Chance Taken

21

Veronica

They didn’t give us much time alone in the container. Just long enough for my terror and paralyzing fear that I was about to see my sister get shot in the head to fade into a dull painful throbbing in the back of my mind.

Then they came lumbering in again and dragged me and my sister out of the container. Two bright lights powered by a clunking generator that smelled alarmingly of gasoline lit up the clearing to almost daylight.

“Keep silent,” Gazz hissed at us and told them two men holding us to put guns to our heads, which worked to back up the unspoken threat in his voice.

“He’s coming and he’s alone,” another man said. “I don’t believe it.”

The faint rumbling of a Harley was growing louder and louder. Chance. He came.

“No, Chance!” I yelled. “Stay away!”

But of course he couldn’t hear me. Gazz did.

“Keep her quiet!” he said and a meaty palm slammed against my mouth, covering my nose too. I could barely breathe.

“When he gets here, grab him,” Gazz told his men. “And then get rid of the two women. They’re useless now anyway, but I want him to see them die. I want him to know just how bad he failed.”

Try as I might I couldn’t get a sound out, and all the wriggling I did to try and break free caused a sharp pain in my side after which it was even harder to breathe.

Chance was suddenly standing beside his bike, lit up as though an actor on stage. He showed no fear and something melted inside me as he asked to see me. The pure terror that had been gripping me eased, and a feeling of everything finally working out washed over me, a split second before the lights suddenly went out and heavy footsteps approached from all sides.

“Bring her and follow me,” Gazz yelled at the man holding me as he grabbed my sister’s arm, pushed the one restraining her back and dragged her after him to the trees.

I kicked, screamed tried my hardest to kick or punch the man dragging me in a soft place. He almost suffocated me with the chokehold he was using on me before my foot finally found his knee.

Chance was on him in a flash. I tried to run after Ariel. She and Gazz had already disappeared into the trees. And even though I was willing my feet to move faster with all I had, I couldn’t do more than stumble after them.

Then Chance was there, supporting me, just his presence letting me know that nothing was lost, that everything would work out.

And it did. He brought Ariel back to me. Unhurt. Alive. Ready to fight.

A sickeningly high number of women were freed from the other containers in the clearing. They were running around, screaming and crying. I wanted to comfort them, wanted to let them all know they were safe now, just like my sister and I were, but I could hardly breathe, and couldn’t stand without Chance holding me up. I was so incredibly grateful to him it clean erased all my other worries.

The guy who drove us to the hospital, Ruin, the one who brought Ariel out of the woods to me, said he’d called an ambulance for my parents after we were taken. That he tried to keep them alive as best he could until the paramedics arrived.

The cold, cruel reality of all that had happened tonight had started settling in then, but I could still keep it from overwhelming me by focusing on the warmth of Chance’s arms around me and the news that both my parents were still alive when Ruin saw them last.

But I was hanging onto that by only the tiniest thread as we pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. They wheeled me into the ER, the tall, blonde intern with thick-rimmed glasses insisted on it, but I wouldn’t let them treat me until they first told me where my parents were.

Mom was lucky. The bullet went into her shoulder and got lodged in her shoulder blade. They got it out with no problem and she’s recovering from the surgery now.

Dad wasn’t so lucky. He underwent a long surgery and lost his spleen. But the doctor I spoke to was hopeful that he’ll make a full recovery in time.

I have a concussion and two broken ribs, one of which grazed the side of my lungs, which is why I was having such a hard time breathing and walking upright. They’re taking a wait-and-see approach for now, but I might need surgery too.

Diffused, warm yellow sunlight is streaming in through the opaque window now, so I must have slept, but I don’t feel rested. Ariel is sleeping in the bed next to mine, lying curled up on her side under a thin blue hospital blanket.

Chance is dozing in the chair next to my bed, his upper body covered with a leather jacket bearing a horned skull bordered with red roses and the words Devil’s Nightmare MC written around it.

I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for him. I still can’t quite wrap my mind around why this guy that I’ve done nothing but pour my hatred on came for me exactly when I needed him most. He risked his life to save me. Not once but three times.

But the answer to that why is getting clearer.

For all my angry words, and hateful accusations, I couldn’t get enough of being with him from the moment we met. He got under my skin and I got under his. That much is clear to me now.