Highlander - Donna Lettow [56]
The second guard fired his rifle again and caught MacLeod in the thigh. MacLeod stumbled from the impact, cursing loudly, but managed to keep on charging, closing the ground between them. Mentally, he fought to block out the pain, block out the pain, concentrate on raising the rifle, aiming the rifle, firing the rifle. His bullet hit the second guard squarely in the gut, throwing him back a yard or more before dropping him in the gutter.
Suddenly, MacLeod could sense the presence of another Immortal coming closer. “About bloody time,” he mumbled under his breath as he charged, then dodged as the remaining officer fired his pistol. MacLeod could feel the hot rush of the bullet just inches from his head. He spun and fired twice in quick succession, dropping the officer where he stood.
Allowing himself a quick sigh of relief, MacLeod hurried to where Miriam lay in the street, curled in a tight ball to protect her injured belly. “Alts iz gut,” he reassured her. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a German cargo truck barrel around the corner, Avram at the wheel. Better late than never, MacLeod thought. He bent down and began to untie Miriam’s hands. “Everything’s all right.”
Suddenly, blam! and a bullet tore into MacLeod’s arm. Through the red-rush of pain, MacLeod looked up to see five guards from Gesiowska, uniformed Germans and Poles, running down the street toward him, guns drawn and firing. MacLeod raised his rifle to fire at the closest German.
Click.
Nothing. Out of ammo. Shit.
“Avram!” he called out. The cargo truck drove directly for the Gesiowska reinforcements. “Avra—” the impact of the German bullet as it ripped into his stomach knocked the air from his lungs. As he fell to his knees, eyes wide with shock, he fought to retain consciousness. He could barely hear Avram scream out from the truck—
“Protect Miriam!”
With what felt like his last ounce of strength, MacLeod managed to throw his body across Miriam, protecting her body with his own. Avram’s truck erupted in a tremendous ball of red-gold flame in the midst of the prison guards. MacLeod turned his face away from the intense heat and blinding light. Then something metal seared into his side, and his world faded to black.
“Duncan? Duncan, please … please wake up. Duncan?”
As MacLeod began to come back to life, he could hear Miriam’s voice, filled with terror. “God in Heaven, help me. Duncan!” Beneath him, as feeling was slowly restored to his body, he could feel her try to move, trying to escape from under what she must have thought was MacLeod’s bloody corpse pinning her to the cobblestones. The more her frail, undernourished body fought and failed to free herself, the more panicked she became. “Oh, God, no … please, no …” she sobbed, struggling. He wanted to comfort her, but speech and motion had not yet returned to his body.
By the time he was finally able to roll to one side, freeing her, she was nearly hysterical. She turned and looked at him in horror. “You were … you were … dead,” she said, barely able to catch her breath
“Miriam, I’m fine, really,” he consoled her. He untied the bonds that held her hands. Immediately, without thought, she crossed her arms in front of her to shield her nakedness. MacLeod tried to explain, “I just blacked out. Must’ve hit my head when I fell.” He gave her what he hoped was his most sincere and endearing smile. “C’mon, we’ve gotta get out of here before more company comes.” He scooped her up in his arms as if carrying her over a threshold, and they disappeared into a nearby alley before more soldiers arrived to investigate the explosion.
Avram found them in a stairwell of an empty building several streets away from the prison. Miriam, wrapped in MacLeod’s shirt, sat on an upper stair, head against the wall for support, still a little dazed. MacLeod, now shirtless, cleaned the cuts and abrasions on Miriam’s face as gingerly as he could with some water he’d found.
“Yeow!” Miriam flinched away as his handkerchief dabbed at the pistol gouge beneath her eye.