by T Swanepoel
Chapter 11 - Spurn
I awoke to the same loud, irritating, repetitive beep. But it was different from before.
My head was fine this time. But my leg ached, only a little less than last night. And something cold and hard pressed against my ankles.
A little clock radio was beeping on a bed pedestal next to me. According to the clock it was 15:23. Then I looked up, into Duncan’s eyes. He was standing close to me, with a smile on his face.
“Oh, Duncan! I’m so glad to see you! To see that you are safe.”
He reached over to silence the beep.
“Hi, Valerie. Sorry about that. I’ll bring you something for the pain just now. But tell me, why wouldn’t I be safe?” he asked, surprised.
“I thought you were being held hostage.” Didn’t I feel like the fool?
“By whom?”
“Well, I thought Bridget had you.”
“I don’t know a Bridget.”
“Oh.” I looked around. I wasn’t in hospital. It was an apartment, a fancy one. The room looked like a girl’s. The closet door was open and showed all types of clothes, fancy clothes, rows and rows of them. And the curtains and bed linen were very girly, with different shades of pink and purple and white and frills everywhere. Not my choice, I thought.
“Is this your apartment?” Had his new girlfriend moved in already?
“Yes.”
“But how did I get here? The last thing that I can remember is the accident, Benjamin crashing into Ronald’s mini. How are they?”
“Ronald is very seriously injured and was taken to hospital. Benjamin died at the scene of the accident.”
Benjamin had died?
No!
I was shocked. It was probably my fault. Nausea boiled up into my throat. Benjamin was a traitor, but I didn’t want him dead or anything. And poor Ronald.
“Oh no.”
Tears hazed the room around me. Not dead. Not Benjamin.
Duncan sat down on a chair next to me and waited patiently for me to calm down.
Then I thought of something else. “How did you know about the accident?” I asked through the tears.
“Uhh...” he hesitated. “Ronald phoned me, just before he picked you up. He told me that you were hurt and that you wanted to see me. Then he phoned me again, right before the accident. I actually heard it happening over the phone.”
“Oh.” I didn’t remember Ronald making any phone calls in the car before the accident. But I had been in a haze back there. And why Ronald didn’t tell me that he had talked to Duncan didn’t make sense either. Something was fishy; my gut told me that Duncan was lying. Then, the moment that the thought occurred, the gut feeling disappeared again.
Duncan was in front of me now, and it was finally my chance to talk to him, to ask him what had happened to me and to find out if Lisa had told the truth. I suddenly felt completely calm, so I decided to use the opportunity. “There’s so much has happened since I saw you that first day. There were so many times that I wished to see you and talk to you.”
“I’m here now. So tell me,” he said, “tell me everything. I’ll listen,” he encouraged.
I told him about waking up in hospital, about jumping from the window and the healing powers of the earth. I told him about the party and the stuff I saw out the window, about how glad I was to see him on the date. Then about running in the veldt and the Reds. About what Lisa had told me, and finally, how I had figured out that they were all the bad guys.
I felt terrible, talking to Duncan. The further I got into my story, the stronger my gut feeling became: in spite of the strong connection that I felt with him, I felt like a traitor when I had told him everything. The feeling was so strong that I found myself wanting to cry all over again. I gulped a few times to get the lump down my throat.
I had told my story, but I felt as if I had just betrayed myself.
“Wow, you’ve been through a lot,” he said, smiling at me. “I think you need some more rest. I’ll get you something to help you sleep.”
“No, I don’t like sleeping pills, thanks.” Didn’t I tell him about that? I was sure that I had.
“Does your leg hurt?”
“It is throbbing, yes. But I’ll be fine.”
There was movement elsewhere in the apartment. Then the door opened and Bridget walked into the room. She had the same smirk on her face as before.
“Valerie, meet my girlfriend. Or no, you have met before, I believe? This is Angela.”
“Angela? I thought... wow, did I think wrong! I thought you drugged me in hospital and tried to hold me captive! And here you are, Duncan’s girlfriend. To think that I jumped from the window for nothing. Silly me,” I gabbled.
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 ab
solutely 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.
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“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.
***