His feet were exceptionally silent as he moved, almost like a hunting cat stalking his prey.
“You’re right,” Sarah said, tossing the gun away and ripping open her shirt. “But this baby is as real as can be. Thanks to your bat-shit crazy almost mother in law, that is. You can thank her for this fiasco. I can’t believe she made me do it. Jesus Christ.”
Sara yanked off the scarf that’d been covering her face, and then tossed down the bag, freeing her arms.
When she had the jacket down to her elbows, that’s when Sam struck, looping his massive bicep around Sarah’s throat and choking her out in a classic hold that every woman secretly wished never happened to her.
And as I’d always assumed would happen if that were to happen to someone that was much smaller than the assailant, Sarah clawed at Sam’s arm frantically to no avail.
Slowly, her struggles ceased until they were nothing more than feeble, random movements.
Finally, her eyes closed, and she went limp.
“Fucking hell,” Sam growled, allowing Sarah’s body to slip slowly to the floor under his guidance.
That was when I got my first good look at Sarah’s chest.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked worriedly.
Sam nodded, his black hair falling into his eyes before he swept it out again. “Sure the fuck is.”
“It actually says BOMB on her chest. What’s in those bottles?” I asked.
He grunted, not replying.
My phone chose that moment to call out its death rattle once again, startling me.
“Alright, people. Let’s get out of here. Go slow. Don’t scare the boys outside,” Sam said authoritatively. “Go out with your hands above your head.”
Sam stood, leaving the unconscious Sarah on the floor. “Let’s get out of here before she wakes.”
My mother ran to me, throwing her arms around my neck. “Oh, baby.”
“Now, ladies,” Sam ordered again.
I disentangled my arms from around my mom. “Now, mom. She has a bomb strapped to her chest.”
“What?” My mom screeched, but still chose to follow me out, despite the fact that she wanted to look back at Sarah.
“Did you kill her?” My mother asked him. “I swear to God. I babysat that girl when she was a small child. What the hell is going on in this town?”
“Apparently, this town’s inbred and needs to branch the fuck out,” Sam muttered under his breath as he opened the doors and was the first one out.
It wasn’t in a selfish way, either. It was because if anybody was going to get shot by a jumpy cop, it’d be him.
Which showed me the measure of him in those few short actions he’d taken in the two hours we’d been in there.
In fact, the entire thing was less than climatic.
I felt like there was something still going to happen, yet the only thing that did was when Miller started running up the steps of the bank and picked me up into his arms.
Then, without preamble, he turned around and hauled ass down the steps, with me cradled in his overprotective arms.
“Where are we going?” I asked frantically.
“To the courthouse,” he said through clenched teeth.
“But what are we gonna do there? I need to talk to my mom!” I said worriedly, turning around to see my mother hurrying after us.
“Your mother’s following us there. She’s stopping to get your father,” he snapped.
“But…but…” I stuttered. “What on earth?”
He shoved me into the back of the nearest cop car, pushing his hand onto my head to help guide me in.
“Hey!” I yelled indignantly, slapping at his hands.
That didn’t stop him, though.
It only made him shoot a glare at me before he threw the door closed and started rounding the back of the car.
“Foster! Car!” He yelled loudly.
Foster came running.
They both got in, and Miller started hightailing it to the courthouse.
I sat in the back, fuming.
What in the world was his problem?
When he spun a little too quickly around the corner, I placed my hand over my abdomen in reflex, which caught his eye.
His mouth tightened, but he slowed down to a more manageable pace.
“Where are we going, bro?” Foster asked after a few minutes of silence.
“Courthouse,” Miller said shortly.
“Oh, okay,” Foster said congenially.
It was as if he knew exactly what was going on with just those two words.
‘’Do you know what I was doing when I got that call that there was a bank and hostage situation?” Miller asked, as he pulled up in front of the courthouse.
He got out and stopped by my door, hunching down so he could look in at me.
I shook my head slowly. “No. What?”
It came out breathless, mostly because the look in his eyes had me struggling to breathe. The expression in them was positively tortured.
“Planning our future. But what I didn’t realize, while I was doing that, was that you were being taken from me. Before I ever even officially made you mine.” He rasped. “Which leads me to now…I need you to do this. For my sanity.
“It’s going to be hard, and we’re going to have times where we hate each other. Where you hate my job. Where I don’t come home until five hours past my shift’s end. Where I don’t come home at all until you’re so worried about me you can’t see straight. Then I’ll walk through that door, and it’ll just be because I got peed on and needed a fucking minute to unwind with the boys. I’m not promising you a perfect life. What I am promising you, is a life where I love you until you until I die. A life where you know I’ll always have your back. A life where the reason I breathe easier is because you’re lying next to me.”
He got down on his knee, pulling a simple black ring box from a pocket in his vest.
“Mercy Me, will you marry me?” He asked solemnly.
I gasped, trying to recover from the debilitating tears that I knew were going to take me down fast and hard. “Of course, you stupid, fool man. I’ll marry you. Just don’t ever go all caveman on me again.”