Gone Black

by Linda Ladd

  Placing the long shard down on the sink, she tried to rip a piece of fabric off the bottom of her T-shirt but with some difficulty. When she finally got it off, she wrapped it tightly around the hilt. She held it then like a dagger and tested its weight. Then, and very gingerly, she stuck the makeshift weapon down into the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back. She stood there, looking into the cracked mirror and hoping to hell nobody searched her again.

  Now feeling a little bit better about her chances if she was forced to fight for her life, she walked back into the bedroom and pulled the single chair as far as she could under where the camera was set up. She sat down to wait, careful that the weapon at her back didn’t cut her. If they couldn’t see her, somebody would have to check out the room. Make sure she was still there. So she waited, very nervous, and spent the time preparing mentally to fight hand to hand, and possibly to the death, because that was the only chance she and Black had. But she knew her way around a fight well enough, with her fists, her feet, and her head, and now she had a very sharp weapon with which to inflict damage.

  Striving to calm the thudding of her rapid heartbeat, she envisioned every possible scenario. Who would they send to check on her? Who would she have to take down in order to get out of that room? She figured it would be Jaxy. She hoped to hell it would be Jaxy. According to Black’s reports, Jaxy was always in charge of their nasty little Phase One. That would suit Claire just fine. Jaxy was easy to rattle, as indicated by Black’s in-depth psychoanalysis. Claire had seen that on the plane. So she sat and waited, trying not to move, not to waste any energy. She breathed in deeply, practiced her yoga training, and tried to remain as calm as she could. She was going to need every drop of energy she could muster in the next few hours. Then, suddenly, up high against the ceiling above her, the television monitor flared on with a burst of crackling static. Claire jumped up and stared up at it, afraid her time had run out.

  The picture remained the fuzzy black-and-white snow for a few moments. The screen went to black, and then there was a picture, one that showed up as clear as a bell. When she saw it was Black, her heart fell hard. He was still inside that awful white room, just like before, the one with the padded walls, but this time he was free from the restraint chair and the leather shackles. He was wandering around the room aimlessly, almost staggering, as if he didn’t quite know where he was or what was going on.

  Claire stood on the chair so she could see him better. Black was reaching out with his hands now, swiping the air in front of him as if trying to find his way out. It appeared he was pushing away things that were invisible to Claire, but that he obviously thought were blocking his way. Oh, God, he must be drugged, heavily drugged, no doubt about it. She had seen lots of people high on drugs back when she worked Narcotics Division in L.A. and everywhere else she’d been a police officer. He looked haggard and ill, his clothes bloodstained and wrinkled, his face bruised up and swollen, whiskers darkening his jaw in a way that she had never seen before. He looked completely out of it, out of his mind, confused, and totally unable to defend himself against his tormentors.

  Oh, God, what had they given him? She watched him stumble around some more, and she felt absolutely ill inside. From his behavior and the way he was reacting to the drug, she was pretty sure it was some kind of a hallucinogen, angel dust or PCP, probably, or maybe even LSD. He was muttering to himself, swinging his fist now and again at nonexistent assailants, and then he cringed down against the wall and cowered there, as if trapped by a pack of vicious animals. Then she saw the door open right beside him, and the despicable Jaxy walked inside the room. The other woman looked down at Black and laughed, and then she walked over to the camera and stood with her face very close to the lens so that Claire could see her cruel eyes up close.

  “Hey, Claire. What’s up, huh? Guess you didn’t know you were going to marry a drug addict, now did you? But not to worry. Nobody’s ever going to know he’s an acid freak. Because he’s going to die right here in this room very soon, but he will suffer a great deal more than this before he gets to die that slow and horrible death that Daddy’s got planned for him. So you just enjoy the show now, okay? Maybe we’ll let you trip out with him, too. That might be entertaining for Max and me. Would you like that? Both of you addicted to the same drug. Stumbling around together like a couple of drunks. But we’ll just have to see how things work out. Bye now, darlin’. I’ve got to go slap your man around a while. Maybe I’ll make him crawl and beg when he needs the next hit.”

  Claire clenched her jaw and then her fists, her nails biting painfully into her palms as the girl held up her pink sap for Claire to see and then walked back over to Black. She watched Jaxy kneel down and grab his face between her palms. That’s when the horrible woman started kissing him hard on the mouth, and that’s when Claire almost lost it. She began to shake all over, violently, her muscles well out of control, and she was so full of fury, the kind of unbridled rage that turned red inside her brain and felt hard and bitter and terrible, building up and building up inside her like steam under a valve, fighting to explode. It took every ounce of willpower and self-control that she could muster to pull herself together and make her mind force it down.

  Then suddenly, she watched Black shove his palms against the girl’s chest and grab the sap out of her hands. He slugged Jaxy with it, right in the face, very hard, and then he hit her again in the temple with his doubled fist, so hard that she went down backward and did not get up. Then he was up on his feet and heading out the open door.

  Killing Black

  Once Black got outside his white prison, he staggered blearily down the hallway and almost fell to his knees. He was still groggy and disoriented and very weak from lack of food and water. He had been slowly coming down off the effects of the drug but had enough strength to slug Jaxy a couple of times. He had hit her hard enough to slow her down; he was sure about that much. But now he was seeing the vibrant colors again, all around him, pulsating in bright patterns and vivid stripes on the walls on both sides of him, in and out and up and down, shivering and disconcerting.

  Black shut his eyes and struggled back up on his feet, using the wall as support, and then he opened them and searched for a way out. He had to get to Claire, he kept thinking, but he was so confused he couldn’t quite focus on how to do it. But then he remembered the bedroom and the bomb, and he somehow knew he had to find her and get her out before they killed her. But he still couldn’t think straight enough to figure it out, couldn’t really see through the dancing colors. Everything was wavy and blurry as if he were trapped in an underwater cavern filled with rainbows, and his reality was so distorted that he could barely stumble along, not sure what to do or where to go.

  Whoever was manning the cameras would have spotted his escape. He did know that much. He had to find somewhere to hide. So he began to feel his way along the wall, and the stone was cool under his palms, but he was not sure where he was or where he was going, just that he had to get away and hide. The drug was still in his system and still strong enough to make him see things shift and whirl about and everything so distorted that he didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. But he had to pull himself together. He had to find Claire before they killed her.

  Black made it to the end of the hallway before he heard running feet, loud on the tiled floor. Several men. Coming straight at him. He ducked into the first room he came to. It looked like another bedroom, but one that had been converted into some kind of closet, with shelves of towels and toilet paper and cleaning supplies lining the walls. It was purple, with green frost climbing up the walls, shiny and crystallized, and thick yellow snakes slithered around on the floor around his feet.

  They’re not real, it’s your imagination, he kept telling himself over and over. Mind reeling now with total disorientation, he tried to avoid the writhing reptiles and felt along the shelves, searching for a weapon, anything, but he found nothing he could use. Then he heard the men right outside in the ha
llway, opening and shutting doors, searching for him. When his hand touched a broom propped in the corner, he sought to tear off the head and then he gripped the handle in both fists. He squatted down against the wall, ready to fight, but another strong wave of melting colors and echoing sounds took hold of his mind and made the room grow small and then expand, and then small again, a vivid flash of every color and hue glowing dim and bright, dim and bright, making him feel sick to his stomach.

  Sweating profusely, he started breathing deeply, trying to force some kind of clarity into his tortured brain, trying hard to pull himself out of the drug-induced nightmare and back to a semblance of reality. The effects had been coming in waves for what seemed like hours, violent onslaughts that wracked his perceptions and made him feel as if he were going crazy. The men were closer now. He could hear them just outside the room, and his fingers tightened around the broom handle.

  Then he heard something else, a voice behind him, and he jerked around, weapon ready to strike, and found himself staring at a child. It was the boy who had been standing in the road the night Black was captured, the little kid he had nearly run down. Or was it? He tried to think if the boy was real or another figment of his imagination. He tried to shove away the jumping blues and yellows encasing him so he could see the boy better. The kid was another hallucination. He had to be. Black had been seeing people and wild animals in his drug daze, people trying to kill him, people trying to fight with him, people who disappeared when he swung at them. The kid was not real. He couldn’t be.

  “C’mon, mister, come quick,” the little boy cried out in English.

  “What?” Black frowned and tried to blink the vision away. The boy still stood there, motioning hard for Black to follow him.

  “Claire sent me. You’ve got to come.”

  Black scrambled over on his hands and knees to where the kid stood. “Where is she? Can you get me there?”

  The boy nodded, and Black grabbed his small arms and the boy felt solid. He was real. The kid started pulling Black’s arm, trying to lead him back farther into the closet. Black let the kid pull him through the warped nightmare inside his head. But then the door to the hall was thrust open behind them, and three men were there in front of Black, grabbing him as he fought desperately to get away. One of them raised his rifle and brought the butt down hard on Black’s back. He went down, and as they grabbed him again, Black looked for the kid but the child was gone. They hadn’t gotten him. Or maybe the boy had been a hallucination after all.

  Chapter Eleven

  One floor below where Black was being brutally recaptured but on the opposite side of the fortress, Claire was jerking frantically on the doorknob, trying to dislodge the lock, force it off, and tear the door open with her bare hands. She couldn’t budge it, couldn’t get out, but Black had. He’d done it. He’d escaped and he was free! He would get away from them and he’d find her. She sank down on her heels there beside the door and listened for any sounds outside in the hall. She heard nothing. No shots, no shouting, no alarms going off. But the stone walls were very thick and insulated any noise, and she didn’t know how far away Black was being held. She hoped to God he was somewhere safe now, hiding, and that he knew where he was and how to get out. Because she sure as hell did not. Then she heard something stir behind her inside the room. She jerked around and heard somebody whispering her name.

  Jumping up, she looked at the television screen but it had gone black again. No sound at all. Nothing. Then she saw him. Little Rico. He was peering out at her through the ornate brass grate attached to the bottom of the wall beside the bed. He was beckoning for her to come over. The camera was still blinking red, filming her again. Watching her. She couldn’t let them see the boy. Claire hesitated, and then she walked over to the bed and sat down where her body would block the grate from the camera. She faced away from surveillance and spoke very softly, not sure if the camera included audio feeds. But there had been sound earlier when she’d seen Black put Jaxy out flat on the ground. Jaxy had talked to her.

  “Stay in there, Rico. You hear me? Don’t come out here because they’re watching me.”

  He did not move. She could barely make out his face through the intricate filigreed pattern on the grate.

  “I found that man named Black,” Rico whispered softly. “He got away from them, but they caught him and dragged him back.”

  Claire shut her eyes. Oh, God, no. All her hopes disintegrated into a heap of disappointment and growing despair. “Did they hurt him?”

  “Barto hit him in the back with his gun and then the one named Ronald hit him in the head.”

  “Did they take him back to that white room?”

  “Yeah. But I think he got real mixed up and stuff. He couldn’t see me very well and I think he didn’t know I was really there. He didn’t think I was real.”

  “Do you know where that room is? Where they keep him locked up?”

  “I can see him through the grate in that room, too. It’s just like this one. I can take you there if you hurry up and crawl in here with me.”

  Claire felt a tingle of hope rising up and lodging tightly at the back of her throat. She kept her voice low. “Stay right there, Rico. Don’t you move, okay? Don’t say a word. And don’t come out. Understand?”

  He nodded and quickly backed away until he faded into the darkness behind him. Claire thought about her options, decided that they were a helluva lot better off than they had been a few minutes ago. She stood up and stretched her arms over her head, rolled her head across her shoulders, acted as if she were even more dead tired than she already was. She moved to the door and flipped off the ceiling fixture. The room went dark. They couldn’t see her, not unless the camera was infrared, but it probably was. Marcel Soquet seemed pretty thorough to her. They had their murder lairs planned down to every last detail, made them into real works of evil art. But she still felt like her chances had improved considerably. If Rico could take her out through that air shaft or passage, or whatever the hell it was, she could get to Black. He had said so. Maybe even get him out through the one in his room, if they were very lucky.

  Claire moved to the bed as if intending on going to sleep, but then the TV lit up again. And there was Black, being shoved back into the white room, knocked around some by Jaxy’s two favorite henchmen. And then they had him sitting down on the floor, and Jaxy showed up, alive and well, unfortunately, and kneeling beside him, but her nose and mouth were both bleeding down the front of her white shirt. He had hurt her, big-time. But not enough to end her abuse. Jaxy got out some kind of little pouch and started forcing something into his mouth. Oh, God, it was more of the drugs. Black fought hard to resist taking them, struggling desperately against their tight holds, until he managed to get one arm free and knock her back away from him again. But then he faltered as whatever drug she had given him started its effect. It was fast-acting, whatever it was, so it had to have been a large dose, probably too large, and probably given to him way too soon after the last one. She watched as he fell onto his back, holding his head with both hands and rolling around as if in agony. Damn them, damn them! She wanted them all dead, so badly that she could taste her anger and bitterness on her tongue.

  Black’s captors slowly backed away then and left him there on the floor, fighting the drug demons that were slowly overtaking his mind. A few seconds later, the monitor went dark yet again. Show over. Claire got into the bed and pulled the blanket up over her. She lay there without moving, still trembling with anger and helplessness. Sick to her soul, just thinking about what they were doing to Black, the terrible things they were putting him through. But now there was hope, thank God. Poor little abused Rico just might help her get away. She had to be very patient for a while longer, wait until the red light stopped blinking, as it sometimes did. Then she would make her move, slide down onto the floor, get that grate open, and then she would go get Black.

  But minute after minute dragged on and on, and she stared at the camera,
waiting, waiting, trying to hold off on her desire to just jerk it down and smash it into a million pieces. The longer it took, the more Black suffered, and she just couldn’t stand it.

  After a long time, she whispered, “Rico? You still there?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Can I get in there with you? Is there enough room? You sure?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “They’re still watching. How does it open?”

  “There’s a latch inside, but it’s hard to find. It’s open now. You can just pull it out and wiggle inside with me.”

  God, what a brave little kid Rico was. Claire tossed around on the bed a while for the camera’s benefit, and then she put pillows up underneath the sheets to approximate her shape. It wouldn’t work, not in a million years, not even in a dark room, but if she could slip out of the bed on the side away from the camera, she might be able to crawl inside the vent without being seen. If she was lucky, the pillows might buy her time, but down deep, she knew it wasn’t going to work.

  So she waited another hour or so. It was still dark outside the one window, but it had to be getting close to dawn now. She tried to keep still, not move at all for a long time, hoping they’d think she was out cold. Truth was, she was exhausted so she didn’t dare close her eyes. She hadn’t really slept any length of time since the night before her wedding, which seemed like a hundred years ago, and not much then. She’d been too uptight.

  But the camera kept up its steady blinking, and she knew she didn’t have a chance to make it to that vent until it went off. Even if the camera didn’t have infrared, they could still see her. So she had to wait and not do anything rash or stupid. But right now, that was what she really wanted to do—just jump up and get the hell outta that room.