11- Keep Going

11

 

Keep Going

 

Eliza’s story…

Eliza tried to cover her ears with her hands but no matter how hard she pressed, it never seemed to block out the sounds, not really.  Even if it could have stopped her from hearing the screams, sobs and the echo of her father's fist crashing into her mother's face, she just would have heard it in her own head.

There was no escaping it.

She curled up tighter into a ball on her bed.  The people on the posters and pictures stuck to her wall seemed to stare as if to mock her fear.  She felt a pang of regret as she realized she was more worried about dear old dad deciding to come upstairs than her mother's well-being.

The fear that racked Eliza Adams thirteen-year-old body was all-encompassing.  It was so heavy, it was a physical pain that spread from her head to her feet.  Tears streamed down her face but she was not crying.  It was like her body was shaking them out of her.

She just wanted it to be over, wanted to go back to pretending they were a normal family.  She wanted to go back to the fairy tale life where her father did not get drunk once every two weeks or so and beat the shit out of her mother, and sometimes her.

After what seemed like an eternity, the screaming stopped with a slamming of the front door.  Her father had left too cool off.  He would return sometime in the middle of the night a different person, filled with guilt and regret.  He would apologize and win her mother over and the pretending would resume... until next time.

She relaxed slowly like a scared animal coming out of its hiding spot after a great storm.  Her door opened and at first she tensed, half expecting it to be the dark creature that possessed her father, but instead it was her mother.

She would have been a beautiful woman if the years of stress and abuse had not taken such a devastating toll on her.  Her right eye and the left side of her mouth were swollen and beginning to turn purple.  There was a deadness in her, like the life and energy had been drained from her soul.

She sat down on the bed next to Eliza and held her in her arms.  Eliza broke into sobs as she always did.

"You be strong, Liz.  You never stop."  Her mother repeated over and over like a mantra and Liz knew that one day she would be all out of tears.  One day she would find the strength to stop this fear that came in waves.

"You never stop."

 

****

Reality brutally returned to agent Eliza Adams.  She took a deep breath of air, as if she had surfaced from the water after a long dive, then coughed.  The bullets her partner had fired into her abdomen had been stopped by her standard issue vest.  The close range and impact had still pounded into her and knocked her out by forcing the air out of her lungs.

"Jesus!"  One of the Sheriffs standing over her said as Agent Adams returned to the land of the living.

Eliza ripped at her shirt sending buttons scattering along the pavement.  She then caught the Velcro and pulled it, freeing the vest that swung open and just like that she felt like she could breathe again.  She did not care that she was lying in just a bra in the middle of a crowd of strangers.  She was just happy she had oxygen in her lungs one more time.

"Status." She said in a raspy voice and everyone just kind of looked back and forth at each other, confused.

Eliza took a deep breath.  "What is the status of the situation?  Where is Barkley?"

One of the Sheriffs was squared into speaking.  "Sorry ma'am.  He took a hostage and confiscated a boat.  We radioed for a copper and the police boat’s ETA.  Five minutes till intercept."

Eliza nodded and forced her jelly legs back to the solid form they had once been and stood.  As she did, she looked around and noticed something.  "Where is Josephine?"

The Sheriff looked confused.  "Who?"

"The female civilian.  The one woman who got into the ambulance with the hostage!"  Her patience was wearing thin.

The Sheriffs looked around and shrugged and Liz knew then exactly were Jo would be, where she had always been.  With her husband.

"I need a rifle, now!"  Eliza said and the Sheriff hopped to the task of finding her one as Eliza began to hobble toward the dock where Barkley had killed the tour guide and made off with the boat.  She could she him shred the water already two hundred yards out.

She turned and saw the Sheriff running back toward her.   He had a Remington 700 .308 with a scope.  "I use this for hunting!"

He tossed the gun to her and she caught it, flipping it around and spinning.  The rifle was bolt action.  She pulled the bolt up and jammed it open.  The Sheriff handed her a couple of bullets but she only grabbed one, she only had time for one, and jammed it into the rifle before closing the action with a satisfying mechanical clank.

Eliza had always hated scopes.  She understood they were necessary but hated not having any peripheral vision.  There was something about it that unnerved her and made it hade for her to find the target and lead it properly.  She would have to make do.

She raised the gun to her shoulder and closed an eye, peering through the scope.  She saw Barkley at the helm of the boat.  Leo was draped over the back of the boat, his head and arm dangling.  She cursed her luck.  He was moving too fast for her to be able to get a clean shot off and soon he would be too far for her to take a shot altogether.

She scanned the water and that's when she saw her.  Jo was on a Jet Ski she had confiscated from the docks, racing after Barkley and her husband in distress.  This made matters worse.  Jo was not combat trained, she was just a scared wife, bumbling after her husband and putting herself in the way.

"What are you doing, Jo?" Eliza mumbled to herself as she watched and hoped for an opening to present itself.

 

*****

"What in the hell am I doing?!"  Jo yelled to herself as she gunned the Jet Ski and bounced over the wake that was created by Barkley's newly acquired boat.

This was a defining moment for Josephine because she had never seen herself doing anything like this. She was not this person who dives in head first and hopes everything works out, that was her husband. She was a ‘tell the cops and worry’ sort of person.  Her logical brain told her she couldn't possibly help, and that she was, in all probability, making things worse.

As much as she knew this, there was another part of her, the part that had made her defy her instincts and fall for the man in the silly hats and the stupid shirts.  The part that could not imagine her life without him.  The part that commanded she go after him, that she free Leonard or die trying.

She turned the accelerator and pushed the Jet Ski harder.

She saw Leo look up and see her as she closed in on the boat and a myriad of emotions passed over his face, both happiness and concern were in them as he knew she was putting herself in danger for him.

Barkley turned and saw her as well.  She saw his mouth twist into a curse as he turned and fired his pistol.  She heard the three pops, clear as day, and felt an impact rock through her.  Instinctively, she gripped the Jet Ski and didn't fall backward.

The pain started a second later.  It began at her shoulder and blitzed forward through her upper chest and torso.  The bullet had caught her in the meat of her shoulder.  Blood began to run out of the hole and drip down her hand and arm as well as her tank top.

She had come to a stop in the water on the machine trying not to let the hurt go too deep, trying not to let it get to her.  She had never been a fan of pain, but now it had become her enemy.

She heard the pop of the gun a couple more times and looked up.  The boat had come to a stop as well, only fifty-or-so feet ahead of her.  Barkley struggled with a beaten and hurt Leonard and Jo knew he would lose this fight.

Logic told her to stay where she was but love made her twist the accelerator and rush, head long, into trouble one more time, live or die, for the man she loved.

TO BE CONTINUED...