Terrorscape (13 page)

As the doors were closing Gavin rounded the
corner. He locked eyes with her from across the hall.
“I only want a moment, Val.”

Her fingers tightened around the books as he
loped easily towards the elevators.
Close faster
, she
urged the doors.

“
Val—
”

They weren't fast enough. He was going to reach
her,
and
then
the
sensors
wouldn't
close.
Shit.
Desperate, she threw the heaviest of her textbooks at
his face.

The thud of her other books hitting the ground
after she dropped them made her start, so when she
hurled her Sociology textbook at him the throw was
crooked from the get-go. Had it connected the book
could have easily broken his jaw.

Gavin parried the book with his forearm instead
of halting the doors as he had intended, striking it on
the flat side. They slammed into the wall with a
violent slam that echoed up and down the narrow
corridor.

The doors closed.
She could breathe again—but only for a moment.

Val poured out into the second-floor hallway.
Running footsteps sounded his presence from the
stairwell down the hall. Val turned and headed for the
fire escape; the doors weren't alarmed and they led
directly outside, to the opposite side of the building
through which she'd entered. Out into West Thoreau
and the beginning of North Point's downtown.

Her phone rang. She looked up, her concentration
narrowing to focus on the doors above her head as
she fumbled to turn off the power.

The doors on the third floor burst open—clearly,
he'd assumed that she would go up instead of down
—and he hit the balcony hard enough to make the
metal rails rattle in their frames.

“You're only prolonging the inevitable.” He spoke
just loud enough for the words to carry. “Come with
me now. Let's talk. It's been so long since I heard the
sound of your voice.” He moved closer to the stone
steps. “Almost a year, in fact.”

She swayed, once, twice, hypnotized, caught in
the thrall of that voice. Then jerked.
No
.

She fumbled with the door. It opened, bathing her
in blinding light. Gasping, Val looked back over her
shoulder. He was still there, watching as she fled. He
ran his finger across his neck, and blew her a kiss, all
in a single eloquent gesture.

It was not a threat, she realized, but a promise.
(Are you frightened?)
She wondered who would die now in her stead.
She wondered how long until she joined them.

▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

Attempting to camouflage herself had signified
that even she knew that she was prey—his prey—by
resorting to such mechanisms.

He had ensured that she would be desperate,
because
people
were
careless
when
they
were
desperate. In this instance, he did not mind being
wrong because he had always appreciated a challenge
and because her underhandedness amused him.

Playing dead had failed, so a new line of defense
had become necessary. She had changed her colors to
blend in with the scenery. It had almost worked.

When he had seen that dark-haired woman
standing off to the side she had not immediately
conjured up an image of Val. No, not even when she
had fallen, or when he had watched her scramble
after her blowing papers. He had only thought what a
pity it was that she didn't have red hair, as she fit into
his desired profile so well.

And then she had looked at him, and he felt that
glance tighten his groin with its familiarity because
there was a kind of knowing in that gaze: recognition
—and a bold display of fear. But what, if anything,
could such a girl know about him or his ways? Even if
such fears were warranted, he was intrigued.

Rules were, after all, made to be broken. A drab
little raven, to stand out amidst his fiery collection of
cardinals.

When she walked past him, he had seen her
flinch: a tiny shiver she tried quite hard to suppress.
More fear, yes, but there was something of the sexual
in it too, and he felt his own body begin to respond in
kind because at that moment, he had caught her scent
on the breeze. He would have known her anywhere
then, even in darkness.

It was her.
After all this time, she was in his grasp.

Chasing her had been purely instinctual. He'd
had to think about it no more than a hawk did when
swooping down to catch the unwary field mouse.

For weeks a heady blood-lust had infused his
dreams, stirring up the potent need for violence and
vengeance in his veins as though stoking kindling for
a fire. But now a different sort of conflagration was
growing,
white-hot
and
blinding.
He
could
see
nothing else but the tails of her coat as she ran,
flapping in the rain-soaked wind like the wings of a
bird in flight.

Thought, when it did come, had sullied that
purity. When he had her cornered in that elevator he
saw the pale curve of her neck, as supple as the skin
of a ripe fruit; the push of her breasts against her
shirt; her long legs, full hips, and tight buttocks
forming a sensual triumvirate; his desire to kill waned
in lieu of an earthier desire, primal and all the more
powerful because of it.

But that can come later
, he thought.
Even the
mightiest predator deigns to toy with his prey on occasion.

Memories of that blushing skin laid bare elicited
phantom sensations that made him look at her in new
light. No longer dewy and coltish with youth, her
body had new curves and contours belied by her
sinewy frame.

She could be his to conquer and explore, but it
would not be by her choice. She had made that quite
clear when she raked him with that shard of glass,
cornered,
with
just
a
few
stitches
of
clothing
separating them from consummation.

No, she would have to be tied down, and forced
into submission. He would bring her to heel, and if
she resisted there would be pain.

Theirs would be a violent union, christened in
blood and sweat and hatred so fierce that it bordered
on passion. She would fight him, he would fight back,
harder, as they lost themselves in the oldest of battles
waged between male and female.

She caught his glance and stiffened, and he knew
that she knew, and that flickering remnant of strength
inside her rebelled at the thought, and he went fully
hard as he weighed the pros and cons of taking her
right there against the wall of that elevator as he slit
her slender throat.

And then she had thrown that book at him, and
he felt another tide of sensation flood through his
blood because he had come to this place looking for a
quick kill and realized that he was going to receive a
battle instead.

Those other women had fought him, too, when he
had at last made his intentions clear. Such futile
struggle, he had suffered only a few scratches.
Nothing more. But Val had managed to escape him—
not once, but twice. And now a third time. He
touched the scar on his throat. She, alone, had left her
mark. She was elusive and wary game; the perfect
quarry for the most sophisticated of hunters.

He looked forward to chasing her down. This
time, she would not escape. Revenge and sensuality
in a single swoop.
No, he could not recall ever feeling quite so alive.
Chapter Nine

Gladiolus

Days passed, then weeks, and Val did not catch a
single
glimpse
of
the
grandmaster.
Rather
than
finding this a comfort, Val realized that this didn't
really matter. Just because she couldn't see the
monsters didn't mean they didn't exist, that they
weren't out there looking. Looking for her.

This must be how a mouse felt, knowing that, at
every turn, something, somewhere, was planning its
demise. The life of the hunted. Fear and vigilance.
Vigilance and fear. No wonder the poor things
scampered when horror came swooping down out of
nowhere in the form of a hawk.

She had always imagined, foolishly, that her life
would literally come to an abrupt and screeching halt
if she saw him again. That it would be the beginning
of an epoch as cold and unaccommodating as an ice
age. That there would be warnings.

Life did not stop; life went on, like a relentless
tide, dragging Val along in the current against her
will. She did not stay in bed, with all the doors and
windows locked and the curtains drawn, moribund
and paranoid, like a rodent playing dead.

She continued going to classes, though her brain
was
incapable
of
absorbing
information.
She
continued seeing Jade, though her heart wasn't in it.
She continued living life as if nothing was wrong at
all, and living tissue grew and formed around the
gangrenous canker of her soul.

She was Schrödinger's cat, both alive and dead.

During this period Val received the first “C” she'd
ever gotten since junior high. Then another. Then a
“D.” Her low grades made her feel chagrined but
there was nothing she could do. Fear dulled her mind.
She
was
unable
to
study
and
had
difficulty
concentrating. Such things were too large for the focal
pinpoint of her mind's eye; the center would not hold.

When Val wasn't trying to study, she slept.
Sometimes deeply—so deeply that, once, when the
fire alarm went off, Val hadn't even twitched, and
Mary had lectured her so severely that Val had lost
her temper and shouted at her to shut up—and other
times shivering awake in the middle of the night with
wide-eyed insomnia.

When she was neither sleeping nor studying,
which wasn't often, she went out with Jade, who
Mary now considered Val's boyfriend. They had now
been seeing each other, exclusively, for several weeks.

“He's not my boyfriend,” Val said, the first time

Mary brought this up. She was at her computer,
typing up an essay due tomorrow. Her response was
close to automatic. “We're just friends.”

“Have you seen the way that boy looks at you?”

No, she hadn't. The world she lived in was a oneway mirror; she was but a passive observer, invisible,
unseen, unseeing. Jade was just an NPC. She didn't
attribute to him any actual thoughts and emotions.

“Val,” Mary tried again, her voice stern, “Jade is a
nice guy. I don't want to see him get hurt. If you don't
feel the same way about him, if you're just leading
him on, you need to tell him that. I've seen too many
nice guys get shafted because a girl can't get over
some jerk.”

“I know,” Val said, because she did know. How
many times had she told herself the same thing? How
much simpler would her life be if it had been a nice
boy, a sweet boy, whom she had initially fallen for?
“Don't you think I know that?”

“I really wonder sometimes, Val—and I hate that.
Because I want to respect you. But girl, you make it
mighty hard sometimes.”

Dozens of retorts came to mind but Val could not
voice a single one.
She's right
, that insidious voice
whispered.
You know she's right
.

Point made, Mary slipped out the door to go to
dinner with her friends. She did not invite Val. She
did not even say goodbye.

Mary had never really gotten angry with her
before, not even when Val had shouted at her that one
time, but after that particular conversation the black
girl was cold to her for several days and Val could not
feel the least bit angry or frustrated back because she
knew she deserved it and she couldn't bring herself to
care.

All she could think about was the fear.

 

She did wonder if Mary had said something to

Jade. Val knew the two of them talked sometimes and
hung out without her, but it had never bothered her
or made her jealous. She had never considered herself
the jealous type, and couldn't understand the girls
who freaked when they saw their boyfriends chilling
with other girls. Why? It just wasn't a big deal. She
certainly didn't mind.

What she
did
mind was having people betray her
confidences behind her back and then leaving her out
of the loop. As if they considered themselves more
capable of solving her problems than she was. And
maybe Jade and Mary had talked after all, because
shortly after that disastrous conversation, Jade called
her up on the phone.

Val was initially annoyed. They did not have a
date scheduled for that day and he had woken her up
from a nap. For once, she hadn't been having any
nightmares. Val wondered, with irritation, what it
was he wanted. She hoped he didn't want her to meet
him someplace tonight. Not when she was so tired.

“Val?”
He
sounded
nervous,
for
him.
An
unexpected lapse in confidence. Her resolve softened,
and decayed. She recognized that meekness because it
was often present in her own voice. “How are you?”

“Fine.” The lie came quickly. “You?”

He ignored the perfunctory follow-up, choosing
instead to get right to the point. “I've been thinking…
about, well, a lot of things. About our relationship.”

Val froze and tried to speak but could not.
He's breaking up with me
.

The relief that thought brought frightened her.
Maybe not feeling jealousy was normal, but this
definitely wasn't.

I never knew I could be so cold
.
“Val? Are you still there?”
“Yes,” she said weakly.

“You see, I'd like to take it to another level and
I'm not quite sure you'd be into that.” He paused,
measuring the silence. “I'd rather discuss this in
person, in private. If you wouldn't mind.”

“Okay,” said Val.
“Okay?” he repeated.
“Yes, fine.”
Ice is supposed to numb, to freeze.

“Look, let's meet up at Cloverridge Park. We'll
talk it over there. We could even make it a picnic—
bring food and stuff. Sound good?”

“Yes.”
I'm too cold.
“Six o' clock tonight?”
But I'm not cold enough.
Val looked at her clock.