Saving Grace

Chapter 9

Shay's POV (Yeah,she's gonna be Shay again)

Since we've been here we've only seen verbal and physical abuse. It's a nice change from the sexual abuse I endured on my last visit. That sentence sums up my attitude towards this whole experience nicely. I'm numb. 

After the first week passed the fear that I held kind of ebbed away. I still had a knot in the pit of my stomach when I allowed my mind to wander to Charlie or the kids. Kay was taken away again. Eleanor and I have no way of knowing if she's safe or not. 

"Shay?" Eleanor whispered across the darkened room.

"Yeah?" I squinted towards her silhouette.

"Do you hear something?"

I paused and listened. There was the sound of distant shouting. I weakly pushed myself up and pressed my ear to the door. I couldn't make out any words, but it sounded like someone was running towards us.

"You don't think...?" Eleanor asked, trailing off.

I shook my head vehemently. "No. We can't get out hopes up." I crawled over to her and listened to the rapidly approaching footsteps, failing at taking my own advice.

Before I could brace myself for it there was gunfire and the door swung open. A slender figure was standing there and I gaped in disbelief. 

"Kay?"

"No time for explanations, we need to move," she said, holstering her gun. "Charlie and the kids are already in a helicopter on their way to a safe house. We have about five minutes, we need to move. NOW!" she shouted  grabbing Eleanor and I and pulling us up.

We sprinted after her as fast as our malnourished bodies would take us. We ran through the same door-less doorway that I had run through just moments before I had seen my parents killed. Fifty feet away was a helicopter.

Thirty feet.

Twenty feet.

Ten feet. 

BANG! Gunfire rang across the field. Eleanor screamed, but kept running.

Three feet.

Kay hoisted herself through the door and pulled me in after her. She reached for Eleanor and their hands locked as the driver started lifting off. Together we pulled her through the door. Suddenly she got much heavier. Kay leaned through the door and pulled out her gun. She shot at Eleanor's foot and I heard the pained shouts of a man and then a dull thud. 

We got Eleanor through the door the rest of the way and collapsed into the chairs. Kay slid the door shut and sat herself down across from us.

"Here," she said, tossing us each a sandwich and a bottle of water from the cooler next to us.

"How did you get out?" I asked before ripping into the food.

"I was never really in. I was planted by a double agent to find you, and then extracted and put in charge of your rescue."

"And the kids are safe?" Eleanor asked, her mouth full of food.

"Yes, they're with Charlie, they're fine." We fell silent until we felt the helicopter start to decend. "You're going to have to stay here for a few days. Word will be sent to your familes that you're safe, but we can't let anyone see you until we have all of your captors in custody. I'm afraid that this will have to include a huge trial in which you will have to bear witness. I know that you probably want to keep this as quite as possible, but given the popularity of your fiance," she looked at Eleanor," and the seriousness of this case, it will explode. Everyone will know. I'm sorry, but your lives have just gotten much more difficult. On the bright side, however, you won't have to change your identity again. You might even be able to go back to being Shay."

On that happy note the helicopter touched down. We climbed out and made our way towards a little log cabin. Kay pulled a key out of her pocket and opened the door for us. Charlie was sitting at a table in the middle of a small kitchen and Nate and Grace were huddled on a couch, fast asleep and watching a movie. 

I ran to my daughter and pulled her into my arms, not caring that I was waking her. She started to whimper and push me away, but when she opened her eyes and saw it was me she held onto my neck as tightly as her little arms would let her. I buried my face in her filthy hair and wept. Next to us Eleanor was doing the same with Nate.

After a few minutes Grace's grip went slack. Kay came over and put her hand on my back. I looked up and she led me to another room. Inside there were two beds. I set Grace down on one and pulled the covers up around her chin. Then I went back out into the main room to see Charlie.

 She stood up to hug me as soon as I came back in. Kay let us have our moment and then said, "I really have to get going, the helicopter is waiting."

"Thanks for everything," I said, squeezing her hand as she went to leave.

After Kay left I sank into a chair at the small, deeply lined, wooden table in the kitchen nursing a large mug of tea, trying to calm my nerves. In the next room I could hear the faint sound of Eleanor humming softly to Nate to try and get him to sleep. Charlie sat next to me, changing the dressing on her wounded arm. I knew that my head was pretty banged up, but I couldn't bring myself to clean the cuts.

"Hey, you okay?" Eleanor asked coming back into the room.

"Huh?" I said, breaking out of my daze. Eleanor came and sat next to me. I blinked quickly to make sure no tears fell out of my eyes and looked at her.

"You're a mess." She picked up a clean cloth and got up to wet it. "Talk to me, what's wrong?" she asked, holding the cloth to the side of my head.

"I'm just having a hard time accepting that we're safe now," I reluctantly shared. I didn't want Charlie or Eleanor to feel unsafe, but my prior experience with this type of situation hasn't had a great turn around. "I've just been here before."

"We're going to be okay," Charlie said, finishing bandaging her arm. "The kids weren't hurt at all, we all got out okay."

 "I'm sure you're right. I'm going to bed. Goodnight." I stood up and went into the bedroom. I crawled under the covers next to Grace and quickly fell fast asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So they're safe! Yay! I considered killing off Kay and/or Charlie, but decided not to.

Reunions next chapter?

VOTE!

COMMENT!

FAN!

<3