Fatal Attraction Ch. 05

The very next instant a door flung open.

"We have company; we have to get out immediately."

It was Vanessa. She turned around and latched the door.

Christian immediately shoved Duke aside as he stood up from the bed bare-chested.

"What?! whos' here?"

"No time." Vanessa stated as she picked up Duke's leather clothes from near the bathroom floor and threw them at his face, screaming for him to put them on immediately.

Duke stared at the two open mouthed as Christian hurriedly put on a t-shirt, yelling at him to get dressed or run get ready or run naked into the woods with them.

Finally he caught hold of the gravity of the situation when a loud crash was heard as the front door was kicked in, followed by the sounds of multiple footsteps.

"Through the back verandah." Christian stated firmly as Duke kicked about to get into his tight leather pants, sans underwear. He grabbed his jacket and made a mad dash for the side door that led to the verandah, Christian and Vanessa hissing at him to hurry.

"Me first."

Christian immediately leaned over the wooden railing that creaked under his weight and swinging down the wrong side of the verandah, threw himself off, catching onto the horizontal bits of scaffolding, the one the cabin was raised on, as he fell earthwards. He swung over once more and landed on the ground in a crouching position.

"Okay, now you go BadgerKing, Vanessa help him." Christian shouted from below, immediately standing up. Behind, Duke could hear the door to the room being kicked and thrashed against as the intruders tried to break it in.

Duke's looked down as his eyes nearly popped out of his head. They were at least 12 - 15 meters above ground. There was no way he would manage to get down there like that. And there was no way he was throwing himself of that wooden railing.

"C'mon! Hurry!" Vanessa urged shoving, nearly pushing him off the railing.

Duke looked down at Christian shouting. "I'm here BadgerKing, trust me!"

He closed his eyes swallowing hard and reopened them as the door behind gave in with a deafening bang.

He jumped to the wrong side of the railing as Vanessa grabbed his hands, holding onto him and trying to lower him as much as possible by leaning over the railing herself. And then she let go.

Duke found himself sailing through the air and then the impact came rapidly and unexpectedly as his feet hit the ground and he collapsed in a heap.

Christian was all over him in an instant as Duke recouped from his momentary blackout.

"You all right?" Christian asked repeatedly slapping Duke. "You hit your head against the stilts on the way!"

"Trust me, I'm here BadgerKing!" Duke stated groggily, imitating what he had been told a few instants ago. "Ha!"

Christian smiled as he raised Duke upon a shoulder. "Up then!"

A loud crack broke through the air as Christian looked up in dismay. Hulky men in black suits were peering down the verandah as they drew guns out from their suit breast pockets. And Vanessa was swinging mid way between the ground and the verandah, her clothing snagged onto a wooden shaft that had snapped as she had jumped as the back side of her jacket ripped and fastened on.

And she was struggling, trying to break free.

The men on the verandah chose not to undertake the precarious jump and retreated back into the room, running as they made for the main entrance. Christian realized that they had just bought some time and he would have to do something to unhook Vanessa from the seemingly flimsy wooden block that had caught onto her.

Vanessa dangled in the air as the wooden pole swung her around in a pendulum's trajectory, kicking and screaming, trying to reach her hands to her back where the pole had clasped on. She just couldn't reach it. Then she looked down to find Christian aiming his gun towards her. 'Is he mad?' she thought to herself.

Loud bangs were heard one after the other as Christian fired the gun into the air, carefully aiming above Vanessa's head at the oppugning shaft.

He missed each time.

It was an impossible shot.

He cursed as he looked towards the maze of wooden shafts, horizontal and vertical that raised the cabin. He would have to climb them and free her by hand. Did they have the time?

And then a deafening crack sounded from his side as the pole snapped and Vanessa tumbled towards the ground.

Christian looked towards his companion still reclining against him; with a gun in his hand, aiming towards where Vanessa had been. He had hit the shaft in one clean shot.

"That's why I tell you not to use the Beretta." Duke stated, his voice still slurring as he pointed with his chin to the gun in Christian's hand. "You'll never get accuracy."

Vanessa stood up groaning, rubbing the arm which she had landed on. Footsteps thudding on wood made it apparent that the men who were after them were descending the stair case.

~~~

Duke could barely grasp what was going on around him. He knew he was stumbling between twigs and leaves as Christian kept yelling at him to keep a good pace, and he knew he was slowing everyone down. His legs were wobbling, and one ankle had probably twisted for the pain from it was unbearable, but the worst affected area was the back of his head, the one that had bumped the wooden scaffolding during his fall, and that hurt like a bitch.

In the midst of the rustling leaves and snapping twigs, and Christian's voice aiming to keep him steady, he reached a hand and touched the back of his head. It was a bit sticky, and his fingers came back tainted red. And it was beginning to get clear that the people after them were close by, the commotion around made it all too evident.

Suddenly he lost his footing as he tripped over a root, crashing Christian into the ground along with him. The latter immediately scrambled to his feet and propped up Duke to an upright position against a tree, deciding running was of no use; he would have to take their captors head on.

And not a moment too soon for two men burst into sight as Christian flung his frame at them. He knew at the back of his mind that if the men intended to shoot, they would have done so long ago, but instead they chose to pursue, so they would not readily use their guns. But he also knew they were far from ordinary civilians.

Fists and Kicks flew in the air as Christian took on both formally dressed men together, kicking a gun out of one's hand and dodging and blocking blows one after the other. The resulting fracas snapped branches all around and dirt and leaves rose to cover the air, the three men entangling each other in a series of combat moves.

The dust settled to Christian's heavy breathing and coughing. One of their captors lay on the ground, his eyes shut, obviously unconscious while the other, a large hulk of a man, was trying to raise himself against a tree bark, breathing heavily, staring at Christian with a precarious look on his face as he panted hard to catch his breath, his suit and shirt soiled by the dust.

Suddenly the expression on the man's face turned into that of a slight smile as Christian realized something was wrong. Leaves rustled behind him as he whirled around, unsuccessful in his attempt to dodge the blow that landed smack against the back of his head. It was another one of the suits, with a large wooden branch in his hand.

Christian fell to the ground moaning in pain as the two men walked over to him, one's frame standing tall above him and the other hobbling to his side.

"That should settle him," a voice broke out into the air.

"Yeah, too bad the boss wants him alive," the other one answered.

"Where's the other one?"

The question was left unanswered as another gun shot cracked the air. The man dropped the wooden mace as he clutched his hand in pain, blood oozing from it. A bullet had gone through his palm.

The other man looked towards the source of the gunfire. It was Duke, panting heavily, leaning with his back on a tree.

"Why you...?" The man who hadn't been shot shouted as he charged towards Duke.

Duke, who held up his gun once more; Duke who aimed for the man's heart; Duke who could not pull the trigger at the last moment for the realization suddenly hit him. How could he take another man's life?

And he braced himself for the blow he was about to receive as he closed his eyes. A few confused sounds later he reopened them to find himself untouched by the bulky guy. And Christian was once again up and panting heavily as the dust settled. That was the last thing Duke saw before his vision turned hazy and he fell to the dirt and leaves on the ground.

~~~

He could feel the world spinning around, even with his eyes closed. He knew he was awake now, but couldn't get his eyes to open; the eye-lids seemed too heavy.

Finally Duke opened them slightly.

"Wakey wakey sleepyhead." It was Christian sitting on the ground, his back resting against the bark of a tree.

Duke looked around in a haze, his head hurt as he craned his neck to absorb the surroundings. They were still in the woods, his frame resting against a pillow stacked against the bark of a tree. The sun was high in the sky and filtered through the thick foliage of the trees in cylindrical beams of white and yellow light.

Christian started talking, explaining to him about how they had managed to escape, and how he'd gone back to the cabin later and fetched a first aid kit and even a pillow and how they were in 'big time' danger.

Duke absorbed the news in parts, not really being able to understand much, muttering what a day it had been, filled with high speed chases, jumps, gangsters, paintings and security guards.

"They took Vanessa."

Duke jolted up with that, a little more conscious now.

"How? What happened?"

Christian launched in another description of how they had managed to flee and Vanessa had been separated and now she was nowhere to be found, leading to the assumption that she had abducted by the men. Duke heard it in bits and pieces as he raised his hand behind to feel the source of pain, the backside of his head throbbed when he felt the cloth bandages and dressing that Christian must have used on him.

"So you brag on and on about the gun and actually fail to use it for what it's intended to be used?"

Duke heard the mocking tone in his companion's voice and played over the words in his head, trying to understand what they meant as he realized his right foot hurt like hell too, he probably twisted his ankle in the fall.

"Uh?"

"When it came to actually shoot a person you couldn't do it could you? And you act all macho with that gun of yours."

Duke hardly felt like answering. He knew what was being said was true.

"You twisted your ankle," Christian stated, swiftly changing the topic and confirming Duke's suspicion.

"Well we know it was Stevenson's men who were after us, he must be after my ass now, so I have to go after his."

Duke thought back to an earlier conversation, his mind straining as he did.

"Isn't that the big-man who inducted you into this whole stealing thing?"

Christian chuckled an affirmative response and proceeded to narrate to Duke of the love-hate relationship he had with Stevenson, the man who had gotten him out of the streets and the man who's claws he had escaped later only to work separately with little to do with Stevenson directly, but it was all probably coming full circle now.

"And I have news for you too buddy; Zelderman has a friend of yours, some Damien fellow."

"What?" Duke's eyes opened wide as his consciousness stepped back into reality. "What? Why? How did you...?"

"I don't know why but I thin you messed up with her earlier, she's taken your friend captive and is probably waiting for you to pop around."

Duke swallowed, suddenly gathering conviction as he tried to stand up but failed, Christian scooting over to him to support him.

"Relax buddy. Your buddy's all the way in Salvia, and I guess you're probably not going to leave him in the lurch but there's no point hurting yourself like that."

Duke collapsed onto the ground, a myriad of notions running across his mind, suddenly blaming Christian for all of it. It had all started when he came into his life, and now he had gotten Damien involved in the mess too.

Christian ensured Damien was secure against the tree before he got up again, picking up a slender twig and squatting before Duke. He drew a triangle on the ground before Duke, running the twig through the mud, two vertices of the triangle close to each other and a third far apart. Duke stared curiously at the diagram.

"This is Mali," Christian stated, pointing to the far away vertex and circling around it with a large radius. "And this is the pirate bay area; Stevenson's zone of control so to speak, all his shady dealings are done here, though he actually resides here." Christian pointed towards one of the vertices that was sticking close to the other one.

"That's Midbane, and this is Salvia, your home sweet home, where Zelderman presides, though her 'jurisdiction' is here." Christian drew a wide semicircular region around the last vertex as he pointed to it, the lines in the dirt highlighting 'her' area. "That's the pirate terrain area."

Duke snorted at the last bit. "Who named these so called areas? Jack Sparrow?"

Christian ignored him once more, Duke getting used to the fact that his jokes would never ever be picked up by the man.

"So now we both have to head back South, me towards Midbane to entertain Stevenson, and you towards Salvia to meet Zelderman, personally, I would rather meet Stevenson than Zelderman."

Duke kept quiet. The master planner was at work again.

"Of course we're gonna go together all the way, but we'll separate at the outskirts of Midbane and then we'll go our separate routes."

Christian looked up at Duke's inexpressive face.

"So you ready for what's about to come amigo?"

Duke wondered if he was.

"Oh and by the way, they blew up your Bike before they left, and I'm guessing your laptop went along with it."