In spite of his bullet-proof vest, Ethan never made it to the passage.
What happened in mere seconds took an eternity for him.
In slow-motion, he saw as his body was lifted from the ground by the impact of the bullets on his vest and his arms clutched Sophia, trying to protect her from the brunt of the fall of the approaching ground. Just before they fell together to the ground, another bullet caught him in the neck.
In an involuntary movement, he lifted his arms to protect his head.
NO! It was a shock to be bereft of Ethan’s protection as Sophia fell free from his arms. She hit the ground with enough force to slide a few feet away. The sound of bullets cracking loudly barely registered in her shocked mind as Ethan dropped to the ground and didn’t move anymore, blood pooling around him. Terror gripped her for an instant as a big body blocked her view of him.
Crawling, Tavish pulled a shocked Sophia back into the passage, away from the shots.
When he propped her against the wall, she crumpled. Seeing Ethan being shot had been the final drop.
Tavish assessed her quickly, asking questions she hadn’t enough strength or clarity to answer.
When he returned for Ethan, more of Uó’s men appeared. Isabel and five officers were shooting from different corners. Another wounded officer was painfully moving to the passage on his back, still shooting.
Tavish would never know what made him fling himself once more into the melee of flaming bullets to save Ethan. Maybe it was bizarre empathy, because he’d lived through something similar; maybe it was a way of reliving those moments when he had been caught, because he had not reacted as quickly as he should have then.
“Come on, man. I need your help!” Tavish shouted, pulling him back and leaning his back against the wall. He could hear the pain in Ethan’s labored breathing and searched him for wounds.
“Go. And close the door.” Feebly, Ethan pushed Tavish back. He couldn’t believe he had been shot. “I’ll cover…you.”
“Shut up!” Tavish cursed when he noticed blood quickly pumping out of Ethan’s leg and tied a tourniquet above it to stop the flow. Hastily, with gauze embedded with coagulant agents, he made a hemostatic dressing and put it over Ethan’s neck, reducing the hemorrhage.
“Tavish MacCraig, go!” Ethan forced Tavish back.
“STAY STILL!” Tavish ordered. Grabbing Ethan’s right hand in his and looking into his eyes, he placed his L85A1 rifle on it. “Here. They won’t get through Isabel and her team, but it doesn’t hurt. I’ll bring help.”
“Ethan.” Sophia shook herself out of her numb state when she saw he was still alive and dragged herself to sit beside him. Thank you, thank you. What can I do to help? What can I say to keep up hope? “Ethan, I’ll be waiting for you. We have much to do together.”
Ethan looked at the face of the woman who had so much faith in him and who showed him that he could choose wisely and make peace with his past. “Sophia, you told me I could make a difference.” His eyelids fluttered briefly before closing. Goodbye, my darling.
“DON’T! Don’t you dare, Ethan Ashford.” Her eyes filled with tears. Say something meaningful, Sophia. “You’re too important to me. Too important.”
When she put her hog-tied hands over his, Ethan’s eyes opened as he rallied the last of his strength and grabbing Tavish’s coat, he hissed, “She’s burning with fever. Get her out of here. Make it worth it.” Make my life worth it. “She is pregnant! You’re saving two lives. Go! Dammit, GO!”
“I’ll come back, Ashford. I’ll come back.” Tavish knew he couldn’t carry both of them and he had to choose. He picked up Sophia in his arms and sprinted, ignoring his protesting limp leg.
But Tavish’s heart was heavy as an inconsolable Sophia started to sob in his arms.
11:15 p.m.
The blasts echoed from beyond the passage until they were just far away pops.
The darkness grew and encompassed Ethan.
He tried to be aware of what was going on, but his senses were confused until finally there was a comfortable silence and a strange numbness.
He wanted to laugh at how ludicrous the situation was.
I am dying a hero inside my own castle in a trap that I initiated. His grandfather’s image appeared in front of his closed eyes. He wondered if Niarchos would be proud of him for keeping up appearances until his death. “It’s very hard to live up to an image, Grandpa.”
“Why, Ethan?” Niarchos looked down at him and demanded again fiercely, “Tell me why!”
Niarchos wanted him to stay alive and continue with his predesignated fate. Ethan knew it.
I was never good enough, was I?
The echoes of all his bad memories came forth; all the chaos and emotions he had locked up in his dark rooms sprung to the fore and made him angry. He was ready to face all his ghosts.
Suddenly a fire blazed in Ethan’s chest, burning like it would eat him alive. But he was not afraid, he had always loved to play with fire.
Laughter started in his throat, a laugh that rose into a loud wordless shout. When he opened his mouth, the fire came blazing out, bursting to lighten everything, consuming the blackness and the dark rooms, setting them all alight, burning down Niarchos, Calista, George, Eve, and every wrong deed done to him as Ethan laughed and shouted; in happiness, pain, and grief; for the little boy who still lived inside him and for the grown man who was dying too soon.
Just before Ethan passed out, a smile opened on his face.
Niarchos’s image had taken Sophia’s form.
There were tears in her eyes and she also asked, “Why, Ethan?”
For her, he would answer.
“Because, in an ironic stroke of time and destiny, I needed to right my wrongs; to make a difference; to become fully responsible for my own acts and myself. I’m really sorry for everything, but I loved to play with fire. Is there such a thing as a fire that doesn’t burn?” He tilted his head waiting for her answer.
She shook her head, with the falling tears wetting her cheeks.
A pure, soft light illuminated his beloved grandmother Elizabeth, standing just behind Sophia’s image. She answered in his mind, “Yes, my dear. The fire of love burns, but it doesn’t hurt. Come now.”
Ethan whispered to Sophia as he gave his hand to Elizabeth, “Don’t be sad, my darling Sophia, my best friend. I’m finally free.”
Chapter 6
11:30 p.m.
On the beach beside the ambulance and the paramedics, a distraught, pacing Alistair waited for the rescue team.
More than two and a half days. He looked at his watch. Almost sixty-three hours.
Alistair stopped his pacing stunned. Precisely, seven-thousand, three-hundred, and twenty minutes since she left my arms.
He hadn’t realized he had been so obsessed with time. He had been sick from waiting, from the panic that something could happen to her.
And he was still counting.
11:45 p.m.
“They need medical help inside. Do you copy?” Tavish said into the microphone, but no one replied. “What’s the name of your daughter, Sophia?”
He had been alternating between asking her questions and trying to get information to the policemen outside.
“Sophia! What’s the name of your daughter?” He tightened his arms around her and speeded up when she didn’t answer. “Men down. Men down. We need medical assistance and back-up in the underground tunnels. Copy?”
“Roger that,” a disembodied voice finally answered. “Special forces have taken over the castle and are making their way down to the dungeon. You’ve got her?”
“Aye. Lacerations, dehydration, fever, shock. Coming out in ten, max. Get the ambulance and the chopper ready.”
11:50 p.m.
When his brother rushed from the underground passage, carrying an inert, bound, and bloody Sophia in his arms, Alistair’s breath caught in his throat and his heart stopped. It is happening all over again. “She’s…” Shot? Dead?
Sophia’s skin was grayish and her breathing slow and shallow. When the ambulance made a sharp turn, her head moved and she caught Alistair’s stare.
Her pupils were so dilated that her eyes seemed like black pits.
For a moment, Sophia seemed confused as Alistair’s gaze caressed her bruised face and her cut, bloody, bald head. She mouthed his name and, with a soft sigh, closed her eyes.
NAE! The dull, anguished thump inside his chest quickened into a frantic, aching drumming when Tavish put the oxygen mask over her face. Alistair couldn’t wait anymore. He gripped Tavish’s shoulder and snapped, “Tell me she is okay.” That they are okay.
Tavish looked back, startled, as if noticing for the first time that his brother was inside the ambulance. He thought quickly of what he should say since he himself didn’t have a precise answer.
He put a hand over Alistair’s and squeezed. “Nae, she is no’ okay. But, have faith, she will be.”
Highlands, Inverness, Raigmore Hospital
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
4:30 a.m.
His rigid control strained, Alistair paced around the waiting room as the as the clock ticked away and there was still no word on Sophia’s condition, hours after she was rapidly wheeled down a hospital corridor for emergency treatment.
He knew everyone was doing everything possible, but still, it wasn’t enough for him. He also wanted to do something.
Felipe sat close by, silently, jaw clenched and hands fisted. From time to time, he would mutter something in Portuguese about killing Alberto and then lapsed into silence again. Beside him, Carolina was gazing out in the air, her mouth opening and closing silently. Alistair didn’t know if she was praying or what, because she hadn’t said a word since she followed a crazed Felipe inside the waiting room.
More than four hours now. He walked up to the reception desk again. “Do you have any updates on Sophia MacCraig?”
The nurse checked her computer and looked up at him. The compassion and sympathy Alistair saw in her face might have bothered him at one time, but no longer. There was nothing more important to him than to know that Sophia was going to be okay.
“Not since the last one I gave you, sir.” She smiled a bit, but it did nothing to abate the heaviness in Alistair’s heart. “She has been assigned a room. If you want to wait there, I’m sure they will be bringing her in at any moment.”
5:00 a.m.
At any moment! Alistair harrumphed and turned on his heels to pace the length of the small room again when Felipe jumped to his feet and Carolina blinked, her stare fixed on the door.
John, who had been flown in, and a weary Tavish entered the room.
Alistair looked from his brother’s face to John’s and concluded nothing. Agony throbbed through him. “Is she okay?”
Tavish’s forehead was lined in concern. “So far, so good.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Felipe asked between incredulity and anger.
“That we have tae wait. All that could have been done has been done. The A&E doctor has just finished his last exam. Nothing broken, no serious physical injury. The fever is under control, she is being hydrated. She’s still unconscious, which is no’ bad, mind ye.” Tavish dropped tired onto the chair and relaxed a bit.
John’s kind blue eyes softened even more. “As for the baby, we have no reason to worry. The blood tests and the scan show no sign of distress. As soon as she is awake, I’ll do another scan. I’m sure she’ll want to see it.”
Felipe sat down heavily on the sofa, whispering a prayer and putting his arms around a now crying Carolina.
Alistair also collapsed on another chair as a breath hitched and gasped in his throat. She is safe.
The ordeal that had been threatening to destroy him and the life he had built was fading away. He heaved a great gulp of air and it felt like he hadn’t properly breathed in days.
6:00 a.m.
Alistair refused to leave Sophia’s side.
In an explicit confrontation with the doctors and the nurses, he refused to let them tie Sophia’s hands to stop her from scratching her face or head. He couldn’t bear to have her bound.
He remained steadfast beside her bed; refusing to sleep; refusing to eat.
When she got agitated and strained against his hands, he swallowed a bitter howl of impotent fury. How can I wage war against an invisible intruder? How can I defeat a nightmare?
It was then that he started to talk.
It was mostly incoherent, loving words, soothing sounds, and even childish stories, but somehow she seemed to rest easier.
He hoped that his loving words and murmurings could make her more comfortable and that he could get through to her traumatized mind.
Barbara’s Mother’s house
1:00 p.m.
Barbara fell down on the sofa in front of the TV, putting a hand over her mouth as a body covered with a black plastic bag flashed on the TV. A photo of Ethan appeared as the journalist explained how he died heroically saving his business partner.
A keening cry left her mouth and she felt herself being ripped apart. Her hands plunged into her hair and she started to pull at it, crying desperately.
“Baby, baby.” Her mother ran in from the kitchen, wrapping her frail arms around her. “What is it, Barbie? What happened?”
Barbara was past the point of explanation, an unknown pain and sorrow permeated her soul and impregnated her senses. Her own unreasonable wishes were digging deep, making her feel even worse. She could not imagine living without him.
She remembered Scott saying that she should be careful what she wished for, and now she willed her mind to make no more wishes. They were demanding such a great cost on her conscience.
What started as a heated and passionate love had turned into a cold and dark nightmare.
All Barbara wanted was to hear the curtain call and wait for the lights to fade out so she could wake up.
But she knew life was not a play and this was no rehearsal.
Barbara would spend her whole lifetime brushing away the guilty ashes that would collect on her soul for wishing to have what was never supposed to be hers and for wishing Ethan dead.
Raigmore Hospital
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
5:45 a.m.
Sophia was hopelessly mired in the same horrible nightmare she’d been having for hours and hours: the one in which she fled down dark, deserted passages and corridors with locked iron doors, trying to outrun masked men with knives, while death held her wrists and pulled her down, the more she moved.
No matter how hard she strived to control the dream, she never made it to safety. Inevitably, death and the men cornered her.
From a faraway corner, however, she could hear a voice calling.
The only thing she knew as she ran, was that she had to get to that voice.
Exhaustion, dehydration, and trauma had taken a toll and Sophia drifted in tormented unconsciousness.
5:45 p.m.
Peace. She was floating, warm and comfortable. Just listen to the voice. Find it.
Sophia didn’t want to open her eyes and discover she was in heaven. And she didn’t want to leave the dream either.
She strained to hear the screams and shotguns. There were none. Also, the hold on her hands was gone. There was just a touch, soft as a feather.
And the voice.
The voice that spoke unceasingly, deep, masculine, its rumbling penetrating her numb mind. A voice that made her feel safer than in dreams or in heaven, that stirred and touched the depths of her soul.
“You can call me stubborn, mo chridhe. I am, even more than you are. And you know what? I doona mind and I doona care. I can wait. But you know, Beauty, they must think
me mad, raging mad, because I have been talking and talking to you for hours and hours, and you don’t answer. Aye, I’m mad. Madly in love with you. I’ve been waiting here for you to open your eyes for days,” for an eternity, “and I’ll still be here to see you open your beautiful eyes and say those three little words that will never be enough.”
Alistair Connor. Memories of their wedding came flooding back at the melody of his deep voice.
She smiled.
Alistair’s voice faltered and he swallowed down the tears that were threatening to fall since he had seen her so battered and bruised. He whispered, “You smiled, you smiled. Can you hear me? Can you, Sophia?”
She forced herself to open her eyes.
Her handsome husband was sitting by her bed with an exhausted look, peering down at her. His grown stubble marking the many hours he had been by her side. His broad, warm hands supported her bruised wrists, as his thumbs caressed her hands with a gentleness that she had always found surprising in such a masculine man. His forest-green eyes radiated so much emotion and love that she felt empowered to speak.
Sophia breathed, “I love you.”
Alistair flashed her one of the most beautiful smiles she had ever seen. “I love you more.”
Lord Stubbornness. “Gabriela?” And the baby?
“In Craigdale, with Father and your sisters. She is fine.” His knuckles brushed her cheek tenderly and the other hand covered her stomach. “The baby is fine too. Everything is going tae be okay.”
“I was so afraid,” she whispered.
I was too. But he didn’t say the words out loud. “Don’t worry, mo chridhe. I will not leave you.”
She sighed, relieved.
She wanted to stay awake, but Sophia closed her eyes. Sleep reclaimed her once more as Alistair’s deep voice enveloped her over again in a cocoon.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
12:01 p.m.
Something soft touched Sophia’s head.