I got You

Chapter 8

Tobias

Come on, sweetie, give me something.

I need to see more of her I think as I wait for those hazel eyes of hers to finally reveal what she is trying to hide. I know there is something...there must be. I am aware of the intensity of my glare, so I manage to relax the muscles on my face and make my eyes appear warmer. As I focus on my breathing, I notice how tense my back is, and I force myself to hunch a little before her eyes meet mine.

Slouching is not something I do much, and this time is no different. I am so close to seeing her for the first time since we met, but my eyes won’t allow me. My vision goes black, and I can’t see her face anymore. In seconds my body turns rigid again, and I do what comes naturally to me. I grasp her hands and hold them as I get to my feet. The moment I pull her up into my arms she bursts into tears, and I press her body tighter to mine. Had I known being protective of someone felt so good, I would have joined the SEALs a long time ago.

“It is okay, I got you,” I say.

But that's all I am capable of saying before her sobbing stops, and I can finally ask her what happened, but she beats me to it. Her face is pressed against my chest, and her words are muffled when she speaks, “What happened?”

“It is just a power cut, relax.”

Her frantic breathing tails off and she lifts her head off my chest to make sure I am telling the truth. There is not a single light in the room, and I can’t see her do that, but I feel her. There is no way I can’t figure that out, because her head moves to each side, and her hair brushes my skin. All of a sudden, her breathing stops and she doesn’t move.

“No! I did not do this if that is what you are thinking.”

“How did you act so cool, then?”

I want to tell her how, but I can’t. I can’t tell her, “it’s what I do for living, sweetie”.

“I didn’t, you are –” My words get cut off, but it is not her that does it this time. A sound, all too familiar to me sets my senses on fire and I instantly become more alert. I throw my body on the bed, trapping hers under mine in the process. The short silence that occurred earlier after that one gunshot, is broken by the firing bullets penetrating the walls of the room. Martha’s immediate scream gets muffled under my body, as she presses her face into my neck and holds my shoulders tightly. My hand flies to my belt, and I immediately remember why I don’t have my gun with me. The assholes at the door.

“Hold tight,” I shout. She does exactly that. No protest, no questions. I am surprised. Is she beginning to trust me? I will figure that out later, I need to get us out of here first.

I roll both our bodies to the edge of the bed and I lower hers down to the floor before I settle mine on top of her again. It is so freaking dark; I can’t see the exit. What I believe to be the last bullets, get fired and silence takes over. Getting up first, I then help her up, not daring to release my hold from around her waist. She must be so tired I think, as I wrap my other arm around her.

“Can you walk?”

“Of course I can.”

“Good, because I need you to walk now and hold onto me,” I say, my voice urgent.

“Can you do that?” I soften my voice this time.

“Yes.”

I lift her arm, and guide it behind my head, on the back on my neck. “Here, hold here.” The moment I let go of her hand, it slides down my back and I feel the rest of her body separating from mine. I catch her before she falls and hold her close to my chest.

Holy s**t!

“Can you hear me? I know you are tired, but this might be our chance to get out of here, and I am not going to let it slip. So, just stay quiet and let me do the rest.”

“Ah – huh,” she sounds so weak.

We start walking slowly and when I manage to find the door, I swear hard.

“Daaamn, it’s locked.”

How sick are these bastards? I have to break it, there is no other way, but I can’t let her out of my sight. Especially not now when my sight is gone, and her strength is off scale. There is always a solution. I flip her over and onto my shoulder, moving my hand from her waist to her thighs. This time she is anything, but quiet.

“I am not going with you again; I am not doing this again. Let me go! Now!” She scratches my back and screams as loud as she can. All I can do is put her down.

“Listen sweetheart, you are not thinking straight. I am not who you think I am. I am Caleb. We spent the last few hours together. Calm down...all I want to do is take you to safety. You are not strong enough to walk on your own right now and we need to move. Carrying you is the only way we can make it out of here fast, do you understand?”

“Caleb?”

“Yes, Martha?”

“Martha?”

“Yes, I am calling you.”

“But...Martha is not my name...Martha died, Marinela didn’t. I wish she did too.”

“Who is Marinela?”

“I am.”

What the...?

She definitely doesn’t trust you. Is she lying again though? It doesn’t f*****g matter. What matters is getting the hell out of here.

“Alright, Marinela. Can we move now?”

“Yes...can.”

“Does that mean I can carry you?”

“Mhm...whatever.”

I don’t ask again. I know she is not completely present, but I don’t care. As long as she agrees. I flip her over my shoulder again and she doesn’t make a single sound this time.

Cooperation. About f*****g time!

I push on the door once; I push twice, and the door flies open on my third push. Unfortunately, that is not the only thing that flies. A spinning knife is the next thing flying right next to my head once the door is down. f**k me, I am not ready to die in a place like this. The light of the exit sign attached to the opposite side of the hallway is all I need to find my next cover, right behind the wall holding the door frame.

Wide and black, a shadow appears on the door frame, and I attack it before it can attack me. I lower Marinela on the ground and search its body. No weapon. Great!

Before I pick her back up, I check for more shadows waiting to attack, and when I see there are none, I get moving. Marinela’s body is still on my shoulder, but that doesn’t stop me from moving. Keeping my body low and close to the wall is how I reach the end of the hallway. Then, as I take my last step before I turn right, I see more shadows coming and I stop breathing. There is a chance to not get noticed if I don’t move. I don’t but...

Shit, I forget I am not alone. Marinela starts moving, and I am made to take a step back to put her down without being spotted. She is not fully awake when I bring her down in my arms, and she settles in pretty quickly. All is good, I think. I expect them to pass us by when they come closer, and they do just that. What I don’t expect is the f*****g wind that comes through the door they open, and f***s my plan.

The moment the cold air touches my skin, it touches her skin too. A loud “Ughhhh” comes from Marinela’s throat and her whole body shivers.

“Shh...”

Her groaning only gets louder, and I know they won’t brush it aside.

We are f****d.

I hear them coming and I have to think quick. She is slowly waking up as the wind intensifies, so I speed up the process. I bring her closer to my chest, and bend my head to talk into her ear.

“Wake up sweetheart, wake up. Come on,” I raise my voice a bit. “Wake up!” she wakes up with a jerk and starts panting. I squeeze the parts of her body where I hold her with my hands, and her body relaxes. When she signals to be put down, I do it, but keep my hands around her. I want to sound soothing when I tell her the next thing, but my focus shifts to the footsteps I hear, and that idea is a solid piece of the past now.

“Okay, look at me,” I say with a stern voice she can’t refuse obeying. She immediately looks up at me and locks her gaze with mine. “We are going to walk to that wall, and you are going to stand still and not move until I tell you to. Do you cop – understand?” Control yourself, you can’t talk to her like that. Before she can answer, I push her off of me, and she hits the wall, hard.

What I calculated to be 30 seconds for them to reach us, drops to 10 when I miss the monkey guy hanging from the ceiling right above us. My head instinctively turns to see her, and that is when a weight takes me down and my body hits the floor. Did the monkey guy just jump me?

Fuck him!

I shake my head to get my head working and roll to my side to dodge the fist coming my way. Just as I am about to get up, a leg comes close to my face and I capture it in a leg lock. I turn my body hard to one side, throwing the monkey over and under my body. I give the guy a nice punch, and he is out.

The moment I reach Marinela, she is pressed against the wall with her back and hands, her pleading eyes searching mine. “Are you okay?” she says with a small and shaky voice. Quickly I grab her shoulders and say, “I am fine. Stay here”. Her nodding is all I need to see before I move away from her. I take a position close to the corner of the hallway and wait.

Come on, where are the rest? I wait a bit longer, but no one approaches. I stretch my body over the corner to get a better view, but all I see is an empty hallway. They must have sent the monkey guy to get to us and decided to pull back. That doesn’t mean we are safe here. We have to move, and now I know exactly where we should head to. Where there is a wind, there is a way out.

I get Marinela, and we start walking. When we get to the door, I assume is an exit, it opens on my first push. I help Marinela lean on a nearby wall and I leap through the door. I am right. It is an emergency exit. One leading to the parking where I parked my car at. It is quiet, and not a single soul can be spotted. My definition of perfect.

I turn back to tell Marinela she will soon be out of here, and I hold out my hand for her. She looks at it and then looks at me. She doesn’t move.

What the f**k!?

“Come on, lets go.” I say again with a firm voice. But she doesn’t f*****g move. Is she too shocked that her legs stopped working? I step closer to her to take her hand and lead her out, but she withdraws it and looks at me with a sad look. Something is going on.

“Hey, what happened? Don't you want to get out of here? I swear that is where the door leads to.” She is not f*****g responding. “Talk to me. Just say whatever it is.”

“I can’t come. You were right,” she moves her gaze away from mine before she continues. “I am connected with these people. Now go,” she says tonelessly.

Hell, no. No, she can’t be. I couldn’t have read her wrong. “Look at me,” I order her. She doesn’t. “Can you lift your head up? Let me see you?” I am going to do something irrational here, if she doesn’t –

“Тогаш убиј ме. Не ми е гајле(Togaš ubij me. Ne mi e gajle),” she says through gritted teeth.

“What are you saying? I can’t understand anything you say, you know that. Why are you doing this? I grab the side of the door to get my anger under control, because I don’t exist for her. It is like she is talking to someone else.

“Who are you talking to? Yourself?” That’s enough. I come closer to her and take her face in my hands. “Don’t be scared, I am –”

Holy mother of...

My eyes go wide when I see what is happening. Moving my hands from her face I slide them around her neck and pull to make her bend forward. She uses the moment to grab the door handle, and bursts out. As she does that, I kick with my leg and send whoever c****d the hammer on her head, against the opposite wall. That will give us some time.

I start running, and the moment I reach her I pick her up and run even faster. But I don’t get far. My legs collapse, and I know exactly what that means. It means I am going down. “You are bleeding. Oh my God,” she gasps as she notices. I tell her to go, but she can’t move until I move my body from hers.

“There is the parking...take this...and run. Use whatever you find inside to get as far away as possible from here,” my voice turns pretty wheezy at this point, but I keep talking. “You hear me? As far away as possible!” I practically shout that into her ear, and she groans.

“What about you? You are hurt?”

“Nothing, just go. I’ll find you!” Whatever strength I have left I use to roll off of her, and she immediately jumps to her feet, but doesn’t move. I look up to her and she does the same.

“Thank you, Caleb!”

“No. It’s Tobias.” She doesn’t say anything more, because she understands. She just nods...and leaves. And so does my conscience, once the same pain from a minute ago hits me all over again.