Page 11 of Heartbeats Amidst Chaos: Part 3
“Slow down,” she murmured. “You’re going to draw attention.”
She was right. Elio halted, forcing himself to take a deep breath. Then he continued at a slightly slower pace. Rissa leaned into his arm, her cheek against his bicep. He glanced down in surprise, belatedly grasping that she was doing it to preserve their cover. They were a romantic couple on a walk along the lake after all.
He released her hand to put his arm around her, folding her close to his side. Although he had intended it simply for show, he was suddenly deeply glad to have her to hold onto.
“We’ll get our things from the cabin,” he said in a low voice, “and then we’ll leave. I’ll explain on the way.”
If Miranda was here, it would only be a matter of time before she spotted them. Or maybe she already knew they were here.
Elio didn’t want to ponder the dark thought that was like a black hole amid his other swirling thoughts. But he couldn’t dismiss it. Something about her presence here seemed like too much of a coincidence.
Was it possible that Miranda Villa was connected to the reason he and Rissa were here? Wasterrorismsomething that he wouldn’t put past her?
Their cabin was just ahead, and Elio was so lost in thought that he almost missed the flicker of movement on the deck. Just in time, he looked up and stopped in his tracks, feeling Rissa tense against his side.
“Is that someone on the deck?” she whispered.
There was no need to answer. Whoever had been lying in wait for them had seen their hesitation and suddenly sprang into action. Two dark figures dashed down the stairs toward them while two more suddenly appeared at the railing of the cabin next to theirs and, putting their hands atop it, leaped over, landing in a crouch on the ground beneath.
“Run!” Elio cried, grabbing Rissa’s hand and spinning around, pulling her back up the beach at a diagonal angle toward the road. Their attackers would try to push them toward the lake, his racing brain told him. They had to get past them before they had the chance. Their only hope of escape was to reach a car and make a getaway.
Rissa grabbed a handful of her dress and pulled it up around her knees, running beside him at full speed effortlessly. As if they were flying, the two of them streaked across the sand and between two other cabins, reaching the little road that ran the entire length of the resort from one cabin to the next. No vehicles were allowed on this road, meaning they were going to have to make for the parking lots behind the front office where all the vacationers’ cars were parked.
Elio was breathing too hard to say any of this aloud, but it seemed Rissa’s thought process echoed his own. Without any words exchanged, they turned together, running along the service road hand in hand. Footsteps pounded behind them, and a hand suddenly locked onto Elio’s shoulder, yanking him around and nearly knocking him off balance.
Rissa yelped, stumbling as his hand was wrenched out of hers, and he acted on instinct, pulling back his arm and throwing a vicious uppercut toward his attacker’s throat. He caught the man—who was dressed all in black with a black ski mask over his face—in the sternum, knocking him on his ass. Elio quickly delivered a solid kick to his head to keep him down.
Glancing up, he saw that the three other pursuers were farther back but making good progress.
We’re not going to make it,he thought.
At that moment, Rissa called out his name and he turned to see her pointing. The main office was a few hundred yards ahead, and a Jeep had just pulled up in front of it. A man stepped out of the driver’s door, leaving the vehicle idling as he headed for the office. A new check-in, picking up his keys and parking number.
“Hurry!” Elio exclaimed, but Rissa was already dashing toward the running vehicle. He barely caught up to her, circling to the driver’s door as she flung open the passenger side door. A woman screamed, long and loud and shrill, and Rissa stumbled backward.
Elio opened the driver’s side door and climbed into the car. Still screaming, the woman in the passenger’s seat took one look at him and tumbled out the other side. A second later, Rissa took her place, and Elio hit the accelerator before she had even slammed the door, screaming the vehicle in a circle and making for the road.
Chapter six
“Follow me. Quickly,” Elio muttered, slamming the Jeep into park and tumbling out into the night.
Her hands shaking violently, Rissa struggled for a moment to open her door before finally getting it right and scrambling out after him. Her knees were shaking so hard that she nearly fell straight down into the gravel, but somehow, she managed to keep her feet.
They left the resort only moments before, but Elio had just swung into the parking lot of a bowling alley at the edge of the small town nearby. He was scurrying along between the parked cars there, half-crouched, trying the doors of each older model until he found a grimy little Ford that gave to his prying fingers.
He ducked into the driver’s side, doing who knows what, and the engine sputtered to life. Straightening up, he glanced around,spotting her still standing by the Jeep. He beckoned urgently for her to join him.
As if walking through a nightmare, Rissa stumbled to the car he had just jumpstarted and climbed woodenly into the passenger seat. In the seat next to her, Elio threw the car into reverse, backed out, and headed for the road again. His face was grim, and his movements were abrupt and measured, as they had been since the moment they were attacked. As if each one had been practiced a million times.
Rissa felt a cold shudder of disbelief as she remembered the masked figures leaping catlike over the cabin railings and the way Elio had spun on his heel, punched one of them flat onto his back and then kicked him in the head without a moment’s hesitation.
Her head was spinning with the shock. One moment, they had been enjoying an almost romantic dinner with a beautiful view of the lake, calmly laying their plans for the next morning. Her heart had been fluttering at how handsome and gentlemanly Elio looked, sitting across from her in a crisp, open-collared black shirt and slacks. The next moment, he had gone as still and pale as a corpse. And then, everything had gone to hell—again.
“Elio,” she said, and his gaze flicked toward her briefly before returning to the road. His face was inscrutable, absorbed. “Who did you see at the restaurant?” she asked, her voice insistent. “Who were those people who just came after us?”
Elio didn’t answer. She wasn’t even sure he had heard her.
Somehow, Rissa found that this scared her almost as much as the unexpected attack and pursuit they had just experienced. It was almost as if Elio had turned into someone she didn’t know. The warm, charming man she was growing to care for had disappeared, leaving in his stead someone who behaved like a practiced criminal.
