by Linda Ladd
After a little while, and now that Claire had gotten him away from the blaring music, flashing lights, and mind-distorting techniques designed to confuse him, Black was beginning to focus a little. He was turning his head and gazing up at her face, but he was calmer now. He reached up and touched her cheek with his fingers. “Claire, Claire,” he kept saying. “But you’re dead. I saw it. I saw you die.”
“No, that was just a trick. I’m right here. See, you can touch me, you can feel that I’m real,” she told him, hugging him tighter. Then she ignored his soft ravings and turned to the child. “Rico, can you get us out of this house? We’ve got to get out before they find the tunnels.”
“We can go down to the cistern, you know, where you used the phone. But it’s real high there, high over the ocean, and the currents are real bad down there, too. Daddy said there’s a real bad undertow under the cliffs. He said it’d take me far out to sea if I got caught in it.”
That exit point didn’t sound feasible to Claire. She tried to think clearly herself, consider things rationally, decide what her next move should be, but she was so tired now. Her nerves were trembling like crazy, all over her body, her muscles twitching and wound tight. She was so exhausted from lack of sleep and food that she could barely think straight anymore. They had to rest awhile, find somewhere that Black could come down off the acid, let him get his reasoning back. Then he could help her. He’d know what to do next. How to get out. He had done this kind of stuff before.
“Is there a safe place where they can’t hear us? Where we can stay until it gets dark? Rest up and get ready to move? They gave him a drug, Rico, a powerful drug. That’s why he’s acting crazy like this. But he’ll come down off it if we give him some time. Then he can fight back. He can get us outta here. He knows how to do that. Understand me, Rico?”
The child nodded, but he looked frightened and not so sure about anything she’d said. Claire wasn’t sure about it, either, but she pulled Black back up and led him into a smaller grotto off the main tunnel with the largest water trough. Rico came in right behind them. Then she sat in there with Black clutched against her in the pitch black, shivering with cold, her back propped up against the cold stone wall, her bare legs and feet freezing. She held Black’s head close against her shoulder and stroked his face and murmured soothing words for a long time, hoping to heaven that he came down off his high before they were discovered. Because there was no way in hell that she could get him out of the fortress while he was in such a mind-altered daze. Still shivering, she put her other arm around Rico and pulled the child in close and felt his trembling. The three of them just sat like that, in utter darkness and silence, Claire’s mind racing with possible escape routes, but in her heart, she knew that none of them were the least bit realistic.
Eventually, the dark and quiet surroundings did seem to soothe Black’s frenzied state of mind. He finally relaxed against her and grew still, his head resting on her breast, his arms holding tightly onto her. Claire pressed him close and prayed that he would become lucid soon. The child was gone. Rico had disappeared while Claire dozed briefly in utter exhaustion. She didn’t know where the boy went or why, but she was afraid he’d get caught or inadvertently lead Soquet’s men right back to them.
So she sat there with Black, rigid with tension, the Glock held tightly in her hand with her gun arm lying across Black’s broad back. She was still worried about being discovered so she couldn’t really relax, not completely. More than that, she was just glad to have Black out of their hands and safe with her.
At one point while sitting there in the dark, her jacked-up, rubbed-raw emotions got the best of her, and tears burned the backs of her eyes. She had never seen Black so helpless and vulnerable. Black had always been in complete charge of himself and everything else, strong, competent, always there for her, trying to protect her, ever since the first day she’d met him. But now he had suffered through the most terrible living nightmare, and Claire couldn’t let herself think what would happen if the Soquets caught them again. So she sat there in the frigid darkness and listened, barely breathing, waiting for the sound of heavy footsteps clomping outside in the adjacent tunnel. And it was only a matter of time before Jaxy and her well-armed men found the tunnels and came down after them. Claire knew that. She knew it.
Those thoughts made her crazy with worry, so she forced herself to think of Novak, Booker, and Holliday. They must have received her voice message or texts by now, must be on their way. Oh, God, please let them get there before anything else happened. She couldn’t fight them all, not that many armed men, not by herself. And Black needed more time, time to come down, time to regain enough strength to fight back. But he was in terrible shape. She couldn’t believe what they’d done to him. No, stop, don’t think about it. Do NOT think about it. He is with me now. He is alive.
Claire shut her eyes again and propped her head back against the wall. She felt a little better, even after such a short nap. She had no idea how long it had lasted. Black was breathing peacefully, no longer fighting the hell clamoring around inside his head. So maybe the drug was starting to wear off. So she waited, on edge, tense and afraid, praying that Rico was safe somewhere, too.
Then it finally happened. What she had been dreading. She could hear somebody coming down the passage toward her. Rapid footsteps, light but running toward them. No doubt about it. Black was a lot better already, but still pretty much out of it. He could not help her, not yet. And she was not going to leave him behind. So she slipped out from her place beside him, lay him down on his back, and moved over to where she could see the tunnel that led back up into the fortress where the thin strips of light were filtering in from the rooms on each side. If one of Soquet’s men showed up, she would have to shoot him down and hope there weren’t many others with him. She could get some of them but probably not all of them. Waiting, nerves screaming, she went limp with relief when Rico was the one who rounded the corner and came rushing toward her.
“Where’ve you been?” she cried, lowering the gun. “I’ve been worried about you.”
“I got you some of Mama’s clothes. I felt you shivering and stuff. I got you some shoes and socks, too.”
After that, Claire just wanted to drop down on her knees and sob out loud like a baby. Oh, God, thank you for this little kid. He had to be an angel. So young, yet he was saving their lives, time after time, all by himself. “Oh, Rico, you could’ve gotten caught.” She got the words out somehow, but she was already pulling on the black sweatpants, sweatshirt, and the thick white socks. The shoes were black house slippers, the ballerina kind with elastic around the top but with sturdy soles. They were too big, but she didn’t care. She could keep them on, and her toes were so cold now that she could barely feel them anymore. And Rico had put himself in terrible danger to get them for her. “Thank you, Rico, thank you so much, but you’ve gotta stay down here with us where you’ll be safe. You can’t go off like that anymore. I was scared to death they had caught you.”
“I won’t get caught. I hide down here all the time, and they never can catch me. Only if I go to the kitchen. That’s when they get me.”
“But they’re looking for us now. They’re trying to find out how we got out of that locked room. They’re gonna find us here. They will, Rico.”
“Then maybe we oughta go down to Mama’s safe room.”
Startled, Claire grabbed him by the shoulders. “Safe room? What’d you mean? Where is it?”
“It’s down low, deeper in the cliff. That’s where Mama keeps all the food and medicine and other kinds of stuff in case a big storm comes in off the ocean. Or for when the bad men came to get her. She told me there were bad men after her and they did come. You know, they were mad ’cause she told on them in that trial thing.” Tears filled his eyes but didn’t fall. He somehow had learned to swallow them down.
Claire hugged him close, but her mind was racing. Oh, God, Rico’s mother must have been in witness protection. That’s why the
Soquets had come there and killed her. According to Black, that was another one of their specialties. They had gotten a contract on her and decided to take over her home after they saw its isolation. “Who was coming after her? Was it Marcel Soquet?”
He shook his head. “No, his name was Roscoe Clarke, she said. She said he was a very bad man that she had to put into jail. And she did it, too.”
“Why didn’t she take you down to the safe room when Max and Jaxy came after you?”
“Daddy and I were down here, and they caught my mama out in her vegetable garden. They were holding a gun on her. Right here.” He made a gun with his hand and put his forefinger to his temple. “Daddy told them that we’d do whatever they wanted, just not to hurt her.” His voice caught, and this time he was unable to stop his tears. “But they did it anyway. I saw them. They just pulled the trigger and she fell down. That’s when Daddy told me to run and hide.”
Claire heaved in a deep breath, sick for what the little boy had been forced to see. “I’m so sorry, Rico. I’m so sorry about your parents.”
Rico’s sobs were pitiful, but then he just sort of pulled himself together and sat up straighter, as if he had learned to shake himself out of his grief. Claire had learned to do that, too, and at a similar age. She and Rico had more in common than the child could ever imagine.
“Can we get to this safe room without them seeing us or hearing us? Is it far from here?”
Rico nodded. “It is deep in the ruins. Way deep.”
“Do you know where Jaxy and her men are now? What they’re doing? Are they looking for us?”
He nodded again. “They found out that Max was dead, and Jaxy went crazy and started screaming real loud. She says she’s gonna get you and tear you limb from limb. Her daddy, the one named Marcel with that white beard? He was crying and stuff, and then he grabbed himself like this …” Rico showed her by clutching his hands over his heart, “… and then he fell down on the floor and lay real still. They was all sayin’ he had a heart attack. Some of those men took him outside, you know, to go to the hospital, and stuff, and out to that plane we were on, I think.”
Well, good, Claire thought. Another one down, but Jaxy is still up there and she probably has her men out hunting for us. “Did Jaxy go with her daddy?”
“No, she stayed here so she could find you.”
“You think they can find a way down into these tunnels?”
The boy shook his head. “They have looked before, searched everywhere for me, but they have never gotten inside the vents.”
“Thank God,” Claire said, but this time they knew that Black had escaped from a locked room with no windows. They would find the grate, and they would find the tunnels. After that, it wouldn’t take them long to smoke them out. Their best bet was to get to the safe room, get Black back to normal again, and then get the hell out of the fortress, any way they had to do it. She just prayed they’d have time and there was a way out.
“Okay, let’s go. You lead the way, and I’ll help Black.”
The boy jumped to obey. Claire was pretty sure this kid was wise beyond his years, definitely a survivor—and a savior. Hopefully, he would survive to the end this time, too. If she had anything to do with it, he would. Rico waited while she got Black up on his feet. She went up on her toes and pressed Black’s back against the wall and then took his face between her hands. He was groaning softly, eyes closed, but she shook his face and forced him to look down at her. His eyes opened, but they still looked vacant. His pupils were still very large and dark, but better maybe, better than they’d been before, because she could see some of the blue of his eyes again.
“Black, listen to me. It’s Claire. Can you hear what I’m saying?”
“Claire, Claire,” he said. He grabbed her to him, clutching her hard against his chest.
“C’mon, you gotta shake it off, Black. We gotta go. You’ve gotta be quiet and walk on your own. Can you do that?”
Black didn’t seem to understand much, and he probably wouldn’t until he got most of the drug out of his system. And that would take hours.
“Okay, you’ve got to walk on your own.” She tried to shake him a little. “I’m gonna help you, but you gotta be quiet. You’ve got to, Black.”
Claire got hold of his arm and draped it over her shoulder and then she led him along, following Rico down through the narrow apertures. Black staggered along with her, but he remained quiet, thank God. He was reaching out with his free arm, still clearing away the invisible monsters blocking his path. But he was no longer in a panicked state. He was beginning to come down a little bit more now, she could tell.
The three of them moved through the dark chill, and the stone floor was uneven and sloping and made them stumble at times. In time, Rico led them out into a large room, and that’s when she saw the place that Rico had set up for himself. There was a bed on the floor made of blankets, pillows, and sleeping bags, and he had some of his Star Wars figures lined up beside it. There were shelves for food storage, but most of it had been depleted now, probably by Rico. There was also bottled water and other plastic tubs holding supplies. This had been his refuge from the interlopers. This had been where he lived when Jaxy couldn’t catch him and put him in that shock collar.
There were candles sitting around the walls and to Claire it looked as magnificent as a presidential suite in any of Black’s glamorous hotels. They could rest here. They could get their strength back, if only for a short time. Claire led Black to the makeshift bed, and he collapsed there on his stomach and closed his eyes. She covered him with a blanket. He needed to sleep. That would get him back to normal faster than anything. She looked at the little boy who was still watching Black warily.
“Thank you, Rico. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
He nodded a lot and grinned and looked embarrassed. Then he said, “I got some food down here. Most of it’s gone, but I found some crackers and peanut butter. Want me to make you some?”
“Sure,” said Claire, sinking down wearily beside Black. She would eat something and then she had to sleep, if just for another moment or two, then she could get back up and find a way out for all three of them.
“Mama’s got a medicine kit with lots of pills and stuff. You wanna see it? You could put some medicine on your sore hand.”
Claire sat up again. Her hand was throbbing so hard now that it was quivering her whole arm. Black was covered with cuts and abrasions. “Where is it?”
Rico brought over a plastic tub and loosened the lid. Inside, Claire found all kinds of medical supplies: bandages, disinfectant, toilet paper, Clorox wipes, and lots of brown prescription bottles. She searched through them for painkillers, finding aspirin, cough syrup, antibiotic pills and ointment, and then she saw what she was really looking for as she dug around in the jumbled mass of prescription bottles. Valium, oh, God, they had a vial of Valium! The plastic bottle had Rico’s mother’s name printed on the label. Claire grabbed it because she knew through working Narcotics in L.A. that Valium would help bring somebody down off LSD faster. That’s what they sometimes gave people who came into emergency rooms high on drugs. She uncapped it with shaking hands and poured out some capsules into her good palm. Then she took a bottle of water, shook Black awake, and made him take some. He was already much calmer now, wanting only to sleep, the acid now making him dreamy and lethargic. Then he just lay down on his back and stared at the ceiling until his eyes slowly closed again.
Claire took a moment to wash her face in the cistern and hold her sliced hand under the water for a moment. Then she examined the gaping gash in her palm. It looked really terrible now. It had most likely already become infected, but she poured some hydrogen peroxide onto it and nearly screamed in agony. She gritted her teeth and groaned as she squeezed on antibiotic salve and then wrapped it up in a long roll of clean gauze. After that she took about a dozen aspirins. She said a silent prayer of thanks for Rico’s mother and her preparation for emergencies. She had prob
ably hoped to hide down here if the Soquets came looking for her. And it was a good place. They could possibly wait it out here in this special room so deep down inside the towering cliffs. But only if the Soquets did not find the tunnels. She still believed that Novak and the others would come through, but it had been a long time now, a very long time, and there had been no gunshots fired up above inside the fortress, not that she could hear. A deceptive silence, a strange quiet now seemed to have fallen down around them, but it was a temporary calm, and Claire knew that only too well.
When she looked at Rico again, he was lying zipped up in a Luke Skywalker sleeping bag, covered up with a dark blue Star Wars blanket, already sound asleep. He felt safe down here in his mother’s room, and the poor little boy was exhausted. Claire sighed and leaned over and covered him up with another quilt. And then she picked up one for herself and just collapsed down beside Black and put her arm across his waist and drifted off, too, falling into the deep and dreamless sleep of the physically and mentally exhausted. But she still had the Glock clutched in her one good hand.
Chapter Eighteen
Claire was still asleep when something touched her face. She lurched upright in panic, the Glock pressed against the man’s chest before she was all the way awake. But it was Black’s chest. He was leaning over her, propped up on one elbow. He appeared halfway lucid now, but he still looked awful, sick and drawn, his dark hair shaggy, his face a sick kind of gray with heavy black whiskers covering his cheeks and jaw. He brushed her face again with his fingertips.