Together Forever (17 page)

Allie is trembling now and buries her face into my chest. I smooth her hair and look over at the officer in the room with us. “Get us the fuck out of here, now!” He nods and opens the door. We follow him back to Stiles office, and I set Allie in a chair but she won’t let go of my shirt. I sit down and place her in my lap, my arms wrapping around her protectively. “I got you, love. I’m here. No one’s gonna hurt you. No one,” I tell her, trying to be as comforting as I can. They better get that fucker in prison, or I won’t be accountable for what I’ll do to him.

Stiles comes in and apologizes to Allie. He takes her statement and tells us he will let us know if and when there is a court date. I take my love home and draw her a hot bath, with her favorite lilac salts. After I remove her clothes, then mine, I get in first and help her in, laying her back against my chest. I run the scented water up and down her arm and she looks up at me with sad eyes and smiles slightly. I kiss her nose, her eyes closing and I watch a lone tear fall. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you again. I swear on my life, I’ll do anything to protect you and our baby. I love you so much,” I whisper against her forehead.

She falls asleep in the bathtub so I pick up my girl, wrap a towel around her, take her to bed and tuck her in. She never wakes up. I kiss her head and go downstairs to get a beer. Fuck, I need one!

I’m sitting here finishing my second beer when Allie’s phone rings. She must have left it on the counter when we got home. I look at the screen, ‘unknown’. What the fuck? So, I answer it. “What?” I say harshly.

“Allie Richards.” Is all the male voice states. Oh, fuck no!

“She’s not here, what do you need? I’m her fiancé.” Take that shithead. Silence for what seems like a long time. I look at the phone and it shows the call is still connected.

“Oh, I’m sorry. This is Dr. Powers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Do you know what time she will return? It’s very urgent I get ahold of her,” he asks. Shit! What the fuck is this about?

“What is this in regard to, please,” I say, trying to be nice. Maybe he’ll tell me what the hell this is about if I’m nice. He fucking better.

“I’d rather talk with her but since you’re her fiancé—” He pauses, like he’s thinking. “Her father has had a heart attack. He arrived by ambulance and is in surgery now. I think she needs to get here as soon as possible.”

Shit! “I’ll find her and get her on a plane. Did you call her brother?” I ask.

“No, her father only had her listed, in case of an emergency. If you’d provide me with his number, I would be happy to call.” I give him Jesse’s number, hang up and call the airlines. I’ve got her on a 10:00 pm flight, in just a few hours. Time to get this beer out of my system, so I make coffee and a mocha latte to put in a paper cup for my girl. She’ll need it.

I get upstairs and sit on the bed next to my sleeping girl. I kiss her mouth, and gently shake her shoulder. Her eyes open and light up when she sees me. I watch her stretch and take in her lovely body, since the towel has fallen from her. Shit, my cock’s hard again. Down, boy! Now’s unfortunately not the time.

“Love, your dad’s had a heart attack and is in surgery.” She sits up abruptly and gasps. “I’ve booked us a flight. We need to leave in two hours. So, I need you to pack a small bag and get ready, ok?” She nods and practically jumps out of bed. I’ve never seen anyone run around and pack so quickly. She even started packing my shit, God love her!

We head for the airport in my truck. I didn’t want to leave her SUV there. If anyone steals my truck, no big loss. We still have awhile before check in, got here too early, so we sit in the car. “I’m just gonna go out and have a quick durry, love. You ok?” I say, holding her hand. She smiles sadly and nods. “Be right back. I’ll be right outside.”

I dial Jesse while lighting up. “Hey, mate,” he answers. I smile, he’s such a great friend and I guess my soon to be brother-in-law.

“Hey, mate. Sorry about your dad. We are at the airport, plane’s taking off in about an hour and a half. You gonna be heading out too?” I ask him, then take a huge drag off my durry.

“What the fuck you talking about, Shane? I just talked to dad about 5 minutes ago. He was just leaving to go out to dinner, well probably gone by now.” Fuck! I smell a fucking rat!

“Nothing, I’ll— I’ll talk to you later.” I end the call and turn around, pain exploding my head until darkness takes me.

“Uhhhhh.” I moan. I open my eyes to darkness. What the fuck happened? Where am I? I feel drugged, my head woozy. I look up to the sound of a door opening, light shines in from up some stairs. Squinting I watch feet coming down them but still can’t make out who it is. An overhead light is turned on, blinding me more. Someone slaps me across my face. My head whips to the right. “Owwww!” I scream.

“Shut up, whore and open your fucking eyes.” A male voice yells.

Turning slowly, I open my eyes to see a very muscular man standing in front of me. “Who—, who are you? What do you want with me?” He slaps me again. Shit, that hurts. The left side of my face is on fire, pulsing in pain. My left eye blinks rapidly as it fills with water.

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Whore! Do not speak unless I give you permission.” He takes my face, gripping it tightly, making me look at him again. “You’re gonna be here until my buddy is released from jail, so get comfortable. Oh, yeah. Not very comfortable all tied up, standing there. Too fucking bad.” He hits me one last time and leaves. Once he closes the door, darkness envelopes me again.

Paul. He must work for Paul. Oh. My. God! Where’s Shane? Did he kill him? The tears come and burn as they hit my left cheek. I pull on the ropes that bind my hands to a pipe above me, but they are too tight. Shit! I need to think of a way out of here. I need to find Shane. But I can’t see shit! Think! Think, Allie! I feel around me with my feet and hit the leg of a table. I think it’s a table. I swing my legs over and try to wrap my ankles around the leg. Ugh! They keep sliding off. Keep trying! You can do this! I keep trying, over and over and over again. Each time they almost catch, then slide off. Damnit! I hang there for a minute, my breathing heavy, my body sweating. I need to catch my breath.

I try again, a few more times, until my ankles take hold. Thank God! I start pulling with my legs. The table starts to slide over to me, slowly. I stop quickly when I hear footsteps on the floor above me. Shit! It’s too loud. He’s gonna catch me. I stay that way for a bit, trying not to make a sound, when the footsteps stop. My breathing is erratic now, doesn’t seem like there’s much air in here. I slowly start moving the table to me again, very slowly so it doesn’t make as much noise. It’s finally close to me, so I let go and swing my feet up on top of it. Oh, a little bit of relief, not stretched so much. I stay there and pant. I need to keep going, I have to get out of here. I know I’ll be killed in the end. I’m squatting and turn around, trying to see my tied hands. I start twisting my wrists, pulling. Shit, the ropes are pretty tight. I can feel the burn of the ropes on my wrists. Ugh! I stop again, laying my forehead against my arm, panting, trying to get air into my lungs.

I hear a commotion coming from upstairs, my heart starts beating rapidly. My head jerks up as I hear something heavy hit the floor and a loud groan. What the hell? I hear feet running across the floor, it sounds like more than one person. Shit, he has help! I’m so dead. I say a silent prayer. “Shane, my love, my man. I love you more than my life. I pray you’re ok.” I whisper. I look down to my stomach. “My baby. I’m so sorry that I couldn’t protect you and give you the life you deserve. I love you, my baby. We’ll be together in the end. We’ll be together forever.” I move to my knees and lay my head on my arm again, crying silent tears.

The door upstairs slams open with a loud bang. My head turns automatically, the light blinding me again. “Allieeeee!” Shane! Oh, my God! My Shane! Footsteps running fast down the stairs and the light above me flicks on. I close my eyes, not able to withstand the brightness. I feel the ropes being tugged and pulled, but they aren’t pulling off. I squint and see Shane pull a knife from his boot and cut the ropes. I collapse, his strong arms catching me, holding me to him.

He sweeps my hair away from my face and lightly touches my left cheek. “Mother Fucker!” He screams. I hear Jesse behind me yelling his opinion as well. Jesse’s here!

I look in my love’s eyes that are set with determination and anger. “Shane,” I croak. He smooth’s my hair and kisses my head.

“Shhhh, love. Try not to talk. I’m getting you out of here.” He looks over at Jesse and nods. I lay my head against his chest as he picks me up. I’m too exhausted to argue that he’s still hurt and shouldn’t be carrying me. My eyes close and I’m in darkness again.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I carry my girl upstairs and start to head for the front door. “Jesse, come on, Stiles will take care of that scum bag. We need to get our girl to the hospital,” I yell. He follows me, opens the door, and leads us to his Jeep. He opens the back door and I climb in with Allie. After he fastens us in, he opens the back hatch. He reappears at our door, unfolding a blanket, and lays it over my trembling girl. “Thanks, mate.” He nods and runs around the car, and starts it up. We move out so fast I have to hold my girl tighter.

I keep holding her close as we fly down the street, towards the highway. Thank fuck the GPS I had put on her phone allowed us to find her quickly. She was only about 20 minutes away from my bar, in a house that had a ‘condemned’ sign on the front door. The place was fucking falling apart. It’s a wonder the floor didn’t cave in on her.

I hear her moan and look down, her body shaking. She pushes her face into my chest. “I gotcha, love. I gotcha.” I look at Jesse in the rear view mirror. “Step on it, mate.” He nods back at me and floors it.

“I— I tried. Table. Can’t breathe.” She calls out. I keep running my hand over her arms, pulling the blanket tighter around her. “Can’t, I can’t move it.” I lay my head on hers and keep whispering to her, trying to calm her. Fuck! I feel so helpless. I don’t know what to do to help her.

We arrive at the hospital Emergency, Jesse’s Jeep skidding into the drive. He runs into the ER door and comes back out with a nurse, helping her push a gurney to our door. A doctor comes running out behind and tries to take Allie from me. Oh, fuck no! That ain’t gonna happen. “I’ve fucking got her,” I growl. The doctor reaches in and unfastens the seat belt around us and grabs my arm to help me up. I walk over with my girl laying her down on the gurney, gently. I’m pushed aside as they work on her. The nurse immediately places an oxygen mask over her mouth, the doctor taking her pulse, all while they run with the gurney into the doorway.

I stand there for a minute, unsure of where to go. They just took my girl. I start to head to the door when Jesse puts his hand on my chest. “Man, have a durry. Let’s go sit over there,” Jesse says pointing to a bench. “She’ll be in there for a while, so let’s just hang out here.” He slaps me on the shoulder. “She’s in the right place, mate. They’ll take care of her.” He winks. We walk over and sit. I immediately light up a durry and hold up the pack to Jesse. He doesn’t smoke, but I figure what the hell? Apparently, he figured that as well because he took one, taking my lighter he lights it, inhaling deeply. He turns to me and smiles, letting out a stream of smoke. “Shit, thanks. I really needed this.”

I smack his shoulder. “No problem, mate. Happy to help.” We sit in silence. I’m on my second durry now. Chain smoking like there is no tomorrow. Don’t judge. We’ve been through a lot, and I deserve it right now.

Jesse takes another huge drag, blowing out the smoke in a sigh. He looks at me, worry in his eyes. “Fuck, mate. You scared the shit outta me. After you cut off our conversation, I high tailed it to the airport parking lot and found you lying on the ground next to your truck. I couldn’t get you to respond so I called an ambulance.” I take a long drag from my durry now. Shit, what he must have gone through. “By the time they got there, you kept pushing them away, saying you had to go get your girl. You have a pretty nasty bump on the back of your head. When I first got there, I really thought you were dead.” He puts his hand on my arm. “Glad you’re ok. I would have hated to lose my best friend.” I pat his shoulder and smile. My hand instinctively goes to the back of my head. Ow! Shit! He’s right that is a big bump. Eh, what’s one more?

We sit out there, smoking and talking about all the events that lead to my girl. Stiles is one fucking fast man, in my book. He was on it so quick. I didn’t have much time to think. Jesse half dragged me to his Jeep, once the paramedics finally figured out that I was not going with them. He drove like a bat out of hell, following Stiles in his unmarked police car. I about died when I saw the house that mad man had my love in. Fucker! We flew out of the car once Jesse skidded it into the yard. We ran behind Stiles, his gun drawn. Ok. I limped really fast behind him, but I was still faster than Jesse. I was out for blood as we crashed through the front door. I landed right on top of that asshole, our breath being knocked out of us both. Stiles had to remove me from him as my fists beat in his face, simultaneously. I kept going even after I had beaten him into unconsciousness.

I look at my hand, the knuckles all torn up and swollen with dried blood all over them.

About the time Stiles got me up off that mother fucker and set me on my feet, Jesse yells ‘she’s down here’ and I took off again. He opens the door but I don’t wait for him, I head down the stairs, two at a time, pain in my leg killing me like a motherfucker. I pulled on the light string that hit me in the face and immediately see my girl, her arms hanging by ropes off a pipe. She was kneeling on a table, her head lying on her arm. Fuck I wanted to hit something, like that mother fucker upstairs, again, but I need to get my love.

I’m shaken out of my thoughts by Jesse’s hand. “Dude, we need to get inside. A nurse just came out and said we can see Allie. Let’s go.”

I get up and wince. Fuck, I think I screwed up my leg again. I half jog in through the sliding doors and see a nurse waving at us. I can’t get there fast enough. She leads us through more doors and down a hallway. I almost run into her as she stops at a room and holds a big curtain back. I nod quickly and enter. My girl looks so small in the bed, an I.V. stuck in her hand, an oxygen tube in her nose. I run over and stand by her, picking up her hand and kissing it. She doesn’t open her eyes.