Trapped (10 page)

Ash
let me shoot through a hundred rounds or so before calling an end to
shooting practice.

"Good
job. Are you ready to learn how to clean them?"

Clean
them I did. Once I was done with that Ash started me in on knife
fighting and then we finished the day off with more strength and
flexibility training. I was so exhausted by the time he got done with
me that I laboriously worked my way through dinner and then collapsed
into bed for the third night in a row, too tired to carry on any
kind of conversation, and fairly certain I was too tired to dream.

I
was wrong. Shortly after I nodded off I found myself back inside the
kitchen, sitting on one of the barstools as Ash set a cupcake in
front of me and lit the single candle he'd scrounged up from
somewhere.

It
was the oddest dream I'd experienced yet. I could tell we were
talking, could feel my mouth moving even, but I couldn't hear a
thing. Instead of getting frustrated at my inability to hear, I chose
to dwell on Ash. He looked the most relaxed I'd ever seen him.
The jeans from our escape had been replaced with some kind of thick
cargo pants and a skintight tee-shirt.

I
must have managed to say something witty, because he smiled. I felt
myself lean forward and take his hand. It was the kind of thing I'd
never actually have the guts to do in real life, but I was doing it.
I reveled in the feel of his skin against mine, but it had altered
his mood for the worse. I said something else, but he was pulling
back now. It was too late to salvage the situation.

He
shook his head, and I opened my mouth to say one more thing when
Anton kicked the door open. It should have been impossible. We'd
gone days since our last encounter and covered thousands of miles. It
was impossible, but he was there somehow, streaking across the room
with inhuman speed.

Ash
had produced a gun from somewhere, but as fast as he was, he only got
one shot off before Anton was on him. I stumbled backwards, but there
wasn't anything I could do. I didn't have a knife, a gun,
or anything else that would give me even a chance of hurting Anton.

Anton
threw Ash into the stainless steel refrigerator hard enough to
crumple in the doors. Ash had a knife out before he hit the ground,
but Anton was faster still. Two jagged streaks appeared on Anton's
chest, but he had a knife too and it was sticking out of Ash's
chest.

Ash
looked up at me with those achingly beautiful gray eyes and I saw the
pain in them balanced by a refusal to quit, but it didn't
matter. Ash's will was the equal of anyone I'd ever met,
but in this instance will wasn't enough. A heartbeat before the
light in his eyes was extinguished I woke up sobbing.

Moving
back into the real world left me disoriented, but even in my
hysterical state I could feel Ash's arms around me.

"It's
just a dream, Kristin. I'm here and I won't let anything
happen to you."

I
turned over and cried into his chest for nearly half an hour before I
finally calmed down. It wasn't that I was scared, or at least
not
just
that I'd been scared. I'd seen Ash die
only seconds ago, and it had been even harder to deal with than I'd
expected.

Even
once I was awake and knew it had only been a dream I still couldn't
shake the experience. It had been more vivid than any other dream I'd
ever had and even though I knew I was over-reacting I just couldn't
get all of the blood and violence out of my head.

As
I finally got control of my breathing Ash blotted away the last of my
tears with his hand.

"Are
you going to be OK?"

"Yeah.
I think so. How's that for overreacting? Some student I turned
out to be."

Ash
shook his head. "You've been through a lot and you
weren't prepared or anticipating any of it. You're
probably suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. You don't
need to feel bad about any of it."

That
made a lot more sense and I felt myself starting to relax back into
his arms.

"Thanks
for understanding."

His
smile was barely visible in the soft light of the digital clock on
the side table, but it made my insides jump.

"Do
you want to talk about it?"

"Not
really—not in any depth at least. It was another Anton dream and a
pretty bad one. We weren't going to get away from him this
time."

Ash
pulled me closer and smoothed my hair down.

"We're
relatively safe from him now."

"Wow,
you really know how to make a girl feel better."

I
managed to inject the sarcasm with enough playfulness to take some of
the sting out. Honestly I was surprised I was up to sarcasm so
quickly, but I guess it was my natural defense mechanism. Here, awake
in Ash's arms, it was all starting to seem silly. There was no
conceivable way for Anton to find us. We were out in the middle of
nowhere and he'd have lost our trail several states back. We
were safe.

"I
just don't want to make light of your concerns. We've
taken every precaution that I could think of. I won't say that
it's impossible for him to find us, but the possibility is
fairly remote."

I
nodded, but I knew he was mostly just temporizing because that was
his nature. He'd always keep an awareness of the fact that no
matter how unlikely the odds were, there was still the possibility
that his plans could not go off like he wanted them to. It was
something I'd noticed already a couple of times in the last
couple of days as he'd been training me.

Ash
made as if to leave now that I'd calmed down, but I tightened
my grip on him, wordlessly letting him know how much I wanted him to
stay. Ash tried to hide it, but by now I knew that he was one of
those genuinely good guys who just had a hard time not doing the
right thing in any given situation.

It
was possible he stayed with me until I fell back asleep, just because
he knew I needed to be comforted, but I hoped it was because he
wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with him.

**

I'd
expected Ash to be gone when I woke up, but he was still there, arms
wrapped around me, when the morning light pulled me awake again.

"Good
morning."

I
spared a moment to hope that I didn't look too hideous and that
my breath wasn't too bad before deciding he'd seen me in
a worse state than this more than once while we'd been running
away from Anton.

"Hi.
Sorry that I lost it so bad last night."

"Don't
worry about it. Like I said last night, you've been through a
lot."

I
hadn't realized it last night, but Ash was shirtless again. I
felt my face heat up, but Ash rolled out of the bed before I could
say anything.

"I'll
leave you to get ready for the day. Let me know if you need
anything."

Breakfast
wasn't anything fancy, but Ash had a bowl, spoon, milk and some
cold cereal out on the counter waiting for me when I exited his room.

"So
what's with the blackout curtains?"

"Secrecy.
If you want to keep your location hidden then turning on a light when
it's dark outside is a really bad idea. For most of the house I
didn't worry about it. My night vision is really good, so I can
go from room to room without turning on the lights. Sometimes I like
to read a book at night though so I put blackout curtains in my
bedroom and in the study."

It
was of course completely logical. I'd long since figured out
that everything Ash did had a good reason behind it, but that didn't
make it any less worthwhile to find out what those reasons were.

"What's the plan for today?"

"More
theory. Then we'll do some target practice, more knife skills
and then strength and flexibility."

"So
essentially the same thing as yesterday?"

"Rome
wasn't built in a day, Kristin, and compared to this that is a
cakewalk."

Ash's
smile took the sting out of the comment. I shook my head and then dug
in and got started on my breakfast.

The
range was the high point of the afternoon. I still had a long way to
go, but I was legitimately getting better. I was far and away doing
better with a firearm than a knife, but I consoled myself by
remembering that I was very unlikely to ever come out on top in a
knife fight regardless of how good I got. A gun apparently was still
the great equalizer.

Still,
as we finished running through the last set of attacks and counters
with the plastic knives that Ash had dug up from somewhere, I found
myself reluctant to hand him the prop.

"Is
everything OK?"

"Yes.
I mean no, but I'm just being silly. It felt really good to
have a gun in my hand earlier. I thought it was because I'm
getting better, but now that we're done with the knives the
thought of giving even this useless thing back to you is leaving me
feeling naked."

I'd
half expected Ash to laugh at me, but instead he seemed to consider
my words for several seconds before nodding.

"Please
come with me."

I
followed Ash back to the armory and watched as he pulled a handgun
out of one of the plastic cases and handed it to me.

"I
almost forgot I had this."

It
was heavy. Unlike some of the other guns Ash had let me hold, this
one didn't have any plastic on it. Ash didn't store his
guns with a bullet in the chamber, but generally they had loaded
magazines. Curious what caliber the gun was, I thumbed the release
and looked at the slender bullet.

"What
is this?"

"The
gun's a custom job, but it shoots an off-the-shelf five-seven
round."

"It
doesn't look big enough to stop anybody."

Ash
shook his head. "It's not a big bullet, but the ones
you're looking at right there will actually penetrate body
armor. It wasn't easy to get ahold of that ammo, but for
whatever reason I never really took to it. I guess it wasn't
meant for me, but it's just the thing for you."

I
stood speechless as Ash pulled a shoulder harness down from the wall
and adjusted it down to something that would fit me.

"I
understand what it is like to feel powerless. If you're still
serious about trying to survive in my world you're going to
spend a lot of time wearing a gun. This one is yours now."

It
was a huge gift. I'd spent enough time with Ash to realize that
he spared no expense when it came to his weapons. If he'd paid
to have some kind of custom gun made up, it hadn't been a cheap
project.

"Thanks.
Not just for this, for everything."

His
smile was almost shy, but he shrugged, handed me a box of ammunition
and walked back out to the living room.

I
hit the weights extra hard that evening. I pulled the shoulder
harness off so I could move more easily, but I kept the gun nearby
while I worked out, and it was the perfect reminder of just how much
I owed Ash.

When
Ash finally told me I was done my arms and legs were pure jelly. He
helped me back onto my feet and then sent me back to his room to
shower.

The
hot water was just the thing I'd needed and I spent half an
hour with the massage function on the nozzle turned up all the way to
max. It didn't manage to work all of the soreness out of my
muscles but it was a good start.

The
sun was nearly to the horizon, so it felt silly to get all of the way
dressed. Then again, I couldn't really see myself running
around in my shorts and tank top with my shoulder harness on.

I
settled for a compromise, pulling on a new pair of jeans and then
slipping on a tank top. Ash usually spent any time I was otherwise
occupied in his study, monitoring his investments or keeping track of
the headlines, trying to read between the lines and figure out which
were being driven by something from his world.

I
headed to the study first, intending on thanking him once again for
the gun, but he wasn't there. I wondered absently if he'd
gone outside.

"Ash,
are you around?"

It
was silly. I was a big girl who didn't need a constant
babysitter, but the thought of being in the house by myself gave me
chills.

"In
the kitchen, Kristin."

I
shook my head at my nervousness, realizing that maybe that dream had
done more of a number on me than I'd admitted to myself so far.
I walked back out to the kitchen and felt my jaw drop as I took in a
sight much more domestic than any I'd expected to see.

Ash
had actually just finished baking cupcakes, and was efficiently
cleaning up all of the cooking supplies.

"Wow,
I mean I can take expert knife fighter and mad-dog gunman in stride
but cupcakes?"

I
got a shrug and a sly smile for my efforts.

"Come
on, Ash. I've never seen you cook anything too complicated to
put in a microwave or on the range. Honestly I wasn't even
quite sure the oven worked. What's the occasion?"

"I'll
tell you once they've cooled down enough to put the frosting
on."

A
few minutes later the icing was mixed up and I started applying it
while Ash cleaned up the last of the dishes. I'd been happily
dwelling on the fact that he was maybe the hottest man to ever wear
an apron when I looked up and saw that he'd pulled it off and
hung it up in the pantry.

He'd
been wearing a long-sleeve shirt over top of his tee-shirt earlier.
It had come off before he put the apron on, but now that they were
both off I could really see the tee-shirt that had been underneath
the entire time.

Cargos
and a tee-shirt. It was the kind of thing he wore all of the time. It
shouldn't have thrown me for a loop, but it was exactly what
he'd been wearing in my dream. Worse, he'd just turned
back toward me and he had a box of matches and a candle in his hands.

"Happy
birthday, Kristin. I hope you like…"