Dissension

by Adrienne Monson

  Samantha must have been walking blindly, for she couldn’t tell how long she’d been wandering. She was now in a completely different corridor. What if she were caught while questioning things to which she would probably never get an answer anyway?

  She pushed away the sound of an electric saw followed by a horrid cry. She needed to stay alert and find the woman from her vision as quickly as possible. She was too deep into the building to leave empty handed.

  She was coming to the end of the corridor. There were double doors directly ahead of her, with small windows in each door. There were more corridors to each side of her, forming a T-junction. Samantha wondered what hid behind the doors directly ahead of her—they looked like they opened into a large and spacious room, exactly what she was searching for. Before she actually reached the end of the corridor, she heard footsteps coming down the hall to the right.

  Immediately, she fled to a doorway on her right just before the corner of the junction. There was about two feet of wall protruding from the doorway, giving her barely enough hiding space. She flattened herself as best she could, hoping to be invisible.

  Samantha kept her breathing under control, rubbing her sweaty palms absently over her pants. Suddenly, the door next to her swung open toward her, barely skimming her toes. She froze. A man had exited that room, and was now well down the hallway toward the opposite direction.

  Samantha released the breath she’d been holding and glanced around the corner from her hiding spot to check on the previous person coming down the corridor. Bile froze in her throat as she saw her father, a white lab coat over his suit. He was standing in front of the double doors, entering a security code.

  There was no question now; she had found the place she was looking for. The doors opened and her father entered. There wasn’t much time left for her to think things through—the doors were slowly closing again. Samantha took a deep breath and ran to the door in time for her to wedge herself through before they sealed shut.

  Her father turned around the corner to her left. There was a wall directly in front of her, leaving her the option of going left or right. She knew her father would lead her to the woman, but wasn’t sure if directly following him in such small corridors was such a good idea. She crept to the corner where he had disappeared and peeked to see if it was safe to follow.

  There was a doorway about twenty feet ahead she could try and run to, but it was too risky. Mason Campbell had walked to the end of the hall, and was accessing a room straight ahead. The room had windows instead of walls; she could see five computers with people slouching over them.

  Samantha turned around and decided to go toward the opposite direction. At the end of this corridor, she saw the large doors of the loading docks. At least now she had a clearer idea as to where she was in the building. She looked around before taking her first fateful step down the corridor.

  At the end of the hall, she saw an assorted collection of storage boxes. Perhaps these boxes were used as part of a cover at the loading docks. In a corner next to the boxes was what looked like a power panel. It was at least ten-feet long and five-feet wide. Could that control the power to the whole building?

  Samantha walked as soundlessly as possible, hoping no one would be in the room she was about to pass. The door stood wide open; it appeared to be a lab. There were only two women in it, both enthralled by a test tube holding a red liquid. Samantha scurried past, running as fast as she could to the boxes.

  As soon as she reached them, she squeezed into the tiny space between the boxes and the power panel. She scanned the labels on the switches to locate the main power switch, but before she attempted to cut the power, she must first find the woman. From where she was, Samantha could see the rest of the corridor. The room with the two women met up with the glass room her father had entered.

  Mason Campbell came out holding a metal cup, walking toward an all too familiar alcove in the hallway covered with a white curtain. As he pulled it back, Samantha gasped at the sight.

  The woman was lying unconscious, strapped into the same chair Samantha had witnessed in her vision. There were several spots of blackened skin on the woman’s body. Samantha knew if she were close enough, she would smell burnt flesh; the woman’s arms were completely swollen.

  “This’ll wake her up.” Her father gave the cup to one of the men guarding the woman.

  This was her chance—Samantha knew—but it was an incredibly sloppy plan. There were six guards with guns—who knew what else they concealed in their uniforms. Cutting the power would give her an advantage, but she didn’t know if she could actually sneak past any of them to get to the woman.

  The woman was sputtering blood, trying not to choke. She was waking up, and Samantha knew more horrendous torture would ensue. She could not stomach anymore of it. Impulsively, she strode to the power panel, threw the main switch, and immediately found herself shrouded in impenetrable darkness.

  CHAPTER 5

  At first, there was nothing but pain. Leisha hurt everywhere. The electric shocks were at such a high voltage that if it weren’t for the pain, she would have thought herself paralyzed at this point. The men had also broken both of her arms, and not just once. They pounded her bones into powder with sledgehammers, starting with her wrists and slowly working their way up to her shoulders. The vampire did not even know when she lost consciousness.

  When Leisha came to, she became aware of a warm, sweet liquid pouring into her mouth. She choked at first, but then was able to swallow the blessed ambrosia of blood. Her mind became more alert. The blood stopped abruptly, and she realized they were only giving her enough to keep her awake, not enough to heal. The frustration was too potent. She wanted to scream, but was too weak to do anything at all.

  She could hear the voice of the man who was in charge of her torture. He called it an experiment, but it was torture. She knew this degradation would not stop until they learned everything they could about vampires. Then, they would kill her.

  The sudden dark seemed to freeze everyone. For a split second, Leisha thought that she had lost her vision, but when she heard the man say, “What’s going on?” she tried to unscramble her thoughts and focus. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the abysmal black, the current in her restraints gone.

  She mustered all the strength she could, and pulled the bands on her arms. The broken bones and shattered ligaments protested in unimaginable agony, but Leisha did her best not to faint from the pain and continued to pull. Finally, her right arm came free with a loud clink. Before anyone around her was able to comprehend what the sound was, she forced herself to reach out through the throbbing agony to the first person on her right and yanked him down to her mouth. He hadn’t even had time to grunt before she was desperately gulping his blood.

  Within a matter of seconds, she was beginning to heal, tearing through the metal restraints on her arm and legs. By this time, the men realized exactly what was happening and were beginning to take action. A flashlight shone on the now vacant chair; the military men spun, trying frantically to locate their captive.

  Leisha didn’t waste any time killing them. She came up behind the men on one side and used both arms to simultaneously twist their necks so fast that they didn’t feel a thing. She leaped, just barely avoiding the bullets aimed at her. She flipped over backwards in the air and landed on slightly bent knees behind the rest of the men on the other side of the chair.

  Twisting the necks of the two men directly in front of her, she brought her leg up and kicked the other man in the face. His nose and jawbones shattered; he wouldn’t be a threat to her anymore.

  The three remaining men, not wanting to take their chances, ran away as fast as they could.

  Hearing heartbeats pounding ahead, Leisha deduced that a bunch of people were hiding in a room in that direction. She felt a sense of empowerment, knowing she was the one causing their fear. They deserved worse than to be temporarily terrified.

  She wanted to go into that room and kill every
one of them. She wanted to twist their demented heads off their shoulders, but she restrained the rage. They had weapons and bullets that could incapacitate her, and she needed to get out of there before they could organize an attack that would put her back in that ghastly chair.

  Instead, she turned around and ran through the pitch-black darkness. She could see a little, but not much more than shadows. She gasped when she ran into a bunch of boxes. Empty plastic bottles bounced all around. She was just about to spring away when she heard groaning.

  She had hit someone who had evidently been hiding behind the boxes. Leisha had wanted to move on to locate an exit, but keen inclination tugged at her to check on the person. She could not say why exactly, and didn’t have the time to examine her motives at the moment. Whatever the reason, she bent toward the person and reached out.

  By the feel of the face, it was a young girl, definitely in her teens. Leisha hoisted the girl to her feet by the shoulder and whispered in her ear.

  “Do you work here?” Leisha asked gruffly.

  The girl stiffened in her grip, but tried to reply calmly. “Yes, of course, I do.” Her voice had a slight tremor to it, but was perfectly calm. By sensing the pulse of the girl’s heart, Leisha knew she was lying.

  “My name is Leisha, and I’ve been taken against my will. Are you a captive as well?”

  “No, I’m not,” the girl said, skipping a heartbeat. “I mean, I’m trying to get out of here, and I was trying to help . . . you’re the woman who was strapped to that chair over there? With blonde hair?”

  “Keep your voice down!” Leisha hissed. What on earth was this girl talking about? Leisha decided to worry about that later and accept whatever help this girl could offer. “Yes, I’m that woman they were torturing. What’s your name?”

  “Samantha,” the girl replied in hushed tones.

  “Samantha, do you know a way out of here?”

  Leisha could feel Samantha shrug. “There are big sliding doors just over there for the loading docks, but they’re locked at the bottom. I think I could find the front entrance—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Leisha interrupted. “I can get this sliding door open. Stay next to the boxes so you don’t get hurt.”

  Samantha obliged and Leisha felt her way over to where Samantha had pointed. The sliding door was made from thin metal; Leisha had no problem kicking through. She pried open the flimsy door, wide enough to walk through. The small opening let in a mixture of moonlight and fluorescent lighting, providing Samantha with plenty of illumination to maneuver around.

  Red generator lights came on just as Leisha was pushing Samantha through the opening. Guards were rushing toward her from two directions, but Leisha didn’t stay to fight. She went through the hole and saw the girl looking about them nervously.

  “Do you have a car?” Leisha asked.

  Samantha shook her head, jumping at the sound of gunshots. The girl looked through the hole to where the shots originated. Instead of jumping out of the way, she froze. A bullet whizzed past them and Leisha pushed the girl on the ground, using her own body as a shield. The vampire looked up to see her torturer staring at Samantha, his face pale. The man’s icy blue eyes seemed to panic.

  Bright spotlights came on, their beams moving around the parking lot. Leisha heard what she could only have guessed were armored vehicles grinding their way toward her location along with men on foot.

  She looked down to see Samantha unconscious, probably from the impact. She picked up the girl and carried her around the side of a large container unhooked from its diesel engine. Once unburdened with the human, Leisha rushed to the closest car and pushed it to the gaping hole in the sliding door. A couple of guards had already made it out by then, but the majority of them were either still in the compound or crushed by the car.

  She took no time to sprint at the two men aiming their weapons at her, and was fast enough to hit them both in their stomachs, giving them enough internal damage to kill them, albeit slowly.

  Before the rest of the men approached, Leisha hurried back over to Samantha, picked her up, and ran like she’d never run before. Within minutes, she was already fifty miles away. The only thing surrounding them now was desert. She laid Samantha down and patted her cheeks lightly. The girl’s eyelashes fluttered, then slowly opened. When her eyes finally focused on Leisha’s face through the moonlight, they widened in recognition.

  Samantha’s head was pounding and she felt exhausted. It took her a few moments before the events of the evening came flooding back into her brain, and she instantly recognized the woman hovering over her. The woman was covered in blood from her hair to her clothes, but her emerald green eyes radiated beauty.

  Samantha sat up and swayed a little—her injury must not have been too bad. “What happened? Where are we? What did you say your name was?”

  “My name is Leisha. You were knocked out,” the blonde responded. “I pulled you to a car and we drove for some time. But the car broke down, so I carried you out here in the desert.” She paused. “I believe we are safe. For now.”

  “How were you able to escape?” Samantha asked, her voice shaky.

  Leisha smiled at the girl. “You helped me escape.”

  Samantha shifted nervously under the gratitude. “I mean, I just turned off the power. I was going to try and get you out, too.” She glanced at Leisha, still calm and serene, and not a mark on her. “But you were at my side before I knew it. How did you get out of those binds and away from those men? And how did you know where I was? What happened to all those bruises I saw on your body? I thought you were close to death!”

  “The metal stirrups that held me down were powered by electricity. Once you shut off the power, I was able to sneak away from the men in the dark. It was pure chance that I ran into you.”

  Samantha studied her rescuer before responding. Everything she could see about Leisha seemed to say she spoke the truth, but for some reason it just felt wrong. She knew it wasn’t the whole truth; Leisha hadn’t said anything about being miraculously healed. Samantha would pursue that question later. “You must have great instincts.”

  Leisha shrugged. “What about you?” she asked. “How did you know where to find me, and why rescue me at all? I don’t believe we’ve ever met.”

  It was now Samantha’s turn to hedge the truth. She looked down at her lap. “I . . . I know one of the men that captured you.” At the thought of her father, his image came to mind—they had made eye contact just as the shooting had started. The look on his ashen face was seared into her mind. Obviously, after today, there would be no doubt about her involvement in helping Leisha. “I decided to follow him to see what he was up to, and when I peeked in and saw what they were doing to you, I couldn’t help but to stop it.” Changing the subject quickly, Samantha continued, “Are you all right? I mean, how did you heal so rapidly?”

  “Maybe you should ask the man whom you know captured me. They gave me something to drink that would heal me.”

  “Why would they want to heal you after torturing you just a few moments before?”

  Leisha gave Samantha a level stare. “So they could torture me some more without killing me.” She said it simply, with no emotion, but there was something about Leisha that Samantha could read. She knew Leisha had been more than unnerved by the experience, though she played the cool and unaffected persona beautifully.

  Samantha was shaken up herself. To imagine being tortured to death was horrible enough, but to not even have that final escape was beyond what she wanted to comprehend.

  Again the image of her father’s cool and calculating eyes filled her vision and she shivered. How could she go back home and face him after all of this?

  As if reading her thoughts, Leisha said, “Do you have a way to get home?”

  “I haven’t gotten my driver’s license yet. So, no, I don’t have a car.” She felt so much like a child admitting it, but brushed off the feeling. “I did bring my cell, though.”

 
She pulled it out and handed it to the woman. Leisha stood and checked the bars to make sure it would work before dialing. She didn’t have to wait long before someone answered.

  “I know!” Leisha snapped at the person who answered. “You wouldn’t believe what just happened to me.” By the look on Leisha’s face, the person on the other end must have said something rude. Samantha felt steady enough to stand by herself while listening to the one sided of the conversation. “Look, Ptah,” Leisha continued, “someone had the gall to actually kidnap and attempt to torture me, so I’m in absolutely no mood to deal with you right now. What I would love from you is if you would send out your private jet to come and get me,” Looking around, she voiced, “I’m not exactly sure where I am. It’s somewhere outside of Vegas; I think maybe to the south.” She listened some more and looked momentary impressed. “That works for me.” Leisha hung up and handed the phone back to Samantha.

  “You should call a friend to come pick you up as well.”

  “You know someone who has a private jet?” Samantha asked. “Who exactly are you? That guy’s name is really Ta?” It had never occurred to Samantha that this woman may have been kidnapped because of some political battle, but if Leisha had those kinds of connections, then maybe there was more to her situation than Samantha had originally speculated.

  “I’m no one of consequence, really. I just happen to know someone who has become very wealthy over the years. You really should make a call to have someone get you before my friend shows up. I don’t think you would enjoy meeting him.”