Page 47 of Beyond Repair
Rich’s head was turned towards Sam where he lay face down on the concrete floor, his sightless eyes staring unblinking into the distance. His hands were still cuffed behind him, his shirt ripped open, and his back a mass of blood and flayed flesh.
In their haste to bring in their prize, the guards had left the door open. Within seconds of the body falling heavily to the floor Goodie let out a long, high-pitched whistle.
‘What is she doing?’ one of the henchman asked in guttural Spanish.
‘Shut her up!’ Cream Suit Man roared, pushing another of the men towards her, but only succeeding in making him trip over the body on the floor. Whilst they were still scuffling and arguing about who was going to approach Goodie, she let out another piercing whistle. Seconds later a huge dog bounded into the room. The men froze before going for their guns, and that split second was long enough for the massive black and brown monster to leap across the room and sink his teeth into the arm of the man closest to him.
Cream Suit Man fell backwards, practically on top of Sam. Instinct and training took over in Sam’s mind. He rolled the man along his arm, then flipped himself around so the man’s neck was gripped between the handcuff and the radiator. He yanked hard. The man struggled and went for Sam’s eye with the knife he was holding. Sam held himself away as far as he could so that it didn’t quite reach its target. He felt it leave a trail of fire from the corner of his eye and down his cheek before Cream Suit Man dropped the knife, his face turning purple and his eyes rolling back.
The remaining henchman tried to pull him off, but Sam drove his elbow back into his nose, which started streaming blood and caused him to stagger back. Two shots rang out. The man fell to the ground and Sam glanced back to see Goodie standing, her handcuffs hanging uselessly off one of her wrists, with both hands gripping a handgun. Her dog had returned to sit by her and was waiting patiently. Both dog and woman’s mouths were smeared with blood. Goodie jerked her head to the side and Sam moved out of her line of fire. A bullet whistled past his face and landed in the middle of Cream Suit Man’s forehead.
Sam slumped back against the wall, breathing heavily. He no longer questioned Goodie’s insistence that Salem be flown out with them. He would never question anything with Goodie again. She was a fucking genius.
He felt her unlocking his cuffs but he couldn’t look away from Richard’s face on the floor. Blood was trickling out of his mouth and pooling on the ground in front of him. He couldn’t have been dead long. As Sam stared, the world seemed to fall away and Richard’s image started to change. Wide blue eyes were staring sightlessly forward instead of brown; blood and dirt matted long, dark, curly hair instead of short blonde. Soft feminine features replaced the harsh masculine ones. He felt the panic clawing at his throat and tried to scream.
*zhopas –arseholes in Russian
Chapter 24
Mr Negativity
From far away he could hear someone calling his name. He was being shaken over and over again. He fought the darkness, trying to get free and follow the voice. Trying to find his way home.
‘Sam!’ Katie shouted. ‘You’re dreaming, Sam! Wake up … please, please wake up. You’re scaring me. Please.’ His eyes shot open and he saw Katie’s small face hovering over his, felt the sweat pouring down his forehead. He blinked up at her, savouring the relief that was washing over him.
‘Thank fucking Christ,’ he whispered as his hands came up to trace the contours of her face. No blood from her mouth, no bruising, no sightless eyes; just her beautiful blue ones, staring down at him in concern and fear. No matted, blood-soaked hair, just her soft dark curls spilling over her shoulders and around her face.
*****
Katie was in a flat panic. She’d been woken by the shaking; her warm pillow had started trembling and flinching as she swam up to full consciousness. Her head had been lying on Sam’s chest, with her leg flung over his thigh as if attempting to pin him to the bed like a human starfish. She wasn’t surprised: after the performance he’d put in last nightanysane woman would be pinning him to the bed; he was just that incredible. Once fully awake, her hand moved across to his shoulder and she felt his chest, slick with sweat. That was when the keening started, a horrible, awful noise from the back of Sam’s throat: low, feral and terrifying. She’d moved so she was hovering over him, and started trying to wake him; gently at first, but as his trembling and the noises worsened she became more desperate, shouting his name and shaking his shoulders.
When he finally opened his eyes she flinched at the raw fear and pain she could see in them. She could tell the moment that he came back to her, relief flushing through his features and the wild look receding. But as he stared up at her, stroking her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids, then running his fingers through her curls, she could still see some sort of desperation clouding his features.
‘What was that?’ she whispered, almost afraid to know what could have scared him enough to make such a dreadful sound.
‘Nothing,’ he rasped, and she watched in fascination as the blank mask fell over his face, eradicating the fear and desperation from before.
‘Sam …’ She swallowed, then gritted her teeth, determined not to let her voice waver, ‘that was not nothing. You were having a nightmare. I mean, I’m not even sure you could call it a nightmare; that doesn’t seem to do it justice. It’s like you were living through something. I’ve never seen anything like it. Look, you can talk to me, I –’
He cupped one side of her face with one hand and laid the other across her mouth, cutting her off. ‘Could you for once in your life just be quiet?’ Before waiting for an answer, he flipped them over so she was underneath him, and covered her mouth with his.
*****
‘Um … I made you a cup of tea,’ Katie said as Sam came striding out of the bedroom, his hair still wet from the shower. During their time together he’d let it grow and it somehow softened his otherwise harsh features. Her breath caught in her throat at the sheer beauty of his large powerful frame, damp dark hair slightly curling at his neck, thick stubble covering his strong jaw; sometimes it seemed a little surreal that she even knew him, leave alone that he was in her house, shared her bed. ‘I made you some toast as well,’ she added, holding up a plate. ‘I scraped off the burnt bits,’ she observed with a grin: her cooking always seemed to be able to provoke one of his rare smiles.
But this morning something was different. He didn’t move to her, didn’t lift one of the lapels of her pyjamas and roll his eyes, didn’t ruffle her hair. In fact he didn’t even look at her. He was prowling about, grabbing up his stuff, the only sign of any emotion was how clenched his jaw was and how jerky his movements were. ‘Mrs Jones made another batch of that marmalade you like, so I’ve –’
‘Got to go,’ he said sharply, cutting her off and heading towards the door. Katie jumped off her stool and practically ran to the door. He’d already yanked it open when she made it to him, and his body language was screamingstay away, but she cared about him too much to be scared off. Something was wrong.
‘Sam,’ she said softly, laying her hand over his forearm. He stopped and his jaw clenched even harder before he shook her hand off and turned his blank eyes to her. ‘What’s the matter? Have I done something? Is this about … um … about the nightmare, or …’ She couldn’t bring herself to ask if it was about the sex. Although to her it was mind-blowing stuff, maybe it hadn’t exactly rocked Sam’s world in a similar fashion. Maybe she was a disappointment.
‘Look, Katie, I’m busy, okay? Can I for once leave your house without the third degree?’
‘Oh,’ Katie said, frowning and taking a step back. ‘Oh, right, of course. I just –’
‘You can’t help yourself can you? You keep prodding and probing and needling. You just can’t understand that some things are left well alone. That there are some memories that are better off left buried.’ His voice was fierce, his blank expression replaced by one close to fury. Katie blinked.
‘What’s got into you?’ she asked. ‘I thought … I thought we …’ What had she thought? As she looked up at his face, gorgeous even when contorted in anger, she no longer knew.
