Minotaur

14

Chapel had been shot before. More than once.

He remembered what it felt like, knew the incredible sharp pain of it, then the wave of nauseating numbness as the pain went away (temporarily), as the body went into denial and refused to believe it was injured.

He knew exactly what it felt like, but it still came as quite a shock. He’d been sure he could talk his way out of this, that Stephen would listen to reason. So for the first split second after the bullet entered his chest, he was mostly just surprised.

Then—slightly relieved.

Stephen could have shot him through the heart, like he’d said he would. He could have killed Chapel outright. Instead he’d shot Chapel low and to the right, well clear of his heart and lungs. The pain was still going to be unbearable, and he started bleeding out instantly, but he might just survive this.

“That’s just to slow you down,” Stephen said. “So you don’t come after me. You tell them—you tell them I could have killed you, but I didn’t. You tell them it was basically self-defense!”

“Tell… who?” Chapel wheezed.

“Your cop bosses, whoever.”

Chapel pressed his hand tightly against the wound. The blood poured through his fingers like water. “Not… a cop.”

But Stephen wasn’t there anymore to hear him. Chapel heard a creaking sound and felt cool air on his face. He looked up and saw a door to the outside flapping open. Stephen had run for it.

That was when a whole fresh wave of pain hit, and for a while Chapel could do nothing but lean against the counter and clamp his eyes shut and try not to scream.

Blood. He could hear his own blood dripping on the floor. Mixing with the blood of the cook. He had to do something about that, had to—

Pain interrupted anything like a clear thought. It drove everything else out of his had. God damn, it hurt. God—

With a shaking hand Chapel grabbed a towel off the counter and pushed it hard against the wound. The blood kept coming but it slowed. He pushed harder, using the pain, using the way every muscle in his body just wanted to tense up, the way he wanted to just curl into a ball on the floor.

He bit back the tears that rushed into his eyes. Bit back a shout of rage and agony.

He couldn’t let Favorov find him like this. His value as a hostage would only go up if he was wounded. Chapel pulled open drawer after drawer in the counter until he found what he was looking for—a roll of tape. It wasn’t duct tape, which he would have preferred, but just plain transparent packing tape. It didn’t matter. He forced his hands to steady, forced his vision to clear by sheer willpower, then he wrapped the tape around and around himself, holding the towel in place.

When that was done he gave himself a long moment to just lean against the counter and breathe. It took all the effort he had just to bring oxygen into his lungs and pump carbon dioxide back out. It helped if he closed his eyes…

“No,” he told himself out loud. “No!” He slammed the countertop with his right hand, slammed it again and again until he felt like he was regaining some control. Then he slowly turned around to face the swinging doors that led back into the house. If a small army of armed servants was about to arrive and take him captive, he could at least watch them do it.

That was when he noticed something he’d desperately wanted for a while now, ever since he’d been taken prisoner. Something that could make all the difference.

There was a telephone mounted on the kitchen wall.