WILDly (13 page)

She took
Duncan’s hand, looking into his eyes. “Please, let me tell
her?”

He grinned
slightly and then nodded.

“You stupid,
stupid girl,” she said flatly.

I had just
told her how stupid I was, why did she have to emphasize it so
much?

“You looked
slow, but really. You are so naive that you can’t even smell the
coffee right under your nose,” Angela snarled, amused at my
startled face.

“On second
thoughts, leave her. Let her figure it out by herself,” Duncan
said. They both laughed, left the room and I heard them lock the
door behind them.

I stared at the
clock and watched the minutes and the hours pass by. I tried my
best to think of nothing, as I couldn’t face the truth yet. It was
right there in front of me, but too horrific for me to believe or
to process yet.

Duncan came
back about three hours later. The sun had set already, I thought,
but I couldn’t be sure as it was raining outside. He placed a tray
on the bed pedestal next to me. It smelled good but I wasn’t
hungry. He closed the curtains and left the room immediately
without looking at me again. I so badly wanted to ask what he
wanted from me, but I was still in shock.

I hated
myself.

I was my own
worst enemy. And my friends’ worst enemy too, my real friends.

Another hour
dragged past and Bridget or rather Angela, opened the door. She had
a gun in her hand and pointed it at me as she walked closer.

This girl
seemed capable of murder, and I was terrified. My heart raced and
my palms were sweating.
This is it
, I thought.
This is
the end of you, Valerie
. I closed my eyes and waited.

But she didn’t
pull the trigger. Instead, she roughly yanked me out of bed with
the gun held to my head.

“Don’t try
anything. I swear I will shoot you and leave you here to die, you
hear me?” she threatened.

I nodded,
relieved to be alive.

She took me to
the loo. Survival mode kicked in and I took in as much as possible
of everything that I saw around me, but there wasn’t much to see.
The hallway was extremely short and all the doors were closed. The
loo was the first door to the left; there was one other door to the
right and one straight ahead.

She pushed me
through the door and waited in the entrance for me, turned
sideways.

It was a small
bathroom, with only a shower, a toilet and a single basin. There
weren’t any windows, only an extraction fan. At least it was clean
and I appreciated the visit; it was high time.

It took a while
to calm down and for the feeling of the gun against my head to go
away after she had left. But then I thought about Benjamin again,
and Alex. Maybe it was a good thing that I had been captured and
possibly on my way to the butcher. At least everybody else would be
safe from now on.

Benjamin had
died because of me, because I had broken my promise to him and
betrayed him. And to think that he still came after me to protect
me. He had risked his life for me. And he had lost it because of
me.

And Alex.
Duncan probably had Alex imprisoned somewhere and was most likely
going to kill him. After all, Alex’s connection was with the sun. A
part of me felt incredibly impressed, about Alex and the sun. It
felt right, it fitted him perfectly. He was that kind of person. To
me, the sun meant warmth and life and power and steadiness, and
that was Alex. That absolutely was Alex! I was proud at the thought
of Alex being the sun.

A spark of hope
ignited in my insides. Maybe Alex was strong enough, with the sun’s
power at his service, to win Duncan over. Or just to get away. But
then I remembered that Alex was in a coma. He wouldn’t be able to
defend himself. I didn’t want Alex to die. And I didn’t want
Benajmin to have died.

Alex had been
so kind to me, so patient. He obviously knew exactly what was going
on with me, how I struggled. I thought about our first meeting, how
he tried to warn me against the parking, a complete stranger
warning a first year. And how he had unloaded my car. Then I
thought about the party, about him being so popular. And how he’d
played the guitar so well that he had the room under a spell. He
was such an unbelievable person, so talented and intelligent and
popular and beautiful and... and... and everything that I had ever
wanted in a guy. He truly was the essence of the sun.

If only I could
hear him speak once more, to see if he was fine. Or see him play
that guitar again.

It struck me
that Alex mattered to me. A lot. I let the thought float a little
in my mind, like a soap bubble in the bath.

I liked
Alex.

There, it was
out, I had finally admitted it to myself. I liked Alex a lot, too
much actually. I was in too far.

So I firmly put
the thought out of my mind. I had vowed more than once to leave
Alex alone. And even if by some miracle things happened to go back
to normal, I wouldn’t go near him. No, I had already betrayed Lisa
once, I would never do it again.

But even that
miracle was impossible. Alex was going to die as well, if Duncan
hadn’t managed to kill him already.

The thought was
too much for me; it felt as if the sorrow was too big for my body.
I cried as if the world was ending. How I hated myself. I couldn’t
believe what I had done to everyone. The worst part was the
remorse. I literally spent hours and hours hating myself for what I
had done; crying didn’t help at all.

After a while
the tears dried up.

I deserved to
die. I didn’t care about Angela and her gun any more. I wouldn’t be
scared next time she came.

I fell asleep
for the first time around four in the morning.

It became the
pattern: Duncan came in once a day with a tray of food and a glass
of water. Angela came in three times a day and took me to the loo
at gunpoint. By the end of the third day, there wasn’t any emotion
left, only an infinitely big nothingness.

On the morning
of the fourth day, I felt much worse than before, physically and
emotionally. The pain in my leg was killing me and my ankles were
throbbing from the restraints they had put on me: my sugar was
obviously low and my hands were trembling. And I had a headache,
probably because I was dehydrated.

Duncan came in
during the late morning, around ten. I was hopeful for an extra
glass of water when he entered. But as always, he ignored me
completely when I spoke to him, simply pulling the sheet from me
and closely examining my skin, then leaving the room again.

I knew his
appearance meant trouble. He was examining my glow and was busy
with something devious. I knew that I should be scared, but that
took energy.

Ten minutes
later he returned. This time there was a stranger with him, a
slightly overweight man.

“See, it’s not
fading yet, it’s been three days already. And she lost a lot of
blood,” Duncan told the stranger.

There was a
long pause before the stranger answered. “Then we need to try
something else.”

“Yes, we could.
Or else we could risk it, but I felt it before. It’s strong. We’d
have to share it,” Duncan said.

“No, not yet.
Let’s give it another day.” Then they both left the room.

Duncan returned
a while later. He had a glass of water in his one hand and
something else in the other. “I don’t want to hurt you. Drink
this,” and he held a blue tablet towards me. It looked like the one
Angela gave me in hospital.

“What is it?” I
asked, a little unnerved.

“I’m not going
to say it again. Drink this,” he threatened.

I didn’t want
to test him, so I took the pill and threw it in my mouth. I
pretended to swallow and held it under my tongue. But I
underestimated him, Duncan wasn’t Angela.

“Show me,” he
said.

I was cornered.
I tried to swallow the stupid thing dry, but it got stuck in my
throat and I was overcome by a spasm of coughing. The blue pill
flew out of my mouth and dropped right next to his foot.

He looked at
me, walked closer and punched me in the face, hard. So hard that
everything went black around me.

A painful prick
in my right shoulder woke me up. When I opened my eyes, Angela was
injecting me with something. I wasn’t in bed any more; I was tied
to a chair: my feet around the chair’s legs and my arms to a table,
in the same room as before.

“What are you
doing to me?” I asked.

I felt
incredibly weak, my mouth was numb and I could barely speak. And I
had a new pain for the list: my eye and my cheek.

She ignored me
and left the room. I tried to get more comfortable in the chair,
the bed seemed like heaven to me now.

The room
blurred and everything went black again.

I felt a slap
on my left cheek, and I tried to open my eyes. I had never felt so
weak and tired in my entire life.

“Wake up, wake
up, Sweety. It’s time!”

It was Duncan’s
voice.

It took a lot
of effort to open my eyes. I was still tied to the chair, but my
hands were fixed in a strange looking metallic box, cut open in
front so that my palms stuck out, facing forward.

Duncan wasn’t
alone; the same guy as before was with him. “Hello there,” he
greeted me sarcastically. “Did you sleep well?”

I couldn’t get
anything out, I was too weak.

“Valerie, this
is my friend, Gavin. He’s here to assist with a little...
uh....procedure. Say hi to the nice guy.”

“She’s
definitely ready,” Gavin said when I couldn’t respond.

“Yeah, told you
so.”

Even with my
low energy level, I was terrified. They were about to either
torture me or do something terrible. I closed my eyes and prayed. I
prayed as hard as I could. I wanted to live. I wanted to see Alex
again, even if he was Lisa’s.

Duncan slapped
me across the face. “No sleeping! You need to stay awake for this,”
he said in a happy, sing-song voice, like an overjoyed lunatic. I
was really, really scared.

“Let’s do this
now. Before Angela wakes up,” Duncan told Gavin.

They both went
down to their knees, facing each other. “Ready?” Gavin asked.
Duncan nodded.

Gavin stuck out
his hand to Duncan and then Duncan did the same, without touching
Gavin’s hand. But they did it differently. Instead of palms facing,
they held the backs of their hands towards each other.

They both went
white around the mouth and closed their eyes. I saw the pull on
their hands, the force pulling on them. I remembered the feeling so
well, it was as if it had happened yesterday with me. Then they
both started to glow, Gavin red and Duncan as grey as his eyes.

Very slowly,
they brought their hands closer and closer together and when they
touched, their bodies shook. They opened their eyes and kept their
hands against each other.

“Neutralised!”
Duncan smiled. “Now for her. You won’t believe this.”

“Can I go
first?” Gavin asked.

“Be my guest,”
Duncan answered.

I knew what was
coming, so I made myself ready. I wanted to resist him, but I had
absolutely no energy. Gavin looked into my eyes and stretched out
his other hand to me, close to my left palm.

Then the
familiar pull came, soft at first. My glow lit up, and the last bit
of energy in my body slowly drained away. Gavin’s hand got closer
and closer and the weight on me grew and grew.

Black spots
danced in front of my eyes.

Gavin suddenly
paused and turned his head. Then I felt the force from somewhere
outside as well, a strong force pulling on me.

“Is it...?”
Duncan asked.

“Who else?”
Gavin replied.

“How is it
possible? I thought we took care of him?” Duncan asked in a
panic.

Everything went
black in front of me.

This is
really it
, I thought.

Then I heard
Alex’s voice, his sweet, sweet voice.

“Not again!
He’s getting away!” Alex screamed. “Find him!”

It couldn’t be
Alex. He was in a coma. Or dead.

So I knew it
had to be the end of me.

***

Chapter 12 -
Gravitated

Someone called
my name, faintly, from far away.

Then everything
was silent.

“Valerie?
Valerie!” It sounded closer this time.

“Hang on,
Valerie, just hang on!”

Silence.

The urgent
voice came again. “C’mon, stay with me! Please, please, please!
Fight, Valerie, fight.”

I tried to, I
wanted to, but the darkness pressing on me was strong.

“We need to
hurry! It’s flickering already.” It sounded like Alex and I waited
anxiously to hear it again. “I have to do it now. Right now!”

“You’re still
too weak. We have to wait at least another day!” It was someone
else.

“No, it’s too
risky! Stop the car, right now, stop it!”

I couldn’t hold
on any longer and everything was silent again.

There was a
funny sensation in my toes, a warm, bubbling sensation. I tried to
identify it; it felt like the hot water from a Jacuzzi, but on the
inside of my skin.

It slowly grew
into my feet and ankles. Then it reached my shins, but my left shin
and knee felt hotter than the right. The bubbles continued upwards,
into my stomach and chest and arms, but the heat around my left
shin and knee got warmer and warmer.

There were
voices around me, but I couldn’t make out the words.

By the time
that the bubbles had reached my head, I felt more energetic but my
leg was burning hot. My face started to burn as well.

Two male voices
surrounded me, very close. They were familiar, but I couldn’t
concentrate; the burning in my leg and my face became
unbearable.

“I’m burning!
I’m burning up!” I screamed and opened my eyes.