Chapter 37
It was dark. Too dark. The pounding behind my lids wouldn't quit, and it took a considerable amount of effort to lift my head up, to try and remember what had happened.
That's when I noticed my arms were numb. And immovable.
Someone had tied me up.
I swallowed uncontrollably and tried to bring breath back into my body, willing myself to calm down and not let the panic take over. Everything was moving – fast and then slow. Fast and slow. My mind felt trapped in an impenetrable fog, twisting my thoughts into hyper distortion...
Things moving in the darkness – misshapen, bizarre shapes. I couldn't focus. Just breathe. Something bad. This was a terrible, horrifying place. I knew this to be a fact, but couldn't remember why.
Where are we?
Peter.
What about Peter?
Peter – he knows. Only he knows.
Knows what?
Where I am.
Do we know any self-defense? Any knowledge whatsoever that would help us escape this situation?
No. We're useless.
How about we try moving our limbs – just as a start.
Was I conversing with the voice in my own head? I was going crazy. Shadows danced and taunted me from a distance. Time and place and meaning was moving, shapeshifting in the murky blackness. I was dizzy, teetering, numb.
A window was always an easy escape route. There's bound to be one somewhere. I could find a way to pry one open and race across the street, where I could catch someone's attention and alert the world of my whereabouts. The only problem with this plan was that my hands were completely bound to the back of me. I weakly tugged against the restraints, realizing that I had been bound all the way up to my forearms and shoulders. The rope wrapped itself across my entire torso.
This was bad, bad news.
Cringing through the spasming pain, I tried to move my fingertips. Pinpricks of a thousand tiny knives shot up my arm and around my restrained shoulder. Like the sensation of pins and needles – only a thousand times stronger. My blood circulation had been dangerously cut off. I bit my lip to stop a sound from bursting forth, trying to focus my mind and body towards one single task. Trying to move.
My bladder pressed against the ropes painfully.
Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, I could freely wriggle my entire right hand without much discomfort. Using what little room it had, my hand tried to feel around the tightly-wound rope, looking for a knot which could be loosened and untied.
I found none.
Now there was no stopping the terror as it pounded through me. My breathing became labored, and the darkness that surrounded me seemed to close in like a dark, impenetrable shroud.
Oh God. This bloodcurdling darkness was a place in my mind. A forgotten room of my childhood, unlocked and unbridled. And something was terribly wrong with me – the fog was beginning to close in. I was imagining and fearing what wasn't there. My fear forming dreadful shapes. The rope which shackled me had become tightly-wound snakes. Slithering, moving upwards, hissing menacingly.
"Help!" I screamed, thrashing around as hard as I could to loosen its deadly hold. Waiting for the stinging bite that would end me. Tears stung my eyes. "Help me, please! Somebody! Help!"
And all around me – an empty echo. A void. This darkness had no light. There was no escape.
Thrashing did more harm than good. My head suddenly collided with the steel pole I had been propped against. My skull shook with the brunt of the pain, and the tears I tried to hold back began to fall.
How did I get here? I couldn't remember. Reality had been suspended into this heightened stated of terror. The real and the imagined becoming one, meeting in the middle. I closed my eyes, now, breathing hard and sinking. Going under. Letting go.
Letting myself fall.
I was drifting free, floating through the darkness – and with an audible thud, I landed on some hard surface. Cold, gritty, unforgiving.
A damp cement floor. I heard a squeaking, a rustling – the sound of rats.
I shouted in alarm and tried to lift myself back up, but to no avail. The universe had been tilted on its side – no, not the universe. Me. I wriggled uselessly against my restraints, moving myself across the floor. Until I hit something soft and pliant. I heard a muffled groan.
I wasn't alone. Someone else was sharing this darkness with me.
I licked my dry lips, feeling my mouth work for the first time in what felt like days. "Who's there?" The air smelled rancid – like old feces and caked sweat. "I can help you," I called out into the open air, trying to reach out. "We can help each other. Please." There was no response.
A knife!
What knife?
There's a knife hidden in my shoe.
Suddenly, I remembered – flashes of the distant past were coming back to me. Slowly, and then too much at once. An army knife sitting at the bottom of an overnight bag. My bag. I had tucked it into a hidden place where nobody would think to look – not the hotel security, and certainly not Noah.
That name! A lightning-quick flash of a forgotten memory, cutting through the fog. Spiraling me startlingly into the present – finally myself. I gasped.
Noah Lincoln.
The cab door had made a muffled thud as I closed it behind me, with some trepidation and a lot of uncertainty. I had tipped the driver generously – that I can recall. He had been so willing to drive me to this forgotten part of Nevada, hours before dawn had even broken.
And now I was stuck in the middle of nowhere. Standing at the front of an abandoned, shabby movie theatre.
This was so stupid, I had thought. Then I remembered that I hadn't done much thinking in order to get here. I had merely acted on pure instinct, following my strongest impulse – which had been to save Nathan from the knowledge which I know possessed.
That his father and Noah were working with one another, and were both complicit in something too horrible to give a name to.
I had only wanted to make sure. To be totally correct in my assumptions, before I made any other moves. Nathan had been so hell-bent on finding his father – but what if finding him meant also finding out the terrible truth? What might he be possibly driven to do, in that case?
What if I couldn't stop him from going too far?
The streets had been thoroughly abandoned, empty of life. I had been standing in the middle of the road, holding up the two tickets against the theatre in my line of sight. The worn pieces of paper were now crumpled and torn, the lettering worn-out by the sweat of my palms. But the address remained the same. This was the very place. And the ticket had indeed been a subtle instruction – an arrow pointing Noah here, towards this forgotten place.
The name of the last movie to be screened at the theatre was still printed in bold lettering, slowly losing more and more letters by the year. 'Eyes Wide Shut'. A movie Alfred was sure to have watched. And probably enjoyed.
This was, in fact, one of the many businesses he'd owned.
I had put the tickets away, and reached for my phone – texting Peter that very same address. As fast as my trembling, numb fingers would allow. I had been so fixated in getting it right, reading over the letters and numbers over and over, that I hadn't noticed him before it was too late.
"You looking for something?"
"Sorry, sir, I—" I turned mid-way towards the sound of the voice, an apology half-way out of my mouth. Not realizing quickly enough that the man who had addressed me was not some innocent Nevadan bystander.
He had been standing directly behind me. Waiting. I had turned myself just enough to see a glimpse of his face – dark eyes, with the dark circles underneath. A twisted sneer. Just enough to feel an instant shock of familiarity, then an electric jolt of pure terror.
And then I started running.
Reality had twisted into something resembling the past – I was fleeing escape once more, having uncovered something that never should have seen the light. My déja vu was a sudden shock to the system. So was the frightening realization that Noah had been in this position once before.
It had been him. He was the one who had chased me along those quiet, empty roads, his face bruised and battered from an earlier altercation. Caught on tape, many moons ago – a fight between him and Robbie. On that fateful night, after the party which had ended so disastrously, setting off a series of events which would permanently alter the course of history.
Another realization struck – and it was the feeling that he had been preparing himself for this second instance.
He would not be letting me get away this time.
That had been my last thought. Noah was quick to capture me, backing me into a corner. He had swung a wayward brick against my head using his full strength. Shattering me. Then I was gone.
With effort, I forced myself to take deep, calming breaths. Everything was moving into place – and this darkness now had a place in time which I could pinpoint it to. I was bound from the neck downwards, and locked in some corner of the abandoned theatre.
A heavy set of footsteps jolted me from my thoughts. Muted and far away, steadily making its way closer. Another sound was emitted by the unknown person whom I shared this prison with. A weak, barely audible croak of protest.
Every bone in my body became very, very still. Frozen in place. Tears began to form. "Robbie?" I breathed, my voice trembling. All body systems in a deep state of shock. "Robbie, is that you? Jenny? Listen to the sound of my voice. I'm gonna get you out of here, okay? We're getting out of this place."
My heart was suddenly beating again. Much faster than I thought it could. I wasn't alone in the room – they were alive, and here with me. And most importantly, they had finally been found. I was going to do everything in my power to get us all out of this deep, dark, fathomless hole.
Even if it killed me.
I squinted desperately towards the direction of the approaching sound, hearing the echoing footsteps thud closer to the room. Whoever it was, they were climbing upwards, moving along some sort of staircase. I had to act quickly before the door opened, to come up with a plan. Cold sweat soaked the back of my shirt. I was shivering in the cool dampness, with my back and restrained arms against the dirty floor.
I heard a door creak open. Blinding light suddenly blasted my vision, and I gave out a startled yelp. My heart began its fast gallop, leaping towards my throat.
This was it. The moment when I would finally meet my capturer, and look him directly in the eye.
I opened my eyes wide, feeling them burn with the harsh influx of light. Seeing only black and white blotches. No way of seeing him – I might as well have been blind. Footsteps drew closer to me, and my body knew how to make itself smaller, how to shrink away instinctively. All I could hear was breathing – mine and theirs.
"Who are you?" I choked out.
No response. Little by little, my eyes started to get used to the binding light emanating from a source above me. I caught the sight of black leather shoes, caked and coated with dirt.
Men's shoes.
Before I could make sense of the figure that hovered above me, before I could conjure up a single word, something sharp and hard collided with the side of my face. Pain rendered me speechless and disoriented, stinging across my face and neck. I could taste blood from where I had bitten my tongue at the impact.
Color by color, shape by shape, my vision began to sharpen. I was staring up towards a moldy ceiling, framed by rickety shelves. Stacked with dust and rolls of film. The heady scent of gasoline carried towards me. And something else with it, something stale and chemical. Like old, developed pictures printed onto film. This person was kneeling down towards me – his breath was blowing across my face, hot and foul and rancid.
A large hand then gripped a handful of my hair without warning, yanking it so we were at face level. Finally, we were able to confront one another up close. Eye to eye, taking each other in for the first time in months.
"Morning, Nancy Drew. Any sweet dreams?" Noah mocked, yanking my hair back more tightly with his hand. His smile was as familiar as anything – dark, twisted, wicked as sin.
"I..." my throat felt raw and dry, begging for a drop of water. My head swam helplessly, lost in this blinding new pain. "Noah... why? Why are you doing this?"
Of course, I already knew the answer to that question. The memory was coming back to me, sharp and in focus. What had appeared to me in the past as an apparition now seemed more real and vividly imagined than ever before.
A car in the night. Three men, all dressed in black, opening and closing the passenger doors. Two figures left to wait in the car – one in the driver's seat, the other his front passenger. The other three moving in unison towards where Robert and Jennifer had stood, arguing at the top of their lungs. Perhaps if they hadn't been so self-destructive, so fervently out for each other's blood, they might have noticed those men sooner. They might have been able to run and evade their inevitable capture, just as I had that night.
But they hadn't.
As it turns out, those familiar eyes had never been a mere figment of my imagination. Nothing about that night had been a dream.
It had all been very, very real.
Noah was laughing – at me, at my sheer audacity for having escaped him the first time. "You don't get to ask questions here," he snickered. I cowered away from him in fear. His hand suddenly gripped my chin, digging his fingers deep.
His face had lost any trace of humanity it once held – Noah Lincoln was something else, now. Something feral and bestial. "You think you're so fucking clever. All this time, running around with those assholes like some off-brand Sherlock Holmes. Thinking you were gonna solve this mystery on your own – catch the big, bad men and save the fucking day. You should've just stayed hidden. Kept your lying little mouth shut."
I kept silent. Wide-eyed and watching. Staring evil in the eye, and refusing to even flinch. My jaw was still held tightly by his fingers.
Noah's eyes were black, lacking in real depth. Boring into me, trying to break me in. His face twisted into a nasty, humorless smirk. "I let you get away. You were given every opportunity to stay out of business that had nothing to do with you. I shot down any credibility you might've had, so that nobody would even listen to what you had to say. I made sure everyone in that school thought you were some unhinged psycho. I even spray-painted those words – tried to frame you as the murderer. Any story you tried to spin would've been dismissed on the spot. No one wanted to touch you. But you just couldn't help yourself, could you?"
"You've wasted months of your life searching for something that's been here all along. You still want your medal? There it is." He pulled me roughly by my constraints, painfully twisting my body upright. I could only struggle helplessly, biting back the howling pain. Only then did I see the rows and rows of neatly stacked rolls of film which had been meticulously arranged and forgotten along the shelves. Old and useless trinkets had been left by the wayside to rot. It was small and grimy room, smelling strong of human filth and crawling with vermin – mounted up against the wall was an old movie projector.
We were bound and trapped in a projection booth.
And my suspicions had been correct – I hadn't been alone. Tied and chained down to the steel plumbing pipes which ran through the room – huddled limply together for warmth, a pile of sickly pale skin and bones – were two bodies. Their clothes were stained with grime and dirt, their skin and hair filthy and festering. Two heads bowed together, unable to move. One blonde and one dark, barely breathing. Unresponsive.
A piercing scream echoed across the small space, causing a slight stir amongst the pile of hollow bones. Robbie's eyes opened, staring vacantly and seeing nothing. His stained blue shirt hanging off of him like soiled rags. Divine Feminine. Malnourished and withered, flirting dangerously with death. It took a few moments to come back to myself, to realize the scream had come from me, and that the color of those eyes were the same green shade which had greeted me so timidly in that library. A lifetime long gone.
Robbie – no!
My body reacted instinctively, moving before any thought had entered my mind. I started to thrash wildly against my restraints, Noah's sick laughter an empty echo in my eardrums. I needed to get to Robbie – to shake him back to life, to set him free.
Jenny's head never resurfaced, failing to register the world around her. She seemed past the point of recovery – unmoving, unseeing, unbearably still. Not breathing.
Noah watched the scene unfold with deep amusement. I was but a small child who's antics were thoroughly entertaining. He then lazily pulled out a knife from his pocket. My knife, which glinting beneath the harsh light. He held it to Robbie's throat, putting an immediate end to my struggle.
The question left my desperate lips in a hurry. I didn't even recognize the sound of my own voice. "Jenny was the one you wanted. Why did you take him? You didn't need him!"
Noah's blade was slowly beginning to dig into Robbie's neck, making a clean and slow cut across his collarbone. His blood was too slow to follow – running thin and sparsely.
A truly dangerous sign.
The smell of blood mixed in with his scent. I gagged uncontrollably, hoping that if I vomited and spilled my guts all over the concrete floor, it would at least land on Noah.
Noah took immense pleasure in what he was doing – inflicting pain, being in control, entertaining my pitiful cries for answers. His eyes glittered with amusement. "Look at him. Prissy little rich boy with a chip on his shoulder. I needed to see the look on his face, when I took back what was mine."
"Stop." A voice ordered in the distance, coming from the opened door. "I told you to wait." Sharp, and sounding deeply annoyed. Dark, bone-chilling, familiar. Long, purposeful strides echoed into the room, finding their way closer and closer to me. I shut my eyes tightly, flinching away before he could come closer.
"Sorry, sir. Just keeping out guest company." I could almost feel Noah's smirk.
Alfred's voice sounded tight. Like he was on the fringes of insanity and was barely holding on. Moving closer and closer behind the flimsy curtain of my closed eyelids. And then I felt a pressure – a hand slowly stroking my cheek. Gentle.
But something was happening. I shook my head slowly, and then faster and faster.
No. This can't be real.
I blinked, and it was too late. I blinked and saw the harrowing outline of my father.
"No," I gasped. "Get away!"
He was exactly as I remembered him. Balding, with two crooked front teeth. Sneering into a smile. A large figure against the light, formidable in size to suggest he had once kept himself in shape. And those eyes.
Dark blue. Bottomless and blank. Continually seeking new and exciting ways to punish me for being what I was.
I flinched sharply away, and shuddered violently. My heart hammering against the rope. My skin felt like it was teeming and crawling with insects. His breath reached the shell of my ear. "Young lady, do you have any idea what kind of position you have put me in?"
He sounded like death.
This isn't him! Snap out of it.
I tugged and struggled against the rope, feeling it twist painfully into my skin. Chafing unbearably and drawing blood. I couldn't be caught here, by him. Not ever again. Not when I had been free of him at last.
Take a deep breath. Look at him clearly – and see directly through him.
This was my waking, recurring nightmare. I was trapped and bound and at the complete mercy of my tormentor, with no one to protect me from his wrath. The monster under my bed. His wrath would be boundless.
I forced myself to open my eyes, to look unseeingly through the sweat and grime which covered my vision like a layer of film.
And then—
The illusion wore off. The phantom had dissipated. Alfred's face loomed over mine – and the real was every bit as terrifying as the artifice.
I turned my head blindly away. I couldn't stand to look at him anymore. Couldn't bear to see what I might find – a hollow echo of Nathan reflected in the shape of a man, who possessed none of his goodness. Eyes clenched tight, I managed out, "So what was less a part of the plan – to have Angelica Blight's abducted son in this room, or to have me to deal with now?"
A blow landed painfully in my stomach, knocking the breath out of me and making me see stars. Harsh and unforgiving. When Alfred spoke next, his voice sounded calm and controlled. Not directed at me. "Has it worn off?"
"Yes, she was lucid when I arrived," was Noah's response.
Lucid? Worn off? And then it made sense – the terrifying shapes against the darkness. The snakes which had bound and entwined my limbs. My eyes playing tricks on me. I had been drugged upon arrival.
Noah's footsteps echoed away from me, and all together stopped. I peeked my eyes open long enough to see him leaning against a shelf full of empty cases of film, watching with bright eyes.
That sick, twisted monster.
"Allow me to extend my hospitality to you, dear Jesabel. You might be thirsty," Alfred lightly spoke. His sudden conversational tone was jarring and unexpected. Without warning, my mouth was suddenly pried apart. I struggled helplessly against Alfred's efforts, but to no avail. A small cup was held up to my mouth – and then a hand wrapped around my throat. I heaved and heaved, unable to breathe, to keep the momentum going. Trying to spit it out, choking and spluttering.
To no avail. The liquid was viscous and chemical-tasting when it at last travelled along my throat. And that was when I opened my eyes to him at last, startled into complete shock by what I truly saw.
Alfred – and yet, not how I had seen him last. Overgrown silver hair, darkened beard. Heavy dark circles underneath his eyes, which were bloodshot and bleary. Cruel, hard, and unhinged. Pleased. His grizzled mouth pressed into a thin smile.
It was Noah who at last spoke, interrupting Alfred's reverie. "We need to get rid of her quickly, before the others come."
Alfred stopped. I could see a muscle in his cheek jump – only slightly. "Quiet," he ordered. "Any action against our guest is mine to take."
Noah bristled at this challenge. Slowly, quietly, his expression was darkening.
It became immediately clear to me that there was an uneasy tension between my two capturers. And as I wretched and dry-heaved helplessly, trying to get that disgusting, foreign taste out of my mouth, it occurred to me that perhaps my only way out of here was through.
"What do you need me to say?" I asked. Gasping frantically, trying to fill my lungs with the oxygen I needed. Tense and waiting for whatever drug Alfred had given me to do its work. Knowing what it was he had administered. "Truth serum – is that what you've given me? I don't need it. Whatever you want me from me, I'll tell you."
This was exactly what Alfred wanted. His broad smile was like a dagger – sharp and dangerous. I quickly glanced at Robbie and Jenny's slumped, lifeless bodies from the corner of my eye. Wondering what concoction Alfred had forced into them in order to keep them subdued for so long.
No – escape would be impossible without their help. But they were dead to the world. How do I get the both of them out of here?
"Perfect," Alfred beamed. There was again – another jarring turn in his mood. "Now that we are both exactly on the right page, I need you to tell me what you know. I'm going to need to know how you found this place, and where my son is keeping himself."
A trembled went through me, foreboding of some sinister intention. Nathan. Alfred wanted to find Nathan first, before he himself could be found. I swallowed, choosing my next words very carefully. "I know lots of things. I know it was you who saw me fleeing from that park – and that there was supposed to be no witnesses. I know it was you who was in the car, following behind. Waiting to strike."
He stayed silent and focused. His eyes narrowing treacherously – the only thing to give him away.
"And I know," I continued forward, refusing to look away from his eyes, "that you never wanted me to become involved. That you had been looking for me – for the only witness to that night. And when you finally found me, I had been standing right under your own roof. This was all supposed to be an easy process, wasn't it? But nothing is working out the way you planned. Just as it wasn't part of the plan to take the both of them. You only needed one."
Jenny. Who looked to be teetering close to death.
His answering smile was more subdued. It was cold and calculating. "You are a clever girl. What else have you known all this time, dear Jesabel?"
Noah scoffed.
This was it. My only chance. I had to think hard and fast now, feeling an impending mental fog hovering in the distance. The drugs were beginning to take effect. "I was sent here by Angelica Blight. All she ever wanted was to find her son. We set out to find the two of them, but at the end of the day, all we really needed was to find Robbie. Not Jenny. Jenny is yours to keep, Alfred."
Lie.
I leaned myself forward, keeping him trapped in my gaze. So intent on selling this to him – on maintaining my tone of deep sincerity. "You know better than anyone. The lengths people will go to for the sake of their family – the things you'd do to restore your name and glory. That's the reason why you took her in the first place, isn't it? Even if she is your child by blood, Jenny has never meant anything to you. And all those years Aurora stole from you – bleeding you dry for the sake of keeping Jenny's real father, and your name, a secret to the world. You only wanted to put a stop to it all. I understand, even if Nathan doesn't. Because that's what a reasonable man does. He rights his wrongs. He sees a broken system, and he fixes it."
The debilitating haze was creeping in. The world was slowly growing more numb – and I was numb to it. My eyelids dropped as I spoke, becoming heavier and heavier with each word I uttered. My thoughts were slowing down – and Alfred could tell. But I persisted. I gave it my all. Keeping him trapped and convinced, keeping him there with me.
Wrapping him up in this great big lie.
"You could have anything you wanted from Angelica. Anything. She of all people would understand. The lengths you've gone to protect yourself, to save your own skin. She needs her son more than you need him. And just like – that—" I slurred, "the story ends. The investigation stops. No one worth their grain of salt would come looking for Jenny. Everyone who cared about her has thoroughly abandoned her. The hunt would be over, and you would be free to dispose of Jenny however you saw fit. Aurora's money dries up. The world keeps turning, ignorant to the sacrifices you've had to make for your family."
My hunch had been right all along.
These wealthy, important, terrible people, playing the world like a fiddle with their mind games – playing at being gods. I knew the rules at last. I could play this game at their level, and on their terms.
Alfred's head was slowly tilting to the side. He was listening – I knew it. But the final conclusion would be left for him to draw. What to do next? He left me there on the floor, numb from the top of my head down to my tips of my toes. I knew without even seeing him – he believed that loosening my inhibitions had worked to his favor. That the serum had done its job tremendously.
And now he was presented with an unexpected course of action – a plan C. He paced back and forth in thought, oblivious to mine and Noah's presence.
"You can't be fucking serious," Noah laughed scornfully. "Do you honestly believe a word she's said? She belongs in a mental asylum, Alfred. Killing her would be doing the world a favor."
Noah's biting words had the opposite effect to what he'd intended – Alfred stopped his tracks, turning his attention to the rich, insubordinate brat who had outlived his usefulness, who's mouth was too big to handle.
His calm control was beginning to diminish – and fast. For someone who had gotten away with so much, Alfred Ericson was closer to his breaking point than Noah could ever understand.
And I could taste it. I was going to use it to my advantage.
Alfred produced something from his pocket, throwing it at Noah with barely a glance his way. Something metallic and tinkly – a pair a keys. "Get him out of my sight," he demanded, pointing a finger at Robbie's unconscious figure. "Take him somewhere public, and leave him there. Be discreet. Send a message to Angelica and Peter, to every one of those fuckers."
Noah's anger was unfurling, filling the room with thick tension. I tried in vain to keep my eyes open, to see through the double-vision which the world was now shrouded in. There was such lightness in me, a feeling of euphoria I had never experienced before. I wanted to fall into that ocean of numbing bliss. But my thoughts were betraying me.
Focus. Stay in the present.
"No. That's fucking madness," Noah hissed.
Alfred's flimsy self-control had finally snapped. "You will do as I say," he shouted, his deep booming voice shocking me out of my dazed trance, "or you will answer for it! I'm only protecting you by the skin of your teeth, but so help me God – if you defy my orders again, there is nothing Vanessa can do to save you."
Noah had no choice. His fury and resentment had no other outlet – he spat violently on the floor, right by Alfred's feet. "You remember what I said?" he threatened menacingly. "Jenny is mine. You hear me? So you better hold up your part of the bargain – because she stays with me here in this room. Don't you fucking lay a finger on her."
Without another word spoken between them, Noah untethered Robbie to the plumbing pipes, handling him as if he were a large sack of flour. I couldn't help but gasp. Robbie had withered away until he was basically nothing – just a shadow of a person. Protruding bones, sallow skin. Drugged into a complete stupor.
He was a ghost.
And then he was gone. The door slammed behind them with an thunderous bang. I breathed an internal sigh of relief, sweating and shaking and feverish. Unable to believe that my plan had worked. That my lie had been a complete success.
All that remained was Jenny and I. And there was Alfred, hovering over us both.
Then I heard him chuckling. Low and muted, slowly building to something louder and fuller. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. "Ah, Jesabel," Alfred sighed, shaking his head. "Look at what you've done now."
He was fast to approach me, moving too quickly for my muddled mind to process. I shrank as far away from him as my restraints allowed. My sharp, sudden fear tasted sour in my mouth.
And he could feel it, too.
Now it was his turn. He creeped over me now, watching with self-satisfaction as I swallowed and fervently tried to hide my panic.
"Unfortunately," he began, squatting down to face me, "now that you've helped me take care of my situation, your own story will have to end here."
"No!" I cried, shaking my head. My heart was racing, galloping away from me. A white-hot bolt of terror jolted through my entire body, with was ringing with fear. "No – don't, please. I won't tell a soul."
"Shh," he hushed me, looking to the world as the charismatic man who had given me my Nathan. Smiling gently, brushing away the matted hair which was clinging to my fair. "This doesn't have to be a sad farewell. Why, you've brought my own weapon to me, after all. And I'm a kind and generous man to my friends." He pulled something out from his pocket.
A gun. My gun.
My eyes flickered erratically, filling with petrified tears, meeting his triumphant stare for the final time. No – his gun. I had brought it with me, only for him to use it against me. To put a stop to my beating heart, to draw out my last remaining breath.
"I wish we could've had a different ending, but alas," he shrugged. "There is no better ending to this tale. You simply know much more than I am willing to allow. So that when Noah arrives back to his beloved Jennifer," he pressed the gun against my cheek, dragging it lazily towards the side of my throat, "inevitably bringing with him the law enforcement which he will invariably attract – and I truly don't believe he is cautious enough to avoid capturing their attention – the bodies will be on his hands. By then, I'll be long gone, and in a much better position to deal with my meddling son. Plenty of time for you to bleed to your death."
Without warning, Alfred fired a bullet directly into my leg. I screamed. Searing, white-hot jets of pain scorched the lower half of my body, climbing up higher in rapid speed. The drugs did little to numb me. My vision was blurring. Everything was quickly leaving me, finding escape – my thoughts, awareness, sound of mind.
No.
The pain was so severe that I was mere seconds from blacking out. After that, another shot was fired, and the sound had been just as loud and piercing – echoing in my deafened ears. The second shot yielded no fresh, awakened sensation of pain. Perhaps I was slipping too quickly.
Or perhaps the second shot hadn't been directed at me.
My eyes began to create an illusion, catching at the shadows being cast all around the room. Shapes and bodies in the distance, moving figures dressed in black and blue and green – blurring all around me, enclosing like vultures. Alfred had crumpled to the ground beside me, and I had little energy left to wonder why. Sounds were blurring, morphing. My brain tuning into the radio static.
Nathan's silhouette came into focus. My eyes drooped to a close.