by Stephen Cole
Jasmine was staring into space, cool, placid and serene. Like she planned this kind of thing every day.
Stacy had come up with a good plan, brilliant, even. But no matter how clever, it was another stop-gap measure; more time spent hiding in the dark till the bogeyman went away. And Marcie Folan wasn’t going away anytime soon – unless they made her.
As the elevator crawled up to the thirtieth floor, Tom had never felt so alone. No one but Rico even knew they were here. Good old Ric. Together with Stacy, he’d saved Tom’s parents’ lives, at least for now.
Tom sorted through the night’s feverish memories.
‘Here’s what we do,’ Stacy had announced in the back of the wagon. ‘I’m a virologist. So, if we get Tom’s parents to the hospital, I can fake an outbreak of something nasty and highly contagious, and have them placed in isolation. That way, no one can get to them.’
‘But your colleagues, other medical staff,’ Tom argued, ‘they’d question your diagnosis the second they looked at them.’
‘Careful management, Tom. Blind eyes and sympathetic ears,’ Stacy said. ‘If I call on the right people, we can have your mom and dad transferred to another hospital out of state, no questions asked.’
‘You gonna tell his momma and papa about the howlers?’ Rico was wide-eyed. ‘They be locking you up for being crazy.’
‘All they need to know for now is that Tom’s OK, that he’s not a murderer, but that their own lives are in danger.’ She looked at Tom. ‘I’ll leave you to explain to them what else you feel you can.’
‘I can’t see them.’ Tom shook his head. ‘Can’t face them. Not until this is over. Not until …’ He broke off, swallowing back the threatening tears. ‘Damn it, where’s Jicaque vanished off to? He’s supposed to be helping us … and what’s happening to Kate?’
‘One thing at a time, Tom.’ Stacy put a comforting hand on his shoulder. ‘And if Jicaque’s all you say he is, he’ll come through for you.’
We’ll see, Tom thought.
He had written a note to his parents on the back of a postcard, telling them to go to Park East Hospital and ask for Stacy, and not to tell Marcie or Hal Folan where they’d gone. Never to speak to them again. Asking them to trust him.
Once Jasmine had dropped Stacy at the hospital to make the necessary arrangements, they’d driven over to the First Western. First, they’d sent in Rico on a commando-style mission to slide the postcard under the Andersons’ door.
Then they’d waited.
Tom’s heart had lurched in his chest when he saw his mom and dad emerge from the hotel ten minutes later. They jumped in the back of a yellow cab and drove away. ‘We did it,’ he breathed. ‘Marcie can’t get them.’
‘For now,’ Jasmine added. ‘I don’t have no mom or dad, Tom. But I want you to hang on to yours.’ She tapped her hip where the gun was hidden. ‘Let’s go. Ric, wait in the car.’
‘Aw, Jas,’ Rico complained. But she gave him a stern look. He made a face and nodded reluctantly.
Quickly, quietly, Tom and Jasmine walked towards the hotel’s reception …
Ping.
The elevator’s electronic chime jarred Tom from his memories. They had reached the thirtieth floor.
‘Let’s finish this,’ muttered Jasmine.
The corridor was quiet. Jasmine soon picked the lock on room 3003, and Tom followed her inside.
The moment he breathed in the still-lingering smell of his dad’s deodorant, a wave of almost unbearable homesickness overcame him. His mom’s clothes lay strewn on a chair. The same suitcases they’d taken to Seattle, where the whole nightmare had begun, were stowed beside the TV in the corner of the room.
Tom felt hot and flushed, and opened the window a fraction. Then he sat heavily on the king-sized bed.
Jas joined him, saying nothing. She took the gun from her pocket and turned it around in her hands.
‘You ever use that on someone?’ he asked.
‘You kidding me?’ She shot him a dark look. ‘How’s that shoulder of yours?’
‘Hurts like hell.’
‘Just a scratch, Tommy-boy. Just a scratch. You ever seen someone shot dead?’ Jasmine’s voice trembled a fraction. ‘I did once. This guy I knew? He was shot in the guts … He was kind of crazy, but he had this great smile, you know …’ She sighed softly. ‘So much blood when he got shot. Everywhere. We couldn’t stop it. We watched him die for hours and hours, too scared to do jack shit, too scared to go to the cops …’
‘Who shot him?’ Tom murmured.
‘The guy’s best friend,’ said Jasmine, weighing the gun in her hand. ‘They’d ripped off some gas station, got really high. Tried to split the cash between them fair and square, but they couldn’t count straight … started fighting over a ten-dollar bill or something.’ Her voice was drained of all emotion. ‘And this guy I knew with the cute smile … he lost the fight. His whole life just bled out of him over this dumbass ten bucks. ’Cause his dumbass friend had a gun like this one, loaded and ready to go.’ She looked at him. ‘Kind of a waste, don’t you think?’
Tom just nodded dumbly.
Jasmine kept talking, her voice dull like the sheen on the black metal of the gun barrel. ‘Looks kind of cool, don’t it? In the movies and stuff, I mean. And these punks, they think all they got to do is pick up a gun and suddenly they’re a real man. Puff got a hold of this one. Got it from some guy over in Queens …’ She passed it to Tom. ‘Don’t look like so much, does it? But one shot from this and …’
He looked at her. ‘Murder?’
She shook her head, and when she spoke again she sounded fiercer than he’d ever heard her. ‘Not if you use it against this Marcie bitch,’ she said. ‘That bitch that killed Ramone. That bitch who thinks she’s gonna kill your parents here tonight.’ She passed him the gun. ‘This ain’t a murder. It’s an execution.’
‘An execution,’ he echoed. ‘I guess, I guess I should do it.’ He still felt the tingling traces of Stacy’s serum in his veins. Was that why he was going along with this? A few months ago, just holding a gun would’ve freaked him out. Now he found himself lifting the gun, aiming it at the door, curling his finger around the trigger, picturing Marcie coming into range …
Jasmine had picked up a picture from the bedside table. Mom’s side, he guessed.
‘Look at you,’ she murmured. ‘And who’s the cute kid?’
‘My brother, Joe.’
‘He ain’t staying here?’
‘Guess he’s at Aunt Rachel’s or something.’ Tom wiped wetness from his eyes.
Jasmine put the photo back on the table, shifted a fraction closer to him. ‘You must miss your folks real bad.’
‘I do.’
‘Never had much family myself. Hanging with Ramone, Puff, Ciss, Ric … that was my family.’
Tom nodded. ‘And the ’wolves ruined everything.’
‘For the both of us.’ She slapped her hand down on his, jokily. ‘But hey, we’re still standing, ain’t we? Or sitting, anyway.’
She wasn’t moving her hand away. It was cool and reassuring on top of his own.
‘I guess you just have to get through stuff in life,’ Tom ventured. ‘You have to adapt, you know?’
‘Oh, yeah. I know all about adapting.’ She looked at him with an intensity that made his skin tingle. ‘First time I met you, I thought you was a real pussy. Then I thought you was the big, bad ’wolf, some scary howler spy or somethin’. But I’ve been watching you, Tommy-boy. Stuff you’ve done. The way you handle yourself.’ Her fingertips were caressing the rough skin on his knuckles. ‘And I want you to know, I’m impressed.’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve been lucky, that’s all.’
She laughed softly. ‘Boy, you don’t know what lucky is.’ She leaned in closer, angled her face towards him. ‘Do you wanna know?’
Jasmine pressed her mouth against his.
Tom felt a light flick of her tongue, found himself responding. Suddenly they were caught u
p in a hot, wet kiss. Tom’s thoughts were scattered and lost. All he could feel was the heat of the kiss buzzing through him, the sweet smell of Jasmine’s sweat, the taste of her tongue snaking around inside his mouth. He went to slide his arms around her – and felt the gun, cold and heavy in his right hand.
He jumped away like a shock had bolted through him.
Jasmine stared at him, scared and vulnerable. ‘What? What’d I do?’
‘I can’t do this,’ he muttered.
In a blink, the old, hard look was back, set on her face like a mask. ‘What, you suddenly got religion or something?’
‘This isn’t who I want to be,’ he said. The gun weighed heavy in his hand. ‘The guy you think I am, the stuff you like about me … that’s the stuff I hate.’
‘Sure,’ she said coldly. ‘I guess that’s why you hang with Kate. Nice, clean, smart shoulder to cry on, huh?’
‘No, it’s not that,’ he protested. ‘I … I’m sorry.’ He turned away, placed the gun on the dresser.
‘You having second thoughts about that too?’
He closed his eyes. ‘I know it’s the only way to be free of her and Takapa. To protect the people I love.’
‘Like Kate?’ Jasmine said quietly.
Tom didn’t answer her.
He heard Jasmine rise up from the bed and walk to the door. ‘I’ll be waiting outside with Ric,’ she announced, her tone as cold as the night air gusting in through the window. ‘When she comes in … just don’t miss.’
The door clicked shut behind her.
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Tom sat on the bed, one hand on a little pile of his parents’ clothes, one on the gun. He registered that the sky was starting to lighten, but his attention was fixed wholly on the closed door. The minutes stretched by. His shoulder ached. A part of him ached for Jasmine to come back. To feel someone beside him, to help him do this thing he knew he—
There was a scratching, scraping sound at the lock.
Tom jumped up from the bed.
The doorknob was turning, very slightly, very slowly.
He held the gun in both hands and aimed it at the door.
The door jumped a fraction as the catch released.
Tom held his breath. Gritted his teeth. Checked his grip on the gun. Felt his world start to tilt as the door swung open, slowly, so slowly …
The dim light of the breaking dawn was enough to cast only the faintest of shadows. But Tom still caught the movement behind him.
He whirled around. Someone big and ugly was standing behind him, his fat fist swinging towards Tom’s face.
Then the world jarred into blackness.
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For Kate, the hours were passing slowly and uncomfortably in claustrophobic darkness. Swagger had forced her inside a cramped locker. There was no room to move, and her long legs were buzzing with pins and needles. It was hard to breathe; she had to sit with her mouth pressed up against the grille in the narrow door, snatching gasps of the foul smelling air. Her muscles ached with inaction, and she had to fight the rising panic that kept threatening to overwhelm her. What was he planning for her?
‘Better keep quiet,’ Swagger had hissed as he’d squeezed her inside. ‘If you start screaming, remember your mom’s right across the hall.’
It was impossible to tell how much time had passed. She’d been stuffed inside the locker around seven in the morning, and left for what felt like for ever. Swagger, or one of his men, had allowed her out twice for a few minutes’ ‘exercise’. What a joke. By the time she’d finished flailing about on the damp floor trying to ease the cramps in her arms and legs, they were ready to bundle her back inside. Her back throbbed with pain, her head was splitting; this was torture, pure and simple, but she was damned if she would let Swagger see how much she hurt.
What was he going to do to her? Was this just some sadistic payback before he handed her over to Takapa? Or was he planning to have her himself? The cold thoughts rolled around till her whole head felt bruised.
Six o’clock in the evening had rolled around at last; she knew because Kes and the rest of Swagger’s mangy generals had come to distribute little phials of serum – liberated from Stacy’s labs? Or had Takapa brought his own supplies with him?
In her darkest moments, Kate wished she’d been left behind in the blaze at Woollard’s place; anything would be better than being trapped here in the dark waiting for the end to come. But as she heard the so-called gladiators moaning and screaming and fighting for their meagre fix of the drug, she found herself counting her lucky stars that she wasn’t amongst them.
That relief had soon passed, of course. As the hours edged on towards midnight, she felt she was going out of her mind, trapped like this, unable to sleep or stretch or—
Suddenly, she saw Polar come creeping cautiously into her narrow field of vision. ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Let me out, Polar. Just for a minute. Please!’
He hadn’t come to see her. He was pulling at the lockers lining the adjacent wall. Of course, looking for his camera. But Swagger had thrown away the key …
‘Hey! Kid!’ Kate squinted through the rusting grille. A skinny woman was beckoning to Polar from one of the makeshift pens. Her bleached hair was greasy and matted, her eyes bruised and blue, and she was forcing a crooked smile. ‘I think I got what you need.’
Polar turned to face the woman. She was tapping a tiny key against the bars of her cage. Polar immediately rushed over to get it.
But the woman snatched her hand away. ‘What you gonna give me in return, sugar?’ She smiled like she was trying to flirt, but it came out like a grimace. ‘You got some more stuff? We need some … Just a little. You know you got it …’
Kate saw the woman’s companions in the cage feign careful disinterest in what was happening. Saw them pass looks and shift subtly into crouching positions. ‘It’s a trick, Polar!’ she yelled. If she could get some favour with him maybe—
But her warning came too late. He had reached in to the pen to take the key, and one of the men had grabbed his arm. Polar was yanked forwards and his head crashed against one of the cell bars. While he was held up against the door of the pen, helpless, the other men searched his pockets.
‘He doesn’t have any!’ shouted a man in ragged clothes. He turned on the bleached-blonde woman. ‘You dumb bitch, you said he’d have some.’
‘How was I supposed to know?’ she yelled back at him. ‘He’s one of them, ain’t he?’
‘We can hold him here,’ said an Asian guy, ‘threaten to kill him if we don’t get more!’
Someone else in another cell started up. ‘If you’re getting some stuff, we should get some!’
Soon the call was taken up by countless others. The noise boomed through the cavernous room, making Kate’s locker vibrate and rattle. She shut her eyes, clasping her hands over her ears.
‘All right, simmer down!’ Swagger looked like he’d come looking for trouble. ‘What is this?’
‘We want more stuff!’ snarled the Asian guy.
‘We’ll kill your buddy here!’ added the guy in the ragged clothes.
Swagger sneered around at his pet prisoners. ‘You ain’t getting nothin’ more till you earned it.’
The blonde woman yanked Polar back against the bars. His head struck the metal with a low, melodious chime. ‘We mean it!’ she said, shaking, almost frothing at the mouth.
Kate watched the big man make a great show of thinking about it. Then finally he spoke.
‘Go ahead. Kill him. Retard’s next to useless anyhow.’
He turned and strutted over to Kate’s locker, ignoring the cries and the clamour that greeted his words.
She shrunk back from the grille but there was nowhere to go.
He winked at her. ‘Enjoy the show.’
As he moved aside she caught a glimpse of Polar, still pulled up helplessly against the bars, while the blonde and the rest of her cellmates beat his body like a punchbag, egged on by the other prisoners, screaming
out their frustration and rage.
She waited for Polar to transform, to let loose his ’wolf. But maybe they’d hit him too hard, too quick. He only broke his silence with a long, loud scream of despair that twisted her guts.
Kate turned away, shaking uncontrollably. How long now before she was thrown to these animals herself?
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
When Tom became aware of the world again, he was tied to a chair in a dingy office. Fatigue viciously defined every muscle in his body. His head pounded like a deranged child was banging a drum in his ear, and he felt weak as a kitten.
Behind the desk in front of him was a pink-eyed, skinny man in a dark suit that emphasised his ghostly complexion. A silver helix earring snaked down from his only ear. His skin was cratered with acne scars, his white hair speckled out of his flaking scalp. He bared his sharp yellow teeth in a knowing grin.
‘Takapa?’ Tom croaked.
The man nodded. ‘Here we are, face to face at last. You’ve been a tiresome strain on my resources, Tom Anderson. Thank you for allowing yourself to be captured so easily.’
‘How did that guy get in through a window thirty storeys up?’ Tom muttered.
‘The platform used by the hotel window cleaners was fortuitously placed,’ said Takapa smugly. ‘Perhaps that’s why Marcie booked that particular room on the Andersons’ behalf.’
Tom felt disgusted with himself. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t check the window,’ he muttered.
‘He and Marcie took you out of there in the same way so as not to arouse suspicion. But, come now.’ Takapa rose from his chair. His suit hung baggily from his skeletal frame. ‘I suspect you’re relieved in a way, no? I don’t think that you’re a killer, Tom.’ He smiled down at his captive, his watery eyes gleaming. ‘I believe that if Marcie or myself had walked through that door, you could not have brought yourself to shoot.’
Tom flashed a big, fake smile back up at him. ‘If you’re that curious, how about we stage a reconstruction?’
