34
Libby
Duck, Duck, Goose
This is not what I was worried about when I thought of dating a Bishop. All of my fears of being called a Bishop Bitch, or a rentable cop, all of that washes away as I lay on a cold concrete floor beside a quietly crying Evie.
The vests we both wear beep once a minute.
One beep per minute.
Our clothes fuckingbeep!
“I don’t like this.” Evie rocks on her butt and whimpers. Her hand is a nasty shade of purple from lack of blood circulation, but she refuses to lay back, she refuses to make her reach easier while Olly walks laps on the other side of the large room. “I didn’t come here on purpose.”
“I know, Smalls. Hey.” I try to draw her tear-filled eyes. “I’m here, okay? I’m gonna try to make this better.”
“We’re stuck to the fucking floor. Like, seriously. And our chests are beeping.”
“I know.” I want to scream at her to shut up with the obvious. I know we’re stuck, and I know there are explosives strapped to our bodies. But she’s a baby, and she’s allowed to panic as blood slides over her temple and touches her lip. “You heard your daddy, yeah? He’s on his way. We need to distract Olly, and then Aiden will come in with bolt cutters. Freedom.”
“That’s not freedom,” she looks down to her chest and whimpers. “That’s relocation. Because these things come with us.”
I know. I know. I know!
Olly stands about forty feet away by the bar and talks to the sour-sisters in quiet whispers. They annoy me as much now as they always did, but while they keep him busy, I inch closer to Evie and press a finger to my lips to keep her quiet as I study the riot-type vest hugging her chest. A reinforced steel frame surrounds her torso, and three padlocks – one at each hip, and one at the front – hold her in and weigh her chest down so she slumps at an uncomfortable angle.
“Libby?” Her lips quiver as she whispers. “Do you know anything about bombs? Do you know how to turn them off?”
I meet her eyes and bite my lips closed. When I can’t push a lie past my lips, I shake my head and hate how she drops hers and silently cries.
“I didn’t get to do big things yet. I was gonna be a champion.”
“It’s not over until the bell rings, right? Hey.” I reach out with my unbound hand and lift her chin. “Right? You’re a fighter. You live in three-minute increments, and you don’t stop because the other person has got your arm in a lock.”
She swipes tears from her cheeks and shakes her head. “No. I don’t stop.”
“What do you do? If there’s twenty seconds left, and they’ve got you in an armlock, what do you do?”
She looks to Olly. To the sour-sisters. Then back to me. “I break my fucking arm and win the fight with my left hand.”
I hate that she still makes me smile in this moment. “Okay, well, that’s a little dramatic, but I like your spirit. We’re not breaking your arms, but we’re still gonna win, okay? Tell me something. Tell me anything that you think will help us.”
“Um…” She looks down at her chest. Then to the stage behind us. “Crawl space. Right behind me. It’ll fit us both, but not with these frames.” She tugs at the steel and grunts. “It’s a tight fit, but the braces will get stuck.”
“Okay, good. Where does the tunnel come out?”
“Outside.” She peeks at her vest, and with shaking hands, gently tugs a wrist watch from a pocket. It has wires attached back to the vest, and when she sees them, I know in her heart that she’s tempted to tug the watch free. “It says twelve minutes and fifty-four seconds.”
I read over her shoulder and feel my heart stutter. “Forty-five, not fifty-four. Don’t tug it, sweetheart. Don’t pull it off.”
“It’ll stop the timer.”
I nod. “It sure will, but I don’t think the results will be what we want. Hold it in, okay? Put the watch back in the pocket so you don’t accidentally tug it. It won’t end well.”
“Okay.” Her hand literally tremors as she works to tuck it away. My vest looks exactly the same as hers, so I don’t bother peeking closer. It’ll work the same, it’ll have the same time, so I save myself the heartbreak and instead study Evie. She’s barefoot and wearing next to nothing, but I don’t have a whole lot on either, and nothing I can offer to keep her warm. “It’s gonna be okay. I promise it will.”
Just as my words leave my mouth, a loud boom echoes from outside, and then squealing tires make my heart race to impossible speeds. Olly’s head comes up, so he and Evie look like identical meerkats.