Allison

by Strand, Jeff

  Daxton put his hand over his mouth. He closed his eyes, as if unable to go on.

  When he opened them again, Allison had a couple of really good tears trickling down her face.

  “Is the baby going to be all right?” she asked.

  Daxton didn’t answer.

  They sat in silence.

  Daxton composed himself. “The way they explained it, if you hadn’t been there, it could’ve been a whole lot worse, but she also might have caught herself or landed on her knees. It was the jolt, basically. Too much of an impact on the top half of her body instead of her legs. I still don’t completely understand it. I felt like you saved her. But that’s not what the doctors said. They gave me a written report but, I don’t know, it’s just hard for me to focus on anything right now.”

  Allison’s entire body was quivering. It was difficult for Daxton not to crack a smile.

  “So she had a miscarriage. I mean, I don’t know what to tell you, I wish I had better news. It’s just what happened. Thank God we listened to you when you thought something was wrong, because otherwise we wouldn’t have been at the hospital when it happened. That’s one good thing. I mean, my girl isn’t doing well, not at all, but at least she’s getting the care she needs. The financial stress of this whole pregnancy was keeping us up at night, but we could never imagine something like this happening.” Though Daxton wished he could summon tears, he thought he was doing a pretty good job of sounding full of heartache and despair. “I honestly don’t know what we’re going to do.”

  Allison looked so horrified, so upset, that Daxton actually felt a bit guilty.

  “I need you to leave,” she said, voice trembling.

  “I didn’t come here to point fingers,” said Daxton. “You asked me to tell you what happened, and so I’m here. You’ll never know how much I wish I could come here and say that you saved our unborn child.”

  “I need you to leave now,” said Allison. “You have to go. Please.”

  Daxton stood up. This wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. He wasn’t going to push her too hard, but he wanted to avoid a return visit if he could possibly help it.

  “I understand,” he said. “It doesn’t even feel like real life. I keep waiting to wake up from this nightmare, but it’s just not going to happen.”

  “I really need you to leave, I need you to leave now, I need you to leave my home now,” said Allison, her voice going from frantic to hysterical. “You can’t be here, you have to leave, please, you have to leave right now!”

  An invisible force slammed into Daxton.

  He hurtled across the living room for ten feet until he crashed into the wall.

  He fell to the floor, gasping for breath.

  What the fuck was that?

  His ears were ringing so loudly that he could barely hear Allison shouting that she was sorry. He got to his feet and staggered toward the door, terrified. It took him a couple of tries to grab the doorknob, but he got it open and hurried outside. He ran to his car, started the engine, and drove off.

  Allison couldn’t get up off the couch.

  She’d killed the baby!

  She was sobbing and having trouble breathing and it felt like her head might literally explode. She hoped that did happen. Let her head explode in a burst of blood and bone, preventing her from killing more babies in the future.

  Oh God, oh God, oh God...

  Spiral jumped up onto the couch. Allison gently shoved him away. She didn’t deserve to be comforted right now.

  She’d murdered their baby.

  She’d gone out in public, knowing how dangerous it was for her to be around other people, and she’d acted without thinking, and she’d murdered their unborn child.

  Those poor people were going to have a permanent hole in their lives, a tragedy from which they would never completely recover, and it was her goddamn selfish fault.

  She had no idea what Daxton was planning to do. Maybe come back with an angry torch-wielding mob. Burn down her house while she sat here, unable to get up off the couch.

  She just sat there, crying and trying to keep Spiral from snuggling her.

  Finally she leaned forward and vomited all over her lap. And though she was in a bad, dark place right now, she wasn’t going to sit here with puke all over her sweatpants. She stood up, immediately got dizzy, and dropped back onto the couch. When her vision cleared again, she got back up and successfully walked into the kitchen.

  She hadn’t planned to walk into the kitchen. It was simply where her legs took her. She walked over to one of the drawers and pulled it open.

  Allison had plenty of knives in there.

  She had at least a half-dozen that would do the trick. She knew where to cut—she wouldn’t do it across the wrists, like an amateur.

  She picked up one of them. The sharpest. Made in Japan. It even had a Japanese symbol on the blade, though she didn’t know what it meant.

  Allison put the knife back in the drawer without touching it to her flesh. She tried to tell herself that she was doing it for Spiral, because the cat needed somebody to care for it, even a monster like her, but she was doing it for herself. She didn’t want to die, even if she deserved to be removed from the world.

  She had no idea what to do.

  She knew where the couple lived. She could find them by waiting outside of their building, or by going door to door until she found the right apartment. But what could she do? What could she say? He’d mentioned their financial woes, but what was she going to do, try to pay them off for their tragic loss? “Sorry I killed your baby. What’s your PayPal address?”

  They probably didn’t want to see her.

  Was Daxton calling the police? Was he vowing to never speak of what had happened, since it couldn’t possibly be real? Was he driving home to grab a shotgun?

  Allison hated the idea of being reactive, but that seemed like the smartest approach. Try to get herself under control as she waited to see what happened. If he returned, maybe they could discuss things in a much calmer manner.

  At least she hadn’t killed him.

  God, what if she’d broken his neck? The woman would’ve lost her baby and her baby’s father, all because of her.

  Allison went into her bedroom and changed out of her sweatpants and into a pair of jeans. She’d message Jamison and tell him she needed the rest of the day off. Then maybe she’d walk around outside, staying close enough to the house that she could hear a car approach, and try to work through the horror and the self-loathing.

  After almost driving off the road twice, Daxton pulled off to the side so that he could compose himself.

  The bruises had mostly faded from his beating two weeks ago, so he wasn’t happy that a whole new set would replace them, but his real concern right now was: what the fuck had happened?

  He hadn’t simply imagined her flinging him across the room. Even when he occasionally indulged in a mind-altering substance—which he hadn’t since Maggie got knocked up—he wouldn’t hallucinate something like that. If he truly, desperately needed to come up with a logical real-world-physics explanation, the best he could do was guess that she’d set some sort of trap with clear fishing line, which yanked him across the room and into the wall. That explanation was so stupid that he was going with the paranormal one.

  That bitch had flung him across the room without touching him.

  She hadn’t wanted to do it. In fact, she’d actively tried to get him to leave.

  Suddenly her behavior outside their apartment building made more sense. Instead of being happy that she’d stopped Maggie from falling, she’d been worried that she’d harmed the baby with her...telepathic powers? No, telepathic was like ESP. Tele-something. It didn’t matter.

  A woman who could do something like that might be pretty damn useful.

  This could be the opportunity to get himself back in Winlaw’s good graces.

  Daxton took out his phone and made a call.

  8

  “I need h
elp with a kidnapping,” Daxton told Mick over the phone. They’d worked together on a few jobs. He was a reliable guy. “There aren’t any neighbors, so we don’t have to worry about that part, but we have to do it quick. Break in, grab her, and get out.”

  “Did you clear this with Winlaw?”

  “I’m delivering her to him, but he wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain it to him now. I need to take her someplace secure and verify some stuff first.”

  “I don’t know,” said Mick. “That could bring a lot of heat. It needs to go through Winlaw.”

  “There’s no heat. She’s a nobody. We’re not starting any kind of gang war. It’s just a bizarre situation and I need to make sure I can explain it correctly. You have my word, Winlaw will be delighted with the end product, but I can’t bring him into the loop quite yet.”

  “Winlaw isn’t delighted very often.”

  “I hear that, believe me. Trust me on this one. If I try to tell him about it, he’ll say that I’m out of my mind, but once I show him what she can do, I’ll be golden. We’ll both be golden.”

  “What can she do?”

  “Seriously, you just have to trust me on this one. Are you in?”

  “Yeah, I’m in.”

  “Do you have Chloroform? Or do you have tranquilizer darts? That would be even better.”

  “I’ll see what I can dig up.”

  “Perfect, thank you.” Daxton gave him the address and hung up. Then he called Maggie.

  “How’d it go?” she asked.

  “I didn’t get any money out of her, but it might be even better than we thought. I’ll explain everything later. It’s gonna be good.”

  “How did she react?”

  “You said you didn’t want the details.”

  “I know. Just give me...you’re right, I don’t want to know. Give me the high level version.”

  “She wasn’t happy.”

  “How upset was she?” Maggie asked.

  “Look, either you want to be shielded from it or you don’t. I’ll tell you what’s going on later. I’m not sure when I’ll be home.”

  “All right. Be careful.”

  “I always am.”

  Daxton hung up. He rotated his shoulder, which was really sore but didn’t seem to be seriously injured. He obviously couldn’t bring Allison to his apartment, but there were a couple of places he could store her. He’d get the evidence of her abilities on video, then present it to Mr. Winlaw. Boom! Redemption!

  His phone rang. Winlaw. Shit.

  “This is Daxton,” he said.

  “Are you a fucking idiot?” Winlaw asked.

  Daxton immediately broke into a cold sweat. “No, sir.”

  “I just spoke with Mick. When people who work for me are asked to keep secrets from me, the smart and loyal ones know to report that immediately. Unless I’m remembering incorrectly, we had a bit of a problem not too long ago. Surely you would not be so stupid as to risk enraging me when you’re already on the thinnest ice imaginable.”

  Daxton hoped he at least lived long enough to kill Mick. “Sir, please, I swear to God that I wasn’t trying to screw you over. It’s completely the opposite. I just—I just had this opportunity come up, one that could make you lots of money, but I didn’t want to come to you until I knew exactly what I had to offer.”

  “Sounds like bullshit.”

  “It’s not. I swear it’s not. You can’t honestly believe that I’d try to screw you over right now.”

  “It completely defies credibility,” said Winlaw. “So imagine my surprise to have Mick call to say that you’d asked him to keep a secret from me, and imagine my further surprise that you haven’t denied it.”

  “There’s this lady,” Daxton said, trying to keep his voice steady. “She could be valuable.”

  “Valuable how?”

  What the hell was Daxton supposed to say? That she had magic powers? That would enrage Winlaw even further. Daxton needed to be able to prove what Allison could do before he handed her over.

  Think! C’mon, think!

  “She came into a lot of money. From a bank job about a decade ago. With proper motivation, I’m sure she’ll say where the cash is hidden.”

  “And you were going to share this with me?”

  “Yes! Of course!”

  “You know somebody who can tell you where a very large sum of money is hidden, and you were going to kidnap her to make her reveal this information, and even though you told Mick not to tell me about it, you had every intention of sharing this big score with me. Am I understanding correctly?”

  Fuck! That had been a terrible cover story. What had he been thinking?

  He needed to call Maggie immediately. Tell her to run. Winlaw might have already sent his goons after her.

  “Mr. Winlaw—”

  “Enough. You’re insulting my intelligence. This is going to be horrible for you, Daxton. Do you know the sensation you’re feeling right now? The one where your body isn’t consumed with unbearable, excruciating agony? Don’t get used to it. I’m not a skilled enough wordsmith to describe just how awful the end of your life is going to be, so use your imagination. Go ahead and run. It’ll be that much more satisfying when we catch you.”

  Daxton’s hand was perspiring so heavily that he almost dropped the phone. “It’s not like that at all. It’s not. I’ll come clean, okay? I’ll tell you exactly what happened.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “This lady, she threw me across her living room without touching me. I swear it’s true. I swear it’s true. I wouldn’t make something like this up. I flew ten, twelve feet across the room and smashed into the wall. She’s tele-something. I don’t know the word.”

  “Telekinetic?”

  “Yes! That!”

  “You should have stuck with the other story,” said Winlaw.

  “No, no, no, no, no, it’s true. I knew you wouldn’t believe me. You shouldn’t believe me. Nobody should believe me. That’s why I needed to kidnap her first. So I could prove it. So you wouldn’t think I was insulting your intelligence. It’s true. Send Mick out here. I’m not running anywhere. We’ll catch her, we’ll bring her someplace safe, and I’ll prove it. I’m not trying to scam you. Send Mick. I’ll prove it, you’ll see.”

  “You’re telling me that you have a telekinetic woman, and your plan was to kidnap her, and deliver her to me?”

  “Yes! Exactly! A woman who can do that, who knows how valuable she’d be to you? Who knows what else she can do?”

  “Congratulations, Daxton. You’ve captured my interest.”

  “Thank you. Thank you, sir.”

  “I was going to leave Maggie out of this. I’m not in the habit of torturing pregnant women to death. If you’re lying to me, if you make a run for it, you will watch her suffer an unimaginable fate before something even worse happens to you. I mean unimaginable. I’ll have to do it myself, because I can’t pay anybody enough to make it worth living with the memory of what they’ve done.”

  Daxton totally believed him.

  “So,” Winlaw continued, “I’m going to give you the chance to keep her out of it and admit that you were trying to pull one over on me. If you want to stick to the telekinetic woman story, your girlfriend becomes fully involved. What’s your decision?”

  “I’m telling you the truth,” Daxton insisted.

  “All right. Then I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I don’t believe for one second that you’re going to kidnap a woman with telekinetic abilities, but I’ll be interested to see what you do deliver to me.”

  “You’ll be impressed, I promise.” It was entirely possible that Allison would refuse to demonstrate her abilities no matter how many blades he jammed underneath her fingernails, or that she simply couldn’t perform on command, but Daxton wouldn’t worry about that right now.

  “We’ll see.”

  Daxton didn’t want to work with that asshole Mic
k, even if he’d been driven purely by self-preservation. “This isn’t a one-person job. It’s okay for me to call somebody to help out, right?”

  “I’ll send Forrest to assist you,” said Winlaw.

  “Forrest? No.”

  “After all this, you think you have a choice?”

  “Come on, Mr. Winlaw. Why him?”

  “Forrest is excellent at what he does.”

  “He’s creepy as hell,” said Daxton. “It skeeves me out to be around him. I have to take a shower afterward.”

  “Oh my goodness gracious, I’m so very sorry that he makes you uncomfortable. He’s nearby and I trust him. If you’d come to me in the first place, you could have your pick of partners.”

  “Anybody but Forrest. Literally anybody else will be fine. He’ll fuck it up just by being himself.”

  “I’d like you to stop arguing with me now, Daxton.”

  “All right. Fine. Send Forrest. The address is—”

  “Mick already gave me the address.”

  “Of course he did.”

  “Stay put. Forrest will be there soon.” Winlaw hung up.

  Daxton wiped his forehead. It wasn’t just his hands—his entire body was drenched in sweat. This was too much at once. The mind wasn’t designed to cope with proof of the supernatural and Winlaw’s anger so close to each other.

  He’d be okay. This would work out. It had to.

  He’d make sure Forrest understood that this wasn’t a normal kidnapping victim, and they’d move with maximum efficiency.

  He turned the car back around so he could keep an eye on Allison’s house while he waited.

  9

  Allison paced around the house. Her home was suffocating her, but she didn’t want to leave until Jamison had given his okay for her to take the rest of the day off. So she just walked quickly from room to room, occasionally glancing at her work computer to see if he’d responded yet.

  She wished she could talk to somebody about this.