BBC Musketeers / The things we do for love

Final Shot

Last time in chapter 23:

"Yes, I don't own that many hospitals. It wasn't me, it was one of my employees." Louis saw a chance, but he had misjudged his opponent. "No, don't try to put the blame on someone else. It was you. You decided and you will pay for that decision!" he shouted and shot.

Luckily, it had only been another warning shot, but everybody in the room gasped in shock. Louis was now kneeling in front of Marmion, the fear of getting shot bigger than his pride and his desire to stand up to the man. Marmion calmed down and put the weapon away again. Treville and D'Artagnan relaxed slightly.

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Nathan and Henry took Henry's car back to the chateau. They had almost reached the entrance gate when they saw someone jog in their direction. "Hold on a sec, I know that guy," Henry stopped at the curb and he and Nathan got out of the car, as the man came closer.

"Dude, that's Marc, what is he doing here?" Nathan wondered. By now, Marc had recognized them too and headed towards them. He stopped in front of the car, panting heavily. He definitely needed to work on his endurance.

"Marc, what are you doing here? And why are you panting like a racehorse?"

"The chateau....Marmion....Aramis...." Marc gasped, still panting for breath and unable to get out more than one word at a time.

Henry grabbed a bottle of water from the backseat and handed it to Marc. "Here, drink something and then start at the beginning."

"I have to get help and I don't have a cellphone with me. The chateau has been attacked and is under siege now. Louis and the others have been taken hostage, they're in danger. He plans to kill them and he lets a coin toss decide. It's barbaric. My coin toss won and I could get away."

It took a moment for Henry and Nathan to wrap their heads around this. "And what about Aramis?" Henry asked?

"He was shot when we tried to fight back at first." Mark lowered his eyes to the ground, slowly realizing the kind of hell he had been able to escape. But he had no intention of staying safely outside now, he wanted to help the others.

Henry thought the same. "Okay, so we're team B. We're going in." He moved towards the driver's door, but Nathan stopped him. "There's only the three of us, and if they managed to invade the chateau and take out all the guards, they're in the majority. We can't do this alone."

As usual, Nathan approached the matter logically and had analyzed possible plans. Henry gave in. "Do you know who exactly is at the chateau?" he asked Marc.

Marc thought for a moment, mentally going through everybody he had seen. "I haven't seen Athos anywhere, so I don't know if he's there, but everyone else has been taken hostage."

Henry nodded. "Okay, we'll go to Athos."

"And what if he isn't home? It's his day off, he can do whatever he wants," Marc said.

"I'll locate his cellphone, so we know exactly where he is," Nathan said, grabbing his laptop from the backseat. Quickly he entered Athos' phone number and the program returned the GPS coordinates. Nathan knew the place, so all three got into the car and Henry drove off.

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The man in the garden moaned in pain. He was lying below one of the windows, surrounded by shards of glass. A few of them had landed on his chest. The sun was shining in his face and he blinked against the bright light. The guards at the outer wall took no note of him, so they didn't notice that he slowly sat up and examined himself. He didn't seem to have any serious injuries, mostly just a number of bruises. His chest hurt slightly with each breath, so he carefully checked for breaks. Luckily nothing seemed to be wrong with his abdomen. When he came to the upper ribs on his left side, he grimaced. So that's where the pain came from, apparently he had either cracked or broken one or two ribs. He tried to remember what had happened before his fall out of the window.