All Our Lives ✔

19|

We weren't sure if the gunshot was real at first. There was the howling of the wind, and it could've been thunder, or a car backfiring.

Or it could have been exactly what we were dreading.

We'd taken Elba's advice and had an early night after all, though we hadn't thought we'd be able to fall asleep.

Sitting up in bed, I stopped myself before I could call out Elba's name. Sebri caught my arm as I moved to stand.

"If we barricade ourselves in—" she started.

"—we'll be cornered if it's not enough, I know. Get dressed." I remembered something as we burst into motion. "Do you still have your switchblade?"

She held up a hand, pressing against the wall to look past the curtains. "Can't see a damn thing..." There was no visibility out there tonight, which might actually be useful. Her other hand had gone to the phone on the small table, but she shook her head after pressing it to her ear. "Nothing!"

"Seb, your switchblade..."

"Under my pillow," she whispered.

I tossed it to her.

Whatever happened now might decide our future. Whether we would even have one. We both felt it, sharing a long glance at the bedroom door, her fingers on the handle.

There was nothing either of us could say that the other didn't already know.

In the dark hallway, we headed down to the kitchen. The front door was just beyond it, and behind another door was where the extra guns were kept, though those weren't likely to be loaded.

The light switched on, revealing an unwelcome visitor.

He had a rifle on the table in front of him—it looked like the ones the men carried—and a hideously long knife in his hand.

Dead husband wasn't so dead.

"Where are they?" Sebri asked, stepping in front of me. "The others."

The blonde man leered. "Locked in the barn. I did have to shoot one of them. He wanted to be a hero, and I said no. It's terribly gusty outside, so you might not have heard..."

I kept my tone calm even as a chill spread across my body. "Look, Mister—"

He started forward, away from the rifle—the one that may or may not have been empty. "Call me William."

We fled toward the side exits like we'd planned upstairs, having processed the layout of the house on our first morning here. He couldn't go after both of us, but that left one of us vulnerable.

And one of us at his back.

When I got to the door, I couldn't get it open.

I realized too late he must have blocked it somehow. I rushed for a window, the main goal to get outside—we were to meet in front of the barn and go for the trees—but I never made it. Something hit the back of my head, and I blacked out.

Though the period of darkness only seemed to last a minute, my most immediate fear when I woke was that hours could have passed. What if Jim was already here? What if he got pulled into this?

What if Sebri was—

"I did always want to tie you up. Let's pretend you never said no."

I raised my throbbing head. I was in a chair, wrists tied behind my back, while Sebri was free, leaning against the wall with her fists clenched. 

She would have to stand there, helpless, because there was a very big knife against the soft skin of my throat.

Sebri stared and stared at that sharp edge—so close—and I knew she was seeing my death all over again.