The Mirrors of Fate (19 page)

The words grabbed her attention and she opened her eyes fully. “What did you say?”

This is for Emma.

His hand came to her face and he covered over both nostrils easily with his thumb. Suddenly he bent over and pressed his lips firmly against hers. Without warning he thrust his tongue into her mouth. She winced as it invaded her aggressively. Her hands were spread like wings across the table when she tried to reach up and take hold of him, but he quickly grabbed both wrists in one strong gasp and flattened them underneath his belly.

His tongue began ravaging hers fiercely, bruising her mouth, painfully prodding.

Maria moaned a cry of distress. She tried to move from underneath him but he instinctively brought up his knees and pressed them firmly over her thighs to still her.

She tried frantically fighting against him but nothing worked. Her protest, useless—her moans, ignored—her hands, trapped underneath his firm grip and her legs restricted by his powerful thighs. No matter how she squirmed, he stayed the same. For a full twenty seconds his mouth never left hers.

She panicked and thrashed her head enough to free herself from his mouth for a brief second. She sucked in air. “Alan I can’t brea—” He enclosed her mouth again.

Biting his tongue was her only option. Impossible because the second he sensed her intent, he slid one hand from underneath his stomach and held her jaw open. With his fingers close to her neck, he warned her to embrace the sweet death or accept another through punishing fingers.

He could hear her heart battering against the walls of her chest. He could feel her pulse frantically beating and the blood rushing through her veins. This was what he had been waiting for, to finally get the opportune moment to have her life in his hands to do with as he pleased. Disbelief and disgust, he dispelled. Pity, he abandoned. He would be satisfied with this. He only had to keep going.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. No one would hear her—he’d make sure of that. Her screams would only remain useless muffled sounds until it was all over. The struggle kept on like this until he could feel her life slipping away underneath him.

Why? Why!? Oh God, someone help me!
Maria’s chest burned. Her ears rung. Even as her strength kept leaving her, her body still tried to fight, but she could not get him off of her.

The soft sweet moment they had attained, broken, shattered, and now long-morphed into something frightening. His kiss was too hard. Too unrelenting. And before long, her chest was crying an alarm.

Stop it. Alan, stop!
How had it come to this? Why was he trying to smother her?

Help me. Someone get him off of me!

Her heart shuddered. This was it. Nothing she could do. If only she were stronger. When she felt her head go dizzy her muscles gave out.
Oh God...someone save me
. Darkness closed in on her from all corners of the room, and when she was about to close her eyes, she heard a voice.

“
What the hell is going on in here?”

Alan ignored the intruding teacher, but from the edge of her vision Maria caught sight of her savior in the doorway, staring in horror at the event unfolding.

“
What are you doing?”

Mr. Lohan dashed toward them, digging his fingers into Alan’s shoulders and ripping him away from her. Maria flopped onto her side like a fish and gasped for air.

“
What the hell do you think you’re doing, man?” Mr. Lohan grabbed Alan by the collar of his jacket.

Alan growled something wild from the depths of his throat and with much more ease than Mr. Lohan was ready for shoved him violently in the chest. The counselor tumbled clumsily into a line of desks.

“
Shit,” Alan hissed under his breath.

Mr. Lohan found his way to his feet rather quickly and sprung toward Alan again. He threw a right hook at Alan’s face, but his attempt was met with a smirk and Alan’s body lithely tilting to the side with rubber band agility. She had never seen a person move like that before. A rush of wind followed and blood flew—Alan kneed him in the stomach. Mr. Lohan doubled over in pain.

“
What’s going on up there?” a voice shouted somewhere far off from outside in the hall.

Alan retreated to the doorway and stared down at her teacher. She heard the departure of his accent. “Sorry, Mr. L.”

Mr. Lohan’s gaze flew up and met with Alan’s for a long moment. The man’s face went white.

Alan took one last long look at Maria before he disappeared through the door. She was horrifically frozen but snapped to attention when she heard Mr. Lohan break into a violent fit of coughs.

“
Mr. Lohan!” she called out breathlessly. She weakly got off the table and went to his side.

“
Maria...W-Who was that?”

He didn’t know? “Sir,” she said, “that was Alan.”

“
Alan? That was not Alan...That looked like...no, but that’s impossible.”

“
I—”—she coughed—“will get help.”

He wiped the blood from his mouth. “No, no, I’m fine. I’m just—”

He passed out in her arms and her knees collapsed beneath her as she caught him.

A student ran in. “Oh my God, what happened in here? Mr. Lohan, are you okay?”

“
Mr. Lohan, wake up!” Maria shook him.

“
What did you do?” the boy said. “What happened? Answer me!”

“
I don’t know,” she screamed at him. “Call someone! Just call someone!”

•

Rupak Jaghai was certain they planned to drive him insane.

“
You mean to tell me that maniac bastard hasn’t been caught yet?”

The two police officers looked at each other dependently.

“
Uh, no sir,” the tall black officer said after clearing his throat nervously and pulling up his pants in fake self-assurance. “The young man fled from the scene, but I assure you we are actively looking for the suspect.”

“
Actively?” He looked the two up and down, unimpressed. “You two look about as active as your metabolisms.”

At the same time that her male partner scratched the side of his mouth for white evidence of lunch’s frosted doughnut, the female officer cast a fleeting glance at her stomach, slightly bulging through her uniform.

“
Sir, I assure you, we are working hard,” the male officer promised him nobly.

“
Oh, well how wonderful for you. But hasn’t this molesting bastard been missing since this afternoon? It’s quarter past ten now! White Crest isn’t that damn big. I’m amazed at the incompetence of this police force.”

“
Sir, please calm down,” she advised in a tone that succeeded in sounding more authoritative than her partner’s. “We’re doing the best we can. We’ve unfortunately encountered some...minor difficulties in our search.”

“
Difficulties? Spare me the rest of my night and be specific.”

The two officers standing outside the doorway of the Jaghai house looked at each other again for a moment, silently communicating which one of them they thought was better suited to tell the unfortunate news. The female officer took the task.

“
Well, Mr. Jaghai, we went to the young man’s address tonight as indicated in his personal files at the school, but it turns out that the information is false. It isn’t even a livable address.”

“
Are you kidding me?”

“
The address isn’t the only fake thing,” the black officer said. “The same thing goes for the boy’s contact numbers. In fact, we highly doubt the names of his parents or even his own name is legit—that’s why locating him has been difficult. As you know, how we do it down here in White Crest is that everyone becomes part of the registry once they become a resident. City Hall has no record of him at all.”

Rupak’s face went cold, but within a few seconds it flushed in anger. “A false identity. Shouldn’t that have been known firsthand? What kind of goddamn school doesn’t check the background of a student before they’re even admitted? You know I can sue for this, right? And sue you all for incompetence. I can’t believe this!”

“
C-Chances are he produced a fake birth certificate, sir,” she said quickly. “That and among other things. We really don’t know who this kid is, but we intend to find out his motive for coming to White Crest.”

“
I guess that’s all you idiots can do anyway, bunch of failures. We have no choice but to wait forever for the results. You think Jesus might come back before we get an answer?”

They cleared their throats uncomfortably.

“
We’re sorry about what happened to your daughter, sir.” The male officer switched gears. “It’s best you not say anything to her about what we’ve told you. It may be even more damaging to her. May we inquire how she’s doing?”

Rupak’s hands flew up in the air. “How am I supposed to know? My daughter doesn’t speak to me. She’s not dead if that’s what you mean. Her mother’s trying to find out exactly what happened. No
witnesses
—no
reports
—
I
should be able to hear the whole account from
my
daughter’s mouth, damn it. Kids like to lie too nowadays, you know? You know how they are. They can fool anyone. I’m sure more happened in that room than she’s letting on. There’s no going back when a thing like that’s gone.”

The two officers stared at each other.

“
Well, then, uh...we hope you can have a good day. The best thing is that you still have your daughter with you. If you remember that, the rest of your night should go well.”

The pair tipped their hats respectfully and disappeared quickly into the night. With an irritated flick of his wrist, Rupak slammed the door shut.

“
Waste of damn tax payer money,” he muttered under his breath and took off his glasses. He took in a long deep breath to calm his nerves and began rubbing in between his eyes. His hand went to his chest and he could feel his unsteady heartbeat.

Heavy footsteps came down the stairs. He looked up, only to have his mouth gape open at the sight of his disheveled, irate wife trudging down the stairs, her heavy breasts bouncing with her. “What happened to you?” he asked, staring at her cock-picked hair and red face.

“
That damn daughter of yours,” she said through clenched teeth. “She won’t let me see her. I tried getting in and she threw her shoe at my head.”

He hissed through his teeth and felt a headache coming on. “Jesus, I can’t take this. I need an aspirin. You need to talk to that girl. I want to know first off what the hell she was doing with him in an isolated classroom in the first place.”

His wife came up from behind and placed a comforting hand around his waist. “Honey, it’s not something that’s easy to talk about. You need to realize that. That kind of thing isn’t easy for a woman, especially when you know you probably brought it on yourself somehow. Many women even go as far as to lie to the police when something like this happens. It’s that embarrassing.”

He screwed up his face. “I never said this kind of thing was easy. But I just don’t want to be in the dark about this!”

She began rubbing his shoulders. “Baby, don’t get yourself worked up. You know what’ll happen, and I just can’t see you get like that.”

“
I know, I know,” he sighed. “But I...want her to tell me what happened to her.”

“
Honey,” she said softly before her voice dipped into seriousness, “what are we going to do if...if she’s been ruined? This really got me thinking. What if she’s already done more than we really know about? She’s already too unruly, and now all this happening? What if she’s no longer a virgin?”

He looked to the ceiling and sighed in exasperation. “God help me, I don’t even want to think about that right now. I’ll send her away to your sister if I find that out.”

•

There was only endless quiet.

There was only endless darkness.

That was the way she wanted it. She had been in the darkness to begin with. From the start that was her only position, so what did it really matter now?

She was an empty sack, devoid of feeling, useless, worthless, and unnecessary. When she got home it was another steaming bath for her. Her skin felt so tender and sensitive now that merely lying in her bed pained her.

A smile
.
A damn smile was all it took for her to act like a fool. A smile was all it took for her to let her guard down and allow herself to be taken in by someone she knew barely anything about. She deserved what she got. He wanted to kill her for some reason. He
really
wanted to. And she was almost disappointed he hadn’t succeeded.

Had there been a clue? Was there a way she could have known beforehand he was...this way? The police were wrong. As much as they tried to console her that his intentions were only to rape her, which wasn’t consoling at all to begin with,
she
knew the truth because she was the one there, not them. His intention was to kill her. She believed nothing else. He wasn’t trying to rip her clothes off or rip off his own so he could take her there on the desk. He only kept trying to smother her.