Tag: suspense

The woman had to be crazy to trust him. Yet Freeze felt oddly pleased that she did.

Maybe her special brand of crazy was rubbing off on him.

“Umm …” Clover started somewhat hesitantly.

He had to give it to her, she was no doubt exhausted and definitely scared but she was keeping pace with him and hadn’t broken her promise.

“You got something to say, Lucky?”

“Well, yes, actually. At the risk of making you angry I uh … need the bathroom.” Silver gray eyes looked up at him with a thin cloak of fear as though she wasn’t quite sure if she was going to get into trouble for mentioning it. “Its just I was in surgery for hours, then got called down to the ER, then you and your … uh … friends … decided to hijack the rest of my day, and I’m … busting.”

Could she get any more adorable? “Busting, huh?”

Her frown was even cuter. “You’re going to mock me for needing to go to the bathroom like any other human being does on top of everything else?”

It was a mistake but he couldn’t stop himself. Reaching out he brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “Nah, Lucky, no mocking. You’re in luck, there are bathrooms just down the hall through the offices.”

Surprise filled her face. “You’re letting me go?”

“You going to run or do something stupid?”

Clover huffed. “I don’t do stupid …” she trailed off and looked around her. A bright grin managed to light up her tired face. “Okay, I do a lot of stupid things. But no. I think you’re my best bet at living. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

“Then go to the bathroom. Just be quick.”

“As a cat,” she called over her shoulder as she hurried off.

Freeze watched her go, appreciating her resilience and bravery every bit as much as the sway of her hips. No one had noticed he’d disappeared for a bit, and no one seemed to have realised that Clover was gone. Maybe he was really going to be able to get her out and no one would be the wiser.

At least that was what he thought until Clover opens the wrong door and alarms go off.

Scream!

Her brain continued to issue the command but for some reason her mouth wasn’t catching on.

Clover knew what Hunky Horror was going to do when he got her to wherever it was he was taking her. She’d felt it against her stomach when he pulled her up against his body.

Yet …

Call her crazy-and she had been called crazy more than once in her life-she didn’t get the vibe from him.

Yep, definitely crazy.

Scream!

Once again her mouth refused to obey the order and she just hung there over Hunky Horror’s shoulder as he ran with her through the large building.

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered.

“I’ll put you down if you’re going to run with me and not fight against me,” Hunky Horror told her.

Anything was better than bouncing on his shoulder with it digging painfully into her stomach. “Fine,” she huffed.

“Promise me,” he said stopped but not setting her down.

Darn. If she made a promise she’d have to stick to it. It was her own personal promise to herself. She would never break promises because she knew how it felt to be on the receiving end.

“Are you going to … you know … hurt me?” she asked. It was stupid to ask, as if he had to tell her the truth. Yet somehow she sensed that he would.

Hunky Horror set her on her feet, his ice blue eyes softer than she’d seen them, and he didn’t look away, meeting and holding her gaze. “No. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Bravado fading for a moment, her voice trembled when she spoke. “Do you p-promise?”

“Yeah, Lucky, I promise,” he told her without breaking eye contact.

It was stupid to believe him but she did.

Maybe fear was making her lose her mind.

Taking her hand in a firm but gentle hold, Hunky Horror urged her to follow him. “Come on, Lucky. Let’s get you out of here before someone without my sense of honour sees you.”

As she followed along behind him, Clover wondered why on earth this man would care enough about her to try to help her escape. Nothing about him made sense and she loved unpacking puzzles until they made sense.

She’d figure him out one way or the other.

Freeze couldn’t believe it had come to this.

Almost two years of hard work down the drain and all because of one too sassy, too brave, too beautiful doctor.

It was crazy, and his guys weren’t going to be pleased with him, throwing away everything they had been working towards was insane, but right now he didn’t see any other choice.

Letting Clover suffer unspeakable horrors and then lose her life wasn’t an option.

Slipping silently down the corridor he pulled out the key to the room where he’d locked her earlier. She probably thought it was to keep her under control as she awaited her punishment for failing to save Moreno’s son but in reality he’d locked her in there to keep her safe. No one else knew where he’d put her and he was the only one with the key.

Unlocking the door he stood for a moment.

Silence.

The room felt empty yet he knew there was no way out except through the door he’d just unlocked.

“Lucky?”

No answer.

“Its Hunky Horror,” he said, smirking as he called himself by the nickname he’d heard her muttering under her breath.

“Its rude to listen in on people’s private thoughts,” came the huffy reply.

“Then maybe you ought to keep those thoughts inside your pretty little head,” he shot back, his grin growing. Bantering with the doctor was a distraction he didn’t have time for and yet he couldn’t seem to help himself.

“I think I picked the right name for you,” she sassed.

Freeze threw back his head and laughed. She was something else this woman. Keeping her alive was worth risking everything. And if he was careful maybe he could get her out without anyone realising who he really was.

“We have to go,” he said, reaching out to her shadowy form and snagging her wrist.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

When she tried to pull away he tightened his hold. He didn’t want to hurt her but he would if that was what it took. Just because he was saving her life didn’t make him a good man.

“Not arguing with you about it, Lucky. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. You’re choice.”

“Why are you calling me Lucky?”

“Thats what you’re focusing on?”

The shadowy figure shrugged. “I know why I call you Hunky Horror, I want to know why you’re calling me Lucky.”

“Lucky clover,” he explained. It was stupid but he felt something lucky about this woman. Maybe saving her was the key to his own redemption.

This wasn’t the time to get into that.

And since the doctor was of course being stubborn, he tugged on her wrist, yanking her until she was flush up against him.

Clover’s breathing hitched, her eyes grew wide, and he knew there was no way she could miss the evidence of his attraction to her.

Without giving her a chance to panic, draw everyone’s attention, Freeze bent, plowed his shoulder into her stomach and lifted her. As he took off through the dark building, heading towards a little used exit, he hoped the risk he was taking was worth it.

“Do you really think crowding me like that is going to make my work better?” Clover snapped at the man she had dubbed Hunky Horror, since he was much too good looking to be part of a gang like this but would still snap her neck without a second thought.

Ignoring her snippy rhetorical question, he asked one of his own. “How’s it going?”

“Love the direction this is going,” she muttered. Was he an idiot? How did it look like it was going? Even in a hospital she would have struggled to save the kid’s life, but after so many hours had passed after the gunshot wound had been received, and with the amount of blood he’d lost this was without a doubt a lost cause.

Which meant so was she.

She took the threat Hunky Horror had issued seriously. If the kid died then she would pay the price. Even though it wasn’t her fault. She was good at her job but she wasn’t a miracle worker. There was a limit to what she could do and she’d reached it here.

“He’s going to die isn’t he?” Hunky Horror asked. If he was just going to stand here and bother her why had he appointed himself her assistant for the surgery?

“I’ve done everything I can.” It just wasn’t enough. The damage was too extensive and their decision not to bring him to the hospital right away had made it all so much worse. Actually she was surprised the kid had lasted as long as he had.

“It wasn’t enough.” Although it sounded like an accusation there was no heat behind it. In fact the man sounded more thoughtful than anything else.

“No. It wasn’t.” This time when the kid’s heart stopped beating she didn’t attempt to resuscitate him. There was no point. She didn’t have enough blood to transfuse, she didn’t have proper help, she didn’t have the equipment she needed, and she didn’t know how to perform miracles.

They both stood side by side watching as the kid passed away, an empty feeling settling in Clover’s stomach. She played a good game at pretending she wasn’t terrified out of her mind, but she was.

She didn’t want to be hurt.

She didn’t want to die.

But she didn’t see any way to change her fate.

“Lets go.” Hunky Horror grabbed one of her hands, seemingly unconcerned about the blood staining the gloves she wore, and dragged her out of the room, down a dinger corridor and into another room. He shoved her inside, but not roughly. “I have to go tell them Vincent didn’t survive. Don’t make a sound.”

His warning made no sense, but she had no chance to ask what he meant as he closed and locked the door behind him, leaving her alone in the pitch black with nothing to do but sit here and wait for fate to come for her.

“Wow, so intense,” Clover muttered, presumably to herself, as he closed the door behind her, locking her in.

Despite the seriousness of the situation the woman was full of sass. To look at her, listen to her, you might think she wasn’t affected by the danger she was in, but Freeze knew differently. She was afraid, she didn’t want to die, and she didn’t want to be hurt, but she was putting up a brave front to hold onto her sanity. He admired and respected her ability to keep it together.

He was going to need it to if he was going to get her out of here alive.

Freeze knew he wasn’t a good man, had never pretended to be one, but he wasn’t going to stand by and let the doctor be assaulted and murdered. Even he had his principles.

“Doctor ready?” one of the guys asked as he headed down to where Moreno’s son was waiting.

“Told her to get prepared,” he replied. In some ways these men were his brothers since they were all part of the Moreno brotherhood, in another they were nothing to him but pawns in a bigger game. He wasn’t here for the same reasons they were and that sometimes made if difficult for him to keep up his act.

It was getting harder and harder to separate this side of himself from the man he was when he left this place each morning.

“She’s hot, yeah? The doctor?” the guy asked, trailing along behind him.

“Yeah, hot,” Freeze muttered, surprised by the strong surge of protective energy he felt towards the doctor who had no idea what she’d gotten herself into.

“Think Moreno will let us all take a go at her before he kills her?”

That protective energy surged more, until Freeze had to curl his hands into fists so they didn’t curl around the man’s neck instead. Forcing nonchalance, he shrugged. “Maybe. Probably depends on whether she saves his son or not.”

Either way Dr. Ellis wasn’t walking out of here alive, but what she suffered first likely depended on the outcome of the surgery. Having seen first hand the shape Moreno’s son was in he doubted the young man, barely more than a boy, was saveable.

Still he hoped.

Because if the boy didn’t survive then he was going to have to make a choice, save the doctor’s life or stand by and let whatever happened to her happen so he didn’t jeopardise the entire reason he had joined the gang in the first place.