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“Oh my god!” a woman says with shock. “Are you okay? What-what's happened?”
I blink up to see who she is but my vision is so blurry.
“Where am I?” I say, wobbly pattering onward. Unable to bear the weight of my own body, I fall into her like deadweight. She catches me around the waist and I scream out in agony, her fingers digging into the shot wound.
“Ohhh, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!” she cries, helping me sit down on the curb side. “Here. Just sit here.”
I grab my face, noticing the heat in my cheeks. My skin is really hot.
“What's happened?” that woman asks. “You're bleeding and you... you don't look-”
“A phone,” I pant, wiping my hair back. “Do you have a phone?”
“Yes!”
Fumbling through her pockets, she pulls out a mobile and passes it to me. I grab it in both hands and try to dial Charlie's number—he's the only person I can think of who'll come get me. I'm not sure James is okay or even alive.
My fingers won't still against the digits. My hands are trembling like mad. With the screen glowing, offering me some light, I pause, studying the color of my skin. My hands are really red and blotchy with thin red streaks. Has Maksim poisoned me?
“Miss,” that woman says, touching my knee, “we should call an ambulance.”
“No!” I yell at her, then I slowly and shakily dial Charlie's mobile.
The ringer hums on and on and then it dies off.
“No,” I whimper, redialing him, panic setting in. “Come on, Charlie,” I beg.
It dies off again, and now I feel sick with panic—literally. I swallow back a heave.I won't be sick. I won't be sick.
“Look, I don't know what's happened, but I really think we should get you to a hospital. I can take you.” That woman leans in to scan my face. “You look very poorly.”
“No, please, just wait,” I plead to her.
I try Charlie's phone one last time and he picks up, asking warily, “Who is this?”
“Charlie, it's Blaire.” I hug the phone to my ear with both hands.
He gasps my name with what sounds like relief. “I've been looking for you for over a week.” He turns his attention to another, saying, “It's Blaire.”
“Charlie, listen to me,” I gulp down a lung full of air, hunching over to put my head between my knees, “I don't know what Maksim's done to me, but I'm sick.”
Silence... It's the longest few seconds of my life, then Charlie goes into toil-mode. “Track this number,” he says to someone. “Get the chopper up. Get the men in their cars—get every fucking person we have on our side in cars with guns! Blaire, baby, do you know where you are?”
I peer up at that woman with watery eyes. “Where are we?”
“Kent,” she says. “Sevenoaks.”
“Did you hear?” I say to Charlie.
“Who's that?” he asks, his tone taking a chilling edge.
“Some woman who just pulled over to help me.”
“Take her car and go to a police station,” he says in a bizarrely calm voice, then he yells at someone else, “Get a fucking move on!”
I flinch against his voice. It rings in my ears.
“Blaire, you hear me, baby?” Charlie says. “Take that woman's car, get to a police station, and call me from there. I'm coming.”
