“I know babe,” he said, stroking her hair, “But I have to get up.”
“Do you have to leave right this minute?” she mumbled, reaching behind her to run her hand down the length of his body. When his hands crept around her sides to pull her close she sighed with pleasure.
“I love you in the morning,” he whispered into her ear.
“Then stay a little while,” she said.
~
Michael’s eyes flew open, and it took a moment before he realized that he was in his own bedroom, waking up from another terrible dream that was already fading from his memory. He sat up with his heart pounding, and by the time reality had fully sunk in a familiar dread overtook him. He reached for his laptop hesitantly, opening it to find the same bad news that had been haunting his sleep.
Nothing had changed.
“Oh God,” he moaned, “What have I done?”
He got up to pace the floor, sick to his stomach. A gentle rapping on his door startled him, and he answered with a harsh edge to his voice, “What do you want?”
Cali’s voice was soft and sweet, “Breakfast is almost ready. Why don’t you come down and have some coffee with us?”
“Okay … I’ll just be a minute,” he called, listening as her light footsteps retreated.
He pulled the curtains aside to look out the window at the peaceful woods that surrounded the house, wishing he could simply morph into a bird and fly away. He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood, thinking about his mother’s fatal leap to her death. He finally understood her desperate urge to escape from reality.
Ever since he had made his monumental mistake he’d retreated to his room in shame, racking his brain to think of a way to make it all right. He avoided Cali and Layla as much as possible, knowing that with their unique talents that they could see right through him. Layla had been so preoccupied with Ramon that she’d failed to notice her brother’s mounting anxiety, but Michael knew that it was only a matter of time.
He was going to be forced to confess everything soon enough.
Racked with guilt, he’d even avoided gaming with Mina. He always suspected that he would never be good enough for her before, but now she couldn’t possibly want anything to do with him. How could he have been such a fool?
He sat down on the side of his bed and dropped his head into his hands, the very picture of despair and misery. When he finally worked up his courage he rose with determination and descended the stairs into the kitchen. Calvin was sitting at a table set for four, while Cali stood stirring something on the stove.
Calvin looked up with a nod. “Layla’s late,” he announced.
“Do you want me to call her?” Michael asked, sliding into a chair opposite him.
“Don’t worry about it,” Cali said, giving her the benefit of the doubt. “She’s probably on the way. But I’m not really sure how much longer this Hollandaise will hold up… Why don’t you guys start now while it’s ready?” She brought out two beautifully arranged plates and set them down in front of the men with a proud smile. “Bon appetit!”
Calvin inspected the dish, looking up to flash her a grin. “Wow,” he said, honestly impressed. Now that she had access to an actual kitchen she never ceased to amaze him with the dishes she produced, and for the first time since he was a kid the majority of his meals didn’t come from a box.
She returned to the kitchen and arranged two more plates, just about to sit down and join them when there was a knock on the door.
“Here she is,” Cali said happily.
Calvin started to get up, but she motioned for him to stay, patting his shoulder affectionately as she walked past him. She peeked out to see a florist’s delivery truck in the driveway, and the outline of a man bearing a giant flower arrangement through the frosted glass of the door. Chucking at Layla’s thoughtfulness, she swung it open carelessly.
She was caught off guard when the deliveryman tossed the flowers aside and lunged across the threshold to seize her, while two more materialized behind him, vibrating with intense purpose. They all sported mirrored sunglasses and brandished handguns.
She only managed to cry out once. “Cal!”
He sprang from his chair in a flash, rounding the corner just in time to see Cali in the grips of a man dressed all in black with a knit cap covering his head. His thick arms were locked around her body and he struggled to control the mightily fighting girl. Calvin rushed towards him when a shot rang out. He stood, reeling, as a dark red stain bloomed on his chest, right above his heart.
“NOOO!” Caledonia’s bloodcurdling scream was the last thing Calvin heard before everything went black. The last thing Cali saw before darkness descended upon her was the terrifying image of the man she loved falling over backwards, his head slamming hard onto the tiled floor of the entryway.
Michael raced around the corner just in time to face down the barrel of the gun. He screeched to a halt, holding up his hands. Calvin was laid out on the floor while Cali thrashed in a big man’s arms, her muffled cries coming through a black hood that had been slipped over her head.
“Whoa… What do you want?”
“Where’s the other girl?” one of them barked.
“G-gone … gone … Sh-she’s not here,” Michael managed to stammer just before being seized and hooded himself. His hands were wrenched behind his back, and he could feel plastic zip ties tightening on his wrists. Muffled cries and the sounds of a struggle told him that Caledonia was still fighting, and he wondered if Calvin was dead. Thank God Layla was late, he thought. He prayed she didn’t show up.
Heavy footsteps raced up the stairs, lumbering back down a minute later. “No one else in the house,” he heard one of them say.
“She was supposed to be here!”
“Frankie’s gonna be pissed.”
Michael was yanked by his arms, dragged out the front door and thrust into the back of a vehicle. He could hear Cali’s grunts of exertion as she was forced in alongside him, and the screech of metal on metal as a rolling door slammed down.
They could both hear angry voices arguing, berating the trigger happy one and trying to decide how to break the news to their boss. The door opened again and a man climbed into the back of the van to pull the hood from Cali’s head.
“Where’s the redhead?” he demanded.
“What redhead?” she asked. The sound of the slap she received in return made Michael wince.
“Where is she?” the man’s voice raised.
“Obviously,” Cali spat out, “She’s not here.”
“We should search the house again, she could be hiding,” one of the men behind him suggested.
Caledonia looked up at their mirrored lenses with hatred, her lower lip swelling. “You idiots! Can’t you see that her car isn’t here?”
~
Layla woke with a start, finding herself alone in Ramon’s mussed up bed. She gasped, reaching for her phone to see that she was already a half an hour late for Cali’s brunch. “Damn!” She sprang upright, groping for her overnight bag from the floor next to the bed. She showered in record time, struggling to pull clothes onto her still damp body. When her phone started buzzing on the nightstand she cringed, coloring a guilty blue.
She picked it up, checking to see that it was Calvin calling her. She answered, and immediately started making excuses. “I’m sorry … The alarm didn’t go off … I mean, I accidently slept in. I’m on my way right now,” she said.
She could hear scratching sounds, and what sounded like panting and whimpering. “Hello? Hello?”
She listened for a moment, thinking that he must have accidently dialed her.
“Cali? Calvin?” Poddy’s frantic barking echoed on the other line, in a pitch she’d never heard before. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
Suddenly frightened, she hung up and called Ramon.
“Hey babe,” he answered his phone happily, “What’s up?”
“I just got a weird call from Calvin’s phone,” she
said. “I think something might be wrong over there.”
“Where are you?” he asked tersely.
“I’m still at your place. I’m running late.”
“Don’t move,” he said, his voice stern. “I’ll be right there.”
Minutes later he pulled up in his patrol car to find her waiting anxiously outside of his apartment. She told him that she’d tried to call Calvin’s phone back, but had gotten no answer. She dialed Cali and Michaels’s numbers on the drive over to the house with the same result. By the time they pulled into the driveway, her panic was mounting.
There were flowers scattered on the front porch, and Poddy’s frantic barking coming from inside the house escalated as they drew closer. Ramon signaled for Layla to stay behind him, his hand on his gun as he approached the front door. When he turned the knob, he found it unlocked. He kicked the door open, and they both gasped at the sight of Calvin lying in a pool of blood, red paw prints staining the tiles all around his body.
The following minutes flew by in a blur, and a stunned Layla froze as Ramon knelt to check Calvin’s pulse and call for an ambulance. He grabbed her by the hand, thrusting it down onto Calvin’s shoulder blade. “Press right here–Hard!” She knelt down and did her best to stop the bleeding, watching in shock as Ramon drew his gun and started searching the house. Poddy sat whimpering, his entire body shaking.
A wailing ambulance arrived, and Ramon raced out front to flag them down, calmly explaining the situation and pulling Layla aside as the grim faced paramedics worked on Calvin. She watched as they loaded him into the back of the van and whisked him away.
Ramon went back into the house to retrieve Calvin’s phone from the floor, taking a look at it. He dialed Cali’s number and her phone started buzzing, announcing its presence on the kitchen counter next to a plate of untouched food. Layla discovered Michael’s phone on the desk in his room.
Her eyes filled with tears. “Why would they take them? It’s me he’s after.”
“I don’t know,” Ramon said.
“What should we do?” Layla asked, looking numbly at the blood drying on her hands.
“We should call in the Feds. They know how to handle kidnappings.”
He handed her the phone. “You’d better call Calvin’s family right now.”
Layla scrolled through the numbers on Cal’s phone, finally calling the shop. Crystal’s familiar voice answered the phone, and Layla explained that Calvin had been hurt, that she was going to follow the ambulance to the hospital.
“Oh my God! What happened? Is he gonna be okay? Where’s Cali?”
Layla didn’t know what to say, “Please just hurry … okay?”
The instant she hung up, the phone in her purse started ringing.
~
Michael and Cali huddled together, the only cargo jostling around in the back of a small moving truck. Cali explored the interior blindly, shuffling on her knees to feel the walls with her hands tied behind her back. She found the latch on the door, but was unable to budge it.
Images of Calvin getting shot and falling replayed in her mind, but she refused to give in to despair, focusing on the task at hand. She finally returned to Michael’s side, her voice muffled through the hood the men had slipped back over her head, “Are you alright? Did they hurt you?”
“I’m fine. Thank God Layla was late.”
“Yeah,” Cali said, biting down on her lip and praying that Layla would get there in time to help Calvin.
“I bet it’s the guys from LA,” Michael moaned, “I think they’re going to kill us.”
Caledonia’s voice was as cold as ice, “Not if I kill them first.”
The truck rumbled to a stop and they heard the door in the back roll open. Rough hands grabbed both Cali and Michael, pulling them to their feet and out of the truck. Their hoods were removed and they stood blinking at the deserted industrial alley they found themselves in. Three big men surrounded them, blood red with menace, acid green with anxiety.
Caledonia sized them up, planning her attack. They all wore mirrored sunglasses, rendering her synesthesia worthless. If she could free herself from the one with the iron grip on her arm, she was prepared to run, ready to take her chances on getting shot in the back. She was winding up to deliver a kick to his groin when a black sedan rounded the corner and rolled to a stop, blocking her escape route.
Out stepped a small, mean looking man, followed by a familiar face. A face she despised.
“Where’s Layla?” Professor Reed asked, alarmed.
“What the hell happened?” the little man screeched, “You were supposed to get the redhead too!”
“But Frankie–she wasn’t there!” The three kidnappers protested that they’d been given bad information, and from the pleading tone of their voices it was clear to Caledonia who they were working for. She glared at Professor Reed, who had already slipped on a pair of protective glasses, and turned her focus back to the little man in charge.
Michael stared at the professor, shaking with rage. “You bastard!”
Frank walked over to where one of the big men held Cali immobile, looking her over. He turned back to Reed. “Are you sure this one can do it too?”
“Yes,” The professor replied. “But she’ll be a good deal more difficult to work with. She’s much less docile.”
“We’ll see about that,” Frankie said, looking into her eyes.
“Glasses,” Professor Reed warned him.
“What do you want with us?” Caledonia asked the little man.
“I’m Frank,” he smiled. “But you can call me Frankie.”
“Let us go Frankie, and I might let you live.”
He smiled, amused by her bravado. Then he turned his attention to Michael. “Where is your sister?” he asked, pulling out a phone. “What’s her number?”
“Go to hell,” Michael scowled, acting braver than he felt.
Frankie nodded to one of the big men, who kicked the back of Michael’s knees, forcing him to kneel on the pavement. “What’s her number?” Frankie asked him again. When Michael didn’t reply one of the men cuffed him viciously across the side of his head, sending him reeling.
“Stop it!” Caledonia cried.
Frankie looked at her. “If you tell me, we won’t have to beat it out of him.”
“Don’t Cali,” Michael gasped. “I don’t care what they do to me.” Frank nodded to his man, and Michael was struck in the head twice more, until his teeth rattled and his ears rang.
Caledonia bit down on the inside of her mouth to keep from screaming out the number, barely able to keep from cracking.
“Wait!” the Professor cried out, leaning in to speak into Frank’s ear.
He nodded, holding up his hand to stop Michael’s punishment. “The girl,” he said, pointing. The man reached over and slapped Caledonia across the face hard enough to leave a mark.
“Leave her alone!” Michael cried, his swelling tongue thick in his mouth.
“Well, Michael?” Professor Reed asked, “Will you give us the number?”
The man wrapped his beefy hands around Caledonia’s slender neck and started to squeeze, leaving her gasping for breath, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“Alright! Alright! Just stop it!” Michael blurted out the number, watching through watering eyes as Frankie smiled triumphantly. He nodded for the man to release Caledonia, whereupon she crumpled to the ground in a swoon. In the blink of an eye she was curled into a ball, expertly bringing her wrists under her feet to draw them in front of her. She sprang upright in one fluid motion and lunged for Professor Reed, slipping her bound hands over his head and choking him with all of her might.
It took two of the big men to peel her away from him, and the professor ended up bent over double, coughing and gasping for air. Frankie looked down at him without pity, and back up to where Caledonia stood heaving deep breaths and staring at him with murderous eyes.
“I see what you mean about this one Doc,
” he said, pulling out his phone and dialing Layla’s number. He smiled confidently. “But I’ve broken men tougher than her.”
It occurred to the professor that Frankie might come to regret those words.
~
Chapter Three
RANSOM
~
Layla looked down at the phone in her hand. “It says unknown.”
“Hold on,” Ramon commanded, taking her arm to steady her. “Put it on speaker.”
Layla nodded, answering tentatively, “Hello?”
“Is this Layla?” Frankie asked.
She looked up at Ramon, panic in her eyes. “Y-Yes.”
“I’m afraid we missed you today.”
“Who are you? Where are Michael and Cali?”
“If you ever want to see them again, you’ll do exactly what I tell you to do. Don’t even think about talking to the cops–not even the boyfriend.”
Layla went cold with a familiar fear. “Are you working for the senator? This is between him and me! Leave them out of this!”
“Listen sweetheart, the senator works for me, and I can fix it so he never bothers you again. We only want a little help with a job, and then we’ll let you all go.”
“What kind of job?”
“There’s someone here who wants to talk to you. He can explain the way things are.”
“Layla?” Professor Reed’s hoarse voice came across the speaker, raising every hair on her head.
“Teddy?” she cringed.
He cleared his throat. “It appears that you’ve made some powerful enemies, and it looks like we’re both going to be working for them whether we like it or not. If you do what they say they’ll let all of you go.”
Her voice was shaking, “Why should I trust you?”
“I realize that you have every reason to be angry with me, but surely you can see that we have no other choice. We must do what they say.”
“They can’t make me do anything.”
He sighed. “I’m afraid they can my dear. If you refuse to cooperate something terrible will happen to Michael and Caledonia. I’m sure you’re aware of what these people are capable of.” Layla heard an enraged shriek and the sounds of a scuffle on the other end of the line.
The Redcastle Redemption (The Athena Effect) Page 2
