Freya cocked her hand back and slammed a single bloody fist into the intruder’s face, sending him reeling as he slid out from underneath her. Wobbling to his feet, he barely had time to raise his pistol before she tackled him, slamming him into the wet carpet once more. They were pressed against each other now, writhing with punches and kicks, neither able to land a fight-ending blow.
Sirens and gunshots drifted up from street level. She used the momentary distraction to shove the muzzle of the pistol against the side of his head and clumsily jam her thumb against the trigger. His eyes went wide as the gun clicked. Empty. Visibly shaken, the intruder allowed the pistol to fly from his hand as she violently kicked at it with a bare foot, sending the shiny weapon tumbling out of the window and into thirty stories of nothingness below.
She had her hands around his throat now, squeezing against his windpipe. Pinned helplessly underneath her, the bulging-eyed man gritted his teeth, desperation in his eyes as she watched him die. Freya willed him to give up, succumb to the inevitable.
Focus on the eyes. Breathe in pain. Breathe out death.
Movement — his knee slid up and underneath her ribcage. The intruder braced himself and used his legs to flip her entire body off of his, and send her flying through the air before landing hard on wet carpet and broken glass. Freya was on her hands and knees like a cat, but not quite fast enough. Already up, the intruder spun around and kicked her hard in the side of the face with his shinbone. She careened backwards, tumbling out of the broken window and into the void. Barely conscious, she flailed and reached toward the sill, almost catching the edge but slipping again with the stomach-churning lurch of free fall. But then she caught fast. Something stopped her. She swung back like a pendulum before slamming her legs against the glass exterior of the skyscraper.
Freya slowly came to her senses, barely aware of the strong hand holding her wrist. She hung limply, swaying from side to side in the wind and freezing rain. The intruder had half his body and one arm hanging out of the broken window, his eyes wild and bloodshot as he collected himself, nose broken and bleeding, swelling bruises already developing around his trachea. Another few seconds straddling him and she would have crushed his windpipe for good.
The intruder watched as she rocked back and forth in the wind, blood flowing from her palms and through his gripping white-knuckled fingers. She tried to grasp at the window ledge, but her sliced-up hands couldn’t grip the tooth-like shards of broken glass.
Swearing, the intruder shoved his foot against the base of the window and began to pull, using all his strength to slowly winch her back into the plush office. With one last strained grunt, he yanked her body up and over the edge, leaving her to flop onto the wet carpet beside him, both laying on their backs as they struggled to catch gasping breaths.
He spoke first, finding his words through ragged coughs. “Is it just me, or would it be totally weird to keep fighting at this point?”
Freya tried to answer but couldn’t. Air caught in her burning lungs as she attempted to slow her pounding heart. Every part of her body hurt.
“I could be done,” she finally said.
He held his side and winced. She’d clearly broken one or more of his ribs.
“Good. Because I’m not sure how much more of this I have in me. Holy fuck, you’re strong. Like, Ivan Drago from Rocky III strong.”
“Drago was in Rocky IV,” corrected Freya. “Mr. T was in Rocky III. I’m, like, eighty percent sure.” The pair lay in awkward silence for a few more moments, listening to sirens and the intermittent retort of gunfire far below.
The intruder took a moment to consider her response before speaking again. “I don’t want to jump to conclusions here, but were you trying to kidnap the chief executive officer of SABC Industries?”
“Yeah,” said Freya. She glanced around the office before looking back to the intruder. The CEO was nowhere in sight. “But it looks like you let him get away. What’s it to you?”
He ignored her question. “What exactly were you going to do once you had him? Given the whole bare-assed, escaped-mental patient look you got going on, I’m going to hazard a guess that your plan didn’t include a ‘part two’.”
“I would have figured something out,” grunted Freya as she turned to look at him, simultaneously drawn to and made uncomfortable by his penetrating eyes. More gunfire sounded from the ground floor.
“That’s the sound of my people keeping the cops at bay,” said the intruder, pointing his finger down towards the sounds. “They’re waiting for me, but I’m not sure how long they’ll be able to hold out. I don’t know exactly what your deal is, but let’s get out of here before any more reinforcements arrive. We can figure out whether or not we’re on the same side later. I have a feeling you don’t want to wait for the cavalry any more than I do.”
Freya eyed him suspiciously. “You got a getaway car?”
“My name is Jonah Blackwell,” he said, his grin shockingly white below his two blackening eyes and broken nose. He seemed to have trouble breathing, each breath faster and shallower than the one before. “And, no, I don’t have a getaway car. I have a motherfucking getaway submarine.”
CHAPTER 21
Jonah’s chest rose and fell to the near-silent vibration of the Scorpion’s engines, his swollen eyes too heavy to open. He shifted in his bunk as a fresh wave of pain washed over his body. Every inch of him hurt. It hurt to clear his throat, wiggle an eyebrow, tongue the roof of his mouth. Jonah tried to raise his palm to his face, but stopped as a jabbing spasm radiated across his ribcage. His fingers crawled up towards his bare chest, crossing over his undone belt. He could feel the bandages over his ribs as he moved his hand to his pectorals, fingertips caressing a strip of wet plastic taped to his chest. The plastic went taut when he breathed in, tight against his skin, but gently fluttered as he exhaled. A fresh drip of warm liquid ran down the length of his abdomen. He opened his eyes slowly, fuzzy and useless as they drifted to a hanging IV bag before closing again.
He counted backwards from five, willing himself to open his eyes against the pain. It was easier this time, the harsh fluorescent lights muted, the surrounding room coming into focus. He’d been left in Hassan and Alexis’ cabin, alone in their tiny bed. He noticed with a pang of embarrassment that his broken nose had bled profusely across their sheets, staining them badly.
The homey cabin smelled like them, albeit with the taint of antiseptic and rubbing alcohol. Jonah let his gaze pan across the small space, taking in details he’d never bothered to notice before. There was an old Polaroid camera on a small shelf beside several selfie-style photos of them together. They’d taken no more than a single picture at a time, carefully conserving the scant film as they traveled across the Pacific Ocean. The doctor had painted things for her as well — colorful Moroccan designs on shells next to a lovingly rendered portrait, every detail of her smiling face reproduced with careful brushstrokes. The flowers he’d picked for her on the mysterious island had begun to wither, she’d removed them from water and hung them upside down to dry and preserve.
Jonah’s pearl-handled pistol awkwardly completed the ensemble as it lay next to a wooden bowl of ripening wild fruits. Maybe Dalmar retrieved it after it had gone flying out of the skyscraper window. He didn’t reach for it, but simply knowing it was there was a comfort of sorts, an understanding that some minor order could be returned to a chaotic universe.