Breaking Hearts Still Looks Pretty Cool

I couldn’t have been out for long; there was still a commotion at the front of the bus when my vision slid into focus again. A pale, scratched hand sought out mine and relief took me over. Annabelle was still safe, still alive, nothing horrible had befallen her whilst I was dead to the world.

“Try again!” Matt demanded, and I strained my ears to the point of a headache to work out what he was saying,

“Face it, it’s fucked, we’re fucked,” the voice that responded to him, rather than being filled with the deference of a servant, was positively dripping with contempt and resentment.

“Yeah,” agreed another voice, that I thought might belong to the brawny one, filled with similar hostility. It was a nice change to have hostility directed somewhere other than at Annabelle and I.

What I thought had been a covert and brilliant criminal plan from Matt’s masterful mind was actually a total shambles; he clearly had not thought it through, and judging from the withering sounds coming from the engine, causing the whole bus to shudder, it wasn’t starting.

“It’s the gas!” said the third suddenly, “we didn’t put gas in, and it hadn’t been filled up before we took it!”

“Didn’t you think about that?!”

“It’s a bit conspicuous, taking a fucking huge bus into a gas station, don’t you think?”

“Well, it’s better than being trapped on the backstreets of the city just waiting for your old high school buddies and the cops to come and get us!”
“Hey! We told them that if they called the cops we’d kill them,”

“And what way to we have of telling if they’ve called them or not genius?”

The voices all merged to my ears, and I could no longer distinguish them; I could tell that they were in trouble, and I knew that there was the slightest glimmer of a possibility that we could be rescued. I basked in the gloriousness of that notion, and from the glazed look on Annabelle’s face, so was she. The thought of Gerard blazing in to save me was so wonderful it almost gave me chest pain; but of course, that was never going to happen. It wasn’t his job to save me. A nagging voice at the back of my head told me that I should remember the cold hard facts, but the rest of me studiously ignored it; I was possibly about to die, and I was going to die as happily as possible – that meant imaging Gerard’s touch, his kiss, the way he moved, smelt, smiled, everything.

“Wait a minute,” I vaguely noted that Matt was speaking again, “are you all idiots?!”

Yes I thought. Anyone would have to be a total idiot to engage in a kidnap/revenge plan with you.

There was a stunned silence.

“We’re armed,” I could just about make out the rustling sound that came with him pulling his gun from his belt. I cringed; the gun that had been pointed at my face all of a few hours ago.

“So? You want to just kill them now?” the voice sounded frighteningly hopeful,

“No!” Matt sounded more excited than ever, although his voice had an edge of irritation, “we can hold them here - like a siege! They won’t come on for them while we’re armed, even the cops won’t, if they’ve called them,”
The penny seemed to drop at last.

“You mean, like a hostage situation?” a voice asked; it may have been the same or a different one.

“Yes,” said Matt emphatically.

“How long do you think it would take them to get here?”

The possibility of rescue seemed more likely than ever. Despite the unbelievable agony searing in my wrist, I clutched Annabelle’s hand harder than I thought possible, and she seemed to recognise the anticipation that was communicated in my grip, holding my hand just as hard back.

Distant police sounds invaded everyone’s ears. My heart leapt again – surely it was too good to be true.
“About now, it seems,” said Matt darkly, and the ominous sound of him cocking his gun was the only thing in the deathly silent bus. I knew, that evil or good, we were both listening out for the sounds of potential arrivals; heroes for Annabelle and I, enemies for the rest.

“That’s it!”
If I thought my heart had leapt before, that was a feeble wobble in comparison to the soaring jump it took when Gerard’s voice came from outside of the bus.

“Why don’t you just go in?!” Bob demanded of someone, “they could be seriously hurt! We need to get them out!” his voice was out of breath, and it seemed as if he and Gerard had raced ahead of the others to get to the bus first.

“What’s going on?! I can’t see!” I recognised Frank’s voice and cracked the smallest smile I could manage.

“They may be armed,” said a calm voice that I took as belonging to a police officer. My whole body freed itself of tension; safety was only on the other side of the thin wall we could hear through. We would be fine.

Matt roared terrifyingly and fired a shot towards the ceiling. The bang was deafening, and sounded oddly unfamiliar from the sound effect of television. There were screams from outside, and even the fact that Frank’s scream had definitely been the high, girlish one could not cheer me.

I could hear a commotion outside, but was immediately distracted from listening by an intense grip on my arm.

“H-How did you cross the room so fast?” I asked of Matt, who seemed to have been able to accost me at lightning speed,

“I don’t know when they’re going to come for me,” he said, in a grating, gravelly voice, “but I’m going to get what I came for...If I can’t have you no one can,”

His eyes glinted malevolently, and he sat on my legs so that I could barely even struggle, although I twisted my bruised and broken torso furiously in vain.

“No one can save you now,” he said menacingly, running an unwelcome hand down the length of my body. He withdrew his gun again and I placed a mental image of Gerard in my head; I didn’t know if he was going to violate me or kill me, or both, but I knew that Gerard would get me through. He was the only single thing that could give me hope in the darkest of hours.

I didn’t even pay any attention to the turmoil going on around me, I just continued to struggle with my eyes closed, thinking of a certain pair of perfect hazel eyes.

And then, in a split second, the weight on my legs was gone, and there was the sound of fist against flesh; I snapped my eyes open and I was looking into those hazel eyes for real; my rescuer, my hero. It was so cliché, but so strangely perfect in a surreal way.

“Gerard,” I gasped, not even berating myself for conforming so perfectly to the age-old cliché. I was the true damsel in distress.

“You’re safe now,” he whispered, gazing into my eyes in a way that still managed to make my insides melt.

I didn’t think; the pain in my swollen wrist didn’t seem apparent, nor did the pain in the rest of my body, Gerard’s presence was healing.
He lent towards me and I mirrored his movements.

Our lips came together in an explosion of suppressed passion and intense emotion.

The sound of a gunshot shook the bus that surrounded us, but Gerard did not stop his passionate embrace; then, true to form, he swept me into a bridal style lift.

“Let’s get you to the hospital, sugar,” he whispered. I nodded, trying to keep my eyes open so I could stay lucid in the present moment of ecstasy at finally seeing him again, and to keep replaying the kiss in my head, but I failed. The last thing I saw before I was carried once again into daylight was Bob gently moving Annabelle onto a stretcher.