"We can try to find a cell phone," Virginia offered.
"I already found mine," I said.
"You did?" she asked, eyes wide with hope.
I pulled it out of my pocket. "It’s dead."
Both Virginia and I sat there, staring down at the unhelpful cell phone in mutual, crushing disappointment. It was incredible to think that the only thing standing between us and life-saving help was a single wire cable. The location of which lay buried somewhere deep inside of Dillon’s disturbed head.
"It's all my fault," Virginia said, peeling off a hang nail. The tips of her fingers were red and angry. They were like round balls of flesh, torn and pecked over, her nails chewed back into swollen stumps. "If I hadn’t—"
“What's done is done."
Fists thundered on the door. "Virginia!" roared Dillon. Eye met terrified eye. "Virginia you better open this door!" And Dillon shook the door so savagely, the locks rattled in the reinforced metal frame.
Silence.
Then he changed tacks. "Hey you little Piss Drinker. Your pathetic boyfriend here has something to say to you."
I turned and put my hands to the door. "Ben?" I cried. "Ben, are you okay?"
"If you open the door, I'll let you see him," Dillon said.
A long moment followed whereby I thought I heard muffled groans, maybe dull thuds of smacking flesh but I couldn't quite tell. Then Ben's voice broke though: "Stay in there! Don't you dare—"
I heard more cursing, followed by the sound of a table scraping across the wooden floor.
"I'm going out!" I cried and started sliding the locks open.
"Wait!" Virginia cried, pushing my hands away.
"No!" And I pushed her back, summoning all my strength. "He's going to kill Ben if I don't do something!"
"He won’t! Just think about it! Think—"
“Ben’s the only thing I have," I said, my voice going wobbly. "And now he's gonna—he's gonna DIE! Because—"
"He won’t! He won't! Ben is the only tool Dillon has to pry us out of here. If he—if something happens to Ben, Dillon will never get us out of here. We can live in here for weeks if we need to."
"But I don't want to live in here for weeks. I want to get out of here! I want to get out this hellhole. I want to get that intercom box and press that fucking button!"
And then it happened. Tears of pain and helplessness rose up inside like a fast rising tide. All the hard tears that had crystallized in my heart over the past two months thawed suddenly under the unrelenting onslaught of continual sharp disappointments and the hot searing very real possibility of losing Ben, of dying.
"Why did you do this to me!" I cried. "Why did you do this to us! To Ben! To Amy! You knew he was dangerous! You knew he going to do something. You knew!"
Virginia’s face crumpled. "Yes, I knew, but I didn’t—I didn’t mean for it to be like this! Dillon said he was just going to scare you a little. Put a little pressure on you. I didn’t . . . I didn’t think it would turn out like this." Her lower lip wobbled. Her chin puckered. "I should have told you," she muttered. "I was just—just so angry. And hurt."
Hurt and angry? Well, that makes two of us. And she should have told me about Dillon’s plans, but I didn’t have the bandwidth for a therapy session. We’d both been hurt pretty bad. She felt terrible. Making her feel worse wouldn’t help matters any. “Nevermind,” I said, sniffing, trying to buck up and be strong for us both, afraid she’d start quoting the bible again. “The only thing that matters is getting out of this mess somehow, alive preferably."
"Let me say it. Let me tell you. You asked so many times about that day back in the hospital. About Mom Time. The day everything changed between us." Her eyes were hard and bloodshot and glassy. "Well, you were right. Everything did change."
Suddenly my mouth went dry. I’d been asking her to talk to me about that ever since we’d lost Mom. Never a single clarifying word spewed from her lips. Now—now!—with a raging psychopath just outside the door, with Ben as a hostage, she wanted to illuminate me.
She looked away. Tears spilled down her cheeks. "You were always Mom’s favorite."
"What?"
"You were. I heard you. I heard her."
I blinked, a little taken aback with the savagery in her voice.
"You got Mom. I deserved Amy. I wanted Amy. I needed Amy. Finally, I was the favorite. And—and so when Dillon said she could push you a little bit. Get you to keep writing. To save Amy. And I went along with it. Amy was all I had . . ."
I thought back to that day, trying to figure out what had possibly happened that could make her feel that way. I couldn’t think of a single thing. Then a chill raced down my back. Dillon had pumped her full of Demerol, and God knows what else. The doctors warned her that more drug use could cause permanent brain damage. Was she losing her mind? Slipping down the slope of delusions? My stomach twisted in fear. If we were going to survive this, I needed Virginia with me, by my side, with all her faculties intact. Not making up stories in her head.
"Virginia, Mom loved us both just exactly the same."
She shook her head. "No, no she didn’t. I heard you two talking. You didn’t know I was there. But I heard. I arrived early at the hospital that day, and saw you sitting on the edge of her bed, holding her hand. I stood behind the curtain. And I heard Mom say, she said, ‘You know I love you more than anything in this material world. More than the sun rising over the horizon, more than the ocean drawing to the moon. You’re the only one that I could ever love. You mean more to me than my own life.’" Her voice broke. "And then—and then you put the lines in After The End for the whole world to see!"
My mouth went dry. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. But I could only shake my head in sheer and utter disbelief. "Virginia, those lines did go into the book. Do you know why? Because Mom was helping me flesh a scene between Rhenn and Madeline, where he confesses his love for her. Mom was quoting Rhenn!"
Virginia’s face went white.
I sat speechless. I couldn’t believe how a single misconception could be so ruinous, how something unspoken could turn so monstrous. If she had only talked to me, if she had only opened up!
While Virginia wept about her own stupidity, and how sorry she was, Dillon, I noticed, had become suspiciously quiet. And my office, I also noticed with creeping dread, had become as silent as a mausoleum.
It was so stealthy; I passed it off as a figment of my imagination. In the corner of my eye, I saw a gray finger of something—smoke?—reach under the door gap and quickly retreat. I looked down at the gap for final confirmation, but saw nothing.
Again came more trickery of the senses. A singular, but fleeting fume wafted to my nostrils. It was the smell of gas. No, correction, it was the smell of mercaptan, the smelly gas additive that signaled imminent danger.
"Can you smell that?" I asked, breathing in more air. But again the smell had disappeared.
Virginia looked around, sniffing. "No, what is it?"
"I think it's a gas leak," I said, cramming my nose into the crack of the door. Then I looked down and saw smoke billowing in from under the door.
"Fire."
And we both sprang for the locks.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Back when I could work on Rhenn and Friends at my own leisure, book two in the doomed series, I wanted to write a big fiery finale scene between Rhenn and Falco. So did some research on the nature of house fires. Lacking the courage to interview firemen personally, I'd read Fire by Sebastian Junger.
Just like he'd spent three hundred pages describing the howling sound of wind at high speeds in The Perfect Storm, so he took care to describe the ferocious quality of fire.
But I'd never experienced an inferno first hand. It was one thing to be separated by the flesh-melting temperatures by the pages of a book. It was quite another to step in a raging inferno and gasp desperately for air.
Virginia slipped out first and immediately disappeared in a dense bank of thick smoke.
Through the shifting smoke, wafting over the room in sheets, I could see bright leaping flames scurrying up my curtains.
Smoke. That is something that a book can't quite convey. The thick smell that reaches down your throat like fists, pummeling both lungs mercilessly.
Coughing doesn't help. The spasms just leave an open invitation for more smoke to batter your lungs into pulpy pieces of flesh.
I ripped off my sweatshirt, pressed it against my face and looked around for the patio door. Virginia emerged from the wall of smoke, a cloth pressed against her nose. "This way!" she cried, hitching her arm around my ribcage.
Hungry flames engulfed the room, nibbling at my beloved Wonder Couch and my antique desk. All of it would be just charred remains come the following day. I could only hope we wouldn’t be part of the ashes.
Thick grey smoke outlined a door frame. I hoped it was the door that led outside, where endless gulps of soothing fresh air could be found. But as we made our way closer, I could see smoke billowing out and filling the dark hallway of the house. I called out for Jinny to turn around and go back, gesturing behind me, but as I glanced back, swaths of my curtains fell in one fiery swoosh, blocking our path.
We both dropped to our hands and knees to escape the suffocating smoke. The flames hadn't quite reached this part of the house, but that was only a matter of time. Dillon had clearly started the fire in my office, then vacated elsewhere with Ben.
Ben. I felt sick. I wanted to go to him, to try and help him, but that was pure folly. I would most likely perish in my journey, and what would I do if I finally found them? Stun Dillon with some strong words? I kept my eyes firmly glued to Virginia's bottom.
The only way to save Ben would be to save ourselves. We had to get up to the battered box hanging on Virginia's wall. We had to press that button. Luckily, Virginia had the same idea.
We reached the top rung of the stairwell. Sweat poured down my face in great sheets. My shirt stuck to my sweating body. The smoke seemed denser up here. The air was thick and hot. I glanced beyond Virginia and saw orange and blue flames worming up the walls.
Virginia picked up the pace, pausing every now again to hack. The walls were fully aflame by the time we reached her room, the heat bearing down on us like iron anvils. And that is when I heard it: shrinking against the waves of fire pressing at us from all angles, the loud roar of the loader starting up. Then the crackling sounds of the growing inferno swallowed up the rumbling of the diesel engine.
Deep down in my trembling heart, I knew what it was. I could only desperately hope that Ben had fired up the loader to dump Dillon’s body into the lion pit. Not the other way around.
We scurried past the chunks of drywall that rained down from the charred ceiling, closed in on Virginia's room, and hurried inside.
Murky glow cloaked her room from firelight reflecting off of the snow outside. Ambient smoke had filtered in. Though smoky, the air was breathable. But not for long. A treasure trove of consumables filled Virginia’s room.
She ran over to the chair that had made so much progress before, picked it up and started whacking away at the box. Again came the invigorating sounds of looming defeat: clonk-clonk-clonk. The box jounced more readily on its screws. I heaved myself up, gritting my teeth against the pain, and watched, riveted, encouraging Virginia to: "Keep going! Keep going! Keep—"
All downward swinging ceased. I looked at Virginia, who held the chair motionless above her head, and followed her gaze to the threshold of the bedroom door.
There, with bright splinters of fire raining down on his shoulders, stood Dillon.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Virginia had always been a fighter. She'd taken on girls much bigger than her during our high school days. She was also equal opportunity, confronting any man, woman, or surly teenager that rubbed her the wrong way.
She'd taken on an entire group of vicious girls who had cornered me after physical education class one dismal afternoon, offering to rearrange my facial features—for free.
Virginia had fought them all. Her heroic effort had landed her in detention for a month, but she'd been promoted to heroine of my heart, where she stayed until she brought Dillon upon us.
Over the course of Dillon’s tenure, I watched broken-hearted, as he systematically broke her down, and turned my wild flamed-haired vixen of a sister into a reduced nervous mess, constantly apologizing and looking to him for direction.
But as the flames licked up the walls and curled over our heads, I watched that rattled shell of a person fall away and become the beloved fighter that I once knew. She advanced on Dillon without hesitation and cracked the chair over his head, sending him sprawling to the floor.
Dillon started climbing up to his hands and knees. She cracked the chair over his back again. Sensing blood in the water, her killing instincts took over, and she pummeled Dillon with the chair again and again.
Suddenly, the room erupted in bright flames. The fire roared up behind me. I could hear the loud crackling of burning drywall. There were noxious fumes of melting plastic and the sharp acrid smell of an electrical fire.
When Virginia started her vicious campaign of kicks to Dillon’s head and neck, I frantically turned to the box—our last bastion of help—and launched into the final stretch of ripping it off the wall.
But the heat—I felt as if the Devil himself stood directly behind me, breathing his hell-fire breath upon my back and shoulders, goading me into higher flights of panic.
Dillon was down, yes, but I knew our temporary victory wouldn't last for long. Though Virginia was consumed with a deep raging anger, it would bleed away eventually, and her physical strength would simply fold against Dillon’s. Once the fight tipped towards mano e mano, we would both lose.
I dug my fingers into the wall and wiggled them underneath the metal rim of the box. Virginia had loosened the box on the wall, but there was still precious little space for my fingers to slide underneath the rim. I could force in the very tips, but I needed enough room to hook the rim and yank it off.
There were crashing sounds behind me. Dillon had roused from Virginia's admirable attack. I glanced back, sweat streaming down my face, and glimpsed Virginia next to her bed, reaching for a lamp.
I turned back to the box, focused on the job at hand, my fingers slipping out of their tremulous handholds.
I looked around and found the chair lying on its side. I picked it up quickly and bludgeoned the box with the edge of the seat. Screaming pain raced up my leg. Sweat poured into my eyes. I could feel the hot fingers of fire creeping ever closer to the hallowed spot of second and third degree burns.
Suddenly the top of the box caved in. I threw the chair down, jammed all of my fingers down into the small gaping hole, gritted my teeth, and dropped onto my knees, hanging all of my weight on the box.
When the box budged, I crammed in more fingers and dropped to my knees again. When the box ripped even further from the wall, I jammed in both hands and braced against the wall. Then I frantically ripped the box off the wall.
I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw the exposed intercom ready for business. I lifted the little flap, jammed my thumb onto the red distress button—once, twice, threefourfive times—praying for the LED button to turn green.
Nothing.
What if the fire had damaged the wiring? I kept pushing the button, staring down at the lifeless LED light, frantic and desperate. What if the fire had damaged just one small section, one mere inch of critical wiring that—
GREEN.
My knees went weak with a sudden rush of euphoria. Tears pooled in my eyes, doubling the panel in front of me. Green! I stared down at the steady beautiful light. It was no bigger than a ladybug carapace, but it was as momentous as spotting land after months adrift at sea.
"Jinny!" I cried, turning around to find her. "We did it! It’s done!"
But she was nowhere to be found.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Suddenly a section of the
ceiling buckled. Splinters and flames poured down. A great wall of smoke closed in on me. My eyes watered in painful gushes. I dropped to my knees where a thin layer of breathable air could be found, grabbed my sweatshirt, and crammed it against my face. I had to find Virginia. I had to get out of this inferno!
I couldn't see more than two feet in front of my face. Virginia was somewhere inside. Last I'd seen her, she had smashed Dillon over the head with the bedside lamp.
I scurried over in the direction of the bedstead, mindful of the narrowing window to escape the burning house, before a charred ceiling joist broke and pinned me fatally to the ground.
My hard won mayday would be all for naught if I didn't escape; if I didn't find a window and climb out of it. But I had to find Virginia first. We had to escape together.
Sweat poured down my body. The raging flames danced ever closer, wicked and hot. I kept moving, wiping the sweat away from my stinging eyes, keeping my sweatshirt pressed against my nose and mouth, until suddenly the foot of the bed materialized in front me.
The sash window could be found to the left, but I'd seen Virginia scurry across the bed to the right. I cast one longing glance at the window with the reflection of flames dancing in the dark pane. That was where I needed to go, but that was not where I would find Virginia.
Suddenly, I heard a loud swooshing sound, followed by a deep guttural growl. The fire had become something monstrous. Another section of the ceiling fell down to the floor, sending sparks across the room.
I grabbed the foot of the bed and marshaled my strength, pushing back a biological drive to survive at all costs. Not without Virginia. I gritted my teeth and turned away.
"Not without my sister!" I screamed to the wicked flames that seemed so much like a fiery demon rising merrily from hell.
And I pressed on. On my hands and knees, I covered as much ground as I could, stopping frequently to press my face against the carpet and gulp for air. Soon I bumped into a wall.
I Am The Lion: A Riveting Psychological Thriller Page 20