Red After Dark (Blackwood Security #13) - Elise Noble Page 0,121

why she asked me—Rune was clearly the brighter one out of the two of us.

“Should we leave at all? We’ve sent a clue, and we’ve got enough supplies for another week at least. Longer if it keeps raining.”

“Ridley wants to kill us. If Alaric pays the ransom and doesn’t get to us in time…”

Rune didn’t need to spell it out.

But it was a risk. If we tried to escape and failed, if we got caught, then Ridley would be furious. The man had already murdered his own girlfriend, plus two employees and those people in Syria and Afghanistan, and Alaric said he had a terrible temper.

Could we afford to try escaping? Could we afford not to?

What would Emmy do in this situation? That was an easy one—she’d probably have tunnelled out of there with her bare hands already.

“Let’s listen for a minute or two and see if we hear any more movement.”

There was nothing but the wind outside, the occasional cry of an animal, and the familiar creaks of the old house settling. We had to leave, didn’t we? Rune obviously thought so too. Until then, she’d stayed remarkably calm, but now she was twitchy.

“Stay behind me, okay?”

Rune nodded. At that moment, she looked very much like the child she was rather than the clever young lady I’d come to admire over the past few days. And I was scared stiff. My heart thudded against my ribcage, and I wondered whether I might die from a coronary rather than at Ridley’s hands.

The door groaned as it opened, and we waited another minute, hardly daring to breathe in case he came back. Finally, we tiptoed out into a dingy hallway.

The house was abandoned—that much was obvious from a glance. Discoloured paper peeled from the walls, replaced by tasteless graffiti, the ceiling was covered in damp patches with the occasional hole, and the few pieces of furniture were dusty and broken. The good news? Half of the windows were either open or smashed, and the front door swung back and forth in the breeze.

Where was Ridley?

And almost as important, where were we?

We bolted out the front door and found ourselves in a clearing. The forest was doing its best to take over, but it hadn’t quite won the battle yet. Which way should we go? There was no obvious path, in fact, no sign of civilisation whatsoever.

“There must be a driveway somewhere,” I said. Ridley had half carried, half dragged us the short distance from the car to the house, but we’d still been wearing the hoods. “Let’s go around the other side.”

With hindsight, we should have taken our chances with the bears.

“What the…?”

Ridley’s eyes widened in surprise when we rounded the corner right in front of him, while I imagined mine held abject horror. I turned to grab Rune, to run, but he reacted first.

“Stay where you are,” he growled.

Instinct made me grab for the gun. It was either that or die. A bullet whizzed past my ear, deafening me, but I’d loosened his grip enough that the gun flew into a patch of stinging nettles.

“Run!” I screamed at Rune.

I was under no illusions that I’d be able to defeat Ridley, but if I could just slow him down enough for her to make a break for it, maybe one of us would survive. If Rune went on to live a long and happy life, that was better than both of us dying in this wretched wilderness.

Ridley backhanded me, and I glimpsed his famous temper. Those cruel eyes gleamed maniacally as we fought for the upper hand. I got a knee to his balls; he grunted in pain and hit me in the face. I shook off the stars and stamped on his foot; he punched me in the stomach. I was losing, I knew that, but I just had to hold on for long enough for Rune to get away.

“You bastard,” I hissed.

“Die, bitch.”

He knocked my legs out from under me, and we grappled on the wet ground. It felt surreal, almost as if someone else were stuck in this nightmare and I was just watching. How long had we been fighting? It seemed like forever, and my strength was ebbing. I used one last effort to roll, but that backfired when Ridley got his hands around my neck. I couldn’t breathe as his weight pressed down on me.

And the worst part? I’d never get to say goodbye to Alaric. To tell him I loved him one last time. To