Wrong (A Bad Boy Romance)(70)

I shift my weight, trying to get some leverage against my bonds, and suddenly a glint catches my eye. It’s a piece of the broken glass, only a few inches away from me. I can tell it’s from a bowl; one side is a sharp edge, while the other is the rim of the bowl itself. It would make a completely safe handle so I could use the glass as a knife.

Perfect. With a surge of hope—finally—I rotate so my back is to the piece of glass then, carefully peering over my shoulder to orient myself, I move toward it until I can grasp the dull edge between my fingers. Then I carefully shift it around, using the sharp side to saw through the tape holding my wrists.

Behind me, I still hear Nick and Sal going at it. There are thumps and gasps, cursing and spitting. A fist lands hard on flesh. Glancing quickly over my shoulder, I see Sal jerk backward at the impact, his head hitting a refrigerator behind him. Nick hits him again, again, and Sal is losing ground and possibly losing consciousness.

The smoke is starting to make my eyes burn. I saw frantically at the tape, feel it finally give way, but not quite enough to free my hands. Nick is shouting now, calling my name. I can’t make out any of the other words. My eyes are streaming. Panic clutches my throat; I can barely breathe. I jerk at my hands and they finally come apart. As I drop the piece of glass, I feel sticky blood on my palms, but I never felt the glass cut me.

Reaching forward, I start to use the piece of glass to cut at the tape holding my ankles. As hard as I try to focus, I can’t help looking up to see what’s going on between Nick and Sal.

Nick hits Sal twice in the face, sending him staggering back, but Sal rallies and counters with a few punches of his own. Both men’s faces are swollen and bloody. I want to shout to Nick that I’m okay, that he should just run and I’ll follow him, but I don’t want to distract him. If I do, Sal will be on him, tearing him to pieces. So I just work on getting myself unbound the rest of the way.

There’s a sudden, intense boom, a vibration that shakes the floor under me and makes my body jerk, then complete silence. It takes me a second to realize the silence isn’t because the noise around me has stopped, but because my ears have stopped working. Something has exploded in the back part of the building. The heat on my face is suddenly hotter—frighteningly so.

The duct tape finally yields under the sharp edge of the glass, and I’m able to draw my ankles apart. Unfortunately both feet are tingling, the blood supply returning in a pins-and-needles rush. A movement catches the top of my vision, and I look up to see Nick shouting directly at me, his face twisted and ugly but with fear and bruises, not anger.

“Get out! Get out now!” I can barely hear the words past the pressing blankness my hearing has become, but I can read them on his lips. He grabs my arm and drags me to my feet. I stumble for a step or two before I manage to maintain my balance.

“Nick…” I start, but then stop because the one thing I can hear is my own voice, and it’s startlingly loud.

“Just go!” he says again.

I look up at him, intending to argue, but behind him I see Sal lurching up from the floor. He’s got his gun in his hand again. I have less than a split second to wonder how he got it back before sheer instinct takes over and I shove Nick to the side.

The gun goes off. I can barely hear the report; all I know is that Nick’s out of the way.

“Sarah!” he screams, and grabs at me.

“I’m okay!” I scream back, and hope it’s true. “Sal! Look out for Sal!”

“Run!” he shouts back. I do, moving as fast as I can past him and toward the door. But I have to turn around and look back, afraid of what Sal might do to him.

They’re grappling again, arms linked like I’ve seen MMA fighters do at the ring when Sal would take me there. They’re struggling, and I start to take a step toward them. I want to help Nick. How I could, I have no idea, but that’s where instinct takes me.

Just then, though, there’s another explosion from the back part of the building. Smoke fills the room and I can’t see for a few long seconds.

“Nick!” I scream, terrified now. The smoke thins, just a bit, and I can see the two big bodies still tangled together, but this time one has the other by the throat. It’s Nick, hands hard on Sal. He spins, slams Sal into the wall. Once, twice, again, then several times in succession. The vague shadow that’s Sal slumps to the floor, and Nick runs toward me.

We’re both just outside the door, running toward the opposite sidewalk, when the last explosion knocks us both off our feet.

#

It seems like hours later that I drag myself up from the ground, my ears still ringing, my hands still vaguely numb. There are bloody handprints on the sidewalk where I caught myself. Nick’s next to me, struggling to his knees, a cut on his cheekbone, the flesh beginning to swell to the point it nearly obscures his eye.