Page 71 of Hiding Rose
“Hey, it’s hot out here. I’ll be right back. Do you have juice already made up?” I asked, spinning back to him.
“In the cooler. There’s a silver food pan filled with squirt bottles. Grab the whole thing since we may need several. Have Cassy carry it.”
I gave him the thumbs up and motioned for Cassy to follow me. She jumped up and jogged to me. “Where are we going?” she asked, watching her flank as we lurched toward the kitchen entrance.
“I have to use the restroom and grab some juice for Sawyer. We have to hurry though, he’s running out of time.”
Cassy grabbed the door and pulled it open before I plowed into it. The kitchen was across from the bathrooms, and I stopped motioning toward the kitchen. “Grab the juice for me. It’s in the cooler in a square, silver food pan marked pineapple juice. Take the whole thing and meet me here.”
She looked over both shoulders. “I’m not supposed to leave you.”
I pushed her toward the bar. “I’ll be in a locked stall and won’t leave until you open the door and call out to me. Go!”
She took off for the kitchen and I took off for the bathroom before it was too late. I locked myself in and sat, finishing the job as fast as possible so I could be ready when she came back. I was pulling my panties up when the door opened. “Ready?” she called.
“Cassy?” I asked and she laughed.
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m standing here with the door open holding pineapple juice. Let’s roll.”
Convinced she wasn’t being coerced into drawing me out, I left the safety of the stall, stopped and washed, then followed her back down the hall to the kitchen exit. “Under four minutes,” I said laughing as we burst through the door.
Since I couldn’t carry anything, she kept hold of the juice in one arm while I crutched ahead of her. “Almost there,” I called, my head swiveling back to speak, but she was nowhere to be seen. There was a crowd of people behind me, but Cassy was lost in it. “Maybe she’s working her way to the side,” I said, crutching forward again, but I ran into someone. “Oops, sorry,” I said, glancing up at the person in front of me.
My blood ran cold and my thumb went to the panic button on my crutch. He had a gun pointed at my gut. “Don’t push it. You push it and you’re dead. I’ll be gone before anyone even knows I was here.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, the crowd of people swallowing us as he kept the gun pointed at me. “I was nothing but nice to you. I cleared you of all responsibility of our child and let you go on with your life. You’ve killed our baby, you don’t need to kill me, too.”
He laughed and it sounded a lot like how I pictured the evil Mr. Hyde would sound. “I’m killing you to make a point to women everywhere who decide they’re going to trap a guy into staying with them by getting pregnant, because they’re too pathetic to keep a guy interested for longer than a few weeks. I’ve never slept with a colder fish in my life,” he hissed.
“Did the thought ever cross your mind I was a cold fish because you were a piss poor lover?” I hissed, and his hand snaked out, punching me in the face. I didn’t hear my nose crack, but my cheek was instantly on fire.
“Watch your mouth, you little bitch,” he spat. “I’m bigger, stronger, and tougher than you will ever be. I made sure of it. I was going to kill you in my house that night. I had the gun to your head and was ready to pull the trigger. Then I had a thought. You know how much I love to hunt. I’ve had a ton of fun the past months hunting you down like prey. Stalking you was a bigger turn on than what you ever gave me in the bedroom. Did you like my poems? I wrote them especially for you.”
I was jostled in the shoulder by a guy with a big hat and I used the opportunity to bend over and push the panic button on my brace. It was a silent one, put there for this specific situation. If he had a gun on me, the noise would surely cause him to shoot. At least now they could track me, as long as it worked.
He motioned with the gun for me to walk sideways toward the back of the building. I didn’t want to end up in a secluded location with him. It would be a death sentence for sure. I had to stall him. I had been gone too long, and I’d been calling out to Sawyer the whole time. He was looking for me, I could feel it. If the tracker was working, they should have a lock on my location already. I took a few more steps and purposefully fell to the ground, being careful of my crutches. I didn’t need broken arms, too.
He kicked me with the toe of his ever-present cowboy boot, the sharp point digging into my already bad hip. “Get up, you stupid cripple or I’ll shoot you right here.”
“Like hell you will,” came a voice. I saw Jarrett’s surprised face and then he arched his back, the gun spitting a bullet as sand blew in every direction. He fell forward on his face and a chef’s knife stuck out of his back.
Sawyer stood in shock as cops, EMT’s, Niko, and Gideon ran into the area. He was shaking, his hands in his hair until his eyes landed on me. Whatever he was thinking left his mind and he ran to me, scooping me up off the ground. “I need a medic!” he screamed, running away from the melee of people crushing around Jarrett. He was awake and howling, which told me he would live to see another day.
“What hurts, baby?” he asked, laying me in the sand and checking me over.
“My hip,” I said through clenched teeth. “He kicked me in my bad hip.”
He unstrapped the brace and I cried out in agony. “Leave it on,” I said, grabbing at it. “It’s holding something together.”
He laid the strap back down and moved to my head, kissing my face and wiping my tears. “It’s over, sweetheart. He’s never going to bother you again.” He swiveled his head and screamed for help again. An EMT snapped his head up and grabbed a bag, running toward us. “I’m going to take care of you. Don’t worry about a thing,” he promised as the EMT slid into my space through the sand.
“Was she shot?”
Sawyer’s eyes got huge and he went back to my side, pulling my dress up. “She’s bleeding from her hip,” he said and I grabbed for him.
“He kicked me with his boot,” I said again, wanting to hold his hand.
“I know, Rose,” he said, but he stared at the EMT and whispered, “only one shot. Ricochet?”
