Page 22 of King from the Sky

Emily wanted to see the Seplika, but knew that asking Alex to show it to the other man in the open might have been a bad idea. She was still unaware of who exactly this man was and how much he knew. She damn sure wasn’t going to shoot her mouth off with something stupid and blow the whole thing for Alex. For all she knew the guy was a mole who was scamming Alex to lead him to the Seplika. Or it could have been that she had seen far too many spy movies and was letting her imagination run wild with her again. Damn her clever brain sometimes.

The drive back towards Moscow was pretty much the same as the drive out into the wilderness had been; quiet and boring. But Emily could not allow herself to complain too much. Just knowing that they had the Seplika and that she was relaxing in Alex’s warm embrace was enough to make the trip worthwhile.

Alex had told her they would stay in a hotel that night and then head out on the plane first thing in the morning with their return flight. She hated the idea of staying that close to the Russian mob who were after Alex, but she figured that he knew what he was doing.

There was a loud popping noise as the other man’s body began to twitch violently behind the wheel of the car and the windshield started to pop with holes, bouncing glass back towards the seats. The car veered suddenly and hit the embankment before flipping onto its back.

As the car spun through the air Emily felt Alex wrap her beneath him into as much of a ball as he could to allow his body to absorb all of the impact as the car flipped and tossed about on the desolate road. The roar of the engine seemed to grow louder as the car squealed almost in a death call.

Emily felt her insides being jerked to and fro and she kept bracing herself for the impact that never came, but just hearing the shocks that Alex’s body was absorbing made her feel sick to her stomach. He was holding her tightly in place beneath him and she tried to stay as still as possible while the car continued to roll over and over again grinding to a stop in the middle of the road.

Emily was not sure that they were stopped yet. She expected the rolling and the flipping in the car to continue. The motion sickness was taking hold and she felt the nausea rising up deep inside of her body. She wanted to vomit and then pass out. That would have been the perfect way to end that day. As she tried to move her stomach felt like it was flipping over and over inside of her. She held her head down towards the roof of the car, which was now beneath her, while she waited for the sickness to pass.

Alex reached over and held her close. “Don’t move,” he whispered. The shock of what had just happened was still hitting Emily. She was not quite sure why Alex had said that to her. It took her several seconds to realize that the Russian driver whose name she would never know had been shot before the car flipped over. Someone else was there. Someone was going to kill them.

The footsteps were getting closer outside. She could hear them echoing in the darkness. Tap…tap… tap… was that the sound of doom coming closer and closer? She wanted to get out and run, but she knew that was the very thing that would get her killed. Still, she might have gone ahead and done it if Alex had not been holding her so tightly. His strong arms were still wrapped tightly around her torso. She looked at him and he must have seen the fear in her eyes because he held a finger to his lips urging her to not make even a whisper.

It was possible that their attackers thought they were dead in the crash. Maybe they were banking on that. Maybe they had guns and were just about to riddle the car to smithereens with bullets. Was there more than one person? She had not seen anyone. She had not seen anything at all it had happened so fast. Even with the car flipping over a thousand times the whole thing probably had not taken five seconds to be over and done. She could not help looking at the poor man who was just inches from them. Even in the dark she thought she could see the damage done to his poor body. Tears threatened to dampen her cheeks, but she held them back. Any noise at all right then might have gotten them killed. She had to wait for Alex to make his move.

She saw a light. It was a small light moving around to and fro like a mutant firefly. The man had a flashlight. He was going to lean in and see if they were all dead. Emily held her breath and closed her eyes willing herself not to flinch a muscle. With the cold coming in she could actually feel the heat of the flashlight as it shone on her skin.

Would he see? Would he see that neither Alex nor she had any blood or any real damage done to their bodies? Would he see that they were both perfectly alright and they were just faking? Would they be sitting ducks just waiting to be picked off here? What was Alex’s plan? What was he thinking? Surely he was not going to let ---

The roar came from behind her and the sound was deafening. Even before she could place a hand up on her ears to instinctively block out the sound that pounded in her head she could feel the hot breath and the warm fur on her back. Alex had transformed. She no sooner heard the thought echoing in her head than she felt the whole car shake as Alex leapt out of the shattered window. Then she heard the gunshots and the screaming.

Emily wanted to crawl out of the car, but something told her to stay where she was. She was safer in there surrounded by a body of steel than she would have been outside in the wide open night air. Still a part of her wanted to see what was happening. She wanted to see Alex winning. And she wanted to see if her beloved was being hurt. So far all she heard were moans and groans as Alex fought with the gunmen—she heard at least three separate voices.

They were screaming and then going silent one by one. The gunshots popped less and less and died down with the sound of the voices. Was Alex killing them? She knew they were very bad people who deserved to die, but she could not ever see Alex killing someone unless it was absolutely necessary. If they died, then it was because they left Alex no choice but to save himself and her at any cost.

The last voice stopped suddenly and all she could hear were a few victorious sounding roars from the lion. Emily waited for several seconds, still unsure about whether or not she should come out from her hiding place. The fear was exploding her heart in her chest as it pumped harder and harder. She tried to get a handle on her shaking hands, but she had been too scared too many times recently and she was not sure how much more of this absolute terror she was going to be able to take.

“Emily? Come out, it’s ok.”

Alex’s voice was suddenly coming through the shattered window and a second later his sweet face popped into it followed by his hand reaching out to her. She felt the relief wash over her swiftly and her entire body felt like it was about to quit on her. Somehow she found the strength to reach out and take his hand. He slowly pulled her out of the car and she was finally able to survey the scene.

There were three men dressed in fancy suits with guns lying close by their motionless bodies. Emily looked at them carefully in the dark trying to determine their fates.

“Are they…are they…?” Emily stammered.

“No. They will be ok later; I am against killing. I thought you knew that,” Alex said with a smile.

“I thought so, but if there is no choice— “

“I don’t believe that; there is always a choice when it comes to killing. Come on, we have to move.”

She followed Alex to the SUV that the assassins were driving and hopped in the passenger seat. A second later they were driving down the icy road.

Emily felt that she had held her tongue long enough with the questions she had been dying to ask. This had been the second attempt on their lives in the past day and all of it was starting to wear her pretty damn thin.

“How did they find us? Do you think it had anything to do with your nameless friend back there?” Emily asked.

“It’s possible, but I highly doubt it,” Alex replied.

“Why? Who was he?”

“I don’t know his name. That was part of the plan. He was being held captive by the Russian mob when I first encountered him. The first time I tried to retrieve the Seplika, before I had ascertained its exact location. The mob tried to kill me and in the fighting the trunk of their car opened up and his body came bouncing out. He was unconscious, so I took him after the fight was over to a secure location. When he came to he offered to do something for me in exchange for saving his life.”

“So, you trusted him for no reason? Any idea why the mob was abducting him?”