With One Look (36 page)

That was as far as he got. She swallowed once before her mind went blank and her head exploded with the white light, and she cried out weakly, collapsing unconscious in his arms.

Mercedes twisted a handkerchief in pale hands and said with conviction, "This is a mistake!

I do not believe it. I have no faith in this program. He is hurting her—"

"Mercedes ..." Murray started to speak but stopped. One hand to his forehead, he continued pacing. Another muffled scream sounded from upstairs and he stopped. Anxiously his gaze watched Mercedes and Tessie, their disbelieving faces focused on Carl's and Sebastian's brandy- filled glasses. Glasses that had stopped in midair as the scream had sounded, and now went to the men's lips.

Carl rose to pour another round.

Murray resumed pacing, staring uncertainly at his black boots, stepping over the green-and- gold carpet.

They waited downstairs in the study. Which is not to say everyone expected Jade to descend at some point to see their faces for the first time. Murray had explained as best as he could what Victor was doing and why. For nearly an hour Mercedes had desperately searched for a fault in the reasoning. She had no faith in the basic preposition that Jade made herself go blind; it was quite impossible. Her certainty increased with her anxiety at each distant scream.

And each scream was weaker than the last....

Few words were spoken. Carl had dismissed all the other house servants and he and Sebastian were already well on their way to intoxication.

Mercedes and Tessie sat together in a chair, leaning against each and holding tight to each other's hands, oddly alienated from the men in the room. Unlike them, brandy hadn't dulled their senses and the women could not hide fear or horror each time Jade screamed.

The next scream broke Mercedes. Like Victor upstairs, Jade's pain became hers and it was unbearable. Jumping from the chair with a rustle of skirts, she dropped to her knees before Sebastian. "Do something, Sebastian! I beg you! It's gone too far! He cannot be helping her, it cannot be working!"

Concerned blue eyes bored into the soft hazel ones and Sebastian pulled Mercedes into his arms when the first tears appeared. He held her tightly, gently taking her hand in his as he turned to Murray. "What if she's right? I mean, how do we know?"

"We knew it was to be like this," the doctor replied softly, gravely. "A young girl doesn't make herself blind and stay blind for all these years if it could have been changed easily. We might be waiting all night."

Mercedes shook her head at this, collapsing against her husband. It was hard on all of them

—and, Murray knew, hardest on Victor. "Sebastian, you better take the ladies out."

"No, no," Mercedes said, lifting her troubled face. "Murray, can't you just go up there to see? Please?"

No sounds came from inside the room. Murray knocked softly. Victor swung open the door. He showed all the signs of his hell: disheveled clothes and hair, a strand of it falling over strained troubled eyes, a creased brow. "She's out right now," he said, stepping aside for Murray to enter.

"What's happening?" the doctor asked as his gaze fell to the bed, where Jade lay unconscious.

Victor's eyes met Murray's and his voice held his heightened emotion. "It is working! It's going to happen. At first she woke up and had no memory of what caused the seizures, but this last time she woke, she was afraid. She knew I was causing the seizures. And more important, after each seizure she regains consciousness quicker than the last time."

Murray walked over to the bed and stared down at her stilled form. "So her defenses are falling," he said out loud, abruptly grasping what the measure of approaching success was to be. The closer Jade came to seeing the terror, the more desperate she'd become. He quickly explained his suspicions, concluding, "I'll wager anything she starts fighting—fighting tooth and nail."

"Jade? Fighting? You mean physically fighting?" "Yes, any way she can."

Victor looked down at Jade, unable to imagine her fighting. What she had managed to do to Don Bernardo had always shocked him.

Jade epitomized femininity. It manifested itself in almost everything. Little things, daily things: Jade's horror when he moved to swat a spider or insect on the wall, not the horror most

women feel, but rather horror that he would kill it. She always made him catch it, toss it outside or over the balcony.

"Our mistake was in starting in the morning," Murray commented, interrupting Victor's musing. "We should have started at night when she was already tired. It's just going to be a question of wearing her down. So let her fight you. You might even try to make her fight you." His last piece of advice before leaving was, "Do anything to wear her down."

Victor pressed smelling salts beneath Jade's nose. At first, she showed no sign of waking but her eyes suddenly began moving beneath closed lids, and just when he thought she was coming to, he knew the images began playing in her mind. Sure enough, her body jolted and she collapsed from sleep to the peace of unconsciousness.

That one broke him. He pulled off his shirt, laying down beside her, he gathered her soft form tightly against him. He brushed his hand lovingly through her loose hair as he whispered, "Forgive me, Jade. God, forgive me...."

Jade woke before the smelling salts were pressed to her face but she stayed perfectly still, keeping her eyes shut and showing no sign of waking, forcing the scream in her throat down. She felt confused; her thoughts felt fragmented. She tried to slow a rising panic enough to grasp what was happening to her.

Where was he now? Was he looking at her? Was he still in the room? And what—dear God

—was he doing to her?

She refused to accept the obvious evidence that he was purposely and maliciously hurting her. No, he had gone mad.

The pain! She could not take a single time more.

Like a trapped and tortured animal, her desperation grew and her heart beating crazily against its destiny. As a dark river sweeps by under a lightning flash, she felt her life swept from under her. She must escape, and before he caused that pain one more time. Escape and find someone to stop him, to explain that it wasn't working, that it wouldn't work, that he would kill her....

She heard a small clink from the balcony, a glass set to the table. If he stood on the balcony, his back would be turned from her as he stared out at the garden below.

She slowly slipped from the bed, and without making a sound—with the noted exception of a violent pounding of her heart—she cautiously moved to the door. Her hand felt for the knob, she turned the handle and opened the door.

Get downstairs! She grabbed the rail and fled, the sudden rush of movement freeing her fear. It crashed through her in an avalanche of terror.

Halfway down the stairs, he called her name from the top. "Jade! Stop!"

She heard his pursuit and she screamed, then cried. "H-help m-me. Somebody please h- help me!"

Sebastian instantly jumped up to hold back both Mercedes and Tessie, while Murray and Carl rushed into the corridor to confront the heart-wrenching sight: Jade had collapsed in a tight ball on the bottom step. Tears streamed down her face. She tried to cry for help but trembled so violently the words choked her....

Seeing her like that nearly destroyed Victor. If only Murray was right, if only she'd come up fighting, angry, furious, he'd be safe. He could handle anger. But this, such abject fear and desperation jolted every fiber of his being. All he wanted was to sweep her into his arms and chase make her feel safe again....

Victor just stared, for a long moment. Continuing meant it would get worse. Much worse. Yet how could he ever rest if Jade was blind and he had the means, a possibility, to make her see again?

He closed his eyes and forced his mind to create a picture of Jade taking a fatal fall down the stairs. The picture destroyed any last thought of stopping. Rushing to her, he swept her up into his arms. She cried weakly, calling in choked whispers for help.

He quickly ascended the stairs and brought her to the bed, where he set her down before turning to the door. He locked it and placed the key in his pocket. There would be no more escapes.

Jade sank to the floor, so frightened she could only beg, "Please, Victor, don't do this to me.

You're going to kill me...."

Victor lifted her, moving to a chair where he held her on his lap. She was stiff, yet trembling, while her breath came in huge gulps. He sought a different route to the same goal and he first tried to ease her terror enough to listen to him. With a calm voice, he coaxed her into taking deep breaths, until, while she still trembled, she finally stopped gulping in air.

"Tell me what I'm doing to you," he said.

"You're ... m-making me have s-seizures." "Why am I doing that?"

``"You think I'll see again b-but I won't.... I won't."

"And you don't know why I think that making you suffer seizures will make you see again, do you?"

Jade shook her head frantically back and forth; it was the source of her confusion. "Listen very carefully. I want you to understand one thing: you can't understand why I'm

doing this because any attempt to explain causes a seizure and makes you forget. Each seizure makes you forget. Can you understand that much?"

Made her forget what? She struggled to comprehend, trying desperately to understand enough to show him where he was wrong, very wrong. He believed she couldn't understand something, but what? What was she missing?

Fear pounded so loudly in her body she could not think to save herself. She heard the words but comprehension eluded her. It was excruciatingly frustrating, like catching a feather in the wind; she grabbed for it, only to find it blew farther away, that to catch it she had to jump ahead, anticipate its leap through the air....

Jade grabbed her head and cried, "No, no, I don't understand! Your will! Your monstrous arrogance and will. You're wrong, wrong! I can't see; you can't make me!"

"I can make you see again and I will. We won't leave this room and you won't eat or sleep until you remember. I don't care if you have a hundred seizures, Jade; you're going to remember."

`"Remember what? What!?”

"Remember what you saw behind the bedroom door."

The door, that door. Her plaits and jade cross bounced as she ran up the stairs and to the door. She felt a mounting terror as she reached that door—

"What's in the room? What do you see, Jade!" Victor's voice thundered into her head. "Open the door, Jade! Look!"

"No!" she screamed as the door opened: opened to the blinding white light, the pain exploding through her body. She screamed again, collapsing unconscious in his arms.

She woke to the smelling salts. Like a violent wave crashing to a rocky shore, consciousness mobilized her body. Seized with a desperate instinct to survive, she came up fighting, and despite Murray's warning, she caught him off guard.

Before she even opened her eyes, she swung her clenched fist into him, smack in the side of his arm, and hit his face hard with her other hand. She managed to land two more fists in his neck and face before he responded. Stunned, Victor's first inclination was to push her to the bed, pin her flying arms down, but remembering what the doctor had said, he jumped up from the bed instead.

With her heart pounding and her eyes filled with fury, Jade mistook his retreat as first triumph. She wasted no time, flying from the bed.

Victor watched her with a lift of brow. So, she had some fight in her after all. Without making a sound, he stepped away from her, knowing she was waiting for some sign to determine where he was.

"Are you going to fight me now?"

"Yes! Yes!" she cried as her hand felt over the night stand and she grabbed a book and flung it at his voice. Victor caught the book, dropped it to the ground and thankfully managed to catch the vase that followed before it crashed to the ground.

"I'll not let you do this to me! Move one step toward me... and I'll, I'll—" "You'll what?" Victor asked, taking a step toward her.

She sprung at him, managed to land right on him, and went wild. She pounded with her fists, landing blow after blow against him. Her frantic craze prevented her from grasping the frightening truth; Victor was not fighting back, indeed, he was holding her waist, for if he let go of her, the furious motions would send her tumbling to the floor.

The exertions began to exhaust her.

"Jade. Please. You can do better than this?"

Anger joined her fury and she renewed these efforts with strength and vigor. He lifted her off the ground, kicking, pounding, screaming at him to stop. He sat down on the chair and held her across his knees as she pounded her fists into his legs and kicked in the air, screaming, trying to twist around, wanting to scratch him, to hurt him—

"This body of yours can certainly accommodate a man, but I don't mink it was made to fight a man."

The cruel comment caused a sudden cessation of movement. Once she stopped, she became aware that he held her with one hand. One blasted hand! Using his other hand, he had poured himself a glass of water. Water. He was drinking water while she fought for her life.

"Let me up! Let me up!" Seeing that she had realized the futility of fighting, Victor lifted her to an upright position on his lap. She shook from the violence of her fight but she managed to ask, "Give me some water too."

Victor held her with one arm while his free hand passed the glass into both her hands, and he failed to detect the maliciousness of her intention until it was too late. She took a few swallows, threw the remaining water into his face, and in the flash of a second, smashed the glass against his head.

In one movement, Victor pushed her to the floor and stood up, the shattered glass falling around them. He would never underestimate her again.

"What's behind the closed door, Jade?" A minute later she was unconscious.

Victor lifted her to the bed and pulled the servants' rope. He stepped into the dressing room, dampened a cloth in the dressing water and pressed it against his head. He stepped in front of the glass and, after wiping away the blood, he saw only a small gash.