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Amor Vincit Omnia – Part I
By Got Tea and Joodiff
ONE
The ground, mercifully, is still solid underfoot. If it wasn't… Grace banishes the thought. Concentrates not on how tired she is, nor on how unsteady she feels as she keeps pushing forwards. Not on how cold she is, or even how much she aches from top to toe, as bloodied and bruised as she is. No, she focuses only on her goal. Get back to the car.
Ahead, a huge, imposing gate looms in the growing dusk. The sight makes her smile, and feel like crying. Earlier it was an irritating obstacle that made them both laugh as he helped her awkwardly negotiate her way over it. Now, it's a potentially insurmountable problem. Still, up and over the gate is the only way out, and as she reaches it, Grace grits her teeth and grimly starts to climb, clinging on for dear life.
"I love you," he'd whispered in her ear as he helped her find her footing on the rungs. She'd frozen in his grasp, craned her neck to stare at him, astonished. "Well, you certainly know how to pick your bloody moments!" He'd laughed at her, long and hard, and when her feet finally touched the ground, he'd gathered her in his arms and kissed her, slowly and sweetly.
Grace clutches at the memory, like a protective shield.
The ground yaws away from her as she clings to the top, dizziness fizzing hotly at the edges of her vision.
"Boyd," she mutters, as fiercely as she can, and clamps her eyes shut. Lying across the top bar seems to be the way to go, and after many deep breaths that don't calm her, and a stern attempt at giving herself a pep talk, eventually she's able to slither over and try to find purchase with her feet. It's hideous, the whole ordeal. But not as hideous as the alternative. She's almost down when her feet slip, when the bottom of her stomach seems to drop out and she plummets with a terrified shriek. The ground, when it meets her, is incredibly unforgiving.
She wants to see him naked, she thinks, staring up at the darkening sky, the thought so absurd and so inappropriate that had she not been half-winded she would have laughed aloud in wonder and embarrassment.
How long does he have? How long does she have? Her phone is gone, lost in the initial melee on the second floor of the rambling, semi-derelict old house. His was taken and smashed underfoot. She doesn't remember seeing a single payphone anywhere in the increasingly narrow roads and lanes.
There's a police radio in the car. Handheld thing, chucked in the glovebox and ignored. Might not even be charged.
She hasn't seen him naked. They haven't... Well, there are many things they haven't done. Yet.
A few kisses, the first clumsy and unexpected, a couple of amorous tussles on his sofa and hers. That's all. Early days.
He could die. He really could die. There had been more blood than she wanted to see. His face had been bleached bone-white and slick with sweat, but there had been enough life left in him to order her to go. To go... and save them both, if she could.
Benson's car is gone, and McDonald's, but Boyd's Audi is still where they left it.
But it seems so far away.
She wants to see him naked. And to do that, she needs to save them both. It's enough to help her roll over. To plant her hands in the dirt and get her knees underneath her and push.
The vomit comes from nowhere. Hot, heavy waves of pain radiate through her chest and abdomen as she retches, bringing up what feels like every meal she's had in the last week. The dizziness is overwhelming and she sways alarmingly on her knees, her elbows threatening to give way.
She wants to see him naked. She wants to see him naked. It becomes a mantra in Grace's head, a thing to focus on as she blindly gropes for the icy cold metal bars of the gate. As she clings on to them and slowly, carefully drags herself to her feet.
Upright, her head clears a little, but the dull thudding that has been there since the blow that initially knocked her out is steadily building.
His leg. Horrendously broken and twisted beneath him. The bone poking out above his ankle… Her knuckles turn white as she hangs on to the gate, determined to stave off more vomiting. She will never, ever forget his scream when they straightened that leg.
She staggers, her bruised legs protesting, but pushes forwards, her entire focus now on the car. Get to the car, save them both, see him naked.
Something like that.
The last of the light has gone now, and the autumn chill is beginning to bite. The breeze is picking up, shaking flurries of dead leaves from the big trees, and it brings with it a hint of the distinctive smell of woodsmoke.
Closer to the main road there was a farm track, or something like it, she remembers. Branching off the lane and vanishing behind a stand of trees. She only noticed it because as they passed a handful of crows rose into the air from those trees, disturbed by an unfamiliar vehicle.
A handful of crows. No. A murder of crows.
Appropriate.
Three murders yet unsolved.
If he dies... a fourth.
He can't die. He can't.
As she staggers towards the car, Grace can't suppress a sob of fury and frustration as she realises that it's listing slightly, at least two of its tyres slashed.
None of this should be happening.
It was supposed to be nothing more than a fact-finding mission. A quick jaunt to gather some context. To see where Tracey White was found, decapitated and disembowelled, three days after she was snatched from the street in Clapham where she lived with her boyfriend and young baby.
Grace wants to scream. She wants to sob. None of this should be happening.
She has the key, which is something. Her legs give way as she tries to slide into the passenger seat, dumping her unceremoniously into the centre console where her head connects solidly with… something.
She sees stars. For a few, ominous moments, she genuinely sees stars – bright, distorted lights that make no sense whatsoever.
Blindly, she gropes for the glovebox. Feels her fingers brush past the tell-tale texture of the packet of glacier mints he keeps there just because they're her favourite.
Her eyes feel hot and damp, but Grace grits her teeth and stretches further, wraps her fingers around the hard plastic of Boyd's personal issue Airwave radio.
It takes far too much concentration to squint at the device. To bring the little buttons into enough focus to find the power key. Her fingers are cold and coated in a mixture of mud and blood; they slip as she tries and tries again, but then finally there's a bleep and the screen lights up. Access code required.
It's been years since he taught her how to use the thing. "In case of emergency," he'd shrugged, then grinned at her. "Not that I plan on having any emergencies." Briefly, she wonders if she's ever not been charmed by him.
Grace stares at the radio. Tries to concentrate. The last four digits of his warrant number, that's the key. She presses them and waits, her heart unsteady. The radio beeps again, and then lets out a long, forlorn tone.
It takes long seconds to compute, but the realisation that she's in a dead zone is crushing. The world seems to come to a stop. She slumps where she is, sprawled across the seats, devastated.
She wants to see him naked. She really does. She wants to be naked with him, too. Wants to do so many things with him. To him.
With a growl of rage and pain and heartache, Grace crawls into the driver's seat and starts the engine. The car skids and slips on the uneven track, but she forces it forward, the radio gripped tightly in one hand. It's her only hope. Their only lifeline.
How far she's gone, she has no idea, the tears are falling hard now, and her head is so foggy that nothing much is making sense. But then, miraculously, the little screen lights up and she hears a voice, a transmission being made. Her reaction is instinctive. She lets go of the wheel and jams her thumb hard into the red button sunk into the top of the radio beside the antenna.
Two things happen at once; the radio screen lights up red and the unit beeps rapidly, vibrating in her hand, and the car veers off the road and straight into a bank of trees.
Whatever power or powers govern the universe are with her. The Audi sideswipes a big oak tree, veers hard to the right and plants itself half in a thin, muddy stream. Given the relatively slow speed of the car there's no massive impact, but Grace is thoroughly shaken and disorientated nonetheless. Too much has happened in the last few hours. Far too much.
Semi-stunned but very much alive, she remains motionless in the driving seat. The radio has fallen from her fingers, but she doesn't notice. Silence begins to close in on her. Silence, and a freezing feeling of being completely, utterly alone.
Her right hand moves of its own accord, muscle memory alone driving her to open the car door. The chill of the evening brings her back to herself a little, but still she doesn't move. Shock, maybe.
Her mind is weirdly blank, the imperative to save them both momentarily driven from her. Only the soft sounds of nature broach the silence.
And something else.
The light levels are low, but she is able to see the brown and white shape that emerges from the undergrowth and heads straight towards her. Floppy ears, docked tail. Some kind of spaniel, she thinks.
It approaches her without caution, wagging its stumpy tail in friendly joy.
Where there is a dog, there must be an owner.
Clearing her throat, Grace croaks out, "Help..."
It's nowhere near loud enough to be heard more than a few steps from the car.
The dog comes to greet her, tongue lolling. Looks friendly. Reminds her a little of her brother's dog, the one that was hit by a car one cold Christmas Eve.
Away in the dark a voice, light and definitely female, calls, "Milo! Milo, come here!"
cont...