Retrograde

Chapter 4 • Clarice

His blood could have gone cold from those words. Clarice stepped away, and started to leave the living room. "Don't go anywhere," she called back with too much pleasure. 

Cael panicked. He didn't know how he was supposed to get out of this. He felt the tape around his wrists and saw the tape wrapped around his legs. He looked around as if a golden solution would be there, but there was nothing.

But there were walls. There wasn't anything around that he could use to cut his hands free, and he was struggling with just wiggling his arms and legs out of the tape. But the chair was wooden—he could break it. Of course, he looked like a fool as he hoisted himself up to the front of his feet, preparing to shimmy backwards. He went backwards as fast as his confined feet would allow and tried to smash the back of the chair. He heard a crack and he groaned in pain when he hurt his shoulder, falling over. However, he had forgotten about the vial in his pocket that he kept. It fell through the open space of the chair back and shattered, the liquid spilling. 

The noise had Clarice rushing back with a briefcase in her hand. He didn't want to know about whatever was in it. "You're crafty...but not fast enough." She walked forward, but then there was another shatter of glass—bigger. It came from the window in the living room and from the kitchen. Smoke started to fill the space. They both started to cough. "What the fuck!?" Clarice dropped her briefcase and opted to get her gun from the coffee table while she could still see.

Coughing, but still dead-set on surviving, Cael used his fingertips to just barely bring a glass shard into his hand. And without paying mind to the fact that he cut his hand in the process, he started rubbing the shard against the tape to cut away. He started to hear footsteps that couldn't have been Clarice—they sounded heavy. Someone was wearing boots.

Cael didn't need to cut the whole tape. He just needed a little wedge in and he was able to pull his arms apart the rest of the way. As he finished cutting the tape at his feet, he dropped the bloody shard and started to get up with a cough and groan.

Clarice pointed the gun at Cael, but he was only alarmed for a moment. He held his hands up, but he saw a figure sneaking up behind her from the other living room entryway. "Move!" a muffled voice yelled, and Cael dropped out of the way. Clarice yelled in pain as there were two gun shots: one from her gun—which missed—and one from the figure's gun that shot her in the hand. 

She and her gun fell to the ground. Clarice held her bleeding and trembling hand, in disbelief of the rough hole in it. Meanwhile, the person that shot her ran toward Cael, wearing a smoke mask. "Let's get the fuck out of here, Professor B," the man said. It did not at first occur to Cael what the person had said, he was just focused on following the man out of the front door. But it seemed that Clarice had regained her senses and gathered her gun. The smoke was moving out of the front door, and she shot at Cael, purposely missing to hit the door's frame. 

"Close. The door. Now." Clarice demanded between coughs. The man had gotten away, but he looked behind him to see Cael slowly backing up and closing the door.

Call it survival. Call it crazy. Call it a big switch...

But he was going to kill the bitch. He'd given her everything—anything that he could have while still feeling like he wasn't his true, whole self. And she was nothing but a liar who would sooner torture him to get what she wanted—what the Syndicate wanted—than show mercy for the man she had been with for three years. 

He turned on his heels. There was lingering smoke, but not as much as before. Cael could see her, and for a moment, his eyes were filled with rage; all of it hit him. And he charged without thinking.

Clarice fired twice and got him on the second go, in the thigh. It hurt like hell, but by the time Cael was hit, he was crashing his body into hers, the gun scattering from them. A tussle began, starting with Clarice rolling on top of him to land a few punches. It earned her a hefty push and she fell backwards. He got on top of her quickly. She tried defending herself by pulling his suit tie taut, making him choke as she made a war cry. Spots gradually began to form in his vision, so he panicked and wrapped his hands around her throat and squeezed.

They both choked. They both saw spots. They both were in want of fresh air, but it was Cael who managed to pry her slender, yet strong fingers away from his tie. If it were a game of asphyxiation, he had won as she slowly...stopped...struggling...

He fell away from her, as if realizing what he had done. And there was no going back. Cael knew that. He knew that back when he decided to watch that flash drive, but he didn't think that it would come to this. But he had to move on.

Cael wiped at his face, and consequently, the tears that he didn't know were falling. He struggled to stand to his feet. Before he left though, he found the gun and picked up the briefcase that Clarice has set down, taking it all with him. 

Outside, there were lights on in other houses, no doubt because of nosy neighbors. Cael couldn't blame them, and he damn sure didn't care about them.

He limped on and the man with the mask approached him. There were two others with masks in their hands and they stood between two black cars, watching him. Cael looked at the one who had helped him suspiciously, and he recalled what the man had called him. He didn't say anything for the moment though, letting his partial savior help him into the back of one of the cars, the briefcase and gun being set next to him. Cael didn't know why he was following a complete stranger, perhaps it was because his brain was exhausted. But he felt vindicated when he saw Reena in the front seat. 

"You were here this whole time...and didn't help me?"

"You needed to learn to help yourself and you did tonight," Reena replied. "We were only here to offer you time. We were serious when we said we wanted you to kill her."

It fell silent, and after a few moments, the masked man got into the car's passenger seat. "They're handling the body."

"Take off your mask," Cael suddenly demanded. The masked man looked back at him, but didn't say anything. "Take it off."

Slowly, but surely, the man did, and the remaining air in Cael's lungs nearly left him.

"Does this mean I can get an auto-pass in your class?" Garver asked, looking sheepish.