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And he scared me so much at times that my heart nearly stopped beating.
When he’d shot Gregor...and the knifing of the boy...those acts bounced around in my memory.
I would never be able to see him and not see them. I would never be free of the thought that he might do something like that again. I didn’t need this in my life. Safety, comfort, boredom – I needed those again, desperately.
I needed to get away, and yet I wanted to stay in his arms. He was something unique in my life. Why did he also have to be so wrong for me?
“We should be there in fifteen minutes.” He squeezed me. His finger stump with its gory bandage dangled against the seat rest, bouncing as the plane’s movement bounced his arm.
My mind went off on a tangent. A good one. I could repay some of his kindness.
“Time to loosen the tourniquet?” It had to be done, regularly, his friend and fellow ex-soldier Jurgen had told me, or risk killing off the rest of the finger.
“Sure. Can you do it again?” Pieter rested his hand on my lap.
Carefully I untied the little knot and released the pressure for a few minutes. At least it wasn’t gushing blood anymore. The end of the finger was gruesome. A sliver of bone wriggled. Ugh.
I glanced at Pieter. The man was made of rock. His face might be tense, but apart from a twitch at his wrist, he barely moved as I reapplied the tourniquet then arranged the bandage.
“Want a lollipop?” I grinned at him.
“For what?” His tone was incredulous.
“For being good. All the kids get one.”
“Your jokes will never win awards.”
“Mmm.” I snuggled back in and resumed worrying.
A few minutes later, he told me something that put ice back in my veins.
“We’re going to land at an airfield outside the main airport and drive into the city. Glass has a problem with trust.” He stroked my cheek with his finger. “You’re safe. I’m going to make sure a doctor examines you, meisie, but he wants you to stay inside his house until we figure out how to get you back to Australia. Okay?”
They were locking me up again. Okay, he asks?
I didn’t look up from my lap.
“Why can’t I fly back?”
“Because, there’s legal problems. These friends of mine who rescued us, like Glass...” He pointed with one finger forward, at the pilot.
Despite the drone of the engine, Glass heard and waved back lazily, without turning.
“If you arrive and people find out how you got here, bells will ring. The law will find out you were back there. That people rescued you. There’s a cop involved who helped organize this and he has to stay totally unseen. You would get questioned. People who are friends of friends would be implicated in murder, extortion, bribery.”
I swallowed. “So how do I get back home?”
“To Australia?” Big pause – like he was wondering about asking me to stay here? I could read him like a book. “The best way to avoid you being questioned, fingers being pointed, is for us to fly you back into Australia illegally. We have to smuggle you back in.”
Then what? Pretend I’d been wandering around Australia for weeks, unable to find my way home? I guess that was their plan. I could imagine the questions that would stir up. I would’ve been a huge news item for ages after I vanished. Not easy to explain away. But maybe they never meant to free me?
Pieter wouldn’t allow that, though, would he? I sent him a fleeting look. This man, I knew him like no other. How could I not, after all we’d been through? We’d survived the furnace together.
But I didn’t know this about him, because I’d seen how ruthless he could be. I’d also seen what he was willing to do to me in the name of just plain...showing me what I liked. Just because he thought I needed to know. He didn’t always ask before he did. It seemed I needed to escape, again.
I had this big Rottweiler of a man hugging me, like he’d turned puppy overnight. I wanted to soak this up, because it spoke to some new part of me that I never thought I had. And I wanted him far, far away. The correct answer always was the safe one, right?
I turned my face into his chest and inhaled. He smelled so good.
