Chapter Eleven, Breath:
The sun bled red across the horizon. A chilly air swept across as dusk settled across the land. Or, at least Cordelia thought it was dusk. She hadn't slept for days; they wouldn't let her, and she was clearly disoriented. The need for food and water was powerfully overwhelming, but somehow she managed. She noted how the sky above her was a mixture of colors; blue and orange, as if the sky were burning with an incontrollable fire. Her captors walked her quickly back to the shack where they kept her and the rest of the captors. In another shack a few feet away was where they'd held her for days. They took a hostage there every day for questioning and other things Cordelia couldn't bring herself to think on right now. She just wanted to sleep. She didn't care that it would be in a hostage shack with most of her comrades in tears from fear and pain, or that in a few hours the torture she'd just experienced would either happen to her again or to someone else, she just wanted to close her eyes, take a deep breath, and retreat to slumber.
The burly man who'd been walking out in front of her hit the wooden door of the shack so hard that it splintered a bit. Another man pushed her roughly inside; and Cordelia, tired and broken, crumbled to the ground. A sharp gasp was torn from her lips when a searing pain shot through her. Her eyes landed on Cooper laid out on his back in the corner. She slowly crawled to him, hoping the guard didn't see, and touched her hand to his.
"Cooper?" she whispered, her voice raspy and hoarse. Cooper didn't flinch at her touch, he didn't move at all, and that worried her. His skin, though dirty and bloodied, was pale. She touched his cheek. "Coop?"
His eyes fluttered open and he tried to focus on her as best he could. "You're back," he said softly. It was then that Cordelia noticed his trouble with breathing. The broken vessels in his eyes made them bloodshot red, but also identified and underlying problem. "Are you okay?" he asked.
Nodding slightly, she lied to him. "Yeah." She caressed his cheek softly and felt how cold he was in comparison to other times. "Enough about me. Are you okay?"
When his wet cough sputtered up a substantial amount of blood, Cordelia placed her hand over her mouth to stop the sob before it could escape. "Oh, Coop," she said behind her hand. They both knew he was dying.
"I heard," another short cough, "I heard from one of them that a US convoy is in the area searching for you. Looks like our fathers called in the cavalry."
Closing her eyes tightly, she knew that news was a blessing and a curse rolled into one. "They're going to kill us," she said. She'd pretty much been resigned to the fate since her capture.
"You can get out of here," he told her. She saw his hand groping for something underneath him and she reached to help. She put her hands on one of the weapons her captors brandished daily and gaped at him. "I took this from the other shack the last time I was there." He looked over to the guard by the door. "If the time comes, I want you to use this and you get the hell out of here."
Shaking her head profusely, "I can't leave you."
"I'm dead weight, Cordi," he told her. "You and I both know I'm as good as dead." At that, she dropped her head in sorrow as tears fell onto his chest. "You've got a shot. You can get out of here and tell our story. You let the world know what happened here." He wrapped her hand in his and held on as tightly as he could. "You run, Cordelia, as fast and as far as you can." His eyes spoke the rest of the words his mouth could not say.
Cordelia gave him a watery smile, a thank you of sorts, and leaned forward to kiss his lips. She kissed him for all the times she wished she could and all the times she never would be able to again. She kissed him because she loved him and wanted him to know it.
Suddenly, she was forced away by someone pulling on her hair. The guard who'd been by the door was cursing them both in Arabic. He hit Cooper in the stomach with the edge of his weapon and Cordelia cried out for him to stop. She watched him hit Cooper again and again while listening to Cooper cry and wail in pain.
It wasn't until she shot the man in the head did she realize that she still had the gun in her hand. She stood up with the gun in hand and shot him again. Again. For Cooper. Again. For herself. Again. For her companions. Until there were no more bullets left. She stared at his lifeless body and saw nothing. She heard no sounds in her ears, until Cooper yelled her name."
"Cordelia!" he yelled hoarsely. She dropped the gun and knelt beside him. He was dying and in pain and they both knew it. The look in his eyes told her clearly what he wanted. She shook her head. She couldn't. "Do it! Please! Don't let me die by their hands." She stared at him, broken and in sheer agony. She grabbed the gun and closed her eyes and shot him.
She looked around the room and all she could see were bodies. Friend and enemies alike jumbled together and all the rage and anger she'd kept locked inside these past six months erupted like a volcano. Her friends were suffering, she had to save them. Shot after shot went off into the bodies of her comrades. Her captors were met with similar fates as they burst through the open door and it wasn't until the last body hit the floor did she let the weapon fall from her hands.
There was not a sound heard over the roaring of her blood. Her shallow, raspy breaths were unsteady and hardly provided her lungs with the nourishment they craved. Her brown eyes scanned the room slowly. Body after body lay on the floor, friends and enemies of her plight. Though the room was quiet, she could still hear screaming. Could still feel the pain her enemies inflicted upon her body. Could still hear the gunshots and smell the blood.
Suddenly, she dropped to her knees and vomited. She cried out, her voice breaking off in a shrieking sob, as her senses overpowered her. Feelings of anger, rage, sickness, hatred, depression and pain... She shut her eyes tightly as another wave hit her. Her mind was swimming in a sea of despair and she was content to die in that spot in that moment.
"You run, Cordelia…" she remembered Cooper saying.
Then something deep inside her told her to move. Fierce propulsion started in the pit of her stomach and she stood. Night was falling across the horizon and she had to get out of there soon. If she had any chance of surviving, she had to leave now.
Running as fast as she could out the door, she didn't hear the gasping breaths of a comrade who had survived her hail of bullets.
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Cordelia opened her eyes and found herself surrounded by the murky waters. She remembered vaguely the encounter with Jason on the docks, pinning him under her body with his gun pointed at him was something she was sure neither of them would ever forget. She remembered the men shooting at them and being struck in the shoulder before she and Jason tumbled into the water. It all happened so fast that she didn't get a chance to take a significant breath, and her need for air was becoming an issue.
She started to swim to the surface when she felt a strong arm around her waist. Jason held her in place tightly against his body, pointing upward, careful to not disturb the water, to the men who'd shot at them still standing on the docks watching for movement. Cordelia motioned, also carefully, to her throat; telling him of her need for air. They needed to resurface soon or she would suffocate.
To say that she was surprised when she felt Jason's lips against hers would have been an understatement. To feel his soft, warm flesh pressed firmly against hers was a direct contrast to the cold water. Being held securely in his strong arms so close to his body, she felt weightless, almost as if she were floating. She closed her eyes when his lips parted slightly, coaxing hers to do the same and he exhaled softly into her mouth. Feeling the warmth of his breath invading her mouth was as much a shock as it was sensual. The fact that he was giving her air at all was her something, but the sensuality of it all was her undoing. She took all that he gave her hungrily, breathing him in, giving her lungs the nourishment they lacked.
Jason tugged at her slightly, his arms never leaving her waist and they swam together underneath the dock. They resurfaced slowly, careful not to make too much noise as they both gasped for a much-needed breath. When she opened her eyes again, she was met with the same deep blue eyes she'd looked into a few minutes ago, but something in them had softened. Something in them both had softened, and she knew he felt it too.
Huddled together for warmth in the cold water, they waited silently until they heard footsteps retreating. Once they were gone far enough, Jason felt it was safe to speak. Still, in a quiet voice he asked, "Are you okay?" Cordelia nodded then winced when his hand brushed against the open wound on her arm. "You're bleeding," he said, examining her wound.
"So are you," she pointed at the tear in his leather jacket. The look he gave clearly showed that the article of clothing was his favorite. "Did you recognize them?" she asked, changing the subject, putting some measure of business between them again. "Those men?"
"Yeah," Jason replied gruffly. "They work for Zacharra." He looked into her eyes and didn't see the same something (he really didn't know what to call it) that he saw when she pinned him to the planks. A curious thought struck him suddenly. "They must have followed me here."
"That means they saw me," Cordelia was already ahead of him. The sirens in the background stopped the next words that would have come out of her mouth. Instead she said, "We can't stay here." She was already swimming for the banks when Jason asked her where she expected them to go. "They probably know we're not dead by now so I'm sure they're going to pick up your trail again once we leave. That means we can't go to your place or any other place associated with you or your boss."
She crawled up onto the dirt slowly, the muscle cramps she felt in her legs caused by the running and the freezing water. Jason watched, unabashedly, the way her clothes clung to her frame. He could make out nearly every curve of her body underneath the wet fabric, and it stirred him. Helplessly, he watched her peel off the jacket to the jogging outfit revealing the creamy caramel skin of her long, sinewy arms. When his mind went back to their earlier encounter and his helping her underwater, and he had to practically tear his eyes away from her.
Cordelia tied the jacket around her waist, and looked up at him. She could see the taut muscles of his stomach beneath the black shirt that was plastered to his skin. She couldn't bring herself to look into those blue eyes of his for fear of seeing something she wasn't ready to face.
She cleared her throat softly. "I know a place not far from here," when she looked up into his eyes this time she was all business. "We can go there."
"Okay," Jason said and started to head in the direction of his motorcycle when Cordelia grabbed at his wrist. Feeling her tiny fingers grasping his skin was like fire, and every second they lingered there only caused the fire within him to grow. "What?"
"Walking would be better," she told him softly. Already knowing exactly what he was headed for. She dropped his wrist. "Easier to avoid the cops and whoever was trailing you to begin with."
Nodding, Jason was quiet when they started to walk in the opposite direction. Away from the sirens of the police cars, away from the men who'd tried to gun them down in broad daylight, away from whatever it was they both experienced on and underneath the docks…
He breathed in deeply.
What they were walking towards… he just couldn't say.
