Snatched (16 page)

She should
be thankful that for right now
at least
he
didn't want her dead
. But for how much longer? She didn't doubt that if it came down to his life versus hers he would quit the chivalry act
in a heartbeat
and knife her just as quickly as he had ripped the shirt
apart
.

He must have seen
the concern
i
n her
expression.

"I'm not going to hurt you Nailah. But you have to understand how serious this is. That if I can't
protect you,
you're as good as dead."

"And how are you going to protect me if  you get killed tonight?"

"I'm no
t going to get killed tonight."

The words were
confident
even if his voice wasn't.

"You can't be sure of that.
You're facing off with those
Jamaican
s
and they seem a nasty bunch
.
"

"There's
always
the element of surprise. Corrall
and his crew don't know we're coming for the
m."

"
Guess it's true
then that
there's n
o honor among
thieves. Or murderers. And that's what you are, right?
Nothing but a
killer.
Obviously w
ith
some convoluted sense of chivalry
or
otherwise
I'd
been long dead."

He didn't answer
and for some reason
his
silence angered her
.

"Answer me! Am I right?!"

"You don’t
know a damn thing about me
,
"
he finally said.

"I know what I see
,
"
she countered.

"You onl
y know what you think you see."

She could see h
e was becoming
angry and
for some reason
that stoked her
own
anger
further
.

"And h
ow are you different than
any of
them
?
As far as I'm concerned, you're all alike
. Nothing but fucking criminals.
"

No answer. Instead he occupied himself with pulling out his gun from his belt near
the small of
his back, checking the chambers,
then
placing it
back in the belt
.

"Enough bullets?
" she asked sarcastically.
"
How many do you think you'll get
off
tonight
before they take you down
?"

Again
no answer. She di
dn't
know
why she was riding him
so hard
. Maybe it was because she was sitting there, more scared
since this all began
,
but
no longer
trusting him.
And maybe because
now
she fully understood
just
how vulnerable she was.
He was r
ight. He was the only one who could keep
her alive
now that the gang had given
orders
to get rid of her.
And
she knew that
one man
alone
couldn't save her.
Not in the end.

For the last few
minute
s
, he'd
avoided looking
at her. But
at that
moment
he turned eyes on her as though considering something.
A
few more
second
s
passed before
h
e pulled the gun from his belt and walked
over
to her. He
held
it
out
to her
butt first
.

"What…?"
She drew back away from the weapon
instinctively
.

"Take it," he
ordered
.

"Why now?"

"Just in case."
He didn't complete the thought but s
he understood what he refused to say.

In case he
didn't make it tonight and she was left on her own.
So he didn't believe in his earlier promise either.

He continued holding out the gun but she
shook her head refusing
to take it.

"I…I don't know how to shoot one of those."

He let out an exasperated sigh.

"I'll show you."

He
positioned
the gun
in his hand and aimed it at a bare wall as though he was going to shoot
.

"
You hold the gun with your dominant hand high up on the grip, in your case your right hand. It's heavy, so
you may have to
use your other ha
nd to  hold the grip like this." He positioned his other hand.

"Now, y
ou click off the safety
like this
.
And th
is is the most important thing:
Make sure you
've
got the gun
exactly
on
your
target. You want yo
ur shot to be clean
.
Trust your instinct.
When you pull the trigger, you
have to be fast and
precise because I guarantee y
ou
,
you won't
get a second chance.
"

He demonstrated each point and
then
explained
the same points
again.
After the second demonstration, h
e offered her the gun to hold and again she refused.

A fleeting exasperation crossed his face and he grabbed her by the arm, lifting her up from the bed.

"You're going to do this
, now!"
he said with a determination that didn't brook any argument.

He stood behind her,
shoved
the gun in
to
her
unwilling hand and
guided her to the
correct
stance
and
hand motion
s
, his breath tickling her
flesh
as he spoke
the
instructions
near her ear. At certain points, his hand closed over hers as he
guid
ed her.

"When you aim, aim at the head or the heart. In other words, shoot to kill."

Given the circumstances, she shouldn't
feel
this
unhinged by his closeness.
Shouldn't
shudder
at the touch of his breath on her skin.

He was trying to keep her alive. And she was trying to resist the overwhelming and confusing feelings
going through her
.
The f
ear and adrenaline
only added
to the emotions.

Even though her anger had ebbed,
she jerked out of his grip and turned to
face
him.
The gun was heavy in her hand.

"I'm not like you
! I can't kill
someone
in cold blood!
"

"Then you
do
in
hot blood. You do it
in
anger, you do it
in
fear, you do
it
with
the
desperation to stay alive
.
Whatever gives you an edge.
Just do it," he said coldly.

C
hastened,
Nailah
slowly
allowed
her fingers
to
grip the gun
handle, and this time, when he instructed her through the steps, she obediently complied with each
directive
.

The lesson continued for several minutes.
Only after she
'd
demonstrated
enough
competence did he finally let up.
She searched h
is expression
for some response but she couldn't read him
.

She laid the gun down on the night table
and the action felt normal even in its incongruity
. Strange
how
the small room
had become a
haven
to her
,
a
refuge from the craziness
and danger
. A place where she felt safe… for the moment.

Dele
sat
down
on the edge of the bed.
He seemed tired
and m
ore
than a little
stressed.

The
discarded
ripped shirt
hung
half on, half off
the side of the bed
where he had laid it
earlier
.
The horrible image made her shiver
.

She
pull
ed her eyes away from the bloodied mess
only
to find
Dele
staring at her.
Sh
e h
ad
the feeling he'd
been staring at her for some time.
S
he
felt
disconcerted
to have
all of his attention
on her.

They were both facing death. There wasn't time for anything else.

Still, t
he adrenaline was
working her body, driving the blood and juices.

His dark eyes were unwavering as he stared her down.

Unnerved,
she asked the question she'd been thinking for
some time
.

"Aren't you
ever
scared?"

His answer was stated simply. "Always."

That one word
took her by surprise
and
forced her to reassess him
for the moment
. All this time
s
he'd
thought he had
it
t
ogether
outmaneuvering and outthinking the gang
. But she realized that he was as
scared
as she was.

She thought about the
life
he was forced to
live running with a vicious gang. At any moment one member can turn on
you,
throw you to the wolves. F
orcing you to always
have to
watch
your back to avoid the bullets and knives.

But it was a life he'd chosen
.

She wouldn't ask him why he had made such a stupid choice given that he was smart enough to have gone another route. She wasn't his guidance counselor. I
f she ever got out of this mess –
if they both survived –
she would never see him again
so it really didn't matter
.
Nothing about him mattered to her.

She couldn't afford to invest any emotion in him. He was a means to an end, in her case going back to her old life.

Just t
hinking
about
her former life made it seemed
like it was eons
ago.
Her current
existence had managed to push memories away, memories of
those
simple things
she missed
,
the little pleasures
she'd taken for granted
, like
c
rawling into
a soft bed with a clean duvet and
the only drama in her life
being the plot of
a
good
mystery novel or
that
depicted on one of her
favorite
shows. She c
ould even picture a pitcher of
sangria
on her night table. Not the gun that laid so lethal on this night table.