else shouted from a different direction. Then I heard a thump against the side of the helicopter.

The moment was so tense… so quiet that I could hear my heart beating in my ears, and every breath sounded like giant sheets of sandpaper scraping over each other. I tried to rein in my need for oxygen, but gut-wrenching terror threatened to suffocate me.

I carefully pressed a palm to the ground and dared to look over my shoulder in the direction I thought the thump had come from. Encased in an aluminum tomb, I couldn’t see shit.

At least, not at first.

But then, I noticed it. Those beams of light poured through bullet holes—some flickered, the light fading before returning. Then another couple did the same, dimming as something stepped in front of them. Someone was walking alongside the helicopter.