The Storm and the Darkness (30 page)

Oz had taken complete control of the situation. He handled the front door instructions like a professional, and without any hesitation. The man at the door was in awe as well, and clearly in need of someone to take over. He trusted Oz right from the start, for no other reason than how confident Oz had seemed.
Dude, you were totally like The Wolf from
Pulp Fiction
, Nicolas would have said to Oz later, if Oz had not completely betrayed him.

Even Nicolas immediately understood the problem with the pie excuse. He didn’t blame the nervous guy with the pistol, though. Everything had happened so fast. They had no time to plan, or even really think things through; they’d just have to make the best of it. Resigned, he knew that things were going to start moving, and fast.

“Where’s the pie?” He heard a voice from the kitchen. Everything came together. Alex Whitman. The calls, the wild goose chase.
Alex Fucking Whitman
.

That’s when Oz fired a shot, into the air. The blast was deafening, and Nicolas crouched, covering his head, as pieces of the ceiling sprinkled down over him. He had not been expecting it. There was a commotion in the kitchen as they tried to figure out what was happening. A dog started barking, loud and deep, repetitive woofs adding to the general bedlam. Then, suddenly, there were two dogs, creating a dysfunctional melody of noise.

Oz’s face was neutral but Nicolas could see him trembling and his breathing, while not fast, was deep and heavy.

“Dude,” Nicolas whispered, panting.

“Yeah,” Oz whispered back, and Nicolas was relieved to feel a piece of the old Oz back, no matter what the circumstances were.

He followed Oz into the kitchen, apprehensive but committed. The wheels were in motion and there was no slowing them down now.

The man with the shotgun–who Nicolas now knew to be Alex Whitman–had one hand on the back of the neck of another man, Alex’s other hand still holding the shotgun. Ana was screaming, waving the knife out in front of her toward Alex. The man who greeted them at the door was gesturing at Alex with his gun. Alex threatened Ana and the man with the gun, forcing them to back off.

“Anasofiya,” Nicolas calmly interrupted the chaos. When she turned, her face reflected her shock. Her lower jaw trembled and the knife slipped out of her hand and crashed to the floor

“Nicolas?” She whispered, her voice childlike.
She loves me. She needs me. I know she does.
His heart felt like jelly. He wanted to rush to her side, but that could end badly for one or both of them. Alex looked ready to snap.

“I’m here, Muffins,” he soothed, trying to sound reassuring when all he could feel was uncertainty, fear, and a good measure of anger. He wasn’t thinking about her betrayal, or the secrets she had kept. “I said I’d always be here when you needed me.”

Ana gaped at him, lips slightly parted. She started to cry. Nicolas couldn’t imagine what she had been going through. The blonde guy on the floor was eyeing them both oddly, and a new kind of understanding came over Nicolas.
Another secret? Oh, he is so not your type, Muffins.

“Nicolas Deschanel,” Alex said, looking up from the man he had been holding at gunpoint. “I have all sorts of questions for you about how you managed to get on to the island, but this hardly seems the right time for them.” Alex’s voice was clear and commanding. All of the country dialect was gone. This was a man in control.

“Hardly,” Nicolas agreed, the anger bubbling up to the top of his jumbled emotions. Uncle Augustus had trusted Alex Whitman first to be their overseer, and then to care for Ana as she ventured out on her own. He had lied to Nicolas on the phone. “What is it you want Alex? Is it money? I have endless amounts of that. Say it, and it’s yours.”

Alex laughed, and the guy on the floor flinched as the gun shifted rhythmically at his neck. “What is it with rich people offering others money to solve a problem? Is everything about money with you people? I don’t want your money. It’s probably tainted anyway, so it would taint me too. There’s nothing you could give me that I would want. None of you,” he looked around the room.

“Then tell us what it is you do want,” Oz interjected, evenly.

Alex took the hand that was on the guy’s neck and pointed at Ana. “I came for her. I was rescuing her from these two.”

Ana shook her head frantically. “Don’t listen to him, he is crazy! Finn and Jonathan have not touched me,” she said and then blushed, as if that were only partly true. He looked over at the guy on the floor.
Ah, the younger one. I thought you came out here to escape this, Ana?

Jonathan spoke up. “Stop trying, Ana, there is no reasoning with him. He’s lost his mind.”

“Stockholm Syndrome,” Alex said airily. Ana’s hands were balled into fists.

“Well, then that makes everything simple,” Oz said, resuming command. “We’re here now, so you are welcome to leave and we can take over.”

Nicolas could see this was not going to work. He wished more than ever that he was not a benign Deschanel. He would have given just about anything to blast this man off the face of the earth, but he would have happily settled for something simple like mind control.

He locked his eyes on Ana, and she looked back in childlike desperation.
I want to hate you, but I can’t. I want to hate you so badly but the only thing I can think about is taking you in my arms and getting you out of here. Oh, Ana, why?
 

“Then I am sorry you wasted your time coming all the way out here, because that’s not going to happen. I’m the only one who can help her,” Alex said, as if it were obvious.

“Like fucking hell!” The man on the floor suddenly sprung to life, ending the temporary cease-fire.

Finn grew increasingly upset as Alex held the gun to him. Ana forced herself to ignore his tension because she feared she would lose her focus if she stopped to consider something bad could happen to him. Then he decided to fight back.

Finn shoved Alex back, and as he fell, the shotgun went off, hitting the large, stained glass skylight featured in the coved ceiling of the dining room. The shotgun blast tore into the colorful mosaic no differently than it would have a thin sheet of glass, obliterating it into pieces of various sizes spread in a surprisingly large, if irregular, diameter. One huge shard of glass hit her on the head. Ana fell, more in reflexive shock at the loud blast, than from actually being struck. More glass, sharper because of their smaller sizes, had shattered with the blast, raining around the old wood flooring. As she fell, her head hit the floor with a crack, while slivers of colored glass pierced all over her body. The pain didn’t register immediately with the adrenaline coursing through her.
 

Before Ana could move, she heard another gun go off, but this one was quieter than the shotgun blast that had left her ears ringing. Angus was barking in a panic, another dog going nuts beside him. Finn screamed, then Jonathan. One more gunshot, then silence.

Jonathan yelled, “Help me!” Which was immediately followed by the sound of wet boots on linoleum as Nicolas and Oz rushed over to where Alex and Finn had been. She struggled to sit up but felt like she was swimming; the floor was so slick. She tried to use her hands but they would slide out from under her, and she could get no traction. Lifting and turning one hand, she saw that it was covered in blood.
My blood.

Not again
, she thought. She started to feel queasy, then dizzy. The room moved in and out of focus. Her ears were still ringing so she didn’t hear Nicolas approach her, but when she looked and saw the look of horror on his face, panic overtook her.

Finn was tired of sitting back and letting the horror unfold around him.

Ana was in danger and he was left feeling useless beneath the cold barrel of a maniac’s gun, screaming inside. Finn desperately wanted to do as he would normally: take action, think later. He imagined dozens of scenarios that would disable Alex and resolve the matter, but in none of them could he completely eliminate the risk to Ana or Jonathan. He could reconcile himself to his own demise if it saved the two of them, but he would not risk their safety.

Finn watched as Ana tried, and failed, to do his job for him. She tried to reason, then negotiate, with Alex. Finn longed to tell her that she could talk until she was blue in the face, Alex was not going to change his focus. He was ashamed of his indecision, but glad for it at the same time if it kept them all safe a little longer.

Then those other two guys had shown up. He didn’t know who they were, but Ana sure did. She went all soft and teary-eyed at the one named Nicolas, and Finn’s heart sank clear to the floor, wondering if this situation could get any worse.

While everyone was attempting civility, Finn quickly shifted his body weight up and backward, catching Alex off balance. When the shotgun went off, his ears burned with the pain of the sound so close, but then another shot came and a different kind of pain rocked him when a fist of fire punched him in the abdomen.

“I’m hit,” he tried to say but what came out was a squeak. He heard Alex go down behind him as another shot was fired. He reached down to his side and his fingers came back blood-soaked; he didn’t have to be a doctor to know that this was very, very bad. There was only one other time in his life that he had felt himself in such mortal danger. His father wasn’t here to save him this time.
Don’t forget Jon. He helped save me too.

Finn tried to sit up but he was overcome with a sudden rush of dizzy weakness. He lay back against the cold, bloody floor, and focused on willing his heart rate down to a more normal tempo. He knew from his father that a person would bleed out faster if their heart was racing, and so he needed to stay calm. Breathing purposefully, Finn rolled his head to the side and caught a glimpse of Ana lying in a pool of her own blood.

Not again. Please God, not again, not Ana.

I love you
, he mouthed.

Finn closed his eyes.

What was the expression about the smoke clearing?

Oz took a moment to take stock of all that had happened, but he would not allow emotion into it. He was still running high on adrenaline, and the moment he stopped to think about the potential losses of the night, he knew he would completely and totally lose it. His brief glance at Nicolas confirmed that he still needed him in control.
Nicolas might hate me when it’s over, but he needs me now.

The smoke had, literally, cleared. Nicolas was kneeling next to Ana, crying by her side, while the dark-haired guy was hunched over the blonde one in a panic. Three people were down, one probably dead, and the other two were in no state of mind to be able to think clearly through to any kind of resolution.

So, what was his plan? Oz was no doctor, and could not assess the severity of either situation. He did know that they would have no way of reaching medical help in this weather. And even if they did, neither Ana nor the blonde guy were likely to survive the time, distance, and cold required for travel. He needed to think fast.

Deciding some action was better than no action, Oz approached Door Man. “Who are you?” Oz inquired calmly. “And who is that?”

Not looking up, consumed with the blonde guy’s injuries, the man responded in a clipped, yet somehow still professional, manner, “Jonathan St. Andrews. This is my brother, Finn.”

Oz nodded. They were brothers, which would make calming Jon down harder. “I’m Oz Sullivan, and that’s Nicolas Deschanel. We came to help Ana.”

Jon grunted something unintelligible, still focused on his brother. Oz took a deep breath.

“Jonathan,” he said firmly. “I need to know if there is a doctor anywhere nearby on this island that we could get them to, or that we could bring here.”

Jonathan did not look up from his brother, but he said, “I am...kind of a doctor.”

Well, this was a convenient turn of events.
Kind of
a doctor was certainly better than
no doctor at all.

Finn’s eyes were closed and there was blood bubbling at his lips. Oz didn’t know much, but he knew that was not good. “Jonathan, I need you to look at me.” He waited and when Jonathan did not, he put his hand on the man’s shoulder. There were tears coursing down the man’s cheeks. “If you’re a...
kind of
doctor, then you should have training in how to remain calm in situations like this. I really, really need you to do that for me right now. You’re the only chance we might have of saving these two.” Oz gestured to Ana, and Jonathan’s eyes followed. Oz realized he was probably realizing her injuries for the first time. Jon’s mouth dropped open and the tears rolled down harder.

“Do you understand?” Oz asked, forcing Jon to make eye contact. “I need you.”

Jonathan looked slowly down at Finn, his lips parted in grief; he shifted his gaze to Ana, his mouth slightly open, his throat moving up and down as he swallowed hard.
He’s in shock, as I probably am
. He turned back to look at Oz with tortured eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I understand.”

“Good. Now I need you to tell me in the plainest of terms–no medical jargon–what the situation is with these two. I need to know how badly they are injured, if we can save them, and if we can, what we are going to need to do.” Jonathan nodded, but still looked dazed, and so Oz added, “Right now.”

Jonathan reached over his brother and said in a shaking voice, “Shot to the abdominal cavity, may have punctured a vital organ, probable massive internal bleeding. I don’t know if he can be saved.” Jonathan put his arm on his sleeve to wipe the tears, but then began to sob with silent shakes.

Oz put his hand out, firmly but kindly. “Jonathan,
please.
”

Jon lifted his head, nodding again. “I have…some equipment here...I don’t know anymore what’s there.” He looked upward, thoughtfully.  “He will need a blood transfusion…”

So, Finn’s situation was not good, but at least Oz understood it better. “Now Ana,” he said. Jonathan hesitated to rise, loathe to leave his brother. “Put your hand here,” he said to Oz, gesturing to where Jon was trying to subdue the abdominal bleeding. “Don’t let up pressure, not for a second.”