“It's dark outside,” she said, lifting her hands to point toward the small round window on an exterior door about ten feet away near the narrowing tail section. “We met at noon. It was probably twelve thirty when everything blew up.” She spoke with calm lucidity, then snickered again. “I've never had a date blow up.”
“I strive to be unique,” he answered, matching her humorous tone, though he worried that she still was feeling the effects of the drugs, based on the inappropriate laughter. “I have no idea what they used on us, to drug us. Hopefully it'll wear off.”
“Yeah,” she said, “I really suck at drugs. Even with the dentist.” He heard her gasp, turned toward the sound, but she was just a black shape in the gray void of the space. “Whoa!” she gasped again. “Now I want to cry. That was sudden.” Her silhouette swayed and he wished he could move to brace her. “I feel like I'm on a roller coaster.”
“Deep breaths,” he said, harkening to more of Gates's advice. “It'll clear your head and get your blood moving, which will get the poison out of your system faster.”
As she drew in steady, measured breaths, he tried to calculate the time in his head, forcibly ignoring the image of Declan's body flying backward through the glass, the vision of Declan bringing down a waiter and panicked patrons, as blood blossomed scarlet on his blue dress shirt.
Dav vaguely remembered seeing the other members of the team beyond Declan, fighting their way through the narrow spaces between the tables. To block the thoughts, he visualized a map in his mind, tried to calculate, push away the faces of his fallen friends. “I'm guessing it's at least seven. Maybe later. We're either somewhere close to the Mississippi, if we took off right away, or over the Yucatán, or the Pacific Ocean. If we went north, we're well into Canada.” He called off the directions and considered the possibilities of each compass point.
“Somehow, I doubt it's Canada,” Carrie said, her voice more even now. “I can't see anyone lofting you off to the Northwest Territories and dumping you there. Snowbound Dav. That would be weird.” Now the giggle was back. She was having another manic reaction to the drugs, swinging from morose to giggly to normal.
“It would be smart, though,” Dav said, thinking it through, trying to ignore the worry that Carrie might have been really sickened by the drugs, or that she'd been given a higher dose than he for some reason. “Who would suspect it?”
“Terrible, but true,” Carrie said. “It doesn't feel cold though. The cabin's not pressurized, so we're flying low. If we were over Canada it would be cold. It's only April.”
“True. Same goes for the East Coast, probably. We may already be over Texas, or out over the Gulf of Mexico.”
“They could be planning to dump us in the ocean,” she said, and he heard terror in her voice, the incipient panic.
“No, I don't think so,” he said, forcing conviction into his voice. “They want something from me, or I'd be dead already.”
“What about me?” Carrie said softly. “What do they want from me?”
He leaned toward her, trying for comfort, though both of them were obviously thinking the worst. “I don't know. You may be leverage to get me to do what they want. I hope that's all it is.”
“It's weird,” she said, in another lightning change of mood. “I'm scared, terrified really, but it's like this is happening to someone else. The drugs are doing that, I guess,” she added. “I need to lie down, or lean on something before I fall down,” she said, her voice normal once more. She scooted around to put her back against the side of the plane, and then helped him do the same. “Hey, look. My purse is here, so's your coat.” The last was said in an easy, conversational tone. The shift and weave of Carrie's emotional state was almost as disturbing as their current difficulty.
“Really? Where?”
“Over there.” She gestured with her bound hands. He wondered if he dared try to get his hands in front of him. He decided not to attempt it yet. There was nowhere to go, no one to fight in the middle of the air, in the dark.
“The plane seems to be flying fast and level,” he observed, forcing himself to think about the situation, rather than worry about Carrie. If he kept worrying about her, he wouldn't think, not constructively or logically. If there was any chance of escape he had to be rational to see it, to plan. “We're not close to wherever we're going yet,” he said slowly, thinking it through, trying to get past the panic, the fear for Carrie. “If we hear anything though, like the pilot or someone is coming back here, you need to put the bag on my head. I'm guessing they don't want me to see anyone. Let's make sure I don't. If I'm not supposed to see them they may only be out for ransom.”
“Then why did they take the bag off my head?” Carrie asked, and there was further panic in her voice. “They don't think I'm worth ransom? They're going to kill me, aren't they.” She made it a statement, not a question. “Or worse.”
“I don't know, Carrie, but here's what I do know,” he said softly, forcing her to listen by the very softness of his voice. He moved closer to comfort her, bumping his shoulder against hers for the human connection. If his hands were free, he would hold her. For now, this was all he could do. “Look at me.”
She hesitated, turned his way. He could make out the glint of her frightened eyes. Even in the gloom, he could see that her pupils were so dilated there was barely a rim of the rich blue showing. “What?”
“Carrie, just focus on me, on my voice. You've been drugged, you're scared. Eh-la, you know all that. It may be that they were counting on your still being out, unconscious.”
Her eyes flickered away, darting around the dark cargo hold as if searching for answers, or villains. He could see the trembling in her shoulders. Whatever sense she'd made earlier was being subsumed by the fear, and the drugs were making it worse.
“I'm cold. Where are the blankets?” she said fretfully. She was struggling now, struggling to get up, to move. If the plane banked again, she'd fall and hurt herself.
“Here, come sit with me, darling,” Dav crooned, coaxing her to sit down again. She'd struggled to her knees, trying to rise. “I'll keep you warm. I've got you.”
Encountering an air pocket, the plane dropped briefly. Carrie rocked over from her kneeling position, falling awkwardly onto his chest.
“Ow!” she exclaimed, and he barely managed not to cry out with the pain.
He'd wanted her next to him, imagined her in his arms. It would be nice if her falling into him hadn't hurt so much, but he'd take what he could get.
With her body pressed to his, he realized how cold he was. The imprint of her warmth was a dramatic contrast. He briefly wished the coat she'd spotted weren't so far away. They could use it for warmth. Even the breath mints in the pocket would help ease the nausea that still lurked in his gut. With grim humor, he wondered how long they could survive on mints and whatever she had in her purse.
The warm silk of her hair brushed his neck, and he realized that for both their sakes, he'd have to get his hands in front of him. He couldn't hold her; nor could they stay warm enough with his hands bound back.
“Here now, sweetheartâ” He used the endearment as much to soothe his own fears as hers. “Sit up for a moment and let me get my hands in front of me. Just a minute, okay?”
She nodded and he felt the movement on his body. He hated the deepening gloom in the plane's interior, the yawning, inky black maw of the tail section. Her delusions and fear made it worse. The residual drugs in his system made it harder to fight back the memories, the sensory details of rats and roaches. He shuddered again as he began the agonizing task of getting his hands in front of him.
Sweat ran a damp trail down his spine as he struggled with the twists and turns necessary to pull his bound hands under his hips, and from there, under his knees. It took him forever to get his feet through the circle of his arms. Red fury threatened at several points, his temper unbound by the drug and the situation. The pain in his shoulders and elbows raced fire over all his nerves, even as cold fear rose within him because he couldn't feel his hands.
More than anything, he was castigating himself at the sheer hubris he'd displayed. To have his decision to relax security measures cost him his life was bad enough, but to have it potentially cost Carrie
her
life was almost more than he could bear.
“Dav? Are you okay?” Carrie asked, her voice stronger.
“Yamot ti Panayia mou!”
The vulgar curse burst forth from him as he lost his patience with being helpless, with trying to get his hands from underneath him while balancing against the plane's movements. The only plus was that stress and the steady physical activity brought him momentary warmth in the cold of the cargo area. His hands stung in pain with the banging around generated by his struggles. At least he was feeling the pain; it would be far worse, he knew, if his hands had remained numb.
When he finally got them in front of him, he almost wished he hadn't. Swollen and bluish, his hands were secured together with three heavy-duty plastic zip ties. One on each wrist was linked by the third, not only immobilizing him, but deliberately exacerbating the potential for pain.
After one look, he ignored the ties. He couldn't change the situation right now and Gates had told him to consistently focus on the things he could change. “Here, Carrie,” he said when he got his pain under momentary control. “Sit closer. We'll keep each other warm.”
She moved immediately under the arch of the arm he painfully lifted, and burrowed into his chest. “Thank you.” After a moment, she spoke again. “I'm scared, Dav,” she murmured.
“I know. I am too,” he admitted, hoping it would help her to know it. “All we can do is wait, and look for opportunities to escape or make a deal.” Pain raced over him with every bump of the plane. He blocked it by letting his face caress her glorious hair.
That was in the present moment; that was beautiful. Her skin was soft and sweet on the rasp of his stubble-scratchy face. He could still smell her perfume and he focused on that, ignoring all other smells, all other thoughts. He knew it was a momentary respite, but that separation from fear, that brief, sweet lull let his mind clear.
“We could die here,” she muttered, and he heard the fear again. “We could die.”
“No.” He made it a statement. He would not allow that possibility. She was his future. He would not allow it to be otherwise. He would use the stubborn will that helped him survive his father and countless business rivals and they would survive. “We'll make it out of this. My people, they'll know to get Gates. He has all manner of ways to figure out what's happened. He'll find us. He and Ana are the best.”
“But they don't work for you anymore,” she said.
“I know, sweetheart,” he said, smiling into the dark. “But friends don't worry about little things like that. They'll find us.”
“Dav,” she murmured, sliding her hands up to touch his face. “Dav, why did we wait?”
Dav was distracted momentarily by the shift in the sound of the engines, the subtle drop in the slant of the cabin. “Wait?” he replied, still thinking about the change in the plane's altitude. “Why did we wait for what?”
He looked down into her eyes, loving the feel of her hands on his face. While he recognized all his reactions were off-kilter from the drugs, though not as badly skewed as Carrie's, just the touch of her, the feel of her in his arms, was inflaming his body, his mind and senses.
“Carrie?” he whispered, seeing the dark of her eyes, feeling every inch of her in new ways.
“We fought it, Dav, both of us,” she said, her voice serious. But her eyes were still deeply dilated, the effect of the drugs. “We waited for the right time. We didn't make a move, either of us.”
While he was puzzling through what she meant, she shifted closer, whispering, “Don't wait anymore. Kiss me now, just in case. I need to know how it feels, I need ...” she trailed off, quieting in order to bring her lips to his.
The connection was instant and powerful. Every thought about the plane, their situation, sank out of his mind, replaced by the magnificent roar of triumph in his heart. No pain could compare to the sweetness, the fire, of her mouth moving on his. All hesitancy fled as she pressed into him, wriggling closer, heating his body. Nothing mattered but Carrie. Nothing was real or present but her mouth, her breasts pressed to his chest, her hips bumping his.
His mind leapt forward to her straddling him, taking him into her, rising over him, pleasuring them both. He nearly lost control just thinking the thoughts as her mouth moved frantically on his, driving them to a frenzy of movement, making their bodies mesh as best they could in the situation. The pain in his hands and shoulders throbbed a counterpoint to his body's needs. He ignored the pain and focused on the pleasure.
He might never get another chance.