Brian Freeman - Stripped

Blake looked through the shattered windshield.

The car was lodged against the palm tree. Leo was pinned between the car and the tree, his lower body crushed. The gun had fallen from his hands. He was still alive, barely, and he stared back at Blake with the ferocity of a man who has been defeated in a fight that means everything to him. Tears of agony slipped down his cheeks, but he didn’t cry out or say a word.

Blake got out of the car. He retrieved the gun from where it had fallen to the ground. Leo followed him, impotent, unable to move.

“You played this well, Leo,” Blake told him with genuine admiration. “Gino would be proud of you.”

Leo tried to spit at him. He couldn’t.

Blake glanced into the car and saw that Claire was watching him. He found himself feeling something like mercy. He shoved the gun in his belt and went around to the other side of the Impala. He opened the door, and Claire seemed to spill out into his arms.

“Are you hurt?” he asked her.

He let her stand up, and she was unsteady on her feet, but she didn’t seem to be injured. She was too stunned to walk, though, and Blake picked her up and carried her back to the trunk. He opened it and laid her inside next to Serena as tenderly as he could. He closed the trunk again and walked back to Leo.

“I know that the pain must be excruciating,” Blake said.

Leo didn’t look at him.

“Eyes open or closed, Leo. It’s your choice.”

Leo turned his head with what seemed to be a superhuman effort. His eyes were open. Blake nodded, brought the gun up to Leo’s head, and fired.

Serena reached for Claire’s bound hands and held them tightly. When the gunshot exploded outside the car, she knew that Claire was screaming behind the tape that gagged her mouth. She could hear the muffled cries as Claire buried her face in Serena’s shoulder in the dark, cramped confines of the trunk. She felt the dampness of tears through her shirt. Claire clutched her hands so fiercely that her nails were close to breaking the skin.

She felt the car rock as Blake got back inside, and then they were moving, their bodies bouncing loosely as Blake steered the Impala through the town-home complex toward the street. Serena recognized the familiar turns. She hoped someone had heard the shots and called 911, but she knew they would be long gone by the time a squad car responded.

Serena was bruised and sore. She had flown forward when the car thudded to a stop earlier, and she had banged her head against the rear wall of the trunk. Her arms ached from being held stiffly in place, and something-a tire iron?-had struck her squarely in the knee. The bone throbbed with pain.

She disentangled her fingers from Claire’s and rolled onto her back, landing hard on her shoulder blade. She had discovered earlier that she had enough play in her arms to bend them at the elbows and bring her hands up to her mouth. Her fingers clutched at the tape that was gagging her, and she peeled it slowly and painfully away. When her jaw was free, she rubbed it and took several long, deep breaths, gulping air into her lungs. She was sweating. The trunk was hot enough to make her light-headed.

The car rolled over a dip in the street, and her forehead struck sharply against the roof of the trunk. She cursed softly.

Serena braced her left foot on the floor and pushed herself back onto her side, facing Claire again. She found Claire’s hands.

“Claire, listen to me,” she whispered. “You can probably get your hands up to your face and get the tape off. Can you try it?”

She hoped Claire had enough strength, mentally and physically, to do it.

She let go and felt Claire squirming to reposition her arms and get her fingers near her mouth. Claire pulled the tape off quickly, and Serena heard her gasp.

“Shit, that hurt”

They both laughed. Serena was pleased that Claire sounded calm now and not frantic. She nudged closer and put her mouth close to Claire’s ear. “We need to be as quiet as we can. What happened out there?”

“It was Leo,” Claire said. “I think Blake killed him.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No. But I was scared to death.”

Serena laid her cheek against the soft skin of Claire’s face. “If’s okay. We’re going to get out of this.”

It’s okay, baby.

Serena felt a strange sense of freedom. Of strength. As if she had been given a second chance, a way to make up for the past. To save Deidre by saving Claire.

“Do you know where he’s taking us?” Serena asked.

“I have no idea.”

Serena didn’t want to speculate. None of the alternatives sounded appealing. She had tried to keep track of the stops and turns once they made it onto the street, but the route quickly became too confusing to follow. She knew they were still in a busy part of the city, because she could hear plenty of traffic noise, even late at night.

“I’m sorry I got you into this, Serena,” Claire told her.

“You didn’t.”

Claire was silent for a moment. “What was happening between us inside-”

“Let’s not talk about that now.”

“I need to know if you regret it,” Claire said.

“No, I don’t.” Serena knew she had to change the subject. “That was smart, what you did inside with Blake. Pushing me. Yelling at me.”

“Did you get it? Did you get the phone?”

“Yes. You have to get it for me. I shoved it in my pocket.” Serena shifted her arms as far as she could, and Claire’s hands explored around the front of her jeans until her fingers pressed into the hard shell of the wafer-thin cell phone.

“Can you slide down a bit?” Claire asked.

Serena pushed herself down, bending her knees to get more room when her feet bumped the side of the car. She felt Claire’s fingers at her waist, slipping inside the tight pocket. It was strangely intimate, to be doing this in the dark, in the hot interior of the car. Claire’s breasts were almost in her face. Her T-shirt clung to her skin like glue.

“Normally, I’d enjoy this,” Claire whispered.

“Hush.”

Claire found the cell phone and slid it between her palms. As she tried to pass it into Serena’s hands, she dropped it somewhere between them.

“Shit!” she hissed. “My hands are slippery.”

The car went through a sharp turn at that moment, and they found themselves sliding and rolling in the narrow space. The phone slid, too. Serena lost her sense of direction in the dark and didn’t know which way she was facing or which way was front and back. She was disoriented. “Claire?”

“Here.”

Serena tried to roll back next to her. “We have to find the phone.”

They performed an awkward dance as both of them tried to flip over and scour the black interior of the trunk. Serena brushed her legs along the carpeted floor, trying to feel the slim rectangle of the phone. Claire did the same. Serena began to feel the pressure of time, wondering how long it would take for Blake to reach where he was going. The phone had seemingly vanished from the trunk.

“Anything?” Serena whispered.

“No.”

The car turned again, and their bodies shifted. Serena wasn’t sure why, but she had an intuition that they were almost there, and she had learned to trust her sixth sense over the years. The road beneath them was bumpier, as if there were loose gravel on the pavement. The noise outside had quieted. They weren’t on a busy street anymore.

“We need to hurry,” Serena said.

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it,” Claire replied. “It’s near my face. It slid over here on the last turn.”

“Try to get your hands on it before we turn again.”

Serena maneuvered herself in the direction of Claire’s voice. She bent her elbows again, bringing her hands near her face. She pushed herself closer and felt her fingers touch Claire’s forearm immediately in front of her. She followed the soft skin up to Claire’s hands and was relieved to feel the cell phone nestled between her fingers. Claire was holding it tightly.