Taken by Two(30)

I looked to my feet, struggling to untie the ropes that bound me. I strained to hear Derek coming back, but there was nothing. I was able to get one foot undone, but as I started the second one, the door flung open. Shit! I was so close!

“I’ve got you, Princess,” his deep voice cooed as he burst into the room and worked to untie my other foot. “We’ve got to go,” Rex urged. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he lifted my numb limbs from the bed.

As I rubbed my wrists, I looked over and saw her standing in the doorway. She was lit from the dim hall light behind her. Shiny, jet-black hair hung across her cheek in an oblique bobbed cut. Her pale gray eyes shone against her ivory skin. At her side she held a handgun, gripped tightly in her fist. The gun quivered slightly back and forth as her hand shook.

“Roger, your time has come. Go join our son…” She raised the shiny black pistol with two hands in front of her. Her hands were wobbly as she leveled the gun at Rex. He didn’t go for his own weapon holstered in the waistband of his jeans. I didn’t think she was bluffing, so I reached for it—but his large hand stopped me.

Rex’s calm voice spoke as he pulled me behind him.

“Evelyn, put that down…you don’t even know how to use that thing,” Rex smirked. Evelyn’s eyes stayed coldly locked on Rex’s as she grasped the slide of the pistol and charged it, the metallic clink echoing off the polished wood floor.

“Evie, you won’t shoot me; you can’t. We both know it.” Rex was cool as ice even when staring down the barrel of a handgun. “Look at you, hand shaking like a leaf just holding that thing. Do you even know how to use it?” Evelyn just stared at Rex coldly and nodded her head.

“You know me well enough to know that this isn’t the first time I’ve had a gun pointed at me, and the last guys who did it actually knew what they were doing with one. Put that away. I’m taking Penelope here home, that’s all.” He reached for my hand, pulling me behind him as he took a step toward the door.

I heard the horrid BANG and felt the hot muzzle flash before I fully realized what happened. One step in front of me, Rex suddenly stumbled, then fell to the ground. My ears were ringing from the intensity of the sound of the gunshot, but I heard the tink-tink-tink of the expended brass shell casing bouncing off the ground. I fell to my knees beside Rex on the wooden floor. He lay on his side, a red circle on his shoulder just beginning to ooze red where the bullet hit him.

Evelyn stood motionless, handgun still held out in front of her and a thin cloud of smoke from the gunshot rising in the air next to her. “You fucking shot him!” I screamed at the soulless bitch who just threatened to take away the man I loved. Without thinking, I yanked Rex’s gun from his jeans. Before I could fire, she shot again, directly into Rex’s abdomen.

As she turned her pistol to me, I trained Rex’s Glock 19 handgun on the woman. Time seemed to slow down as I aimed at Evelyn, keeping my eyes open and picking out the white dot of the front sight, the dark outline of her body just behind it. I squeezed the trigger and the long pull of it with my finger seemed to take forever. Just as Rex had taught me, the shot caught me by surprise, the gun jumping back in my hands and the sound of the shot painfully stabbing my eardrums.

Her body crumpled over and she fell hard onto the wooden floor, her eyes never closing, in the red pool of blood slowly creeping from her body. The pistol clattered across the floor and her body spasmed in a horrific final fury. I sat there stunned for a moment, my ears ringing and the sharp ammonia-like smell of the gun smoke stinging my nose. I laid down the Glock and moved to Rex—his face was white; sweat covered his forehead. He didn’t speak, instead he grunted and gasped shallowly for air. The shoulder wound had blood slowly oozing from it, but Rex was holding his gut, where the more serious wound was, his shirt beginning to turn red in a bloody halo around his hands. I dug into the backpack he’d dropped on the floor and pulled out his combat first-aid kit. In seconds, I’d pulled his shirt loose and stuffed the hole in his gut with the clotting pad—the blood slowed but continued to flow from his mid-section. With my right hand, I pressed on the wound, so hard he groaned and moved to dislodge my hand, as my left pulled out the pressure bandage. I opened it with my teeth—not sanitary, but I didn’t have any more hands. Rex’s eyes were closed, his eyelids fluttering and various muscles in his body twitching erratically, randomly. “Penny,” he whispered, his face to the ceiling. I struggled to apply as much pressure as I could as I dressed the wound. “I love you, Penny, always,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Tell Nate—I love him, too—like he wanted me to…I do, I swear.”

“Tell him yourself,” I snapped, continuing to frantically try to stop the blood running from the gunshot, my eyes drifting in terror to his shoulder, where a large bloodstain had formed on his shirt around the ragged hole through the fabric.

How am I going to get him out of here? I looked around. I guessed I couldn’t just call 911 like at home…

The heavy door burst open, a dark bearded man held a rifle in front of him with a flashlight attached to the front—it had a curved magazine like the AK-47 Rex had taught me to shoot. He was dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, and had sleeved tattoos on muscular arms like Rex. He paused as he swept his rifle-mounted light across us in the dimly-lit room. Fuck, one of Pablo’s goons! I knew my handgun was no match for his rifle. The thug surveyed Rex and I on the floor, and Evelyn’s dead body close by. The man squatted at Evelyn, removing his glove to feel for a pulse at her neck while keeping his rifle trained on me. Rex’s head turned toward the door at the sound, his eyes opening wide and following the man as he stood by Evelyn’s limp body. Rex recognized the shadowy man.

“Dan, is she gone?” Rex asked the man, his voice barely above a whisper. The man nodded as he rushed over to Rex. “She’s gone,” he confirmed, his eyes settling on Rex’s wounds. “Fuck, Colonel…Okay, stay calm. Her?” He pointed to me. “With me,” Rex coughed out. “Nate is in the basement,” Rex choked out, “save him first.” Dan nodded, answering, “They already have him, he’s safe—broken arm, maybe, not much else. They’re on their way with the truck—you’re going to be okay, buddy.” Dan inspected the shoulder with his flashlight then moved down to look at my work on the abdomen wound.

Rex grew whiter, weaker. I never let up on the pressure on his wound, but my heart was racing. He gasped for air, only able to take small, panting breaths and coughing up sinewy spatters of blood when he exhaled. “Bro,” he whispered to Dan, “I think…I’m…done, man.” Rex raised his hand and grasped the man’s forearm. “Gimme…Last Rites.”

I shook my head. “You aren’t fucking dying on me!”

“Such language,” Rex coughed, scolding me, his voice so low I could barely hear him.

“You don’t need that, it doesn’t look that bad to me, dude.”

Rex stared at Dan, wheezing. “I can’t move my legs,” he paused to cough, “I think it’s my spine.” Rex’s eyes rolled up and back and he closed them, his whole body relaxing.

“I don’t think so, man, don’t you fucking give up on me,” the man gently slapped Rex’s cheek and he opened his eyes again.

“Do it, Dan. This is it. I’m serious.” I continued to hold pressure on the wound, realizing my own hands were soaked in Rex’s blood. I couldn’t believe what was happening, what I was hearing.

Dan leaned over and pulled a silk scarf from a pocket.

Rex smiled, coughed again, and took as deep a breath as he could. “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned,” Rex began, his voice fading, as the unlikely priest knelt beside him.

“He’s not going to die!” I screamed, praying to wake up from this nightmare.





He faded toward the end of the Last Rites sacrament being preformed by Dan, or Father Dan I guess would be more appropriate of a title. I wasn’t able to rouse him, despite my blubbering and begging. Father Dan calmly continued his duties, fulfilling Rex’s last request of him. I, however, wasn’t interested in the saving of his soul for the afterlife. I wanted him to wake up—I wasn’t about to let him leave me.

“Please, I love you so much, wake up,” I begged, never letting my hand leave the bloody wound in his gut. He was breathing—and I clung to that. “They’re here, hang on to him honey, okay?” Dan said as he walked to the window, pulling the sash from around his neck and tucking it back into his pocket. I nodded, praying for help and soon. Gunshots rang out, and Dan ran to the door with his rifle aimed down the hallway. The house was silent as heavy boots marched up the stairs—I didn’t know if the good guys or the bad guys were upon us. “Yeah, yeah, hurry, he’s in here—he’s been hit…bad,” Dan said to a man coming through the door. Three more men filed in behind him, all in body armor and carrying rifles just like Dan’s.

“Okay, get Colonel Renton to the hospital—yeah, the big one in Bogotá, Chaplain Bowen and the chick there can stay with him,” the first guy said to others. “We’ll handle the rest,” he said, nodding to Dan. “You got Nate out?” I asked looking to the armored man. “Yes, they already got him out—I think they took him to the same hospital we’re taking Colonel Renton to.” I sighed a small breath of relief. “Don’t let go of that wound until a doctor gets to him okay? I’ll stay with you two,” Dan said. Three of the men came over to lift Rex’s body, and despite their assurances that they could care for his wound, I refused to let go and ended up walking next to Rex all the way down to a large armored van parked in front of the sprawling mansion.