Three shots; three fresh corpses.
The walls grew splattered with red, the ground pooled red, but all Charlie saw was hate. Tommy dared to meet her eye, to stand and face his death.
Chest rising and falling, Charlie aimed her revolver one last time and pulled the trigger. A telltale click of an empty chamber was all she got for the effort.
Tommy laughed.
There was more than one way to kill a man with a firearm. Taking the weapon by its heated barrel, she swung at him, keen to beat him to death. Tommy’s nose shattered; blood got in her eyes. A second swing knocked out his front tooth.
But he was bigger; he wasn’t hurt like she was.
Tommy landed a solid hook to her jaw, knocking her head hard enough she saw stars.
Flying at him with teeth and claws, Charlie was caught mid-air when an arm came around her middle. Ripped off a man she needed to kill, she twisted like a snake while a blur ran past. Another took her place, beating Tommy bloody amidst roars and the crack of breaking bone.
Charlie kicking, shrieking, was not herself. But Beaumont spoke at her ear, talking to his little girl like one talked to a frightened animal. “I got you, Blackbird. Be still now, Lottie.”
“I GOTTA KILL HIM!”
The arms around her ribs tightened, sharp pain stole her breath. Unable to breathe, Charlie went limp, choking.
The beast on top of a ruined Tommy turned at her horrible noise, Matthew calling out to his woman. “Charlotte.”
She was finally dying, and he’d finally come to take her away from the pain. She whispered with such sorrow, such hope, “You’re dead. Tommy, he told me you were dead.”
Matthew Emerson looked right at her, blood saturating his shirt. Charlie’s shaking hands reached out to touch the apparition. The rope was still tied tight around her left wrist, her fingers purple and swollen, but forgotten so she could cling to the phantom.
Her voice broke; she started to cry. “I love you, Matthew.”
Charlie’s slip was in tatters, bloody and dirty, stinking of sweat. There were cuts and gashes, more bruises than he could count, but Matthew untangled her from Radcliffe and held her.
Charlotte went limp.
Chapter 18
Nurses stared wide-eyed at the horribly beaten woman rushed into their hospital. The doctors ordered Matthew to stay behind—tried to take her away. He would not allow it. He never left her side no matter what they were doing to her.
Through it all, Charlie made no sound of pain, not until a fever took hold. The doctors warned him that with signs of internal damage and the subsequent swelling, Charlotte would not live through the night. Best they could do was make her comfortable.
Matthew said the only thing he could think of to make the men try harder. “This is Beaumont Radcliffe’s niece. She dies, you die.”
Those seemed to be the magic words to get everyone moving. So much was done, Matthew could hardly keep up. He refused to even leave so his own wound might be stitched closed. He made them do it there, so he could hold Charlotte’s hand and talk to her as she seized.
When she vomited blood, when she shivered and sweated like the fires of Hell were blazing around her, he refused to let go.
She kept breathing.
Pain, even dulled by morphine, is a funny thing. It nagged at the comatose woman, scratched her sleep apart, and pulled her out of a mad world of noise and bad dreams. When Charlie’s eyes finally opened, Matthew was asleep, his forehead resting against her thigh, his hand in hers.
She just looked at him, confused, exhausted. Charlie squeezed his fingers.
The man startled, Matthew’s head shooting up.
Charlie smiled as best she could manage. “I love you.”
Matthew’s wide-eyed look of utter relief was heartbreaking. He surged up and kissed her, just as he had kissed her sleeping lips over the last five nights of torment. He breathed in her breath, giving it back with his own declaration, “I love you, Charlotte Elliot. I’ve loved you from the moment I clamped eyes on you in the Willards’ barn.”
At the sound of her crying, Matthew swiped his thumb under her eyes. “Sweet girl, you’re safe. I got you now.”