She got tired and out of breath and stopped running. The rain was hurting her swelling eye and the cut on her head.
"Zane, do you know how to hot wire a car?" Rachel asked aloud.
'Yes,' Zane said soberly.
"You sure you don't want to take over?" Rachel asked, out of breath.
'No,' Zane answered. 'This is really your thing.'
"Is Kayla around?" Rachel asked as she walked along the street discreetly checking for a car that was unlocked.
'Please, she's hiding in a corner,' Zane said.
Bingo. A shimmery rust orange colored car opened when she tried the door. "It would have to be orange," she said under her breath. "Bad for a getaway."
'Get in,' Zane said from inside.
Rachel opened the car nervously and got in.
'Let me do it,' Zane said. She took over and bent down and messed with the wires above the pedals until she got them to spark the engine into firing up. She sat up, and let Rachel take over again.
'You know where Hathaway Place is?' Zane asked.
"I think so," Rachel said as she sped away from the curb.
The key, she realized, was to drive fast, but not over the speed limit. No sense getting pulled over and not making it there at all. She drove through a busy nightlife area, and then got onto residential streets.
She found Hathaway. "Yes!" she whispered to herself. She drove a few blocks until she got to 3102. She got out of the car and left the motor running. It was still raining hard.
The house was big and beautiful and set back from the road. Tall bushes and trees gave it privacy from every angle.
Rachel went to a smallish window and started to get a gun out to break it.
'No!' Zane said. 'He'll have an alarm system. Best way in is to ring the doorbell.'
Oh, God, Rachel thought. What was she doing? She walked right up to the front door and rang the bell.
It took about five minutes, but finally someone came to the door. She had stepped out of view, and broken the lens of his security cam, just in case he recognized her and wouldn't open the door.
His curiosity got the best of him and he cracked open the door. He saw nothing and opened it wide and stepped out. He hadn't gone to bed yet. He still wore suit pants and a white button-down shirt, unbuttoned at the collar. He had a drink in one hand. Looked like scotch, no ice.
Rachel put the gun to the side of his head before he had a chance to look in her direction.
"Hello, Rob," she said. "Are you alone?"
"Yes," he said, holding his hands up a little bit, scotch and all.
"Good," she said, then turned to elbow him in the stomach and shove him inside the house. He fell to the floor of the foyer wincing in pain.
"Remember me?" she asked, pointing a gun down at him. He looked different than before. Different hair, a bit longer. Still a good looking man in his mid-thirties, but now with a weird streak of gray going through his brown hair on top on one side.
"No," he said, trying to catch his breath.
"Well, let me refresh your memory," she said. Then in a fake cheery hostess tone, "Hi. I don't think we've met. I'm Rachel Wurther. Hope you enjoy the party." She punctuated the word "party" by kicking him in the thigh.
He yelled in pain. "Alright!" he said. "I remember you now."
"Good," Rachel said. "I hate it when old friends forget me." She walked into the sitting room, and saw no one. Same with the den on the other side of the foyer, which is where he must have been. The lights were on.
"Why don't you drag your sorry butt back in here, and we can have a grown-up sit-down chat?" Rachel asked snidely and pointed the gun at him.
His glass had shattered when she threw him inside and he cut his hand on the glass trying to get up. But he limped into the den as she pointed her gun. He collapsed on a big brown leather couch.
She perched on a brown chair across from him and said, "So, do you sell people for a living or is that just a side project of yours?"
"I'm a lawyer," he said, wary but angry. He held his non-injured hand to his stomach.
"One who doesn't obey the law," she said. "Well, that's enough fun and games." She stood up and pointed the gun at him again. "Why did you sell me?" she asked, gritting her teeth.
"’Cause my mother never loved me," he said sarcastically.
"Who did you sell me to?" she asked angrily.
"They'll kill me worse than you will if I tell you that. No way."
"Is it the club?" Rachel demanded. "Do they do it all the time?" She started pacing a little bit. "I know there are more of us. How many more? How big is it?"
He sat silently staring up at her, as she paused in her pacing.
She suddenly put the gun right up to his neck and he grimaced.
"Do you REALIZE what you did to my life?" she said angrily, right into his face. He leaned back as she shoved the gun into his neck harder. It just made her angrier, how uncooperative he was being, not answering any of her questions, not caring.
She got up off the couch and stood a few feet from him with the gun. She backed up and pointed it toward his chest. Angry tears spilled out of her eyes.
"I AM going to kill you," she said. Then in a small voice, "I just want you to talk to me."
His face changed then. "It wasn't even my choice," he argued. "It was your husband's choice. Why aren't you at his house, kicking him around?"
"Oh, he's next," Rachel said, still crying. "I just want to know where your soul is. How you could do this to another human being. Do I have to shoot it out of you?"
"Look, take my car, take some money, get away from here. Just let me be," he said hurriedly.
"How will they ever find me in your car?" she said with mock innocence.
"What do you want?" he asked, desperate.
"Oh, my life back," she said. "Do you have a time machine stashed anywhere in here?" She glanced around. "No? Hmm. If I can't get my life back... maybe I should take YOURS."
"I will do ANYTHING," Rob said, pleading with her.
"You will do it again is what you will do," Rachel said angrily. "You'll keep buying and selling people. Ruining lives. Maybe even going above the law."
"No, I won't," he said, begging.
She laughed. "Don't lie to me just because I have a gun." She was almost hysterical. "There really is only one thing I can do with you." She had tears in her eyes again. "You won't talk about them, you won't stop buying people for them. You're becoming more and more worthless to me..." She pointed the gun at his chest again.
"It's not the club," he said quickly. "It's a group that is associated with it."
She cocked the gun.
"The Zorizen Group," he rushed out. "It's a corporation. Please, that's all I know."
"Where is my husband living now?" Rachel asked with a cold seething voice.
He hesitated, seeing the grim look on her face. He took a deep breath. "922 Tower," he said.
She shot him in the chest. He looked anguished and moaned as he fell to the side and blood rushed out of his wound. The right side of his chest. Blood started to leak out of his mouth.
If she were Zane she thought, she'd shoot him again. Finish it. But Zane stayed out of it and let things be.
Still, he really would ruin more lives if she didn't make sure he'd die. He was gurgling and moaning and gasping for breath. 'With all the people I've killed really, what's one more?' Rachel thought.
'It's a bad habit to get into,' Zane said quietly. 'Want me to do it?'
'No, I got it,' Rachel answered. She pointed the gun at him again, closed her eyes and fired.
He had whimpered in pain again. She'd shot him in the stomach. More blood was coming out of him now, and she just felt sorry for him. But she couldn't shoot him again. She couldn't, not even to make it quick. He'd just have to bleed out, wait for his body to shut down.
She ran out of the room and out the door, which was wide open, and out into the pouring rain. The orange car was still running and she got
inside. She knew where Tower was. It was a group of condos. At least he wasn't still living at the house, the scene of the crime.
She sped off quickly, through the rain, down many side streets and quiet residential areas. Then she got to the condo complex. She drove into it. The roads were all brick. She wound her way around until she got to 922.
She ran up the front steps, rang the bell and stepped aside. In a few minutes the door opened. She grabbed onto the neat tidy white railing of the steps and kicked both her feet up into the air and kicked him back inside.
With a yelp and an "oomf" he fell into the entry way. She came in and bent over him, taking a gun out of her pocket.
"Hey, hubby," she said, "Replaced me yet?"
He looked up at her, shocked and still out of breath, "Rachel?" He was in a T-shirt and boxer shorts. He must have been in bed.
"Is your bimbo here?" she asked soberly, pointing the gun at him and glancing into the few rooms nearby. "You know, the whore you cheated with."
"No one's here," he said.
"What? You didn't marry her and reproduce?" Then she grabbed him angrily by the T-shirt, "Get up!"
He scrambled to his feet, still looking shocked. "In here," she said, dragging him to the living room. She motioned for him to sit. "I guess you never thought you'd see me again."
"They said they'd take your memory," he said, stunned.
"Oh, they did," Rachel said. "And they gave me a handy new skill set. Thanks to you."
"Rachel, I didn't know what else to do," he said.
"Except save your own ass," she said.
"You were alive. It was the only way to keep you alive," he said, pleading.
"Oh, except calling an ambulance and going to jail!" she said, smacking his face with the back of her hand.
He looked back at her angrily, but unable to reciprocate. A red spot appeared on his cheek.
She backed up, still pointing the gun. "I loved you," she said with tears in her eyes. "When did you become a fucking psycho?"
He said nothing.
"Well, I guess you know we're getting a divorce now," Rachel laughed through her tears. "Hey, let's reenact our last fight when you almost killed me. Except this time I'll have a gun. Huh? How 'bout it?"
"Rachel, I never meant to hurt you," he said deliberately and slowly.
"Well, then your heart and your hands don't communicate very well, do they?" Rachel said. "I wonder if my trigger finger would work if I tried to kill you." She sort of laughed. "I've been having a problem with that lately."
"If I could take it back, I would," he said earnestly.
"Yeah, it's funny how full of remorse people get when they have a gun pointed at them. Pretty amazing, don't you think?" She pulled the hammer back on the gun.
"Rachel," he said warningly, "you don't want to do this."
"Yeah, well, I didn't want to kill the dozens of other people I've murdered either, but you didn't give me a choice about that." She started circling around him on the couch. She got back around to the front of the couch and said, "Down on your knees, please. Like the day you proposed to me. Come on."
"Rachel, don't—"
"DOWN!"
He got down on his knees.
"Say you're sorry," she said. "Even though you don't mean it."
"I'm sorry," he practically whispered.
She tried to make herself pull the trigger. She tried to work up enough anger, but it just wouldn't come. Why had she ever loved this man?
"You are such a lying snake," she said, almost under her breath. Then she kicked him hard in the groin.
He crumpled over in pain, quietly moaning.
She started to leave the room, but turned around. He had gotten up again, onto his knees. He waited, in pain, to see what she would do. She raised the gun, pointed, and fired. A bullet whipped by his head, within a foot or so, and buried itself in the wall of the living room.
"You're dead to me," she said and walked out of the room.
She could feel Zane smirking in her head.
'You want me to take over?' Zane asked inside. 'I could shoot him right.'
"Shut up," Rachel muttered.
Zane laughed.
Chapter 15
When she got back to the orange car, it had stalled. It was out of gas. It was still pounding down rain. She was pretty sure Geoff had called the police by now. She started to run down the street, turned and ran down another street, trying to zig zag through the residential streets and not be found.
Now she could hear sirens starting to wail, getting closer to her. She ran down a different street. They seemed to be getting louder in that direction too. Dammit. Should she break into a house? She had no idea how to tell which ones were unoccupied. There were not a lot of trees or bushes in this neighborhood. Nothing to hide behind.
She heard the wail of a siren get louder behind her.
She heard cars slam on their brakes. Then more police cars sped up and blocked the road in front of her.
"Drop your weapon and put your hands above your head," came a loud voice over a megaphone from behind her. She turned around slowly and dropped the gun she was holding and begrudgingly lifted her hands into the air. Rain poured down on her face.
Three cop cars were stopped in the road. Police officers were crouched behind their open doors with guns drawn. Suddenly from behind them two men in suits appeared from out of a dark SUV. They were her handlers.
The two men in suits breezed past the police cars. Crew Cut flashed a badge at them as he stared at Rachel and said, "We'll handle this, guys."
Dark Hair stopped to politely let a police officer view his badge, then he followed Crew Cut as he marched confidently toward her.
She still had the other gun in her pocket. She could use it now, on the handlers. But if she did the cops would open fire, and she'd be dead. And she wasn't as in the mood for that now as she once was.
Crew Cut got to her and punched her in the face, on her cheek. She almost fell over and was in shock. Dark Hair came up and punched her in the stomach, causing her to double over in pain. Then Crew Cut kicked her leg so hard he knocked her over. She yelped as she slammed into the pavement.
She instinctively reached for the gun in her pocket, but Crew Cut grabbed her hand.
"Uh, uh, uh," he said. He pulled the gun out of her pocket. Then he leaned over 'til his mouth was practically touching her ear. "I would advise you to stay down," he said clearly.
Then he leaned back up and Dark Hair handed him a syringe. Rachel glared back up at him.
"You may be an assassin, baby," Crew Cut said, "but looks can't kill." He shoved the needle into her neck and injected her with something. It made her feel like she was scrambling for reality as she was sucked into a black hole. She tried to hold onto the rain and the cold and the hard street, the stinging of her cheek, the pounding pain in her leg, the tense soreness in her abdomen. Even that snide look on Crew Cut's face as she faded. She tried to hold onto it all, but she blacked out anyway, not knowing if her handlers were fulfilling the kill order or just knocking her out. But soon, there was nothing.
* * *
Rachel woke with a start and tried to sit up, but her arms and legs were tied down. She looked up. There was a white ceiling a few feet above her head. Was she in an ambulance?
"You're up," a man's voice said over an intercom.
She said nothing.
"Take a look around, Rachel," the voice said.
She looked to her left. "Oh, my God," she said, startled. There was a window a few feet from her. And outside the window was nothing but starry sky. No ground, no Earth, no trees. Nothing. She looked to her right. More stars, but in the distance, the round shape of the Earth.
She was in space.
She looked behind her head, another window. She looked at the foot of the bed she was tied to. There was a window, but a screen had quietly dropped down in front of it. And on this screen she could see the man who was talking to her.
"
You see," he said. "We've had a lot of trouble with you escaping."
She noticed there was an IV going into the crook of her left elbow. And one into the side of the wrist on her right hand.
"We figured this was one cell you wouldn't want to escape from."
She was panicking, starting to sweat. She felt herself start to hyperventilate.
"Rachel," the man said firmly. "Focus."
She leaned up, propped on her elbows as much as she could with her arms tied. She looked at the man on the screen.
"You see, in the beginning of your training, we put you in a cell under water, and you escaped it. You're our little Houdini," he said. "But we can't have you disobeying us."
She tried to calm her breathing down.
She had no memory of escaping an underwater cell.
"You were hard to break, Rachel," the man said, "Like a wild horse. We thought we had succeeded. Apparently, we were wrong." He turned to the side and pushed a button on the wall in the room he was in. Suddenly a pump or something came on in her cell and muddy looking fluid started traveling down the tube connected to her left arm. She started to panic and kick out of her restraints.
"Nutrition and hydration," the man said calmly.
The fluid went into her arm and she felt fine. She didn't feel drugged or poisoned. She relaxed a little.
"We spent a lot of money on you, Rachel," the man continued. "So, you'd better behave yourself. I know you understand me. Do you understand me, Rachel?" he asked calmly.
She hesitated to answer, then said, "Yes" in a raspy voice. She must not have drunk fluids for a while. How long had they kept her here?
"We're going to give you another chance," he said. "We're going to test new techniques on you. Pain aversion techniques," he said. "Among other things."
She quietly started to cry.
"We're going to separate you from your other selves, Rachel," he said. "We're going to erase your memory. We're going to make you compliant." He looked sternly at her. "And if we can't rehabilitate you, we will put you down like a dog."
She lay back and let the tears stream out of her eyes.
"Now be a good girl and take your medicine," the man said.
She looked up to see him push another button on the wall. Blue fluid started to flow down the tube to her right wrist.
She squirmed and tried to thrash around, but to no avail. The fluid entered her vein. She almost felt it burn as it did. Within seconds it had faded her out of the world and into a place of pure black and nothing. She was gone again.
Fugue Page 7