by L J K Cross
Alexander did not flinch in the face of Amanda’s fury. The more irate she became the calmer he became, making Amanda all the more enraged.
“So naïve,” laughed Alexander.
“Did you really think that there were be no consequences to obtaining your dream? Did you really think that it would all just be handed to you on a plate? You did after all say that you agreed to everything, to all my terms and conditions, did you not?”
Amanda’s mind flashed back to their meeting in Las Vegas, to that heady, hedonistic evening of hazy recollections and blurry images. She did vaguely recall giving unconditional consent but she hadn’t wanted this. She would never have consented if she could have foreseen such depravity and misery, such duplicity and deceit.
“I would never have consented if I had known your real agenda,” explained Amanda hesitantly. “I don’t want to be Ms World Body Builder anymore. No dream is worth this amount of sacrifice.”
“It doesn’t work like that. You don’t get to choose when this ends. I choose. After all, I have kept my end of the bargain have I not?”
Alexander moved threateningly closer, taking a lock of Amanda’s hair between his fingers and twisting it with malevolent intent.
“And you my dear will keep your promise.”
He paused briefly to let the weight of his words sink in, to allow Amanda to contemplate the depth of the pit in which she was submerged.
“I will allow you several days rest but then I will expect you back in training for the competition. Quitting is not an option. I will not let you ruin my plans.”
“Now get out of my sight. I don’t want to look at that disgusting disfigurement for a second longer,” he bellowed.
Amanda was more than happy to comply. The feeling of abhorrence was mutual. She didn’t want to just get away from him. She wanted to get as far away from this living hell as possible. She no longer cared about consequences. She had to escape no matter what it took, no matter what the price.
CHAPTER 26
Amanda was sat back in the armchair, another sleepless night awaiting her, afraid to go to sleep, afraid what the morning would bring. So she was left to languish alone, as she had been for most of the day, staring despondently into the fireplace, with only her dark disturbing thoughts to keep her company.
She hadn’t eaten all day. She felt too sick from the pain in her arm, too sick of this interminably nightmarish existence from which she could see no way out. There had been a brief visit from her trainer and masseuse but they had offered very little in the way of sympathy or consolation. Their intention only seemed to have been to torture her further as they prodded and poked and pulled with glee but her bicep was now too painful even to touch. There was no way in hell that she would recuperate sufficiently to be back training in several days time as Alexander was expecting. If this information had been relayed to Alexander, and Amanda was pretty certain that it would be, then he wasn’t sufficiently concerned to visit her himself. Amanda wasn’t remotely surprised. The scales of delusion had now well and truly fallen from her eyes. From the outset he had neither cared nor been concerned about her. He wasn’t capable of any emotion. She had always been a mere object for his sexual gratification, a pawn for him to manipulate as he played his sadistically twisted game. But she had never agreed to play along. How could she have agreed when the rules had never been explained? She had been tricked. The odds had been stacked against her from the start and as such there was only ever going to be one inevitable winner.
But now she had gone and spoilt the game and ruined everything. Amanda knew there would be a price to pay for her foolish rejection of Alexander, for the carelessness that had caused her injury. Although she had not seen Alexander since that morning, she had felt the fear that gripped her trainer and masseuse. There was a palpable tension in the air, a seismic undercurrent of wrath and vengeance that tremored under foot, portending disaster and destruction. Amanda knew she had to come up with a plan to escape Alexander and this hell. She knew her very existence depended on it. But the walls of her prison seemed impenetrable, fortified in their resolve to keep her imprisoned her against her will, abandoned to vanish into the evanescence.
Amanda derived no comforting warmth from the roaring flames of the fireplace into which she stared. She stared so hard and so long, it felt like she was falling head first into the flaming pit. As it grew darker outside, so did her thoughts. The ice pack on her bicep had melted long ago but not the ice in her heart. The blood in her veins was frozen. No amount of flaming heat was able to thaw her and so she remained rigid and resolute. The only sign of life was the hatred that blazed in her eyes. A flicker of the loathing that ran much deeper than just her hatred of Alexander. It was a loathing that consumed her entirely – a most destructive loathing of herself.
Outside a savage storm was causing chaos, hurling suicidal sheets of rain at the window. The wind unleashed howls so harrowing that broken branches scratched at the windowpane, desperate to evade its torturous clutches. Hell itself must have opened its gates and sent all its demons here. But Amanda was deaf to their tormented cries. There was a much more violent tempest raging inside her. Her mind was set adrift, being tossed on tumultuous waves. With each dark and destructive wave of thought she drifted closer to being smashed into the rocks and wrecked. She had already lost everything. She had lost Steve, her dream, maybe even her sanity. She no longer knew if she was awake or dreaming, what was real and what was false. All lines of distinction had been blurred and confused. She had certainly lost all hope for the future. Whereas not so long ago she had aspirations and ambitions to strive for, now she had only the despair of being imprisoned in this living nightmare. The future that lay ahead was broken, already abandoned: a cruel unrepentant reminder of having sacrificed everything only to be left with nothing.
Amanda felt the claustrophobic darkness closing in around her. The flames in the fireplace provided no illumination or clarity. It felt like a premonition of the future; an endless uncertainty through which Amanda would be left to stumble in isolated abandonment. The future would be punishing, cruel and unforgiving, the inevitable price that must be paid for falling prey to her vices. Amanda retraced the route she had taken in pursuing her dream: the path she had willingly trod convinced that every avenue should be explored regardless of the cost. Now though as she looked back down the road she had travelled she saw only sin and selfishness, solitude and sacrifice. She had been greedy, slothful even, in wanting to make maximum gains the easiest way possible. She had repeatedly put her own needs before everyone else’s, especially Steve. She had allowed Alexander to play to her pride and now she realised just how easily she had played along. As Amanda acknowledged each and every sin she had committed, the flames in the fire roared higher and higher, reaching to pull her down into their flaming inferno.
How could she ever have been so foolish, so naïve, to think that cowardice was the worst of all vices? Would she have been cowardly if she had exercised a certain caution rather than throw it with courageous abandon to the wind? It had been much easier to give into the tempting urges of greed and vanity and convince herself that they were a necessary evil in pursuing her dream. Amanda saw now that the only trick Alexander had pulled was to present her with her own weaknesses. She had capitulated so easily. She was no better than he. She was just as steeped in sin, just as deserving of damnation.
She felt like she was already in hell, her own private hell, all alone with her tormenting thoughts in this frozen darkness. Was it too late to repent? She now saw the error of her ways. She now realized that chasing her dream had not been worth all the sacrifice and sin. That somewhere along the way she had gotten lost and been blinded to the things that truly mattered. Amanda knew that no amount of repentance would bring back the happiness and the love that she had lost and that made her regret all the more heartfelt. She repented from the depths of her soul. Oh God how she repented!
Her sacrifice of the love she had shared with Stev
e had left a gaping hole in her heart, a hole that would have bled if only it had been capable. But her heart was empty. There was no blood to bleed. Just as there were no tears left to cry for forgiveness for what she had done to him. Amanda instinctively reached out to her copy of The Master and Margarita. It was always close to hand. The previous night Amanda had placed Steve’s note between its pages for safekeeping. She needed to re read his words. She prayed that through his words she would hear his voice, guiding her and giving her strength as he had always done when times had been tough. She had never experienced anything as tough as this. She needed his guidance now more than ever.
Amanda opened the book and flicked with frantic dismay from page to page until she reached the final page and knew it truly was the end. Her last shred of sanity was erased on those blank pages. All that was left was the red wine stain that ran through its empty pages as if her heart had spilt on its pages and now there was nothing left. The blank pages of the book sent Amanda reeling. It was as if her own life story had been erased, as if she had never existed. She no longer doubted her sanity. She knew her derangement was complete and beyond doubt. She flung the cursed pages into the fire and watched the flames leap up to grab the condemned article but it would not burn. Instead it remained in the midst of the flames, its pages untouched, its story, Amanda’s story and its repercussions, destined to remain for eternity.
Amanda stared in horror. She heard a voice, perhaps human, perhaps of another world, maybe her own or maybe a figment of her imagination.
“Manuscripts don’t burn,” it whispered so loudly that the flames reared up in surprise. The mystical energy of the flames had brought the words of the book to life.
In her terror stricken trance Amanda saw the final part of her nightmare revealed before her. The final piece of crazy jigsaw fell into place, solving all those sleepless nights puzzling over the meaning of her recurring nightmare. Her mind flashed back to that fateful night when she had placed her hands on top of the book and sworn to forsake everything and give herself completely to Alexander in pursuit of her dream. He had placed his hands on top of hers, their pact sealed with their blood that ran through its pages. She had sealed her fate then and there. She had made her choice. There could be no turning back. The story had come true. The words had slipped from the pages where they were merely read to becoming reality – Manuscripts don’t burn. This manuscript would never burn!
Amanda flung herself in despair at the glass door. Her only thought was to escape this evil place. Hurtling through the glass doors, Amanda ran barefoot down the rain soaked stone steps, slipping, stumbling and skipping steps as she went but continuing her desperate flight. She ran a running battle with the elements that seemingly had been summoned to stand guard and prevent her escape. The stinging rain stabbed, the glacial gusts of wind burnt her lungs as thunder and lightning volleyed through the night sky like cannon balls. But still she ran, unfeeling, totally fearless. Bathed in the illuminating white light of a full moon, she struck a spectral figure, pale, fading into the distance, already disappearing from this life. Driven to wild ramblings by the blinding light of the full moon, Amanda repeated over and over again “Oh God! What have I done? What have I done?” as she ran but her cries were struck down and silenced by the battling elements.
Amanda ran till she could run no further. She stood on the banks of the Neva broken, battered, beside herself. She didn’t flinch as soaked tendrils of hair whipped at her like a cat-’o-nine-tails. Self-flagellation was a deserved penitence for her sinful ways. The sight of civilization across the waters, lively and bustling, a reminder of what was now lost to her forever, seemed just punishment. Only from her isolated hell was Amanda now able to see the multitude of angels that permanently beat their wings of protection over the city. She had never before stopped to look up from her busy life and take time to appreciate the statues of angels that adorned St Isaacs cathedral, or the guiding angel that stood atop the Alexander column. People rarely did and usually only in times of desperation. But now she saw gilded crosses and golden angels reigning supreme over the St Petersburg skyline. They had always been there but she had been too blind to see.
Tears mixed with rain running down Amanda’s face. She dropped to her knees as sorrowful sobs wracked her body. She was so sorry for what she had done and what she was about to do. She cried for those she had hurt and she cried for herself and her condemned soul but there seemed no other way out. To remain here, in this hell, was too torturous a damnation. Her ghoulish reflection peered up from the dark depths of the river, beckoning to her, begging her to put an end to her suffering. The diamond necklace that Alexander had given to her on that fateful night hung like a dead weight around her neck determined to drag her down to a watery grave. Amanda grabbed at it wanting to rip the offending necklace off and fling it into the fast flowing waters. She wanted to watch it sink into the diminishing dark depths and imagine her own demise. She hoped to prolong her punishment by previewing her death moments before it happened.
“Amanda! Stop!” She jumped up, taking her hand away from the necklace, leaving it burdensome, almost burning, around her neck and turned to seek out the beseeching voice. At first all she could see was an outline shrouded in darkness but as the enigmatic figure strode boldly towards her, it gradually stepped further into the light and revealed itself.
“Koroviev,” gasped Amanda. He was the last person on earth she would have expected to be there for her in her moment of dire need. It took a few seconds before her shock was overcome with fear. She knew what he was capable of.
“Go away, you…you beast! Don’t you dare come near me,” she screamed hysterically, the tears now flooding her cheeks. The force of her words was carried away by the wind. They had no effect as Koroviev continued to come nearer.
“Listen to me Amanda.” His voice sounded different. It warmed and captivated, engaging its listener, imbuing them with conviction and faith. He spoke and the raging winds calmed to a gentle breeze. He stretched out his arms to her and the rain relented.
“It doesn’t have to end like this. You still have a choice.”
“I said don’t come near me,” she screamed more manically.
“This is the end. It is all over,” she shouted defiantly. “I don’t have a choice anymore. I have lost everything and you are as much to blame as anyone,” she spat resentfully.
“You are wrong. Let me explain,” implored Koroviev. Amanda noticed the difference in his voice, in his face, in his whole demeanour. They no longer filled with terror. He no longer fixed you with a threatening look but Amanda paid little attention such was her loathing for him.
“What? Are you going to explain why you had Steve’s note? You dropped it the other day and I found it. I read it. He had come to rescue me and take me away from this hell but you put a stop to that didn’t you? What have you done with him? Explain that to me you cruel bastard.”
“Steve is safe, believe me.”
“Believe you,” laughed Amanda “Why should I believe you Koroviev? Why should I trust a word you say when you work for that demon?”
“My name is not Koroviev.”
Amanda was about to continue with her scornful condemnation but this revelation stopped her in her tracks.
“I go by various names and work under various guises but I only serve one master. I have never worked for Alexander. I have always worked for a much greater cause and everything I did, everything I have ever done, was done for a reason,” stated Koroviev pleadingly.
“What possible reason could there be for all this treachery and deceit?” Amanda grasped at her head and shook it vigorously as if trying to shake away all her questions and doubts.
“Nothing makes any sense. Nothing seems real. It is all I have left. Nothing!”
Amanda slumped to the ground, letting her head hang in the mud, despairing of her delusions.
Amanda felt two large strong arms lift her up. She looked up and saw Koroviev transformed. His face was
etched in kindness and wisdom. His aura warmed Amanda’s beaten heart and filled it with hope. He shone with a light other than the waning light of the moon. He shone with a celestial glow that illuminated all before him now and forever.
He spoke and now Amanda listened and believed his every word.
“There is always a reason and there is always a choice.” He spoke in hallowed tones.
“I had to stop Steve. It was necessary for you to make your own decisions and find your own way. It was necessary for you to see the error of your ways but I was always there watching over you and keeping you safe.’
“It didn’t feel like it,’ said Amanda quietly. “It still doesn’t feel like it.”
“I know that I sinned and gave into temptation. I know that I made cowardly choices. I know I deserve to be punished.”
“You did sin. You did give into temptation. You did make cowardly choices.” Koroviev’s tone was not reproaching but understanding and encouraging.
“Evil works under the shroud of dark deceit always waiting to take advantage any way it can. It is necessary to uncover the workings of evil and reveal its true malevolent cruelty. Sometimes you have to stare evil in the face, court and encourage it, walk hand in hand with it, as I have often had to do, in the knowing that once exposed to the light it will be seen in all its ugliness. Only then can man make a real choice.”
Koroviev took Amanda’s hand in his and she felt his strength. She felt his courageous warmth flow into her.
“You made cowardly choices because you didn’t believe in yourself. You didn’t have faith in yourself, but it would have been much more sinful to have done nothing. Everything you have done has been in the belief that you were bettering yourself, that you were pushing your body and mind to their limits. You appreciate the gift that God has given you and you strive to better yourself every day. That takes courage and strength. You cant give in now to cowardice and throw all that away. You have not failed. The only failure will be if you fail to learn from your mistakes and fail to make more courageous choices in the future.”