Page 77 of Crushed
CHAPTER 25
Scarlett
Water covered me. Every crevice. Every valley. My vision was blurry. Each movement was slow. Still, I clung my legs around his shoulders and banged the brick into his head as hard as I could, a second time, a third time, a fourth time. Until he let go of the gun. Until blood mixed with the chlorinated water. I thought of Cormac’s face when he lifted me in the harness:You’re a smart woman, he had said,You’ll figure a way.
You will live through this, Scarlett.
His voice calmed me, even when I was completely underwater, ready to drown.
I could live through this. I could hold my breath. I could make sure Issac was gone. I couldn’t let a threat like Issac live. Not when he had hurt Lizzy. When he let my parents die. Not when he wanted to kill Cormac.
Again, and again, and again.
Do it for me, Cormac’s voice said in my memory. I hit Issac again, the two of us sinking down, and down into the deep depths of the pool.Do it for me.
And for my parents.
For Lizzy.
For Cormac.
For myself.
So I hit him again, and again, until Issac’s body loosened in stillness. Keeping my legs tight around his neck, I inched us towards the surface. I grabbed onto the edge of the pool while I held him down, waiting for his system to completely shut down.
Lizzy.
Lizzy was lying on her side, coughing water while Cormac held her shoulders, helping her to breathe. “The key to the device has to be in his pockets,” he said.
“On it.”
I swam down, searching his pockets. I found a single key, then locked him into place with his head tight between my legs again. I tossed Cormac the key, and he undid the device strapped to Lizzy’s face. Lizzy held her mouth, rubbing her jaw, gagging as she let her thick tongue finally back into her mouth.
Once I was sure that Issac wasn’t coming back, I swam down again and grabbed him by the waist, bringing him to the edge. Cormac pulled him out of the water.
“Are you okay?” I asked Lizzy, putting a hand on her back. She shot a look at me. “How long were you in that?”
“Long enough,” Lizzy snapped.
“We’ve got to get you to a hospital,” I said.
“Fuck the hospital. I’m fine.”
“You need treatment, Lizzy. You were abducted and beaten and—”
“Dr. Davis can take care of her,” Cormac said. We both turned our attention to him. “We can take you to my estate for treatment.”
I put an arm around Lizzy. “Get your ass up,” I yelled. “We’re going.”
“Fine,” she hissed. “But what about Issac?”
“Someone from the Network will take care of him.”
Both of us got into the backseat of the car while Cormac drove. I called one of our consultants and told him what had happened. He would take care of it, and wanted an update on Lizzy’s condition as soon as I could give one. I hung up, then turned to Lizzy.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I went to talk to him,” she said, slurring her words. “I wanted to find out about your parents as much as you did. Maybe more.” She touched her face, gently caressing the puffy red area around her mouth. I found it hard to believe that she wanted to know about my parents more than I did, but I knew she felt responsible for their deaths, even though their final assignment wasn’t SNC sanctioned. “I knew you weren’t going to follow through with the assignment, based on the way you were talking about Cormac. So I thought that if I could get that information from Issac for you, it would make up for their deaths somehow. But then we got drunk together, and I fell asleep. The next thing I knew, I was tied up in his basement. I don’t know how much time passed.”
