The Last Survivor (A Wilde/Chase Short Story) Read Online Free Page B

the crowd …
    And locking on to her.
    ‘Eddie!’ she cried. Worry filled his face, before being replaced in an instant by angry determination. He broke into a run, shoving through the festival-goers after her.
    The blond man reacted with anger to her call. The gun shifted down her back. For a moment she thought he was going to shoot her – then the pistol’s butt cracked painfully against her spine. She gasped. ‘Do not shout again!’ he barked. ‘I will kill you if you do.’ He ducked lower and changed direction, using the tourists for cover as he forced Nina onwards.
    Eddie ploughed through the crowd, ignoring the angry yells that followed him. He had lost sight of Nina, but a blond man had been right beside her, and he glimpsed someone with light hair cutting through the sea of people not far ahead. He moved faster, angling to intercept.
    His target stopped, looking from side to side as if searching for an escape route. The Englishman barged up behind him, grabbing his arm and raising a fist to strike—
    It wasn’t him. ‘Hey! What’re you doing?’ demanded a startled dusty-blond man – in an American accent. Nina was not with him.
    ‘Thought you were someone else,’ Eddie replied, pushing past and searching the crowd again. There – farther ahead. The kidnapper was moving considerably faster than those nearby. A brief flash of red hair with him. He ran in pursuit, Natalia struggling to keep up. ‘
Nina!
’
    Nina’s captor heard Eddie’s shout and forced her between two stalls, making his way along the shopfronts behind them before hauling her around a corner on to one of the side streets intersecting Mulberry.
    There were more stalls here, but the crowd was considerably thinner. The man pushed her on more quickly. Nina looked back, but couldn’t see Eddie. She heard him yell her name once more, though, and opened her mouth to respond—
    ‘Do
not
!’ the man snapped, pushing the gun against her side. A new fear, this time for the baby, and she fell silent.
    He drove her forward, weaving through the oblivious visitors towards the next intersection. They passed the last stall. A box van was parked ahead. Its rear roller door was half open, crates and boxes stacked inside as its driver made a delivery to a restaurant. ‘Get in,’ the man ordered.
    Nina tried to pull away. ‘I’m not—’
    ‘
Get in!
’ He shoved her against the truck and stepped back, pointing the pistol at her face. No choice. She reluctantly clambered into the back.
    A chunky middle-aged man scurried out of the restaurant. ‘Hey, the hell ya doin’?’ he cried. ‘Ya can’t—’ He halted abruptly as the blond man’s gun swung towards him. ‘Jeez!’
    ‘The keys!’ the kidnapper demanded. ‘Where are the keys?’
    The delivery man put up his hands. ‘In – in the cab.’
    The other man glowered at him, then slammed the roller door shut. ‘
Eddie!
’ Nina screamed, before she was cut off by a
whump
of metal and rattling chains.
    Eddie heard his name over the sound of the crowd. A glance to his right revealed a side street beyond the stalls. He shoved through the tourists and rounded the corner. Where was she? No sign of her – but something else caught his attention. ‘Hey, hey!’ cried a chubby man with thinning hair. ‘Someone call the cops!’
    A large white van pulled sharply away. Eddie saw the name LAZZARI BROTHERS stencilled across the rear door. ‘He took my truck!’ cried the driver. ‘Call nine-one-one!’
    ‘Was there a woman with him?’ Eddie demanded as he ran to him. ‘A redhead?’
    ‘Yeah, yeah! He put her in the back!’
    ‘Shit!’ The Yorkshireman raced past him after the truck. People screamed and leapt aside as it careered into the intersection, flattening a couple of traffic barriers and making a hard, skidding turn to head south.
    Eddie chased after it, but by the time he reached the next road, the truck had already gained too much of a lead. ‘
Fuck!
’ he roared, reversing