Chapter 59: Saved by the Bell… or by the Boss’s Friends - part 1

Celeste’s POV

I closed my eyes.

Not because I was brave.

Not because I was ready.

Not because, in some deep, heroic corner of my soul, I had accepted dying to protect Adam and Abby like a main character worthy of dramatic background music.

I closed them because I was too scared to keep looking at the gun.

The barrel was still pressed against my chest, cold even through the thin fabric of my nightgown, and my body was trembling so hard I could feel my knees almost giving out. I thought of Abby. I thought of Adam. I thought of Brenda locked upstairs with them, holding a lamp as if it were a sword, and I thought that if I died there, at least maybe they would have a few more minutes.

My God.

What a horrible thought.

What an unfair thought.

I didn’t want to die.

I wanted my mother. I wanted my room. I wanted Brenda calling me dramatic. I wanted Abraham to appear with that terrifying balaclava and a gun in his hand, destroying everyone like a nightmare dressed in black.

But Abraham wasn’t there.

And the man in front of me smiled.

“Last chance, nanny.”

The tear slid down my face before I could stop it.

I pressed my lips together.

I wouldn’t say it.

I wouldn’t.

The sound of the gunshot exploded through the air.

I screamed.

Only the pain didn’t come.

For a second, I stood there, waiting for my body to understand where it had been hit. Chest? Stomach? Head? I didn’t know. I felt nothing except my heart beating like crazy and my blood rushing so fast it felt like fire.

Then the man in front of me staggered.

The smile disappeared.

The gun fell from his hand.

And a male voice shouted so loudly it cut through the alarm and my entire soul.

“GET DOWN!”

I didn’t think.

I threw myself to the floor.

Hard.

I hit my knee, hit my elbow, almost bit my tongue, but I wrapped both arms around my head and curled up on the cold kitchen floor as if that could turn me into part of the tile.

And then hell began.

Gunshots.

Screams.

Glass breaking again.

Running footsteps.

Men shouting.

Someone fell near me with a heavy sound I never wanted to hear again in my life.

I didn’t know where the shots were coming from. I didn’t know who was shooting at whom. I didn’t know if I was alive because of luck, a miracle, or some bureaucratic mistake made by the universe. I just stayed there, curled up, shaking, trying not to lift my head, trying not to scream, trying not to think about the blood on the floor near my hand.

Holy shit.

There was blood on the floor.

I was going to throw up.

Before I could decide whether I was going to vomit lying down or die of embarrassment first, someone grabbed me around the waist.

I screamed again.

“Let go of me! Let go of me, you son of a bitch!”

“Calm down!” a male voice said near my ear. “I’m with Abraham!”

“Does everyone here say that now, damn it?!”

The man didn’t answer.

He simply lifted me off the floor as if I weighed nothing.

Nothing.

I, Celeste Castell, midsize woman, thick thighs, big ass, broken self-esteem, and recovering dignity, was thrown over a stranger’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes on sale.

“Put me down!” I shouted, hitting his back.

“Not right now.”

“I’m in a nightgown!”

“I noticed.”

“Don’t notice!”

He ran with me along the side of the kitchen, ducking when another shot went off somewhere behind us. I closed my eyes and grabbed the black fabric of his clothes, because apparently my survival instinct was to complain, hit, and then cling tightly to the good kidnapper.

Or at least I hoped he was one of the good ones.

Everything happened too fast. A hallway. A door. More footsteps. Firm voices giving orders. The smell of gunpowder mixed with something metallic and horrible I didn’t want to name.

When he finally set me down, my legs almost didn’t hold me up.

The man grabbed my arms before I could fall.

He was all in black. Vest, gloves, rifle hanging from him, face partially covered, alert eyes. Tall. Big. Looking like he knew exactly what he was doing.

Unlike me, who probably looked like a newborn goat trying to stand after a shootout.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

Looked down at myself. Crooked nightgown, burning knee, aching arm, mouth tasting like blood from the slap earlier. But no bullet holes.

Thank God.

“I… I don’t know.”

“Were you hit?”

“I don’t think so.”