by Cassi Gray
CHAPTER TEN
As if I thought Jeremy was still watching me, and not wanting to disappoint him, I didn’t cower into the corner of the elevator and whimper in damsel in distress fashion. I didn’t put my hands up in front of my face like that would somehow prevent the bullets from ripping apart my suddenly paper Mache like skin. There was no need, and it would be pointless to do so anyway.
Instead I raised my head to look down my nose at them, squared my shoulders, set my jaw and focused on the men, rather than the quarter sized black holes that were hovering at the ends of long barrels.
Long barrels that were pointed, unwaveringly, at me.
If there was ever a time that I really did miss Jeremy and wanted him to harm someone, now was the time. I refrained from calling out to him this time because I knew he wasn’t there. I could feel he wasn’t here to save me anymore. I was on my own now.
Me and my wrinkled clothes, disheveled hair and twitching nostrils as I desperately fought the urge to giggle. I knew that if I let lose the laughter, I would also be freeing the madness that was no longer tip-toeing around my shaky house of sanity. It was full on beating the front door down with bone jarring slams.
There was no getting out of this one.
The guns were trained on me with a steadiness that implicated professionals. That only made my house of sanity shudder under the relentless onslaught of delirium. As the men peered in at me, my walls began to crack and my chest began to rise and fall in quick bursts, I felt my stomach twitch with the release of the laughter before I actually heard the maddening sound escape my lips.
If anything, I prayed they would think I was crazy and keep moving, I was no threat to them, so I let the laughter continue, not that I could have stopped it at this point anyway.
Thank God Jeremy wasn’t here after all.
One of the men crossed the threshold and moved into the space with me, in such a fluid-like manner that it made me think I had imagined it, and then another one followed.
Crying and screams drifted on the air into the elevator and I tilted my head up and to the side as if to catch the sounds better with my ear. There were people in pain, and judging by the wails and the condition of the lobby, there were people that were dead as well.
“Ma’am?” The man closest to me was calling to me. His gun was lowered now and he studied my face with his vibrantly green eyes. They were set perfectly on his slightly tanned face. A few golden brown wisps of hair peeped out at me with wide-eyed fascination from under his black military style helmet.
I took a step back from him, my bubbling giggle fest subsiding. With the lunacy filled intruder withdrawing from within me, I was able to sweep up some remnants of logical thinking and look closer at this man, and then the others.
They all wore identical midnight black clothes, with the only skin showing, being their vastly different faces. Brown eyes, blue, and green all stared back at me with I thought to be cautious concern. Hugging their equally size varying torsos were what looked like black padded vests, heavy duty pockets with Velcro lids decorated the outside of these vests. All of the other’s hair color were hidden from under the same black, cloth covered military style helmets.
At this point all of their guns were pointed to the ground, and I could now see a word written across their chest.
SWAT
Those defining bold white letters were covered by their raised guns when I had first seen the men moments before. I blinked at the letters, and finally let my body relax. I slumped to such a degree the green-eyed man closest to me reached out to lend his support.
I thanked him by smiling at him and took hold of his gloved hand. He had a strong, and firm grip as his fingers wrapped around my hand, he pulled me closer to him and watched with intent eyes as I stepped, to make sure I was stable.
“Are you okay?” He asked me. His voice was warm and caring, nothing spectacular like one would dream her savior would have, or like Jeremy’s, but I still smiled at the concern that had leaked into his tone. He was a protector of the innocent, so it was his job and duty, but he seemed to be taking it above and beyond what was expected of him. And I appreciated it like no other.
“I’m fine,” I paused and listened to the drifting sounds of what I thought a warzone would sound like, “What happened?”
Mr. Green Eyes’ steady gaze wavered ever so slightly, he looked back at his comrades, who began to look at the ground, fiddle with their uniforms, or look behind them with great despair at the lobby.
“I can answer her questions.”
We all turned to look at the newcomer. He was a tall man, with jet black hair and deep brown eyes that scanned each one of us with a cold and calculating manner. He held himself in such a way that I immediately knew he was someone of great importance. Outfitted in a graphite gray business suit, with a stark white shirt, and black tie, he looked in at me with such a darkly lined, suspicious curiosity that I wanted to hold onto the hand of Green Eyes and ask him to walk with me like a father might do for his daughter’s first day of school.
His presence itself didn’t make me uncomfortable, but I certainly wasn’t willing to take his hand when he outstretched it, like I did Mr. Green Eyes.
Following this new man, battered high heels in tow, I glanced back and watched as the SWAT team members dispersed, allowing myself one last glimpse of the one with the eyes that I would remember forever. He stopped, turned to face me, and lifted the corners of his mouth in a small smile that made the evening seem brighter despite the events that had unfolded.
I turned my attention back to the task at hand, and realized that the graphite suit wrapped man had stopped in front of me just a few feet away. He was in the doorway of one of the conference rooms that was situated further back from the horror stricken lobby. He motioned for me to pass him, and proceed into the room. I obliged and took a seat at the table.
While he closed the door behind him, I looked around at the room and realized that it hadn’t been touched by the chaos that had consumed the lobby, which allowed me to relax a little.
“So tell me, what’s your name?” He asked me as he sat down. I noticed now how large this man was. He was sitting across the table from me, but I had to look up to meet his fixed stare.
“My name is Cordelia.”
“I wish we could have met under different circumstances Cordelia, but my name is Detective Halloway,” he extended his long arm, and offered his hand to me again, “Detective Mark Halloway.”
When I didn’t move to take him up on his hand shake offer, he reeled his arm back in and sat back in his chair. We stared at each other for a few quiet moments. He tapped on the tabletop with a pen that must have materialized out of thin air because I hadn’t noticed him pull it out of any pockets.
“I’m sure you want to know what happened.”
“Yes.” I responded before he could get the period on the end of his statement.
He smiled at me, with a crooked, but endearing smile.
“Alright, fair enough. The building was attacked,” He studied my face before he continued, “By what I believe to be a group of extremists hell bent on convincing the non-extremists that civilization is collapsing.”
“Why would they attack this building?”
He ignored my question, and continued with his theory of who, and why, the building was attacked.
“A perfect way to show that civilization is crumbling is to take down one of the building blocks, the economy,” he paused briefly to allow me to reflect on understanding of the ‘why’ for attacking this building in particular, “By setting off an explosion in a major bank, they had high hopes of pushing that building block over. As if the economy struggling wasn’t good enough for them, they wanted to give it another push.”
After seven years of working in the same building, I all but forgot about the biggest bank in our nation that swallowed up the entire bottom floor. That would certainly explain the bomb-going-off look of the glass walls and marble floors in the lobb
y, but that didn’t account for the bullet holes that toyed with telling a different story.
“What about the bullet holes?” I asked, not sure if I would get ignored again or not.
“Naturally, when there’s a terrorist attack, we respond.”
“So you killed them all?” I wasn’t surprised by my question, anyone who could do such a thing to innocent people would get no compassion from me. I suddenly thought about the picture of the murderous woman that Jeremy showed me. Clearly the happy and innocent faces of those that these people killed meant nothing to them, so why should I care about them?
Rather than answering my question, he responded with a question of his own.
“Tell me Cordelia, where have you been all day?”
“In the elevator.” I had no reason to lie to this man, unless he asked me if I was talking to a disembodied voice name Jeremy, then I would test his human lie detecting skills.
“The entire time?”
“Yes, I was trapped in there. Why didn’t anyone try to get me out?” I raised my voice at him, a hint of anger and distraught stabbed through my tone.
“We didn’t know there was anyone in that elevator, all of the other cars were recalled to the lobby floor…” his voice trailed off as he remembered something.
“You should be thankful yours malfunctioned and wasn’t recalled, those that were in the other elevators were killed the moment the doors opened. The extremists shot first, and didn’t ask questions later.”
I held fast to my strength that I regained ever since stepping out of the elevator, for the room tipped to one side and my stomach and other organs flopped along with it. Instinctively my hands balled up into fists on my lap, scrunching up the wrinkled cloth of my black skirt. I fought back tears with every ounce of determined self-control that I could kick up, I did not want to cry in front of this man. I would reserve that right for when I was alone.
The memory of the man on top of my elevator rushed back to me with blinding power, I sucked in air as a hurried breath while I heard his descending scream all over again. If he wasn’t someone to rescue me, who was he?
“There was a man, when I was trapped in the elevator, I heard him on the roof,” I paused, it was my turn to allow him time to reflect on something I was saying, “He must have lost his footing, because I heard him screaming as he fell. If he wasn’t one of your men…” I let my voice trail off, sure that the detective was a smart man and knew what I was asking, without me having to ask it.
His faced had changed from a grim bearer of bad news, to a man who had just heard a piece of news that solved a miniature puzzle in his head. Something clicked inside him as that piece snapped into place in-between its snuggly fitting neighbors. The expression lasted only a moment, and then his business face was back on.
I had a feeling I just witnessed a rare occurrence.
“He was not one of our men. He must have been one of the extremists.”
This didn’t make any sense to me. I still had no idea why that man was on the roof of my elevator.
“Why was he up there?”
Detective Halloway shrugged, and I felt like a shadow would be cast upon me with the lumbering movement of his broad shoulders rising and falling.
“I’m a detective, miss, not a terrorist. I don’t know why they do what they do.”
“I’m sure they would claim you are the terrorist.”
His eyes narrowed at me and the room felt ten degrees cooler, realizing my badly chosen words I added, “What with their agenda of taking down the government and causing the collapse of civilization, I’m sure they dislike law enforcement and all.”
I exhaled a breath of relief when the door to the room opened and Mr. Green Eyes poked his helmet laden head in at us. He looked straight at Halloway and addressed him as sir.
“We’ve got another problem,” he hesitated because of me, “We have a live one in another room,” turning his stern gaze to me, I watched it soften as he flicked another one of those smiles my way, he nodded and added, “Ma’am.”
And then he was gone.
Detective Halloway stood up, “Well, miss, it looks like you’ve been spared further questioning for now.”
He nodded at me in the same manner as Green Eyes and motioned toward the door with one of his giant hands, permitting me access to leave.
It didn’t take me long to scoot my chair out, stand up and leave the room. In a whirl of black, blonde, tan and white I moved past the detective into the hallway.
I heard his voice call out after me, “Cordelia, if you could please leave your contact information with my partner, he’s standing outside, so I can follow-up with you regarding the man who fell, I would greatly appreciate it.”
Now that was clever. He had no intentions of discussing the falling man with me any further, but he also knew that I couldn’t fight the curiosity of an opportunity to learn more. Even if I knew there was no such opportunity.
I left my contact information with his partner.