Red After Dark (Blackwood Security #13) - Elise Noble Page 0,117

followed by the dull thunk.

The door might have been old, but it was solid. We’d tried to break it down, and all we had to show for it was bruised shoulders. On the plus side, my headache was easing now. I’d got a nosebleed when the BMW’s airbag went off, and then I’d seen stars when Ridley cracked me over the head with his gun after I punched him by his car. My knuckles hurt too. At least Rune was in better shape than me, for now at any rate. Ridley had found her phone in her pocket and thrown it away, but he’d missed the little cross-body bag under her baggy sweatshirt. She wore it close, paranoid about something so important getting stolen, and she reckoned she had enough insulin to last her for two more weeks.

Would we survive for two weeks? Earlier, I’d almost given up hope, but Rune had given me a pep talk. At fifteen years old.

“Look.” She’d smoothed out a piece of paper in the gloom. She kept that in her little bag too. “It’s from Naz. Last year, he gave me a jar of stars for Christmas, and I opened one every day. Most of them had jokes on, but sometimes he reminded me how far I’ve come.”

I squinted until I could make out the letters. The only light came from a ventilation grate roughly a foot square, high above our heads. We couldn’t escape through it—even if we’d been small enough, metal bars blocked our way.

You were born into darkness, but you became light. We all believe in you.

“That’s…that’s…so lovely.”

“Not every girl is lucky enough to have four fathers. Naz also told me that the difference between a survivor and a quitter is her spirit. My spirit’s got me through life so far, and I don’t intend to die now.”

“I… Neither do I.”

Not when I’d finally found happiness. When I had a man who would love me until the end of time. And what would happen to Chaucer?

Last week in England, I’d finally got a taste of how the rest of my life could be. It wasn’t a vacation, but it sure felt like one compared to my years with Piers. Alaric had needed to work on a report—one of Sirius’s bread-and-butter projects, he said. Their client was considering a move into new markets, and they wanted to understand the pros and cons of doing business in Ukraine—any problems they might encounter, that sort of thing.

So I’d helped to organise all the issues and benefits into a presentation as well as buying a new printer, arranging travel to Vermont for Ravi, and a flight to Vienna for Judd. Working hours were relaxed. If I wanted to start early, then ride Chaucer in the afternoon and do a bit more in the evening, nobody minded. And of course I got to spend time with Alaric, and Gemma too. She was still staying at Judd’s, as was the new girl. I hadn’t quite worked Nada out yet. She didn’t say much, but she liked to cook in the evenings.

I didn’t want to give up that life, and Rune wanted to go home too.

So we’d brainstormed and come up with our rudimentary water collector. It was raining outside—we could hear it hammering against the wooden sides of the house—so we tied my cotton sweater to the bars of the ventilation window with one sleeve trailing in a puddle outside and the other hanging inside over an old metal pail we’d emptied the spiders out of. And now I heard the most glorious sound in the world: the drip, drip, drip of water plopping into the bucket. Which was a whole lot better than what had plopped into the other bucket we’d found yesterday. We’d each had to take it in turns to answer the call of nature while the other turned her back. Old Bethany would have died from embarrassment, but new Bethany realised there were more important things than appearances.

Like staying alive.

And to do that, we needed food. Rune had a packet of glucose tablets with her for emergencies, but they wouldn’t last long.

“What do you suppose is in those old mason jars?” I asked.

We’d spotted them when we explored our prison, stacked on wooden shelves screwed to the wall at the far end of the cellar, filthy, covered in cobwebs, with peeling labels. At that point, I’d still hoped Ridley might bring us something to eat, but two days after we arrived, there was