Chapter 109: Ring, ring: Hannah
"Hannah?" I heard the voice on the other end call out to me. "Is that you?"
My shoulders relaxed as I heard the voice of my sister on the other end of the call. It was a sound I was overwhelmed with emotion to hear after all the horrible things that had happened to me in the past day or so.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I heard my sister’s voice on the other end of the line. "Yeah Lori, it’s me. I’m... Something has happened."
"We know," Lori told me. My surprise seemed to show because she continued to speak. "Roman told us everything. Is he there with you?"
Confusion now fogged up my mind more than surprise as I began asking my next questions. "Why would Roman be here?" I asked my sister. "He’s at the hospital, isn’t he?"
Lori made a sound of denial as she told me what had happened in the past few hours. "Roman and Marcus came by looking for clues about you going missing. We only noticed it a few hours ago, but then the two of them left to go and get Kirsten. Apparently, she knew where you were being held."
When I didn’t reply, Lori began talking again. "I don’t know how many of them are there with you, but all I know is that Roman and Marcus left the mansion to go and get Kirsten."
"Knowing them," I began to mutter, "they may have just waited until they were here to call backup. Okay, Lori, here’s what I need you to do."
I began giving Lori, and Lauren who had entered the room moments later, instructions on how to help me handle the situation. I found the address of where I was currently located in one of the booking receipts on the table and read it off to them.
Once they searched the place online, I told them to give the description of the place I was being held back to me and nodded satisfied.
"Tell Ed about what happened and have him call for backup. Cops, FBI, ambulance, everything. Anyone who will listen. Can you do that for me Lori?"
"You bet your sweet *ss I can," Lori said confidently. I heard Lauren from the other side of the phone line speaking in the background to who I assume was Ed as Lori relayed my instructions to her.
Just then, I heard gunshots go off at the other end of the warehouse. My eyes widened as I ducked under the desk with the phone, trying to hide and hear Lori more clearly at the same time.
"What’s going on? Hannah?" Lori’s panicked voice filled my ears. I tried to block out the noises of fighting from outside. "Are you alright? Hello?"
"I’m fine Lori," I told her as I whispered into the phone and then tried to rephrase my answer. "I’m not hurt. I just hear fighting from outside."
Lori gasped into the phone as I said that. "It must be Marcus and Roman! Try to see if you can get to them!"
Lifting my head from the ground and getting up from under the desk where I had hidden, I took note of the room I was in. It was definitely the main security room judging from the various amounts of monitors that showcased what was happening around the warehouse.
Movement from one of the smaller monitors to my right caught my eye. I noticed it was the various girls who had been stuck in the cages where I had previously come from. My eyes widened as they were about to cross paths with some guards.
From where I was standing, I quickly locked the doors that they would have taken and blocked them off from the guards before either of them saw each other.
I used various other controls, such as blinking the red light of the camera on and off to gain their attention and positioning it in a way that would lead them toward the route I was beginning to plan out.
The girls, smart as they were, began following the directions I pointed them in. Before I knew it, they were linking up with Marcus, who had been coming out of one of the other rooms. The six girls plus Marcus had made it out of the warehouse by the back safely and retreated into the bushes where the cameras could no longer see them.
The entire process of leading them out took a short while. When I had a chance to look at the other screens, I noticed two figures fighting in a familiar room. When I enlarged the screen, to my surprise, I found out it was Roman.
I watched as he and Bernard spoke to each other for a few moments and circled each other. I couldn’t hear what they were saying due to the poor quality of the equipment. There seemed to be no speakers available.
Sighing, I tried to enlarge the small screen and bring the feed up onto the larger screen in the middle of all the others. Just as I did, I noticed Bernard charge at Roman and get him in what seemed to be a chokehold.
A gasp escaped me when Roman lifted Bernard on his back and held him there for a split second before he threw the man over his shoulder. Bernard fell onto the knife he was holding and began squirming around a small bit before he eventually fell limp on the ground.
A deep sigh left my body at the final effect of all of this. Bernard was dead.
I turned my gaze to look at Roman, who looked down on his side. Another gasp left me when a large pool of blood began growing at Roman’s side. I was rushing out from the security room and hanging up on Lori before I could blink.
I took the now somewhat familiar route back to the storage room where the cages were being held and burst through the open doors in time to see Roman falling to his knees. His eyes looked as though they were growing heavy. I reached him just in time before he fell completely.
"Roman!" My voice carried through the somewhat empty room. It bounced off the walls as the echo ran through him.
I watched with dismay as he lifted his heavy eyelids to look at me.
Upon reaching him, I turned his body carefully and ripped off the guard’s uniform he was wearing, shredding the extra layer and tying it tightly around his midsection.
Before I could speak again or even continue to try and attempt to bandage up his wounds, Roman’s bloodied hand came up to my face and turned it to meet his. He enveloped me in a somewhat sort of hug as his lips crashed down onto mine.
The kiss was bittersweet and short-lived as his hand fell from my face. I pulled away from him to stare down at his tired eyes. I could tell he was fighting to stay awake.
"I found you," he whispered up at me as a smile broke over his face. I laughed through my sobbing mess as I looked down at him and nodded.
"You found me, Roman. You found me again. Thank you for finding me." Roman grunted as I pushed more pressure onto his stomach and went to take hold of my hands. He tried to move my hands away to relieve himself of the pressure, but I shook my head at him.
"Don’t do that," I said shakily. "You’ll die if you do that. I need to keep the pressure on your wound."
"You’re crying..." Roman whispered softly as his hands came to wipe at my cheeks. The blood from his hands wiped off on them as well, but I didn’t mind as I nodded my head down at him.
Laughing softly to try and get over the ridiculousness of the situation, I responded, "Well, when the man you love is bleeding out all over you after ripping his stitches that he got because of you, it tends to make a woman emotional."
I shifted when I sat and moved so that his spine was straighter and he was lying more comfortably in my lap.
"Love?" he asked me. His voice sounded a lot weaker than before. "You love me?"
"Of course, I love you," I instantly replied. "You don’t see me holding closed anyone else’s bullet wounds, do you?"
When Roman didn’t reply, panic surged inside of me. I moved to put more pressure on his wound. A whimper left me when I noticed he had managed to soak up the entire piece of cloth I had pressed against him. Blood was even dripping from the side of his skin now.
"You better not die on me, you big idiot," I chastised him through my tears as I began pressing kisses to his face. "Do you hear me, Roman Thaddeus? We’re almost at the end. We almost made it, so make sure you cross the finish line with me!"
