In The End Box Set | Books 1-3 Stevens, GJ (story books to read TXT) 📖

Oh shit, I thought.

“They’ve gone,” he said, his voice still quiet. I felt his hands reach out and with a firm touch they were at my forearms, guiding me to turn and urging my back to the wall as he slid past. “Wait here.”

I heard his footsteps place with care on the carpet, stopping in a room nearby where I listened to him rifle through the contents of a drawer. I urged my night-vision to improve, but the concentration did nothing for my pounding headache centred on what felt like a melon-sized bruise reaching out from my forehead.

I heard friction from a match striking out of sight and watched the doorway off the hall build with an eerie light. The glow brightened to the sound of footsteps. He was at the doorway with a burning candle resting in a glass tumbler in one hand, a bunch of unlit candles in the other.

The orange of the light made him look so different; his skin fresh and unblemished, making me question if I’d misjudged his age. With the pistol still tucked into his jeans and his mouth in a wide smile, he looked very pleased for himself.

“Follow me,” he said, and he stepped into the hall, holding the candle out in front. It felt like I was about to follow a priest to my execution, but what choice did I have?

I took one slow step and then another, keeping my eyes forward, not noticing my foot snag until it was too late. I fell forward, stumbling over whatever was in my path; the object skittering across the carpet until I stepped on it a second time, taking my feet from the floor.

The fall felt like it took an age. The carpet lit as the guy turned, the flickering light revealing the stacks of metal boxes with multicoloured wires coming out of the back. The home electronics with their black cords wrapped around their middles, the stack I’d knocked still collapsing.

As my shoulder hit the carpet, I watched DVD players, Sky boxes, video cameras and games consoles cascade around me to thoughts of the hand tools littering the footwell of his car. His fear of the roadblock. Of the blue flashing lights.

With my wrists scraping hard against the cuffs, I caught his wide-eyed look as his gaze followed me down. With his features shadowing in the candlelight, I felt his hand push against my arm, turning my view down to the carpet.

I’d been right all along.

I’d stepped out of the frying pan and jumped, hands bound, into the witch’s oven.

58

“No,” I said with the last of my breath, the muscles in my neck spasming as I fought to keep my face from the carpet. My hands darted left and right from the warmth of his fingers trying to get a grip.

“No,” I repeated with little success, my fingers going limp as he took a firm grip and pushed my wrists into the small of my back. I tried to scream despite knowing I had no breath.

“Hold still,” he said in the struggle, but his words made me wriggle harder against his weight until I felt his pressure release, like I’d won the battle.

It felt like my wrists were coming away from each other. My hand was free. I tried pulling my arm up to my side, ready for the disappointment but my hand came away. I couldn’t believe it, despite the ache in my shoulder as I moved.

As the reality settled, I pushed my hand to the floor and rolled, searching in the darkness. There he was, looking down with a heavy brow, his face illuminated by the candle flickering on the floor. His hand offered out.

“Alex,” he said, pushing his open hand towards me.

I lay on my back, swapping my view between my wrists, the cuffs still hanging on the right.

I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do. I’d been so wrong about this guy, about Alex.

My hand touched his and he gripped as I pulled, taking my other hand with his left until I was on my feet. He kept hold of my right before pushing a small key into the cuff’s lock.

“You have a handcuff key?” I said, rubbing each wrist as the metal released and working my shoulders around in circles. The relief flowed over my head like cooling water after being in the sun for too long.

“Five pound ninety nine on eBay,” he said, pocketing the key.

“Why would you need that?” I said and paused, the question overwhelming my aching senses and my head too busy to think about his words for long. “Jess,” I said, when he replied with a flash of his eyebrows as I pushed my hand out again.

We shook, his grip more gentle and more considered than I’d expected.

“Sorry about the...” he said, nodding to the littered floor. “Are you okay?”

I thought for a moment. I felt fine; my head ached a little, the fall not helping. It surprised me enough to keep other thoughts I didn’t want to dwell on pushed to the corners of my mind.

Raising my hand to my forehead, I touched at the tender bulge and with relief I realised it wouldn't stop me fitting through doorways.

“I’m fine, thank you,” I said as he bent down, piling the household electronics back into neat stacks against the walls. “Can I use your phone?”

He nodded.

“Shall we?” he said as he finished stacking, offering a hand towards the end of the corridor and picking up the lit candle before lighting another and handing it over.

I took the candle and followed him into a living room dominated by a wide TV hanging on the wall. Even in the low light I saw there were no decorations of