She staggered down the hallway. Her room was at the end of the corridor, so the next room down had to be where Leilanie was located.
She made her way unsteadily into the room.
“Nurse? What’s happening? Why’s it so dark? Can you give me some water? I’m so thirsty.”
Michelle switched on the laser again, shining it right directly in Leilanie’s face so she couldn’t see who it was.
Leilanie appeared tiny, with her black hair spread out on the pillow. She looked as Hawaiian as her name, with the dark hair, curvy body, and lightly browned skin.
Her voice sounded pathetic, like she’d just awakened from surgery and Michelle felt a little pity, remembering how disorienting it was to wake up after an operation.
Michelle reminded herself sternly that Leilanie had helped Omar abduct her to Mexico. Now she had three embryos, from Michelle’s own eggs, growing inside her. She was angry at Leilanie, but still, the poor girl was thirsty. She was as much a victim of Omar as Michelle.
Michelle poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the table beside the bed and handed it to the girl. She had to use the laser light to do it.
“Michelle!”
“Yes. Do you have a coat? Something I can wear?”
Leilanie was noisily gulping the water. “Thanks. I was so thirsty. I have a robe in the closet. Why?”
Michelle found it, a generic white terry robe, and put it on. It barely covered her and she cinched the belt tightly. It was small, and certainly wasn’t ideal, but at least her butt wouldn’t be hanging in the wind.
She heard some pounding and shouting from the direction of the nurse’s station and concluded someone was stuck in the elevator.
Leilanie tented her knees up under the sheets. “I read you’re supposed to keep your knees bent to help keep the baby. I can hardly wait to have it. Omar said you didn’t want to have children.”
“Not his, for damn sure,” Michelle muttered.
“Omar really likes you, you know? But now that I’m having his baby, he’ll probably marry me,” Leilanie said.
Dream on, Michelle thought, peeking out in the hallway.
“He said he’ll love me, even when I’m huge with the baby.”
“Look, not to burst your bubble, but Omar is married,” Michelle said. “And you’re not having one baby. They implanted three eggs, or embryos, if that’s what they are now.”
“What? What! That’s a lie.”
Michelle gave a gigantic sigh. If she wanted to cause a rift between Omar and Leilanie, she could do it. Give Omar some major discomfort the next time he saw Leilanie.
She turned around and went over to the bed, sitting on the edge of it. Opening her purse, she pulled out the white envelope. She took out the pictures, spreading them on the bed. Beside the pictures she placed the marriage document on the bed and shined the laser light down on the pictures and marriage certificate.
Leilanie grabbed up one of the pictures of Omar and Michelle, squinting in the light that Michelle shined down on it. She was shaking her head in denial. She picked up another one of Omar in his tux, and Michelle in the wedding dress, standing in front of a minister on the beach.
“Fakes,” Leilanie whispered. “He’d tell me if he was married. How could he do this without me knowing? I lived with him.”
“It happened last night,” Michelle said. “I was drugged and forced into the marriage ceremony.”
She could see fat tears flooding Leilanie’s eyes. They slowly dripped down her cheeks. She was shaking her head, like she still didn’t believe it.
Michelle went on, “Then my eggs were stolen in an operation today. I only have a few because Omar had me raped by Samson a couple of years ago. You remember him? The big guy Omar employed. He hurt me so badly I lost an ovary and the doctors didn’t think I could ever have children.”
Leilanie was still shaking her head. She picked up the marriage certificate, tears falling on the document.
“So, Leilanie,” Michelle said, “If you’re getting angry now, you can leave this place with me. Start your life all over again, without Omar.”
“Three babies?” Leilanie whispered. “I just wanted one. Mine. With Omar.”
“Forget that sociopathic man. He’ll just use you, and continue to hurt you.”
“But I love him,” Leilanie said, elongating the word ‘love,’ like a teenager in desperate puppy love.
Michelle sighed in exasperation. Love is blind when you’re young, she thought. “How old are you?”
“Nineteen,” Leilanie said, her voice shaky. “How can I have three babies? If I don’t stay with Omar, where can I go?”
Michelle shook her head. “You must have relatives. There are choices now, Leilanie. One is not to have those babies. Choose wisely. I need to leave now, if you don’t want to get out of here with me.”
“I have to talk to Omar. I’m not going to leave. I don’t believe you,” Leilanie said defiantly, but she sounded shaken.
Michelle paused in the doorway and turned around. “Ask Doni, the nurse, about how many eggs were surgically implanted inside you. She’s the one who told me there were three. And you’re not the only one Omar plans to impregnate. Omar took my eggs so he could implant them into several women. Several of his so-called witches. Those women will just be surrogates, like you, used for the propagation of his progeny. He thinks he can have children with special psychic abilities. They’d probably be as deceitful, devious, and evil as he is.”
As Michelle walked down the corridor, she heard Leilanie sobbing behind her. It was sad, but that little girl had to wake up and really take a look at what Omar was doing.
Michelle saw Dondi was busy in a patient room when she passed by. That was good. She’d be gone before anyone noticed she was missing.
There were windows in the rooms she passed and some ambient light showed in the hallway, enough for her to make her way down the hallway and past the nursing station. The woman there said, “Where are you going? Are you a patient?”
Michelle ignored her and continued on past the desk.
Since there was pounding and shouting from the elevator she couldn’t use that method to leave; she needed to find a stairway to the lobby. She saw an unlighted exit sign and headed for it. When she opened the door, all was totally black. She used the laser light and saw steep steel stairs descending down to the other floors.
Michelle grabbed the handrail and started down.
Chapter 16
Omar’s use of power that caused the electrical blackout at the clinic made him a little weak. He wasn’t as young as he used to be. A major use of psychic ability like that sapped his strength for a couple of minutes. He leaned over, hands on his knees, breathing deeply.
Like sparkling water filling a goblet, he felt the power and refreshing energy entering back into his limbs.
He looked through the glass doors of the clinic, but instead of seeing the radiant electrical auras from four people in the lobby, there was now only a muted glow from the woman sitting at the reception desk. Where had Rod, Vincent and Heather gone? he wondered. Maybe they were searching for Michelle. That would not be tolerated.
Next priority: stop them. The method didn’t matter. Too bad they weren’t all stuck in the elevator. Causing a little malfunction would be child’s play. Dr. Franz was in the elevator, though, and as Michelle’s doctor, he was valuable. The others were in for some nasty surprises.
Omar walked directly through the doors of the clinic. He didn’t have to be buzzed in, since the electricity that locked the door wasn’t working.
The blond receptionist had found a candle and was in the process of lighting it. Omar went to her and turned on the charm.
“Did you forget to pay the electric bill?” he asked with a brilliant smile, winking at her.
The blond giggled and shook her head as he locked gazes with her. She couldn’t free her eyes from his and frankly didn’t want to. She didn’t even blink for a long time. She felt she c
ould be lost inside the black gaze of this extraordinarily handsome man standing in front of her. It was exciting and she felt a shiver run down her back.
Finally there was a physical necessity to blink. She felt like she’d been lost in a dream for a while, missing time.
“Must be an area wide power outage,” she said, mentally shaking herself and emerging from Omar’s mesmerizing trance.
“The phones aren’t working either,” she added. “I had to use my cell to contact our maintenance crews to come over here and fix the generator and the elevator.”
“What’s your name?” Omar asked.
“Julie.”
“Well, Julie, I saw a few people in the lobby earlier. Where did they go?”
“Upstairs. Unfortunately, one of them is stuck in the elevator.”
They both became quiet for a minute, listening to muted pounding from the elevator shaft.
“In fact,” Julie said, “those people came all the way from Hawaii, just to see your wife.”
“I’d better go find them.”
“Stairs are the only way up now, I’m sorry to say. They all went upstairs to see if they could rescue their friend stuck in the elevator.” She pointed at a door that said ‘Stairs’ in the back wall of the clinic.”
“I’ll go search for them. Thanks for the help.”
“Be careful. It will be totally dark.”
Omar hurried to the door and opened it. Julie was right, there was total blackness except for three separate tiny light from high above him. He realized the three climbing up the stairs were using their cell phones to illuminate the climb. No way could he use his own. It might be used to track him here to Mexico, but he realized he couldn’t climb up the stairs blind.
He turned around and went out to the the lobby again. Julie wouldn’t want to give up her candle, but he knew he could persuade her.
***
Heather, Rod, and Vincent made their way up the stairs, listening for the intermittent noises coming from the elevator. There would be three slow knocks, then three fast short ones. About ten seconds later the sequence would be repeated. The stairs were adjacent to the elevator shaft wall, so they could tell they had to go up several floors.
All three were using the light from their cell phones, but it was so dark it was a little creepy. They’d go up half a flight and then there would be a landing and the stairs would zig in the other direction up to the next level.
“How many floors are in this building?” Vincent asked. He was portly and a little out of breath, puffing after climbing up a few floors.
“Probably about ten or twelve,” Rod said. “I can tell we’re getting close. I hope we can pry the elevator doors open and get Mike and Dr. Franz out.”
Heather was behind the two men, shining her cell phone on the steel steps so she wouldn’t trip. Luckily she was not claustrophobic, she thought. It seemed like there wasn’t much air in the stairwell. Lucifer was making things more difficult. He started meowing loudly and seemed agitated, squirming around in her purse, so she had trouble keeping the strap from falling down her arm from her shoulder.
“Lucifer sure is loud,” Vincent commented.
“Shhh, Lucifer,” Heather admonished, aiming her cell to shine on the little animal. It didn’t do any good. He just got louder, almost like he was screaming. “Maybe he doesn’t like the dark,” Heather was saying, when she felt the cat leap.
“Oh nooo,” Heather wailed. “Lucifer’s run away.”
All three stopped and pointed cell phones on the stairs above them. A white streak was bounding up the stairs. And now they could see a bright, thin, focused light high above them.
“We’ll find Lucifer,” Rod said reassuringly to Heather. “He can’t get out of the stairwell.”
They kept climbing until the pounding from the elevator shaft was evident from the fifth floor. They went through that doorway into the the building hallway and stood in front of the elevator door.
There was knocking from inside. Rod knocked back. He yelled, “Hey, Mike. I’m going to try to open the doors.” He put his fingers between the two doors and pulled them apart a few inches. It took a lot of strength. All they saw was the blank side of the elevator wall.
“I’m glad you found us.” It was Mike’s voice. “I think the elevator stopped between floors. We were going to the top, so Dr. Franz could show me the lab where the frozen eggs are stored.”
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Rod said. “Your pounding showed us exactly where to go.”
Mike said, “The emergency phone isn’t working. There’s this really cool trap door in the top of the elevator, though. Just like you see in the movies. I’m going to try and climb out.”
“Don’t do that!” Heather yelled. “If the power goes back on and the elevator goes up, you might get squashed.”
“I can always jump back inside the elevator.”
“We’ll go up one floor,” Rod said. “Maybe we can pry open the doors and pull you out from the top.”
“Don’t they have maintenance men or janitors here who can rescue people?” Vincent grumbled as they went back to the stairs and up a flight.
“It’s late. They probably all went home,” Rod said.
Heather was searching and calling for Lucifer as they climbed, but didn’t see him. She was really worried. The cat was so tiny and this hospital was a big place. If he got scared and hid they might never find him.
On the sixth floor Rod was able to pull the elevator doors open wide enough to shine his cell into the opening. He saw Mike standing on top of the elevator a few feet below him.”
“Well, Hey! Great to see you!” Mike said, with a grin.
Heather looked in the small vertical opening between the doors, thrilled to see Mike. He was holding on to the cable that moved the elevator up and down. “We’ll get you out of there,” She said.
“Okay, now. I need help to get these doors open,” Rod said. He was breathing hard just from the effort to force the doors apart a few inches.
Vincent and Heather together grabbed onto one door, Rod had the other one. They pulled for all they were worth and the doors protested, squeaking horribly.
Then they all fell on their butts when both doors suddenly swished open.
Heather started laughing and got up. “We got it open!”
Mike let go of the cable and moved to the side of the elevator. He stretched up and put his hands on the lip of the doorway, looking up at the three faces staring down at him.
“I have to help Dr. Franz get up on top of the elevator,” Mike said.
He went to the trap door, and they could hear them talking in low voices.
Mike came back to the opening. “Dr. Franz wants to wait for a maintenance guy. He doesn’t think he can climb out.” Then Mike whispered. “I think he’s kind of afraid to try, even with my help.”
Wimpy doctor, Heather thought. He might be stuck in there for hours.
Rod and Vincent each grabbed one of Mike’s arms, but they didn’t have to help him much. He pretty much hauled himself out of the opening. Then he was standing and grinning with the others.
“Let’s go find Michelle,” Rod said.
“And Lucifer,” Heather added.
“I learned some things,” Mike said as they went back to the stairwell and started climbing. “Michelle is in a room on the tenth floor, the eggs are stored in a lab on the twelfth. Dr. Franz told me that Leilanie, Omar’s girlfriend, was implanted with three fertilized eggs.”
“Ewww, gross. Fertilized! Oh my God!” Heather snorted.
“Yeah,” Mike said. He put his arm around Heather as they climbed and said, “Omar provided the sperm.”
“But three? Leilanie will have three babies?” Heather asked. She moved closer to him, enjoying his strength. Mike made her feel protected and stronger. She knew they would confront Omar soon and was a little scared.
“Maybe. If all the eggs stick, or adhere, to the uterus lining.”
Heather s
miled up at him. “You’ve really done your homework.”
“God damn,” Rod exclaimed. “Are there any eggs left over?”
“Five,” Mike said. “But they might die if the power doesn’t come back on soon. They have to be kept very cold.”
“Most important question of all,” Heather said, raising her finger in the air, “are those five eggs...um...fertilized?”
Mike shook his head. “No. Evidently they’re easier to keep frozen and viable if they haven’t been. So Michelle has five more eggs that Omar will try to use sooner or later, unless we can get them first. And hide or transfer them someplace.”
Chapter 17
Michelle went through the exit doorway and shined the laser light up the stairs, just to see how many floors the hospital had. It looked like there were two above the one she was on. When she focused the laser down she realized she had a long way to go.
Her hospital slippers were cotton and didn’t make a sound, but she could feel the cold steel steps through the thin material, making her shiver. The steps were slippery, so she went down carefully, still weak and fragile after the operation, gripping onto the handrail.
She kept the light on, but it was a thin focused beam that hardly gave any illumination. She was totally surprised and almost lost her footing, skidding, when she saw something small and white bounding up toward her. She wondered if the darkness was causing visual hallucinations. Whatever was streaking toward her was coming fast. Maybe the hospital had ghosts. Or maybe Omar was producing the phantasm. He’d done it before; fabricating horrible visions to scare her.
Then she heard the familiar meow and felt a ball of fluff land on her foot.
Michelle sat down and hugged Lucifer, feeling his abrasive tongue on her chin, his little paw patting her cheek. She had no doubt this was her cat.
It was a miracle, surely. She felt tears prick her eyes.
Omar said friends were taking care of the cat at her condo. And here he was in Mexico. It was unbelievable.
“I love, love, love you. And we’re going home,” Michelle said, petting Lucifer.
Witchy Woman - Book 2 - The Necromancer Page 13
