Callum <8bite
Callum jumped down the hatch and landed on his feet almost without recoil. Seeing that the bound girl remained on the floor in pain, he walked over to the steel shelves and with a fluid movement pushed them to one side, revealing another door.
He opened it - it was not locked - then returned to the ladder and, grabbing the sack which covered her, pulled her to her feet. Compelled by his strength she hobbled through the door into the hidden room - the room with the lead pipe work and the cistern in the middle, and the faintly blood-stained table and chair.
"Stay there." Callum barked viciously, to which command the trembling captive obliged out of sheer terror. Callum strode back into the central room and picked up a large hiking rucksack which was clearly full to bursting point with something or other.
He carried it back into the cistern room, set it down at the girl's feet, then pulled the canvas sack cleanly off of her. Nate could now see that the girl was a short blonde, wearing black trousers and a blue polo shirt embroidered with the cinema logo. Her faced was streaked with tears, her arms were fastened tightly behind her back with a cable tie, and a large bruise was already starting to form on her right arm where she must have landed on it when Callum threw her down the ladder.
With a grunt, Callum spun the girl around to face Nate. He grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and spat his words with genuine hate.
"I told you didn't I" he said, looking at the girl but addressing Nate, "thousands of people all quite happy to hurt you, whether by malice or ignorance. Take this little bitch Steph here. She's the one who had Julian's attention whilst you were left on your own outside. She's the one your old boyfriend chose to be delayed by." He changed his focus to address Steph.
"Eh? How long does it take to pour a fucking cup of cola, eh? Meanwhile Nate's outside on her own, none the fucking wiser to how her piece of shit boyfriend would rather be sniffing around a kiosk attendant than taking care of his girl. Or how he could care so fucking little about what could have happened to her..."
He shifted his eyes to look at Nate and straightened his mouth into an expression of sober lamentation.
"...that he decides his cola isn't the only thing he's going to take away with him. Not even a second thought for Nate. Just takes whatever's closest to hand. And you were more than happy to be close to hand, eh?"
The girl shook violently with fear, and with Callum's last words she shook her head vigorously.
"No...no I swear..." she sobbed, "I had no idea, he said he'd had a fight with his girlfriend and she'd ditched him....I never meant to..."
Callum cut her off by grappling his arm around her neck and pushing her down onto her knees. With venomous movements he wrapped the straps of the rucksack around her torso then clipped them into place.
"Not to worry Nate." he said, his voice notably softer as he addressed her rather than Steph. "I told you how things are going to be now. The people who hurt you will have me to answer to."
Steph opened her mouth to protest again, but simply uttered another scream as Callum pulled her back over the edge of the cistern. She landed on top of the rucksack, her arms still bound behind her back, and firmly weighed down by the contents of the pack. Callum walked briskly to a point on the wall where an in-line lever-valve protruded from the chase into which the pipe was set.
Throwing the lever ninety degrees, there was an instant, loud rushing noise, and water started gushing into the cistern from four pipe openings set into the rim.
Steph screamed out and spluttered as the ice cold water enveloped her. Her struggles were in vain; the pack was too heavy, and although she tried to call out pleas the force of the water cascading onto her face and body scarcely gave her opportunities to take a breath.
Callum breathed heavily as he watched. This was all too perfect. They had played into his hands obligingly, and now he was doing for Nate what scarcely any other guy on the planet had the stones to do for his girl...to make her world safe at any cost whatsoever...
Nate <8bite
Nate was just reaching out her bad foot from the ladder to the ground at the sound of metal screeching across the floor.
She turned to stare around with her eyes peeled as they adjusted to the dimly lit area but she already knew where to look recognising the metal and concrete shriek from her earlier attempts to shift the metal rack in front of a door. He had obviously moved it without the slight hint of a struggle as he marched out of the room for a rucksack and strode back in again like a man with a purpose- a duty to fulfil.
Nate shuffled up to the room feeling her ears pop when she swallowed anxiously.
She could make out a chair and a table and...what was that. Nate moved as swiftly as she was capable to the door frame partially hiding behind it like someone who didn’t want to get in the way. It was..a tank. Nate could see the girl. She could see her plain as black and white. Blond hair. Cinema uniform. Nate had seen her before. She couldn’t help but narrow her eyes in some form of disgust like he had an obsession with finding girls from that particular spot.
She felt worse, worse that she knew the girl, that just by recognising her she would be morally damaged.
"I told you didn't I-"
Nate stood at what she felt was a safe place behind the frame and she listened, listened to him speak with such enmity about this girl and her doings since last night and slowly Nate's attention peaked behind the door.
She wasn’t ready for what he revealed to her, she'd been looking at the suspicious- almost sickenly obvious stains upon the chair, table and floor, she'd been looking at Steph trying to communicate some how that she'd help her, save them both.
Her blue eyes had been reaching out to the girl the connection there that they were both two girls in jeopardy! Trying to interact that they were the same- that they could help each other and Steph was signalling back through the distracted tears...until Nate heard the facts.
Not only that but the fact Steph’s face said it all as he spoke out about Julian- about her- it was grievously there in her eyes and...quite suddenly Nate...stopped communicating.
That feminine connection they shared diminished by the reclusive way Nate retreated her eyes instead turning to him. They were shimmering and Nate's heart was pounding, her chest aching when the truth seemed so much plainer upon his face than hers.
"...that he decides his cola isn't the only thing he's going to take away with him. Not even a second thought for Nate. Just takes whatever's closest to hand. And you were more than happy to be close to hand, eh?"
Nate hid her mouth, her lips trembling against her fingers, her eyes blurring at the uncontrollable hurt that swelled inside her. It was wild and loose like some injured animal and it consumed everything.
Julian didn't care.
Now she knew where he'd been looking when she'd been standing outside alone and obviously vulnerable- at Steph’s cleavage.
Now she knew that when she'd been hoping and even verbally threatening that he was looking for her- he'd been with this- this blond girl who worked at the cinema! Nate felt her expression harden with a slow burn of the darkest emotions. She couldn’t tell between the hurt that lashed and flooded her from within from the insane vehemence that burnt her eyes and throat.
Her pleas against his words held no denial and caused Nate to curl her body towards the door frame her teeth clenched behind trembling lips.
Nate heard him address her, the vague fact he knew her name scarcely bothering her. It was the softer tone he used that summoned her attention.
"Not to worry Nate." he said "I told you how things are going to be now. The people who hurt you will have me to answer to."
She was acknowledging his words, but she was looking at him, how righteous and involved he looked standing there with his hands on Steph like there was nothing else that mattered apart from proving his point to her- about telling her the truth like he cared enough to discover it for her, took the time to shove it in her face so she could see for herself. Was she- grateful that he'd chosen her.
He pushed Steph back into the tank and when the water funnelled in violently gurgling her scream Nate turned a cheek pressing against the door frame to look the other way.
Her eyes were wide, heart thrumming in her chest, hearing the water raging in she felt strangely tense but at ease, her thoughts were light and she felt inhuman the way she could stand so still and not feel the need to help the girl in the tank.
To not even feel like trying.
To feel empty and devoided of the instinct to help but feeling an overdose of grief and anger for herself. Thinking that the only girl in jeopardy here was now in the tank, drowning, whilst she stood on the outside unharmed and unaffected.
Another thing was him. He was a killer. What should she do, what could she do, wasn’t she as bad as him standing here- turning a cold shoulder towards that girl- she didn’t want to think about it. All she felt was pain. Pain in her foot, pain in her chest, fire in her throat.
He'd told her she'd see and she wasn’t sure if it was the light... but oh...she'd seen something...and she'd felt something too.