____________________
KAT
I hear the unmistakable sound of a fist hitting skin and the resulting grunts and curses. I just dangle there, feeling utterly useless. Literal dead weight.
My head gives a painful thrum and I wish and pray with everything in me that Zayn can take this motherfucker and somehow get us out of here. He must survive. We must survive.Please get us out of this mess.I think that Zayn may actually be the love of my life, and our story can’t end here with me hanging suspended in a well. It’s too fucking tragic.
I hear more sounds of struggle and try to peer up again. It is so dark now that I can’t see anything. I hear more skin hitting skin and a distinct, grunted curse. Then, a man’s voice yells out—an oddly high-pitched and piercing sound in the otherwise quietnight. With a sickening crunch, the night suddenly falls still of their battle sounds. I gasp and look up.
A body falls from the mouth of the well and plummets downward through the darkness towards me. I cling to the rope, turning my body away. It barrels past me, hitting the wet ground beneath me with a dull thump. Looking down through the cracks of my glasses, I see the body splayed out in a broken and unnatural position. Pricks of dread ripple up my spine.
The rain clouds shift overhead, allowing a chink of moonlight to pour into the well. And it’s then that I can see his face, and his black, vacant eyes, open, unseeing.
A red and silver axe is buried in the center of his forehead. Dark, wet, crimson spurts of blood splatter out from either side of the silver bit.
Gary Eastman Jones lays dead at the bottom of the well.
And before I can truly process this fact, I feel a sudden lurch from the rope around my midsection. I am being tugged and lifted upwards once again. I try to use my good foot to help stabilize and support my ascent, knowing that the sheer effort of lifting me some thirty odd feet up and out of this well must be taking herculean strength on Zayn’s part. I look up and can see that I am close, so close to the top now, the night sky pitch-black, with a thick cover of clouds once again marring any stars from view.
I hear Zayn’s deep voice grunt out with a superhuman effort as I finally crest and come up over the top of the narrow ring of stones at the well’s mouth. As my body hits the solid ground, I use both of my arms to drag myself away from the edge of the well.
I am immediately seized into a bone-crushing hold by Zayn. His skin is slick with sweat or blood, or rain. I’m not sure. Greedily, I breathe him in; he smells like rain and redwood trees,and himself. I cling onto him with everything I’ve got as a dry sob escapes from my lips.
“Jesus fuck, baby, I thought I’d lost you,” he grinds out, his voice breaking on the last syllable.
I kiss desperately at his neck where my face is buried under his jaw again and again, tasting his exhaustion and his relief. His arms are like two vices around me as he squeezes me even closer to his body. Zayn kisses my forehead and the crown of my head and then pulls back to peer into my eyes.
“Fucker snuck up on me with an axe,” Zayn breathes out. And I smile and then chuff out a laugh.
It feels surreal to be able tolaughat a time like this, but I do. Zayn laughs alongside me, and relief and elation seem to wash over us both.
Zayn is here. He had come for me.
Zayn beams down at me, and I feel a strong hand lift my chin gently upwards.
“Fucking hell, Doc. I am so sorry. I’m so sorry that I walked away from you. Are you okay?” And his smile fades into a hard line as he takes stock of my face and head, inventorying my injuries.
“It’s okay, I’m okay,” I reassure him. “Though, I might have a concussion and I think my ankle and finger are broken.” Without another word, Zayn gently squeezes my thigh and then stands, gingerly scooping me up into his arms into a bridal carry.
He marches us towards the woods, a nearby tree line that I didn’t know was there. The temperature outside is frigid now, and our breaths come out in misty puffs that dissipate on the breeze. I burrow my head into his chest and breathe him in as he carries me. I notice he wears a shoulder holster with a sleek black gun tucked into it.
A few moments pass, and I ask hoarsely, “How did you find me?”
“The charm I gave you,” Zayn answers simply, not missing a beat.
I lift my wrist up in a daze to inspect my bracelet. I see the little charm hanging there; a golden square with a tiny ruby encrusted in the center.
“There’s a small but powerful military grade tracker embedded behind the center stone,” he explains.
My eyes shift downward. The minute ruby in the center of the square charm glints up innocently at me.Jesus,I think. That is why he had been so insistent that I put the damn thing on my bracelet. He knew that I never took it off. And I can’t even be mad about the invasion of privacy—not when it just saved my life. Not when I know his intentions are rooted in love.
“I am so sorry it took me so long to find you, baby. When you left so late to head into town, I knew something was off. And when you didn't come home…” he trails off. Then he adds quietly, “I was ready to set the world on fucking fire.”
“It's ok, I’m ok,” I say again. He kisses my forehead as he carries me, and we break through a small clearing in the woods.
“Your tracker led me to the edge of this property, but once I was close, I lost your signal. That must have been when he threw you into the well.”
I wince as my ankle gives a painful throb. But it doesn’t matter. Broken bones… none of it matters anymore. I had survived and more importantly—I had realized that I wanted to survive. What matters now is that Zayn had come for me, and I need to tell him how I feel.
