His arm across her voice box like an iron bar, Martens held Graysie in a strangle hold that left her hovering on the edge of consciousness. Brilliant little white dots flashed in front of her eyes, and a wave of dizziness almost swamped her. The skin on her throat burned, but her hands and feet were icy cold.
“Bitch!” he hissed in her ear. “You’ll regret you did that.”
He increased the pressure on her throat and she felt herself sagging, sinking into oblivion. A last consoling thought came to her. At least she’d warned Nathan. Then, just as she was sure she could hold on no longer, Martens abruptly released his hold. She felt the barrel of a gun pressed hard against her spine instead.
“You’re not dying on me. Not yet anyway.” He snickered as if his jest was irresistible. “I need you as a lure for a while longer.”
She searched down the slope and could make out the body of the man who had been in front, lying face down in the dirt, a dark stain seeping out from under his prone form. She didn’t recognize him, guessed he must be one of Martens’s own men, and she cursed herself again for getting herself into this situation.
She’d been freed once from Martens’s vainglorious fantasy, his Willoughby rules the world delusion. How could she have been so stupid as to fall into his clutches a second time? She really deserved everything she got. She was simply exultant that she’d had one last chance to alert Nathan. She went over it all again in her mind.
She’d waited in hiding for what seemed like an eternity after the first burst of gunfire, hoping to see Nathan and Sebastian return safely up the track they had disappeared down, but no one came.
When she heard more gunfire much farther away she resolved to steal out of her hiding place and get closer to try and see what was happening. And it was there, exposed on the track with nowhere to escape, that Martens had found her.
She had no idea of why he had become separated from his men, why he was seemingly quite some distance from the main action, but it had taken him only a couple of seconds to jump her and overpower her. He’d then half-walked, half-dragged her to the position above the exit track where they’d sat and waited for the Russell men to return.
She shivered in the dark. She’d warmed up walking here, but now she felt cold again. The wedding dress bodice chafed under her arms. She stood as rigidly still as she could, fearful she might inadvertently prompt Martens to fire if she moved unexpectedly.
She rubbed her hands down the outside of her legs to get warm and felt the bump of the Derringer against her thigh. She’d thrust the pistol back into her pocket before Martens grabbed her and he hadn’t searched her. She still had a chance to end this, she promised herself, but she had to time her moment perfectly or it would surely end in disaster.
She squeezed her eyes tightly to clear her head and when she opened them again the blinding white needle points danced in front of them again. She stumbled a few steps and put her hands out blindly.
“Can’t see,” she rasped.
Martens put the lock hold back around her neck with one arm while pushing the gun against her temple with the other. He thrust his pelvis against her and leaned intimately close.
“Russell, you listen up.” He yelled into the dimness. “The lady is my free ticket out of here. I’m walking, and she goes with me. Anyone tries to stop me, and she’s dead.”
There was a long silence, with no sign of movement below them. Then, to Graysie’s horror, she saw Nathan slowly rise from behind a gravel bank and put his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender.
“Let her go, Martens. She’s done nothing to harm you. Take me instead.” His voice rang around the underground space, a confident steady bass note. “I’m coming in now. Let her go, I say.”
Graysie felt Martens’s body go rigid at Nathan’s voice; she could sense the hostility vibrating up her back where he touched her.
Nathan began a slow deliberate walk towards them, his eyes fixed on Martens, his hands raised. No one else moved, no one showed themselves. Graysie felt her chest clench, she hardly dared breathe. He was taking such a gamble. What if Martens just gunned him down and used her as a hostage to escape anyway?
She sensed Martens’s animosity towards Nathan was so rampant he wanted his revenge to be personal and close. A random gunning down at forty feet wouldn’t satisfy him.
As Nathan drew closer, he switched his attention from Martens and fixed it on her. His expression was intense, mournful, and she didn’t want to read what he was saying. Sorry it had to end this way. Wish it could have been different.
No! She was not going to accept that their situation was hopeless. She wrenched herself forward a few inches, putting space between herself and the hateful intimate pressure at her back.
Martens seemed momentarily shocked at her audacity and then pulled her tight again, pressing the gun even harder against her temple. At the same time he lent down and hissed in her ear, “Stand still or he dies.”
Nathan was standing five or six feet away, still advancing at the same slow drumbeat pace, seemingly daring Martens to pull the gun away from her temple and shoot him. Graysie braced herself for the confrontation.
“I feel sick,” she rasped. “I can’t help it. I’m going to be sick.” She made a retching noise in her throat.
She felt Martens freeze and involuntarily step back. The moment was here. Nathan sprang forward. She plunged her hand into her skirt and pulled out the Derringer, ducking under Martens’s arm as she did. In a flash she had the little pistol pressed hard and close under his ribs.
Nathan had anticipated her move, and as she spun and ducked he brought a stiff upper cut to Martens’s gun arm, jolting it upwards. The gun exploded with a roar, and fragments of rock rained down on them. The gun rattled uselessly on the gravel ridge beside them. She pressed her pistol harder into Martens’s gut.
He leered at her, his lips stuck in a sneer that seemed to fill his whole face. In the strange twilight his eyes were a strange hateful yellow.
“Go on then. Do it. Kill me.” The words rang with contempt. “Bet you can’t do it.”
They stood like that, suspended in time. And then, purposefully, he placed his meaty hand over her much smaller one and squeezed the trigger.