Page 14 of Heartbeats Amidst Chaos: Part 3

He came around the corner of the half wall just in time to see Rissa turning away from an ancient payphone that hung on the wall next to the restroom door. Elio felt a surge of relief followed by a jolt of apprehension as Rissa tilted her chin back and looked at him with challenging eyes.

“Did you just call someone?” he asked. Panic had been lurking just below the surface of his outward calm, and he felt it stir at the realization that Rissa may have been even more done with him than he suspected.

“Why shouldn’t I have?” she retorted.

“Who was it?” he asked, fighting to keep his voice even.

“Why does it matter?” she asked. Her hands were clenched in front of her, worrying the material of her dress. Elio was floored by the realization that her anxiety might be directly related to how abrupt and gruff he had been since they had been attacked. He consciously softened his tone, guilt sucker-punching him in the stomach.

Somewhere along the way, he lost track of the reality that Rissa’s faith in him was entirely reliant on just that—faith. She didn’tknowas he knew that he was not guilty of everything everyone had been accusing him of. She had simply chosen tobelievethat he was not.

He had been dragging her along for the ride, without explanation, ever since the shock of seeing Miranda and thenbeing attacked at the resort, and he only now saw how much it had shaken her.

If she just called the cops, it serves me right,he forced himself to think, even as his heart rate accelerated with dread at the thought.

“I’m just worried about who we can trust right now,” he said slowly. “Somehow, whoever is after us seems to know exactly where we are all the time. We’ve got to figure out how to get off their radar. I called my cousin,” he added. “He’s coming to pick us up and take us somewhere safe.”

“You’re worried about who to trust and yet you called yourfamilyinto this?” Rissa’s voice shook with incredulity. “Weren’t you just telling me a couple of nights ago thattheymight be a danger to me?”

“It’s not like that now,” Elio said. “My family will stand behind us, Rissa. They’ll protect us.”

“They’ll protectyou,” Rissa said.

Whatever she was about to say was cut off by the sudden revving of an engine. She and Elio both turned, throwing their hands up to shield their eyes as a pair of blinding truck headlights swept across them and then pinned them in their beam. The engine revved again and there was a squeal of tires. Then, the truck was screaming toward them, picking up speed as it approached.

Elio moved on instinct, throwing himself in front of Rissa and wrapping his arms around her as he shoved her behind the half wall and toward the building. Brakes shrieked and the hot smell of burnt tires filled his nostrils as the truck tried to pull up and turn sideways, blocking them into the corner. But whoever was driving had miscalculated and instead, the vehicle slammed broadside into the brick half wall with a deafening crash and yelp of twisting metal.

Hunks of brick and mortar showered down around them, pelting Elio’s shoulders and back as he shielded Rissa with his body. One huge chunk cracked against his neck and the back of his head, slamming his face into the ground. Elio grunted as pain ripped through his skull.

He must have blacked out for a moment because the next thing he knew, hands were flinging the rubble from his shoulders and yanking at his arm. A voice was saying, “Get up! Can you get up? We have to run!”

He gave to the pull of the hands on his arm and staggered to his feet. Then, he was running through wet grass and the branches of short trees were slapping him in the face while roots twisted up beneath his feet. A sharp, muffled crack echoed off the building behind him, and he ducked and turned. Glancing back, he saw a truck wedged beneath a heap of mortar and brick and a black-masked figure leaning out the window, both hands gripping a pistol that looked to be pointed straight at him.

A hand yanked his, and turning back, he ran on, faster and faster until they were swallowed by darkness.

Chapter eight

Rissa clung to Elio’s hand as he stumbled yet again and fell to his knees on the rubble of sticks and leaf debris, almost pulling her down on top of him. Her heart was thundering in her ears, and her side cramped from having run so far.

Straightening up, she looked behind them, struggling to quiet her breathing so she could hear if they were being followed. She was shaking all over with adrenaline. It was only thanks to that adrenaline, she knew, that she had been able to wiggle out from under Elio and toss the wreckage of the fallen wall off him. Her relief when he climbed to his feet had been short-lived, however. She had been practically hauling him through the woods after her, and he hadn’t said a word since the wall had fallen.

There was no way he wasn’t injured. But was it safe yet to stop and attend to him?

Rissa felt tears springing to her eyes as she relived the way he had immediately pushed her out of harm’s way and thrown himself over her to shield her from the tumbling bricks. If she had been looking for proof of his true character and care for her, she undoubtedly now had it.

She was suddenly ashamed of the way she had been thinking since fleeing the resort. Of course, he had been withdrawn and distant in the car. He had to have been in as much shock as she was over being attacked.

Rissa finally managed to hold her breath long enough to listen for any sounds of pursuit in the trees around them. All she heard was Elio’s labored breathing and the trill of tree frogs.

“Elio?” She dropped to her knees next to him, reaching for his hand again. But to her surprise, Elio pulled away from her grasp.

“Where are we going?” he muttered. “Why is it so dark?” He sounded dazed. Rissa’s fear for him intensified as her concern about someone following them decreased.

“Because I don’t have a—wait, don’t you still have a cell phone?”

When Elio didn’t answer, Rissa scooted closer to him and fumbled in his pockets for the cell phone she had seen him stuffing away as he came across the parking lot. Elio did not protest as her fingers closed around it and she pulled it from her pocket.

With shaking hands, she found the flashlight tab and turned it on, shining the bright, flat beam over Elio. He leaned against a small sapling, one leg bent upward while the other sprawled in front of him, squinting in the light. Rissa ran a hand over his chest, arms, and legs, seeing no obvious injuries and getting no flinch response. Her hand slipped around the back of his neck and came away warm and sticky with blood.

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