Marked for Vengeance (21 page)

*
* *

Alyx’s eyelids
fluttered open.

“Piedmont Hospital,” a
husky, female voice said.

Alyx was vaguely aware
that she lay atop a moving stretcher as the voice’s owner pushed her through
the complex doors. News vans and emergency vehicles lined the sidewalk, and her
eyes rested on a tall, blonde woman standing in front of a news camera.
“Sometime during the late morning hours, esteemed surgeon Dr. Benjamin Forbes
was found murdered in his home,” she began.

Alyx peered up at the
large woman who guided her bed.

“Ma’am, can you hear
me?” the woman asked.

Alyx gently nodded.

“We’re taking you to the
hospital, ok? Everything is going to be fine.”

Her gaze moved straight
ahead to an ambulance along the curb whose doors spread wide in anticipation to
ingest her and the stretcher. Two cars in front of it sat her car with a yellow
parking citation stuffed under the wiper blade.

The scar on her
shoulder ached from all of the action it received that day, quickly reminding
her of the sensation when she first walked into Benjamin’s condo. Had the
invisible beast that visited her apartment just hours ago done that to
him
?
And why?

Her mind raced back
through her encounters with the man in the black suit, who was more than likely
associated with the beast, judging by their identical effect on her scar; her
first being in the elevator with Cindra, then on the way home from Isaac’s, and
then on her way to the coffee shop after leaving Benjamin’s, before her last,
which was in her apartment that afternoon after he had left.

Had they followed him
too?
Did I lead them to him?
These invisible, evil creatures, or relatives
thereof, had followed
her
since last Friday. And if they killed
Benjamin, what would they do to Cindra? To
Isaac?
Or had they already?

As they approached the
ambulance, Alyx made the decision to make a run for her car. She would hunt the
both of them down to make sure they weren’t in any danger. She discreetly
patted her jacket pocket to feel for her keys – the place she usually shoved
them when she didn’t have her purse. The lumpy bulge jingled softly, and she
reached inside to hold them and wait for her chance to run. No way would the
EMT willingly let her out of their sight. Not only did she assume that Alyx
needed medical attention, but Alyx was at the crime scene when they arrived and
the police would question her eventually. She knew how it would look if she
ran, but Isaac and Cindra were her main concerns.

The EMT stopped at the ambulance
doors and walked around to fetch something inside.
Here’s my chance.
Alyx
flung the sheet away from her and took off running, thankful that she wore
tennis shoes that day.

In one swift move, she
opened the car door and fell inside, sticking the key into the ignition and
cranking the car before the EMT realized she had left. “Hey!” the lady yelled
from the ambulance. “Where are you going?”

Alyx punched the gas
and tore away in the other direction, squealing the tires as she sped off. The
news crew and curious passer-bys stared after her in disbelief.

In the rearview mirror,
she watched a policeman on the curb sprint to his squad car, yelling into the
radio on his shoulder. She would need to be creative on her way to Isaac’s if
she wanted to avoid a police chase.

Her heart raced as she turned
sharply onto a one-way side street, and the police sirens screamed behind her
as they broadcast their pursuit. She ran the next stop sign and turned left
into a parking garage, determining it would be impossible for her to run in the
car they witnessed her speed away in. Every police car in the city would be
looking for her. She needed to find another way around the city.

She pulled up to the
arm and pushed the button for a ticket to spit out. It cost ten dollars to park
there for the day, but the trade for a refuge was well worth it. After the arm
rose, she sped through the garage and parked two floors up. She turned the
engine off to listen for the sirens again, but their wailings had trailed to a
whisper. She was in the clear. For now.

She snatched her phone
from her purse to call Cindra, praying she would answer. The phone rang
straight to voicemail, and she struck the steering wheel with her palm. “Shit!”
She pulled up her number at work, but a busy tone beeped in her ear.
What?

While anxiously bouncing
in her seat, her thoughts hammered away.
Erica, her cube mate.
Maybe she
could tell her something
.
One and a half rings later, she answered. “Erica
Newberry speaking.”

“Oh thank God,” Alyx
panted.

“Alyx? Is that you? How
are you feeling?”

“Where’s Cindra?” she
snipped, too stressed to bother with friendly banter.

“What do you mean?”

“Cindra, she hasn’t
returned my calls or texts. I’m worried.”

“Well, Alyx, I hoped
you
could tell me. She quit on Tuesday, and nobody’s heard from her since.”

What?!
she thought and pulled the phone from her ear.
She quit?

“What’s going on with
you two?” Erica asked, and Alyx pressed the “End” button.

Tears seeped from her
eyes as she thought about what had befallen her friend, and what she might find
when she visited her apartment. After Isaac’s, that would be her next
destination. If either one of them were hurt it would be because of her,
because she had led these beasts to them.

Even though she worried
for Cindra, Isaac remained her first priority. She wanted to check things out
and try to get a visual on him to help ease her conscience. He was still alive
at least, because
she
was, being that her existence was solely based on
his. But after seeing what these beasts were capable of, it would be the only
thing that could relieve her fears.

After making sure she
had plenty of cash, she called a cab and asked them to pick her up two blocks
down. Her only problem now was that instead of recognizing her car, the
authorities might recognize her appearance. She twisted her hair into a bun and
covered it with the plaid newsboy cap that lay in her back floorboard. Her bloodstained
sweater peeled from the shirt underneath as she tugged it off, but thankfully, the
shirt’s black fabric camouflaged the crimson splotches.

She hurried to the
agreed upon intersection and leaned against a crosswalk pole, her back facing
away from the road while she waited for her ride. She glanced up periodically
as each car drove by to make sure it wasn’t the taxi and would quickly turn
around to keep her face hidden. She couldn’t chance it being an officer. If they
took her in for questioning, it might be hours before she had a chance to check
on either of them.

To know where the cab
needed to take her, she closed her eyes and focused in on her draw to Isaac. It
tugged her in the direction of his flat. Because the bistro was generally in
the same direction, she would need to use it all the way there to know for
sure. When accessing the draw, she noticed something different this time. It
ached as though there were an urgency of some kind. This new sensation only
supported her reasoning to check on him and make sure all was well. She had
already worried what would be done to her because of coming face to face with
her Marked, but could only imagine the penance for her Marked actually
dying
.

He was her sole
responsibility, and they needed him alive.

*
* *

The taxi pulled up to
Isaac’s building. “Keep the clock running,” Alyx said and leapt from the back
seat. She assumed she knew how to get to his condo from the inside, but if all
else failed she would follow her draw again.

She busted through the
doors of the complex, rode the elevator to the third floor, and sprinted to the
last door on the left. Finding it was a lot easier than expected. It could have
been because she had fantasized about going to his doorstep a thousand times
before, and him inviting her into his world that she could never be a part of.

Unsure of what to say, she
rapped her knuckles against the tall, metal door. If anything, she could
apologize for her rudeness the day before and promptly leave. As she waited,
she noted that her scar didn’t tingle – an incredibly good sign.

The peephole on the
door went black, and she quickly looked to the floor. She could only imagine
what thoughts sprinted through his mind as he saw her standing there. She
nervously rolled her foot to the side as she waited for the door to crack open,
and after a few seconds, she glanced back up with curiosity. The black had
vanished.
Okay.

 She knocked on the
door again, this time louder, and stared directly at the peephole. It then
dawned on her that maybe he didn’t recognize her with her hair tucked into her
hat, so she pulled it off to allow her perfectly rolled tresses to spill over
her shoulders. She held her breath this time as she awaited the shadow.

As soon as it returned,
she forced a tight, pleasant smile to convince him that her sudden appearance
suggested a friendly visit, and the black quickly faded again. He wanted
nothing to do with her.
Fair enough.

She contemplated trying
one last time, but reasoned against it. He was more than likely still wounded
from yesterday, and pride kept him from answering the door.

Practically tearing
herself away, she turned to head back outside. Even though she felt confident
that nothing had happened to him, she would rest easier if she saw that for
herself.
The rooftop,
she thought.  She didn’t want to go there again,
but it was the only way to get a visual on him now. Binoculars or no
binoculars, she could recognize his silhouette from any distance.

*
* *

With Micah beside him,
grasping his arm, Isaac stood by the front door holding a soiled cleaning rag
in his hand. “I don’t understand. Why would you NOT open the door for that
woman?” Micah asked. He had peered through first. The initial round of knocking
alerted him as he headed to the kitchen for a soda, and he didn’t recognize the
attractive woman so he went to get his father, who ran to the door to see who
it was. When he laid eyes upon her strained, smiling face, he jumped away from
the door, unable to mask his bewilderment.

“Why did she scare you
like that, dad? Do you know her?”

Isaac needed to give his
son some sort of explanation and reinforce a healthy fear for strangers who
might approach him. Mainly Alyx. He couldn’t keep him holed up in the apartment
forever, and he couldn’t be with him every second of the day.

He waved the bottle of
Windex toward the couch. “Go sit down. I’ll explain.” 

“I can’t
wait
to
hear about that scary, scary Barbie that was at our door.”

Isaac grinned as he
followed Micah to the couch, grateful that he at least felt well enough to joke
around. He sat near the end, and Micah laid beside him, placing his head in his
lap as he curled into the fetal position. Isaac placed his cleaner and the rag
on the end table and thought about how to begin. He couldn’t tell him about his
dream and what the old man said, or any of his other dreams for that matter. Their
frightening messages were too burdensome for even Isaac’s psychological well
being. This time, he didn’t have the strength to bear both of their grief.

“Ok, son,” he said
while stroking his back, the perfect excuse manifesting, “I saw her at the bistro
the other day and thought I’d recognized her, so I went up to her and asked her
if she knew me. Well, she must have thought I was hittin’ on her or somethin’
of the sort-

“And you
weren’t
hitting on her?”

“Let me finish. So
anyhow, we had a brief conversation, and I thought that was the end of it until
one day I came home, and she approached me outside of our buildin’. She had
followed me home-

“I still don’t see the
problem here, dad.”

“Well, that’s called
stalkin’
.
Just because she’s attractive, doesn’t mean she’s not crazy. That’s datin’ 101.
Make sure you write that down.”

Isaac felt badly for
lying to his son, but reasoned that at least part of it were true. She
had
stalked him outside of their window, but he didn’t want to divulge that to Micah
for fear that it might frighten him. His explanation seemed a little less
disturbing.

As he continued to
stroke his son’s back, he was now thankful for the old man’s warning, because
he would have let her into his home just then. Her engaging smile and
attractive physique enticed him, unbelievably so.
Maybe that’s how she lures
her victims in.

Without warning, Micah
leaned forward and vomited bile on the rug. “Oh, Micah,” he soothed. When the
heaving stopped, he helped him up to his room to rest. “I’m callin’ the doctor
right now.”

*
* *

“Follow me!” she yelled
to the cabby as she hastened toward the abandoned building.

The driver scratched
the top of his bald head with confusion but followed anyhow.