Seeing Black

by Sidney Halston

  Jill tried to get closer, tried to help. She now knew how to do psychic remote viewing, thanks to her asshole father. Unfortunately, it was the kind of thing she needed time to meditate on. She couldn’t just close her eyes and know the next swing Ogre-Man would take and assist Alexander, so she stood helpless as Alexander took hit after hit. However, he wasn’t the only one taking hits. Ogre-man was also feeling Alexander’s wrath. It seemed as if Ogre-Man was all brawn and no brain, none whatsoever. Alexander, who had the size disadvantage, was able to move in ways that Ogre-Man didn’t see coming, thus getting the upper hand. He was able to get him pinned against the side of the house, punching him left, right, left, right in the face. Alexander was relentless. Blood splattered as Ogre-man fought back. “Enough!” Josef yelled.

  Alexander stood, grabbed Jill by the hand, and pulled her. “We’re leaving.”

  Jill heard Josef laugh from behind. A villain laugh. It sent chills down her spine. Then she heard the sound of a gun being cocked, and both Jill and Alexander stopped in their tracks. As if synchronized, they slowly turned around and saw Josef pointing a gun towards them.

  “Play time is over.” Josef took three long strides towards them. His entire demeanor was different. He pointed the gun at Jill. “Tell me now. What do you know about the money and the plane? Who have you told? And what? I need to know how many people know.”

  “I-I d-don’t know,” she really didn’t know and hoped Alexander would keep his mouth shut.

  Strangely, Alexander stood with his hands in his pockets as if in defeat. Head down. Had he given up?

  “Oh, is that what this is about? About the money you stole twenty-four years ago from some very angry drug dealers? Very, very, angry drug dealers, who, by the way, are on their way with a very angry, very volatile man by the name of Brian Reynolds.”

  When Josef didn’t say anything, Alexander continued to speak. “Oh, can’t recall Brian, huh? Well, let me refresh your memory. Brian was shocked by large volts of electricity, repeatedly, by you, almost thirty years ago. He’s a real nut, a loose cannon. I can’t imagine what he wants to talk to you about. About the plane, well, I didn’t know anything about the plane until just now. It never occurred to me.” Alexander turned to look at Jill. “I think Josef here, along with your father, caused the plane to crash. I think they wanted to make sure your mother never spoke to anyone about anything—about the drug money or about the experiments. What they didn’t expect is that you were alive and that you survived. How am I doing, Josef?” As if on cue, both Jill and Josef looked over at Alexander. Stunned.

  “So you told your boyfriend. Who else?” Rocco said.

  “Oh no. Actually, she didn’t know. She’s not the one who told me. This is all new to her.” That seemed to finally put a wrench in Josef’s master plan. If he killed Alexander, he wouldn’t know who else knew, and at least one other person knew, the person who had told Alexander. Suddenly, Jill became expendable.

  “You are lying!” Josef yelled. He seemed to be losing control. His fist tightened around the gun that he swung back and forth between Alexander and Jill, looking unsure as to what he would do, or better yet, whom he’d kill first.

  “You said it yourself. We would die for each other. You know she wouldn’t have held something back that would’ve ultimately protected me. Obviously, she didn’t know.” He hissed that last words slowly. “But I do. I know all about why you wanted Esther out of the picture.”

  “Of course, I wanted that bitch out of the picture. She was on-board when everything was easy; then when things got a little scary, she ran away. We’re not big on having loose ends. The other passengers on the plane were just collateral damage.” Then he smiled, cockily. “I have to say it felt exhilarating to close my eyes and cause that plane to crash. I felt like God. It was worth losing my powers over it.”

  “You’re a sadistic lunatic, and now I know all your dirty little secrets. I know you killed all those drug dealers and stole their money. That makes you a murderer, regardless of whether they’re drug dealers or not. I know how you have a hundred million dollars stashed somewhere, and now I know you killed all those people on that plane. I know everything about you, motherfucker.”

  Josef looked torn. Ogre-man had limped his bloodied body closer to Josef. “Who else knows?” Josef asked.

  “Fuck you, asshole. In ten minutes, your house is going to be swimming with a lot of people who want you dead, possibly more than I do. You lost. This is over. I’m not telling you shit.”

  Josef let out a breath as if contemplating his next move. “Nikolai.” He nodded to Ogre-man, whose name was apparently Nikolai, and in the next second, Jill was once again being manhandled. He pulled her towards him, caging her with his arms from behind. She stood right in front of Alexander. Tears streamed down her face. Josef shifted the gun from Alexander, sideways to Jill’s temple. “Nikolai can’t speak, but he’s great at following orders. He never flinches. This is how I see it. If you are telling the truth and there will be cops or killers here soon, I’m fucked. I won’t go to jail. I’d rather die. But I don’t believe you. There are no cops and no killers. Nothing. You are bluffing. You came here alone. Who would give a warrant to search the rich and powerful Rocco Taylor’s home? No one. You would have called the cops seven months ago. Paul Black would have called the cops. And look how things turned out for him instead. So the only leverage I seem to have here is your lovely girlfriend, my delightful niece. I don’t seem to need her anymore since you seem to be the one with all the answers. Poor Black was subjected to a few harmless tests. Please. That boy Black, Reynolds, and all the other children were nothing but homeless orphans. We fed them, and we gave them a good place to live in exchange for some tests, tests that could have potentially changed human evolution. They should feel honored.”

  “Harmless? You lobotomized children, you sick fuck! You rammed electricity into their heads!”

  “A world where there are no weapons of mass destruction.” Josef air-quoted the words. “A world where wars are fought using the mind. A much safer, cleaner, world. That’s what we were trying to build.”

  “Safer? Safer from whom? You’re a monster. A world full of you and Rocco is not a better world. It’s not a safer world. So tell me, how far did you get with your twisted little experiments? Because as far as I know, you got nothing. There’s no study, no research, nothing that can duplicate that. You didn’t get any closer to finding anything out. It was a waste. You’re psychic. It’s genetic, like a disease, like being color blind. You can’t recreate that. You either are or you aren’t. But your little “disease” went away, not because you’re an old decrepit man, but because you overdid it with the plane crash.” Alexander continued antagonizing Josef. “And now you’re hoping to use the only other person who was psychic to experiment on, to see if there is any way you can get your powers back.” Alexander looked over to Jill. “Not to mention, you’re still deluded in this twisted plan to create these perfect psychic soldiers. Your plan is crashing down on you because now people know your secret.”

  “What people?” Josef pushed the tip of the gun closer to Jill’s temple.

  Alexander’s voice cracked, but he continued to talk. “So you held her captive here for seven months. What did you do to her? What did you discover?” Alexander took a cautious step towards Jill. “Nothing! You’ll never discover anything because it’s a bullshit experiment and you are a bullshit scientist. You once held all this power. You could have used it for good. Instead, you decided to kill, steal, and hurt, and your greed and cover-ups caused you to lose the exact thing you were trying to recreate. If you’re lucky enough to make it to the police, because, I assure you, there are a lot of angry people coming after you, the police will have a field day with all the shit they have on you. I can see all the charges now.” Alexander took another cautious step as he ticked off item by item. “Grand theft.” Step. “Murder.” Step. “Kidnapping.” Step.

  “The police will not do anyth
ing. I am rich. I can buy them off. Don’t think for one second I give a fuck about the police.” Josef’s voice faltered. His hand shook against her temple, Jill’s eyes were squeezed shut, and Ogre-man unknowingly held her up. If he let go, she’d crumple to the floor.

  “Oh really? Isn’t that one of the reasons you’ve had Jill in here? Because you want to know if her mother told anyone that you and Rocco are murderers?”

  “She was in on it too. Esther was in on it too.” Josef said as if that explained it all. Jill paled. Her eyes opened, unblinking. Alexander gave her a sympathetic grin.

  “She wasn’t a murderer. Maybe she was greedy. But she wasn’t a murderer, Jill.” He must have noticed her stunned expression. “Jill, honey, she wasn’t a murderer. As soon as she found out the shit they were doing to those children, she left.” Josef’s gun pushed further against Jill’s temple. She flinched.

  The sound of screeching tires came from behind them by the front gates. First, it was one car; then they heard a second and a third. There were more car doors being slammed closed and then more screeching tires. Josef was flustered. All sense of control was gone and replaced with something worse than control—uncertainty. Confusion. He was a man on a ledge. Would he jump? Would he take Jillian with him? Jillian could read Alexander’s face, and she knew how impulsive he could be.

  Jill let out a primal scream, “No! Xander, don’t!” at the same time that Alexander lunged towards her.

  Chapter 14

  Laugh as much as you breathe, and love as long as you live.

  -Helen

  The light shown so brightly, Jill was blinded. A calm that she hadn’t felt in months—seven months, two weeks, and six days to be precise, encased her body. Peace. Finally, peace. She lay on her back, her head on the hard sandy surface. She breathed in the hot humid air. Something trickled down her chest. Something wet. Slowly, it moved down from the pulsating artery under her neck by her clavicle. It moved down some more until the liquid made its slow way between her breasts and down to her stomach. It was so hot. Her luscious red curls stuck to the sides of her neck. She felt the flush of her cheeks. Her eyes, barely slivers, could see the moon shining down and reflecting against the ocean. The only noise she could hear was the far-off thrashing waves of the sea. The nearby trees slowly swayed back and forth, back and forth with the tiny breeze that barely, just barely, pushed the beads of sweat further between her breasts. Contentment, that’s what it felt like. It was as if she’d written “The End” on the novel that was her life. It was over. The nightmare was over. Wonderland was no more. She had made her way through the correct rabbit hole and had come out the other side. A new woman.

  She could see, barely, but it was there, something moving across the dark moonlit sky. It was the shape of a diamond and was flapping. She tried to squint, but her bruised eye wouldn’t allow for much. The object flapped side to side around the sky like a bird. She tried to lift her body up, at least slightly, to see if she could make out the object, but she was too heavy with exhaustion, with the heat of the night, with contentment. The object continued to sway, hovering over her. Then the wind, the small measly breeze, stopped and so did the object. Some bigger force had frozen time: the wind stopped blowing, the trees stopped swaying, and the object stopped hovering. Then the object plummeted down. At first, it glided lower, lower, and lower still. She followed its movements with her eyes. And then it just fell noiselessly. She gasped. It was a low gasp, but it was a gasp nonetheless. The breeze began to move again, and something felt right in the world. The black object was gone, but it was okay. The night was still beautiful. Life was beautiful because she had survived.

  She turned her head, and a pair of the most beautiful penetrating eyes were staring at her. They were still so full of life, even after all that had happened. The look of pure adoration still shone in the sea of blue. She tried to smile, to show him, the man whom she had loved since she was a little girl, the man who had loved her since he was a little boy, that she was okay, but the smile was unconvincing. A lone tear made its way down the corner of her eye, over the bridge of her nose and down before it fell onto the sand. Alexander reached over and wiped it away, licking the salty tear. “You okay?” he whispered. The back of his hand caressed her cheek. They lay on the beach together, their bodies facing the night sky, but their heads turned towards each other. Nose to nose. Deep blue sea against jade-colored eyes.

  Jillian inched her head a little closer so her lips could make contact with his. “I am.” That was all she could say because it was the truth. She was okay. She was okay because she was alive and because all the secrets were gone. Her affliction was gone because of the one and only lesson her father had taught her: to control her visions. She wouldn’t be held prisoner any longer by the worry that at any moment she would have a psychic episode that would leave her vulnerable and helpless. She could, if she so chose to, never have a vision again. That’s how powerful she was. That’s how much she had learned. She had since learned the entire story about her mother, and although it saddened her to know her mother wasn’t the same person she had idolized for so many years, she really didn’t feel much pain about it. Her real mother had been Helen, the woman who remained with her on the island and then in her heart all her life.

  “Let’s go back to the room?” he asked. He stood up in one quick fluid motion and held his hands out to hers.

  “In a minute. I’ll meet you there.” Jill said. She sat up, knees to chest, chin to knees. Alexander bent down, planted a light kiss on her forehead, and walked away.

  Jill remembered those final seconds of the nightmare. Alexander had charged to her rescue. Josef had been ready to pull the trigger, but a shot from behind them, straight to Josef’s leg had instantly crippled him, and he’d fallen to the ground. A mortal shot to Nikolai had soon followed. Alexander had caught Jill right before her legs had given way. Within seconds, four heavyset Hispanic men and one familiar and very attractive man, who she’d remembered as the man who’d danced with Heather all those months ago, Brian, appeared. They had dragged Josef away. And, just as quickly as it had all begun, it had all ended. She’d been pretty certain Josef would not survive the evening. Minutes later, the police had shown up. After hours and hours of questioning, Jill had told them everything she knew, everything that had occurred, all the secrets. The only thing she and Alexander had seemed to forget was which direction Brian and the vengeful drug lords had taken Josef. Further, Jill and Alexander’s description of said men had probably been a little off.

  Not five minutes had passed when she felt Alexander behind her. Since they’d been reunited a week ago, he was never too far behind. Jill closed her eyes when she felt him surround her. He sat behind her, his hard muscular chest to her back, his bent knees on either side of her, his arms encircling her. His chin was on her shoulder, and they both stared out to the ocean.

  “Baby? You okay?”

  “Xander, you came back?” Even she wasn’t sure if she was talking about the present or his rescue of her.

  “I’ll always come back.” When she didn’t say anything for a long time, he continued to talk. “The last seven months were hell for me, Jillian. I love you. I love you because I’ve known you my entire life. I love you because we went through an unusual experience together on the island and then a dangerous life-threatening experience together, but I also love you for so many other reasons. I love how you never directly ask me for something. You say, ‘Wow, it’s hot in this room,” which means, ‘Please, turn on the air for me’ or ‘I’m so thirsty,’ which translates to ‘Please, go get me a glass of ice cold water.’ I love that you never know the words to any song. None. Not one. You think you do, and you sing at the top of your lungs, but the words are always wrong and out of tune. You sing terrible. I mean real bad, Jillian. You have no musical inclination at all, and I love it. I love that you love so much and so hard. You love Oliver, and you love me unconditionally. I love that you are a pain in my ass. I love that you chall
enge me. I love that you fight with me. You don’t let one thing slip by you. I’m so head over heels in love with you, Jillian. And most of all, I love that you love me just as much as I love you. I know you do. You don’t even have to say it because I know.

  She kept looking forward, his warm breath on her ear. She tried to keep the tears at bay, but his words were the most beautiful words she’d ever heard. He turned to look at her. “Do you really want to be left alone? If you do, I’ll leave you to it, but I promised you on that window and on that ledge that I’d hold you as long as you needed me to once I got you out of that prison. So I walked to the room but then came back to tell you. Love, this is me, holding you. As long as you need me, I’ll hold you.” He was gentle, and he was beautiful, so she cried and cried and cried some more. She let it all go. There, on the beach, encased in Alexander’s strong arms and legs, she let it all go. She left it all there on the sand. Seven horrid months. All that had happened. It would all stay right there on that spot on that beach. Once she finished crying, it was over. She wouldn’t carry those memories with her. When she released the last sob, Alexander kissed her cheek and stood. He held out his hand, and she took it.

  She finally spoke. “No, I definitely don’t want to be left alone. I never want to be left alone again.”

  She stood, brushed sand off the back of her legs and her hair, and then did the same to him. He began to lead her back to the hotel, the hotel that she now owned. She was the sole heiress of the deceased Rocco Taylor, the murderer.

  “Wait one sec.” She let go of his hand and ran towards the object that had been hovering above her and had fallen. She could hear Alexander’s bare feet shuffling in the sand behind her. She walked to where she thought the object had fallen.

  “What is it?” Alexander asked behind her. She bent over to pick it up.

  “Hmmm? It’s a kite,” she said.