To Slow a Treacherous Heart ✓

18| Playing with Fire

Date Published: 14th April 2019

Chapter Eighteen: Playing With Fire

For one entire second, everything froze.

She was going to die.

Die.

Jason.

And just as suddenly, she snapped out of it.

She didn't know why she thought of him.

She didn't even know if he was alive.

But he brought her back.

And made her jump into action.

The ground was solid beneath her feet.

So, she pushed. Pushed until the ground was longer beneath her and she was falling.

Falling sideways.

But the bullet was travelling too fast.

Way too fast.

A strangled scream escaped her long before it even made contact.

And then it did.

She felt it sear across the surface of her shoulder, ripping the sleeve of her blue coloured dress.

For a millisecond she felt nothing.

And then she hit the ground.

And all feeling came rushing back.

And it was the most painful thing she'd ever felt in her whole life.

"Merde,"

And then she began to scream.

Screamed as though she were dying. At least then someone would hear her.

Suddenly one of the walls of the room began to move. She stopped midscream and blinked.

She was in a tent!

"Thorne is this really necessary?" came an Irish accented voice from the entrance of the tent.

"Mon Dieu, I expected it to be a clean kill," he said, pointing the gun back at her. "Elle est une fillet très anneuyeux, n'est pas?"

May sucked in another breath and closed her eyes, fear casting a dark, claustrophobic shadow over her heart. Her stomach, realizing it was at the circus, decided to summersault it's way into oblivion and she began feeling slightly nauseous.

The searing pain seemed to wrack her shoulder with new found vengeance.

"There's a policeman outside, Thorne. Apparently e' was driving by the circus and heard a shot and the screaming. e's asking for you," he said.

"Merde,"

May felt the breath she didn't even know she was holding jet out of her mouth in relief.

"Gag her and knock her out," he said before leaving the tent.

And before May could even process what was happening, she was back upright and the black velvet gag was between her lips, and no amount of biting would stifle the burn of it stretching her dry lips apart.

The red-haired man who gagged her shot her a sympathetic smile. "Sorry love," he replied. "You shouldn't have picked a fight with circus people,"

She sent him a pleading look. When he didn't respond he began to struggle; pulling earnestly at her bindings.

With curses that could burn the ears of a sailor, he covered her head with a big black bag. She screamed and screamed, but all that came out of her were soft muffled sounds of protest. Tears began streaming down her eyes as she felt him press at her shoulder wound.