Kindred Intentions (16 page)

Her indecision paralysed her.

“Officer Jennings …?” A voice was calling her
from afar, chanting her name.

Amelia felt her throat narrowing, as she leant
her back against the trunk. It wasn’t enough to hide her.

“Where are you?”

She turned to her left. It sounded like the
voice was coming from there. She had to escape, but in which direction?

“I know you’re here. I see you.” It was closer
now, but it seemed to be coming from the opposite side.

At that point any direction was good. Her nape
was pulsing; she was feeling her blood dripping on her neck. Even though she
wasn’t sure she could make it, she started running.

The man leapt out in front of her. He was
smiling. She tried to dodge him, but her coordination was poor, to say the
least. She lost her balance. She found herself lying on the ground.

She heard him laugh. “I don’t think you’re so
good, Officer Jennings.”

She pushed up with her palms to try to rise,
but she felt herself being crushed on her back. The man had placed a foot on it
and was pushing.

A stabbing pain made her shout.

The man stopped pressing. She heard him stoop
beside her.

She was almost blinded by the light. She knew
she was about to faint. She wanted it to happen. She didn’t want to be awake
when he shot her.

“You’ve really got yourself into big trouble,
haven’t you?” He was having fun. He didn’t seem interested in ending his game
any time soon.

A retching tore her away from her torpor and
woke her up. She raised her chest just in time to let the contents of her
stomach pour out on the ground. They were nothing more than some gastric
juices.

“Ah,” he commented, disgusted.

She rolled onto her side. Now that she had
vomited, she felt better, but that wouldn’t change her situation too much. She
gazed up at her tormenter. He was a man in his thirties, perhaps even younger.
When she’d heard his rough voice, she’d thought he was older. She wiped her
mouth. “What are you waiting for?”

“What’s the hurry?” He moved his eyes across
the whole area. “It’s a nice day. A man and a woman in the middle of the
country. It could be fun.” His mouth widened in a lascivious smile.

A ticking drew Amelia’s attention. The man was
holding a gun in his hand and making the barrel hit his boot, with a constant
rhythm. In different circumstances, the dread of being raped would’ve terrified
her, but in this case the alternative was to die at once. Perhaps his revolting
animal instincts would give her a chance to stop him from killing her.

His smile was replaced by a curious
expression. “What’s in there?” He pointed at the rucksack with his weapon.

Amelia swallowed slowly and took it off. She
made as if to give it to him. Then she threw it to his face with all the
strength of which she was capable. A dull sound, as the case inside it smashed
into his brow. The man moaned, falling to the ground. She jumped to her feet
and, even though the world was spinning around her, she resumed running.

“Where do you think you’re going, slut?”

A gunshot. This time it sounded like it had
reached the tree she’d just passed.

Then she felt she was being pushed and she
fell again. The man was on her. She shouted, although she knew nobody could
hear her.

“I have had enough of playing with you!” He
was standing over her now. He forced her to turn. “Where is he?”

Amelia opened her eyes wide.

“Over here,” Mike’s voice replied.

Another gunshot. The expression of her
aggressor became blank, then his lifeless body collapsed on her.

But Amelia didn’t care about him at all. She
pushed him away, stood up, and ran to Mike. She threw her arms around his neck
and hugged him tight. “You’re alive,” she murmured, allowing herself to weep.
“You’re alive, you’re alive.”

After a brief hesitation, he responded to her
hug. “It’s all right, I’m here.”

Amelia wept louder. Only now did she
understand that, without him, she would’ve been dead by now. He had saved her
again. But what made her happy was that he was alive. At last she could remove
her head from his shoulder and look him in the face. He was covered with dust,
and scratches, but looked good. “I heard the explosions. I thought …” Her voice
was choked by her weeping.

He smiled at her. “I jumped from the car
before it fell, but I was far from you.” He ran his hand over her face, teasing
away her stray hairs. “Then a motorbike arrived. I had to know whether the
other one was near, before coming out into the open.” He reached her nape with
his fingers.

The burning sensation made her start.

Mike’s gaze became concerned. “You’re
wounded.”

“Yes …” she babbled. “I’ve … hit my head
somewhere. I feel … dazed.”

He sighed. “Fuck, I’ve got to get you away
from here.” He looked bothered, not just worried.

Yes, she was a burden to him. Amelia knew that
he wanted to find the last one of their pursuers and eliminate him. She could
see the conflict in him between the intention to accomplish what had become a
mission to him and the desire to save her.

“Do what you have to do,” she said, looking
him in the eye. “I’ll stay hidden. I’d like to help you, but I don’t think I
can make it.” She sighed. “I have difficulty concentrating. I feel dizzy.”

Mike was still hesitating. It seemed he
couldn’t make a decision. “No, I’ll take you away,” he said, at last. She was
feeling flattered by that choice, but also guilty.

A hiss went past them and stopped against a
branch, which was torn by the impact.

Amelia felt herself being dragged along by
Mike and she started running beside him. She didn’t even know how she could.
But those were rifle shots. Like those shot at them before, when they were in
the off-road car. The last killer had them at gunpoint. They had to keep
moving.

She heard another shot hitting a tree. This
time it had been further.

“Keep running!”

Not that she could avoid that, given that he
was holding her wrist tightly. But she felt like her heart was about to burst.
If they didn’t stop soon, she would fall. Or pass out before falling.

Mike halted their escape and Amelia started
panting, bent over.

“Listen to me.”

She could barely hear him. It was already too
hard for her to keep breathing.

“Amelia, listen to me very well.” He forced
her to straighten up and look him in the face. “The main road is less than a
mile from here.”

She struggled to follow the meaning of his
words. A mile seemed a huge distance to her. It would’ve been better if he
hadn’t told her.

“You just have to walk in this direction.” He
pointed somewhere behind her. “And you’ll end up finding it. Do you
understand?”

Yes, no, she didn’t know. “Yes … the main road
… a mile away.”

“You must go.”

She didn’t understand what he meant. Why
weren’t they going instead of speaking about it?

“You’ll get there soon. It’s quite a busy road,
you’ll surely find someone even at this time.”

She felt her tears come up again. Did he want
her to go alone? “I … don’t know if I can do that.”

He nodded, squeezing her shoulders with his
hands. “You can do that, it’s close. Make someone take you to a hospital. You
could have a concussion.”

The fear of being abandoned burdened her
chest. “And you … what will you do?”

Mike cleared his voice, moved his head in a
gesture of denial. “I must take that man out. None of us will be safe, if I
don’t stop him.”

Amelia still did not understand.

“I can get by, disappear, but he’ll come for
you, thinking that you know where I am. I must get rid of him.”

“I’ll wait for you here,” she almost whined.
He couldn’t make her go alone.

“No, Amelia, you must go.”

The awareness of the meaning of those words
finally reached her out of the blue. “I won’t see you anymore.”

He nodded. “It’s better this way.”

“No!” He couldn’t leave her this way. She
didn’t want that to happen. In different circumstances she wouldn’t implore a
man, but now she felt lost at the sole thought she would never see him again.
“I want to come with you.”

He smiled at her. “You don’t want that for
real. When you’re better, you’ll agree with me.” He moved her away and let her
go. “Go,” he murmured.

“No!” she insisted.

“I said go!” Mike shouted, his expression
changing into the enraged one he had shown her at the lodge. “You can’t come
with me. I don’t
want
you to come with me!”

She knew he was doing that to provoke her. His
wasn’t a real refusal. The situation asked for it, but she felt hurt by the
tone of those words anyway.

“Amelia, go away!” He pushed her, making her
fall.

She expected him to apologise, to help her to
rise, but he was just standing there observing her.

Humiliated, Amelia stood up. She looked in the
direction he had pointed, then at him again, searching his eyes for a sign he’d
changed his mind.

“Go,” Mike repeated again, but in a lower
voice.

She ran her hand over her sweater and
trousers, as if to remove the soil from them. She was still buying time, hoping
it could help. But she got nothing in return. “Okay,” she murmured.

“Farewell, Amelia.”

She looked away. She hadn’t the strength to
say goodbye. She turned and started walking. She could feel his gaze checking
her. But she wouldn’t look back. He was right. Her presence would kill him. And
if he had accompanied her, he would’ve drawn the killer to them. By sending her
away, he was saving her life for the last time.

She had been walking for at least ten minutes,
when she thought she caught sight of something in front of her. It was down in
the valley. The terrain had resumed its downhill slant and the vision line had
improved. There was a viaduct down there. It had to be the main road. What time
was it? Perhaps
six o’clock
,
more or less. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, but cars and lorries travelled on
the road with a constant frequency. She followed its shape up to the point
where it reached the same level of the ground. It was a little more than a
mile, but wasn’t far. A bit further there was a petrol station. The ideal place
to ask for help. She would go there, she didn’t fancy trying to stop a car.

The sound of a distant gunshot echoed in the
air behind her.

Amelia came to a halt and shut her eyelids.
The strong wind had mitigated her nausea. Her head had stopped pulsing. With
caution she brushed two fingers against her nape, on her wound. It had stopped
bleeding. She’d hit it pretty hard, but her thoughts had become clearer in the
last few minutes and that had caused an unhoped-for well-being. The fact she
didn’t feel in danger anymore must not be unrelated to the improvement of her
condition. She wasn’t completely sure she was fine, but she didn’t care at all.
What would await her once she was back in the city? Medical care, the interest
of her colleagues, that of the press, maybe even a commendation. And then? Nothing,
as usual.

The gunshot was repeated. Then there was
another, different from the previous one. Different weapons. One more. At a
certain point she lost count.

She reopened her eyes and looked at the main
road, whilst the sounds of the confrontation from which she was moving away
became more intense. If she’d had a weapon, things would’ve been different. She
would go to help Mike, she would make the difference. They would be two versus
one. But he had sent her away, didn’t want to involve her.

She nodded to herself. Mike would get by. For
someone who had already been
dead
in the
Middle
East
, this situation was an almost banal one. He
didn’t need her help, didn’t need her. It was her who needed him. As much as he
tried to convince her it was the opposite, he didn’t have a complete picture of
her situation; he didn’t know anything about it. He didn’t know how empty and
desperate her existence was. And going back there now in these conditions,
knowing everyone would pity her, now seemed unacceptable to her.

She turned, as the gunshots were coming
closer. It would’ve been even more unacceptable to her to go away without
knowing what had happened, spending the rest of her life wondering what had
become of Mike, maybe hoping to find him in front of her one day.

What a miserable prospect.

The siren of an ambulance drew her attention
again to the road, but it lasted just a moment. She turned her back to it and
walked away.

She tried to retrace her previous path, but
soon she realised that the shots had a different origin. She deviated from her
route in an attempt to get closer.