Saints and Assassins (The Sentinels) (30 page)

Sanders walked toward her,
grabbing another chair along the way. He
placed the chair in front of her
and sat down. He sighed as he ran his hand through his black hair, smoothing it back away from his face.

“I know this has been trying for you. Losing your husban
d, well your first husband
and now,” he motioned toward Adam who remained unconscious.

“You bastard,” she
hissed at him. “You will regret this!”
she
growled.

“Maybe, but I need the locket your husband gave you t
hat last Christmas.”

Eve’s face relaxed as she thought of the locket. The only thing inside that locket was a picture of Michael.

“It’s not worth anything, but if you want it it’s in the hotel,”
she
said to him.

“It’s not the locket that’s important it’s the m
icro SD card inside
it that’s valuable. You see, your husband found out certain information and
stored that data on a micro SD card
,” he explained.

“Why didn’t you just take the locket when I wasn’t home and leave us out of this?”
she
asked.

“Well, until recently we d
idn’t know for sure that the card
existed or where it was. That’s the only reason you’re still alive. I couldn’t just take the locket and leave you as a loose end, just in case you knew anything.”

Adam started to come around then, he moaned some as he li
fted his head. He was so weak, she
just wanted to hold him and get him better.
And she
wanted to tell him that he was going to be a father.

“Sanders, just let her go. She doesn’t know anything,” said Adam. He looked toward
her
.

I love you. If we don’t make it out of this alive, I love you.
That’s all that she
could think of staring at his face.

“Actually, she does know something. So we’re going to leave for now and we’ll be back shortly
,” he replied.

Sanders and the assassin
left to go to the hotel and retrieve the locket
.
They locked Adam and Eve in
the room. Adam’s legs were strapped to the chair that he was in, with his arms tied
behind the back of the chair. Eve’s
arms were also behind the back of the chair
, but her legs weren’t strapped
down. 

“Adam, are you all right?”

“Probably broken ribs,” he gasped.
Eve
could tell it was hard for him to speak. “I don’t know abo
ut the rest, I
t hurts like hell,” he replied quietly.
Eve
smiled as he spoke the last part. He looked at
her
funny.

“Sorry, I was just thinking the same thing when that bastard hit
me.
”
She made the statement without thinking.

“He hit you!” he shouted. Adam jerked
against
the chair trying to free himself. He let a string of profanities rip as he flailed around.

“Adam please don’t, you’ll hurt yourself. It’s okay. I’m fine.”
She
tried to reassure him that there was still hope.

“I have an idea, since you’re not quite up for a fight you’re going
to have to trust me on this,” she
told him.

“What? What is the plan? You can’t possibly fend them off by yourself,” he said as he calmed down.

“Well.” She
stood up
from the chair,
showing that
she
was free
.
Eve
lay d
own on the ground and wiggled the strap that bound her arms down around her behind.

“I should
be able to get my arms free,” she
grunted
.
Eve strained her shoulder muscles as she wiggled around on the floor, but she managed to get her feet and then legs through the loop that her arms were tied in.

“Damn
you
’
r
e
good,” said Adam
.
He sounded
more awake a
nd like himself. He smiled at her
.

“Now what?” he asked.

She smiled back and
stood up
.
With her hands still bound, she grabbed the bottom of her
dress and started pulling it up.

Adams eyes widened. “Don’t get me wrong baby but I don’t think right now is the best time,” he said coolly.

“Oh come on honey,” she
replied
.
She revealed the knife
strapped to the inside of
her
thigh. “I think this might help us righ
t now,” she
said seductively
.
Rubbing her
thigh and unsheathing the knife, she flipped it around in her hands.

“You are unbelievably sexy with your accessories. What a couple of idiots those
two are,” he said. Adam coughed and she could tell that the pain had to be almost unbearable for him. She would get him free soon.

“I guess my outfit led them to believe that I was unarmed and completely vulnerable. Their mistake though. I don’t plan to le
t them live to learn from it,” she told him. Eve
slid the
blade of the knife in between her wrists and using her
mouth, steadied the handle and began sawing at the zip-ties
.

Adam just watched as
she
performed the task silently. It
took about fifteen minutes but she
br
oke through the heavy plastic and the knife fell to the floor. Her
wrists
and
shoulders hurt but
she
was free and able to free Adam.

She
cut the straps on his wrists first and he fell forward as he tried to
bring his arms around.
He was still weak, too wea
k to try and make a run for it.
 
Eve
cut the straps around his legs next.

“Can you stand?” she asked. He reached for her hands and as she
stepped back
,
she
helped him up.
He fell toward her
.
Eve
had to use all of
her
strength to keep h
im from falling to the ground. She
got him back into the chair and started looking him over.
             

“I shouldn’t be this weak it’s only been a couple of hours since they brought me here,” he commented having to take short breaths in between words. His ribs were
obviously
hurting him.

“It’s been closer to nine hours now. Adam, this is going to hurt but I need to s
ee how bad things are. Okay?” Eve looked
into his eyes. He nodded once.
She
lifted his t-shirt and gasped at what
she
saw. He was already bruising, mostly red with a hint of purple to
the majority
of his torso.

“That bad?” he said quietly.

Eve
pressed as gently as possible to his ribcage. He winced in a couple of spots.

“Definitely a couple of broken ribs, I’m more worried about the possibility of a punctured lung or internal bleeding though.”
She
lowered his shirt back and as she
looked at his face
she
wanted to tell him
about the pregnancy test, but she couldn’t do it.
She
didn’t want
him feeling guilty over it if they
didn’t make it out of this.

Even with that looming possibility, she felt confident that they were
going to make it out of this alive
.
A
t that moment
,
a burst of en
ergy and anger darted through her
system.

We will make it out of this and we will be happy soon.

Her mouth was on his in a desperate way. She
wanted to leave, to get as far away as possible, but
she knew that they would find them
again.
Th
e
y
had to make a stand and end this. Adam put his hands on
her
face pulling
her closer to him as their
embrace continued.

“I love you,” she
whispered. “I love you and thank you for everything.”

“This
is my fault . . .” he started. She put her
finger on his lips. “Yes, it is your fault. It’s your fault that I’m still alive and it’s definitely your faul
t that I’m in love with you.
Now before you blame yourself for anything else that’s happened to us we need to decide what we’re going to do. We probably have no more than thirty minutes before they get back.”

“Eve, you have to make a run for it. I can hold them off long enough that if you run, you could just disappear. It’s the only way for you to be sa
fe,” Adam said as he caressed her
face.

“No Adam. I’m not leaving you. If for some reason and I don’t think it’s going to happen, but if we don’t survive this we will hopefully have put an end to this anyway. I can’t
live without you.” She
trailed off as
her
eyes filled with tears. “We can do this,”
she
whispered
.

They came up with
a plan
for their return, so they
waited.

Eve
could hear them talking as they approached the door. No doubt discussing how
they would die. She
had thrown the severed zip-ties into a dark corner of the room so they wouldn’t see them.
They were both sitting in the
chairs just as
they had been with their arms behind their
backs when they unlocked the door and entered the room.

Adam
kept his head
down as if he were still unconscious while
Eve
looked directly at the two of them. He didn’t have enough str
ength to fight them both, but they
figured that Sanders would leave
them
with Edwards at
some point, surely the two of them
could take him down.

“Gentlemen,” she said smiling.

What she
really meant wa
s, you pieces of worthless shit. She pitied them
because
they were
about to die. Anger had never be
en an emotion that surfaced in her
like this before, but they deserved what they were about to get.

“I take it that you found what you were looking for?”
she
asked.

“So polite and sweet too, what a pity,” s
aid Edwards as he approached her.

Then he did it ag
ain, took a backhand swing at her
. This one
popped louder as his hand hit her
cheek.

Adam flinched. She
let
her
h
ead drop briefly, so she
could look o
ver at Adam. He sat upright
in his chair looking at
Eve
.
She
glared back at him hoping he didn’t jump up yet.
She
knew he was angry but
they
needed to wait a little longer if possible.

“Don’t touch her!” shouted Adam.

“Oh so someone’s awake,” said Edwards.
He darted over to Adam, “Here
, I brought you something. Looks like you were going to be a daddy,” he blurted out. He pulled the pregnancy test from his pocket and threw it at Adam. 

Adam’s eyes jerked to her
.
She
nodded once.

Eve
stared
back
at him as he looked at
her
puzzled.  Then Edwards punched him, knocking him out again. He didn’t notice that
Adams
arms slipped slightly as he fell back.

No! I didn’t want him to know until this was over.

“Enough Edwards.
N
ow you and your husband are no longer needed. Edwards
,
do as you wish with them. Just make sure they are disposed of properly,” Sanders gloated. He turned and walked out of the room closing the door behind him.