Guilt (19 page)

Should I run? While he's scaling the ladder, I could slip out of the box and run down the hall. If I opened the door quietly, I should be able sneak down the stairs and get a head start long before he realized what I did. Now that I knew where he was, my hysteria diminished. I could plan again.

I turned the lock on the door handle, and twisted the knob with disciplined slowness to make as little sound as possible. After the bolt was free of the catch, I pulled the door ajar, just enough to squeeze my body through.

When I began to slide through the opening, I felt a barrier block my way. Putting my hand out to feel the obstruction, I discovered that there was another door. I forgot all attempts at silence, and swung the first door open to have a look at this new obstacle.

There before me stood a black security gate. I grabbed its handle, but found it to be secured. It had a one sided keylock, so I couldn't access the latch. In the past, this box had been a choice hide-a-way for students who skipped classes. It appeared that the faculty caught on to the fact in recent years. This gate was meant to keep students out, but it subsequently held me in.

All those hooky-playing teenagers may have just cost me my life.

I looked back towards the window of the box. Kain's face peered back at me, though I couldn't be sure if he actually saw me.

Having no other choice, I started shaking the security gate, pushing against it, willing it to open. Damn solid prison bars!

I heard a wrapping sound, and turned around to see Kain knocking on the pane with his knuckles. Then, he retrieved a hammer from a belt loop on his pants and began hitting the glass with it. Oh, God. He did find a way in.

The head of the hammer punctured the windowpane repeatedly, but only managed to crack it. Kain hit it again and again, and I could see that the stability of the glass started to weaken.

Trapped. I really was trapped now. With no other alternative, I backed into the corner of the small room, and slid down the wall. I buried my head beneath my arms, and flinched every time the hammer made contact with the glass, not knowing when the next strike would shatter my only defense and let the intruder in.

Finally, it happened. The glass gave, raining into the box, and allowing Kain to climb through. I heard the fragments clink and fall, pushed away as Kain pulled himself inside.

"Claire," he said, nearly out of breath from his effort, "Naughty. Very naughty."

He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me to my feet. I screamed at the pain and at the fright of seeing the expression on his face once more. The Kain from the cemetery, the Kain from the diner, was gone. This man had a gleam of lunacy in his eyes.

"I have to admit," he continued, "I wasn't very happy that you ran, but all-in-all, the chase was sort of fun." He smoothed my hair from my face and pinned me against he wall with the length of his body. "Foreplay."

He leaned in to resume the kiss he had forced on me at the Giant's Grave, bruising my lips with his ferocity. My injuries and exhaustion made my struggles futile. Perhaps, it was time to let my mind leave my body. I couldn't stop him now, and I didn't want to feel the anguish of what was to come.

He slid his hands down my back and pressed himself further into me, proving that his desire had been aroused. I felt my awareness begin to fade away.

A blaring sound rang out through the silent halls and filled the auditorium. Flashing red and white lights accompanied the maddening sound.
The fire alarm.

The fire alarm went off. I came back to myself, and my heart pumped rapidly, making my breath quicken. My mind started reeling.

What made it go off? Was it a delayed reaction? Could someone be here in the building?

I screamed. I needed to alert whoever may already be here or might come in answer to the call of the alarm. As I yelled for help, I flailed and fought against my oppressor. Kain didn't like that.

He slapped my face to shut me up and covered my mouth, which effectively smothered me. I couldn't breath so I tried to pry his hand from my face. He slammed my head up against the wall to stop my struggles once and for all. My consciousness faded for a moment before it returned. My energy didn't come back, though, and I fell limp against Kain's body.

The lights in the auditorium came on, and I heard the bang of a door opening.

"Claire," a voice shouted. I didn't recognize it.

"Claire?" Again, the voice of a man questioned if I was here.

"H-here," I croaked out, and received a consequent jab in the gut from Kain for my audacity.

"Where?" The voice asked in agitation. "Where?"

I did recognize that voice. But from where?

The turn of events made Kain desperate now, because he grabbed me and pushed me to the broken window, where he dangled me over the edge of the box. I tried to keep my footing, but he held me at his mercy.

I took in the theater seats below me at a distance of about ten feet. Then, I looked up and scanned the room for the familiar voice. What I saw shocked me more than anything had so far this day.

In an isle near an open door stood the Freak. Never had I been so delighted to see him.

My happiness didn't last long.

"Who the hell are you?" Kain directed at the man below, shaking me to show that he had the control in this situation.

"I don't want any trouble," the Freak replied, edging forward. "I'm here for Claire. Just let her go, and we'll leave. No questions asked."

"Like hell. She's mine," Kain shook me again for emphasis. I grabbed onto his arm to keep from slipping out the window.

"You don't really want to do this. Just let her go." The Freak came closer to the box.

"If I let her go, she's going down." He made as if to drop me, but didn't completely let go.

"No," I screamed and clasped even harder to his arm.

"Come on, man," the Freak tried to reason, "we both know what happened the last time you did something like this. You lost a whole lot more than you bargained for, didn't you?"

"What do you know?" Kain spat at him.

"I know more than I care to," the Freak replied. "Just end this now. Set her down gently, and let her go."

"F**k you." Kain was beyond reasoning and I knew it. "You don't know anything. And if I'm going down, she's going down with me. I'll make sure I give them a good reason to take me. Right, Claire?"

He squeezed me to him at this point. The Freak growled at the act. His reaction pleased Kain, who continued to caress me and buried his face in my neck, expecting to rile the Freak by his intimate proximity to me.

As unwelcome as his embrace was, the movement freed me from my precarious position at the edge of the window. I felt an opportunity arise, and my energy rose with it.

I lifted my leg and slammed my heel into his solar plexus. The pain caused him to loosen his grip on me. That freed my arm enough to swing my closed fist into his groin. He doubled over, releasing me to grab at his throbbing testicles. I lost my balance and fell backwards into the box. The glass fragments poked into my back, adding to the lacerations from my previous encounter with another window.

Kain hovered over me, working to regain his composure. A few seconds gave him enough control to scowl up at me, and when he reached for me, my instincts really kicked in. I pulled my knee to my chest, and thrust my foot into his stomach. The blow knocked him backwards.

He didn't recover his footing in time to stop himself from backing out of the broken window. One moment he towered over me, and the next he was gone.

The Freak uttered some exclamation from below, and I rolled onto my hands and knees, and crawled through the glass towards the edge of the box. On the ground beneath me, Kain lay on his right side, sandwiched between two rows of seats, a leg positioned unnaturally over an armrest. His head moved, trying to lift from the ground.

I cried. Tears ran down my face as all my emotions caught up with me. I didn't cry for Kain, or for what I did to him. I didn't even cry for myself. My tears were for Corry and Leslie. For what happened to them so long ago. I had no reason anymore to feel responsible for his death, but I wished I had helped Corry when he reached out to me.

That the whole affair culminated to such an end as this, I couldn't quite fathom yet.

And I wouldn't have time to for a while. As the Freak checked Kain for vital signs, police and firefighters flooded the area, searching for the reason behind the fire alarm.

Measures were taken to retrieve me from the confines of the technician's box, and to attend to my wounds. I searched the numerous faces in the room. Police officers and fire fighters swarmed about as they took control of the crime scene. Some of them I vaguely remembered going to school with. But I couldn't find the face that I sought. The Freak seemed to have disappeared.

Chapter Twenty-five

I never liked hospitals. The sterility of the environment, all florescent lighting and linoleum floors, looked and felt unnatural to me. The beeps and whirrs of the latest medical gadgets that took one's vitals at timed intervals; the smell of antiseptic cleaners used on the furniture and bedding; and the bed itself – good grief – I think the twin bed in my old room met its match for discomfort. All these things made me ill at ease.

The last time I had been admitted into a hospital as a patient, I was seven years old and had tonsillitis so bad that I couldn't breathe. My condition had worried my mother so much that she nearly had to be admitted into the bed beside mine. But I hadn't been a patient since.

I had been in the hospital as a visitor twice, though. The day before Aunt Mimmsy died, I came to say my goodbyes (she didn't recognize who I was, which broke my heart a little bit), and the time before that was when Laura had been in the hospital to have her appendix removed.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I'd wake up this morning in my childhood home, and go to sleep in a hospital bed. Oh, the injuries hadn't seemed that bad – well, at least not beyond excruciatingly painful, but here I was. The lacerations that covered much of my body weren't the cause of my admittance. Even the gouge to my upper abdomen from when I jumped through the window hadn't called for more than some stitches thanks to my sturdy rib cage. It wasn't the fall from the vent, either, though, it fractured my radius bone at the elbow. The injury that triggered my hospital stay was the punch to the gut that I received for making my rescuer aware of my whereabouts. Apparently, it caused significant bruising to more than one organ; and since, I could feel the pain that proved the injury, I allowed them to keep me here.

Perhaps, the emotional bruising had a little to do with it, too. I had to fight hard against my instincts to allow the paramedics and firefighters to help me after my conflict with Kain. They were so kind, so attentive and caring, but they were men, and the very masculinity they possessed put me on edge. Overseen by them, the ride to the hospital in Elkswood seemed longer than the fifty-five mile drive should have, even with the ambulance sirens bellowing to clear the way.

The female doctor in the emergency room calmed me down when I arrived. She gave me hydrocodone (I think it was), and everything went fuzzy and vague. In fact, I think time may have sped up after that, because the next thing I knew, I was in a hospital room surrounded by my family. Mom and dad were there. Even Lil managed to stand in the room with a look of concern on her face. Could that concern really be for me? And Jacob, he finally looked me in the eyes, though, perhaps, it was because he was amused that the medication made his aunt loopy.