Chapter Eleven
Love Scars
The door slammed shut behind me and Zora jumped slightly. Easy, calm down, I cautioned myself. This was no time to go scaring her.
I deepened my breathing as I tried to calm down. She fully turned to me and I advanced slowly towards her, “A man couldn’t ask for a better partner than you either on the dance floor or in life’s journey.”
She smiled, “Thank you Elon! Thank you for all of this!” She said as she pulled at her dress and briefly touched the pearls at her neck.
“It is a beautiful dress, but you make it look stunning.”
She glanced down at it and then raised her eyes back up to mine, “It is a very nice dress, but I don’t mind if you rip it off me right now.”
How on Earth was I supposed to stay calm when she kept saying explosive comments like that, but I hadn’t denied myself for so long without some strength of will. I reached out and fingered a strap that slipped over one bare shoulder, “That’s a very tempting offer, but I very much want to see you in this dress again someday. So I’ll take it off gently, but then I’ll rip whatever else you have on off.”
She gave a spurt of nervous laughter and I kissed her laughing lips. My fingers hooked under her straps and I started to pull them down as she obediently stood still before me, when a familiar noise made its way into my passion infused consciousness.
I opened my eyes not breaking the kiss and looked off to the side. My phone was jumping up and down buzzing and flashing red. I crammed my eyes back shut.
No! Not now!
I went on with the kiss, but I couldn’t do it. I broke off the kiss, “I’m sorry.” I said before stepping away to pick up my hated phone.
Phone was a small word for it. My phone was a veritable supercomputer. It certainly had the capabilities of one.
It had a virtual built in intelligence that continually monitored countless factors and occurrences from all around the world in real time. I used it to keep myself apprised as to the what, why and where of stuff happening around the world that needed my attention.
Alerts were based on priorities and the endangerment of children was one of my highest priorities, which is what this alert was. I set the phone down and walked over and flipped on the TV.
A concerned looking newscaster was blathering away in Italian, “Authorities were notified at 5 PM today by concerned parents wanting to know the whereabouts of their missing children. The children, a class of 35 sixth-graders were on a field trip to the cultural center of the city. They were due back in by 2 PM at the latest, but when they hadn’t showed parents grew restless and tried to contact the group’s leaders, but they got no one to respond. At 7 PM today the school bus was found in a deserted alleyway. The driver had been shot along with one of the activity coordinators for the field trip. The only other adult not accounted for was the children’s teacher. An alert was put out, but no trace of the children has been discovered. At 11:30 PM this evening local authorities received a ransom video from an anarchical group called September Dawn, which has been linked to several government bombings over the past few years. Authorities have not released the ransom video and it is unclear whether or not the demands can be met or to exactly what they are.”
I worked away briefly at my phone, as I bypassed the security parameters of the police in order to upload the ransom video that they had received. A shaky video came up on the screen of my phone, which was focused in on a group of petrified looking children who sat on a dirty looking floor. A masked man held up a large machete and made a swinging motion with it, which had the children pulling together in fear.
A sign was held up in front of the camera that read, “Nine hours, €10 million and the release of the five September Dawn members that you have in prison or we’ll cut a kid’s head off every half hour, until our demands are met or we run out of kids.” The video abruptly ended.
I felt a touch at my hand and glanced to Zora who said, “I’ll go get changed.”
I nodded and she left.
I flipped the TV off before I put my fist through the screen.
I hated technology, but it was useful. But most of all I hated anyone who would do harm to a child.
My 3 ½ hours until I could experience paradise on Earth had suddenly stretched out to an eternity with no certain future, but that was a small thing to consider when the lives of children hung in the balance.
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Zora glanced at Elon. He looked mad enough to kill and that was good for the place they were walking into looked like a place that needed some killing done in it. She stepped off to the side of the main door and pressed up against the wall in a spot from which she could cover the room if need be.
Elon had never stopped, but had continued on towards the bar. Before the bouncer knew what was up Elon leaned over the counter and hauled the bouncer arms flailing over-the-counter to then beat the muscled oaf completely senseless.
Zora swallowed as she watched the raw display of Elon’s capabilities come to the forefront. He’d just beaten the roughest meanest looking man in the room to a bloody senseless pulp inside of 30 seconds. He’d made it look as easy as buttering a piece of bread.
The other toughs in the bar didn’t look so tough now and as one their hands started drifting for concealed weapons. Zora shucked the shotgun loudly that she had just brought out from under her long leather coat and the drifting hands stopped as eyes swiveled to her and then back to Elon as he began to talk.
“So which one of you wants to be next? I’ll beat everyone of you if I have to.”
An older man who looked smart enough to be one of the ones who’d kept himself out of prison over the years more than most spoke up, “What is it that you be wanting to know?”
“September Dawn. Where are they and where are the kids?”
The demeanor of those in the room grew slightly less hostile. One man spoke up, “September Dawn broke up three months back. I should know because I was one of them. Must be a fragment of the group trying for some money or somebody using it as a front. My money is on the latter of the two.”
A second speaker spoke, “Someone bought access to uncontested coming and going from the Ninth Ward sewer lot. They bought protection for three months. That was two months ago now. Don’t want to see no kid getting their head cut off. Bad for business that is.”
Elon walked toward the second speaker even as Zora ached to pull the trigger and put a shell into the man for connotating the priority of business higher than the lives of children. Elon was staring at the man harshly and it was clear that he doubted the man’s story.
The man went for his gun.
Zora blew his head off without a moment’s hesitation.
The man’s compatriot at the table was staring in horror at the headless occupant of the seat next to him. Zora’s shucked another shell in and the man’s fearful gaze went to her before it refocused on Elon, who had begun to talk, “There is no Ninth sewer Ward. There is an Eighth and a Twelfth, but no Ninth, 10th, or 11th.”
“Old warehouse down by Itasca Boulevard! That’s where they are I swear!” The man cried out in fear.
Elon nodded, “Okay, I believe you, but tell me what should I do with someone who would let little kids get slaughtered for his own gain?”
“Let me go! I won’t do it ever again I swear!” The man cried out in desperation.
“We’ll make sure of it to be sure.” Said the older man who had spoken first.
The scared informant glanced around at the hard faces in the room with fear, who were all staring at him now.
Elon gave him one last dismissive glance, “Enjoy your drink.”
Elon headed for the door and Zora backed out of the bar after him, shotgun at the ready.
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The older man addressed the room at large, “Take him out back with the rest of the trash.”
Several of the patrons of the establishment got up to drag the sniveling man begging for his life out the back way as they picked up clubs and bats along the way. For some, killing kids may have turned into a business, but for others children were still something priceless that should be protected.
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Zora caught up with me, “How did you know the man I shot was lying? Did you read his mind?”
I shook my head no, “Didn’t have to. His kind is only in it for themselves and he had a month of protection money yet to collect. He wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize receiving payment for services rendered.”
“What are you going to do now? Call the police?”
“I’ll hold off on that for a little while. I want to be in place before they come storming onto the scene and a hostage negotiator becomes necessary.”
I felt no remorse for the man I eased to the ground, who struggled feebly against my hand at his mouth as he bled out. He stopped struggling and I wiped my knife off on his shirt and moved on to the next sentry. He made his way to the great beyond more quickly, as I wasn’t as concerned if he got a partial cry out, as he had been the last sentry alive to deal with.
I waited for Zora and she soon ghosted up beside me having finished with her allotment of the sentries around the warehouse. I had to admit it was rather handy having her around.
Without words we both squeezed through the narrow side access door of the warehouse. We slinked through the old boxes and refuse laying around, as we headed toward the sound of voices.
Peering around a rack of old crates I took in the scene. The children were all lined up against one wall tied to a rope with plastic zip ties. Hatred for those who had done this burned within me at the sight of the children being treated so.
I whispered to Zora, “I want you to stay here and cover the children, while I try to lead these last three off somewhere else so the children don’t see any more violence than they already have.”
Zora looked reluctant to do as I asked, but she didn’t say anything. She pulled her pistol out ready to take out anyone in play against the children.
“Police will be here in a half hour.” I said patting her on the shoulder as I went back a ways to start up a second aisle that ran parallel to where the children were. Soon I got close enough to overhear the conversation taking place.
“They’ve only got two more hours until I get to chop little necks.” The speaker said as he laughed in a way that clearly signified that he didn’t have it all together upstairs.
The other two men just shook their heads. One spoke, “If you have to start whacking at little heads Zeke it’s a bad thing!”
Zeke looked dumbly at him and asked, “What’s bad about it?” He seemed to be at a complete loss as to why something enjoyable sounding to him could be bad.
“Because it means we haven’t been paid yet you idiot!” Said the other of the two men testily.
Zeke grinned big, “Oh don’t you worry. I’ll make such a mess of the first couple of kids that they’ll pay us double and then I’ll whack the rest of them up for fun.”
Zeke laughed again at his words, but then stopped as a thought appeared to penetrate his thick head. “Hey I better go practice on something!”
He wandered off swinging away at the air with his big machete, as the two remaining men shook their heads while sharing a look between themselves as to the other man’s cluelessness.
I scraped a knife off the shelf before me and both men stood up grabbing at their guns. I did it again, only more faint in sound and both men started forward toward my concealed position.
Two ropes hung down from the ceiling and I pulled myself up one of them hand over hand swiftly. Getting high enough I reached over and grabbed the second rope and then tensing I hung between both ropes and stilled the movement of the ropes.
The two men came around the corner and ambled down the aisle as they searched the ground floor of the warehouse. They came to the two ropes and I wiggled them slightly. Dumbly they looked up and I let go.
My feet landed on their shoulders and I drove them both face first to the floor and before either of them could even begin to recover I swept a knife down into their backs were their hearts should of been. They both immediately became still beneath me.
I heard a loud grunt and glancing to the left I saw wacko boy. He started running for me grunting and screaming like a maniac, as he waved the large machete around in the air overhead.
I glanced to the side and saw a broom leaning up against some crates. I reached out for it and swung the broom end upwards and calmly said, “Cut the top of this broom off for me would you.”
Zeke came to a tottering halt as he stared at me wildly and then obediently he swung the machete cleanly taking off the top of the broom leaving me with just the handle in my hands.
“Thank you.” I said before sweeping the handle of the broom upwards to crack against Zeke’s already crackpot head.
Woozy from the realignment of his senses he tottered on his feet as I smashed upward again with the broom handle at the hand holding the machete. The machete went flying upwards into the air and I dropped the broom handle as I stepped closer to Zeke.
The machete fell into my open palm and I swung hard cleanly severing Zeke’s head from off his shoulders. I stared down at the head on the floor, as the headless body fell away from me.
“That’s how it’s done Zeke.” I said before tossing the bloody machete to the floor and making my way back through the warehouse towards the children.
As I approached the teacher stood up. I hadn’t noticed her before. I went to her first.
She was blubbering all over about her gratitude and thanking me profusely.
I nodded, as I held her zip tied wrists up in order to cut through the plastic with my knife. My knife sliced through and I handed it to her, “Help me get these kids cut free.”
She nodded quickly and I turned to the children.
Something was wrong. What was it?
The teacher hadn’t been in the kidnapper’s video!
“Elon!!!”
I wheeled back to the teacher even as Zora cried out in alarm, but I was too late.
My eyes met the triumphant eyes of the teacher. I felt my own knife stabbed deeply into my stomach not once, but twice. She twisted the knife hard the second time with an evil sneer.
My hands grasped her head and I broke her neck.
She fell away from me already dead still clutching at my bloody knife, even as I fell to my knees my hands trying to stop the flow of blood. I couldn’t fix this. No matter how hard I concentrated.
It was over.
My long life was over.
Someone pressed me down to my back and tore my shirt away. Focusing my eyes I saw that it was Zora. She was sobbing her heart out and although panicked she looked determined. Determined to do what?
I saw my bloody knife in her hands. Oh God no!
I tried to speak, to cry out to protest, but she’d already slashed both of her palms deeply with my knife. Pushing my hands away she pressed her hands hard against my twin wounds. I heard her say, “Oh Jesus I need you now! I don’t know how to do this! Oh please!”
Zora jerked hard as her hands fused to me even as at the same time her blood began to pour into me through one wound, even as she cycled my remaining blood through her system out the other wound. I felt her efforts on a cellular level to repair the worst of my internal hemorrhaging in the second knife wound.
Finally my mind gave voice to words, “No Zora! You can’t! You’ll give me too much blood or weary yourself past the point of survival trying to fix me! You’ve got to stop or you’ll die!”
Her eyes opened and they reflected the intense concentration she was under. Her words were almost angry, “Do you think I care! Don’t you get it?”
Her eyes searched mine and with emotional fervency she said, “I love you Elon! There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you!”
I swallowed with emotion even as I felt tears sheet down the sides of my face. I reached a bloody hand up toward her face and she pressed her cheek into it lovingly.
“When did you know?” I asked.
“Somewhere in between you rubbing my fingers to keep me from peeing all over the place, because I was too stupid to just use the restroom and you masterfully leading me on the dance floor in the best experience of my life.”
Her eyes were probing as she asked, “Do you love me Elon?”
“Yes! Somewhere in between holding your hair back while you puked into the sink of the men’s restroom and imagining where your birthmark could be.”
She smiled radiantly as tears of her own fell, but there was tiredness behind her smile. Her energy was fading fast, but she’d done enough and I started to take over for her in the healing process. She’d saved my life.
She looked at me puzzled as she felt pushed off from her task and I quickly assured her, “It’s all right. I’ll be okay now.” I affirmed, even as her hands came away from the mottled scars on my stomach. She seemed to collapse against me and I pulled her down against me holding her tight.
“I’m so tired!” She whispered against my throat.
“Shhh. It’s okay. Rest now Zora.”
Just before I heard her breathing even out into sleep I heard her whisper, “I so wanted to experience making love with you tonight.”
She was asleep now and I held her to me. I brought one of her hands up and kissed the pink enflamed scar that ran across the width of her palm. I couldn’t stop crying. I had the gift of one more day to experience life with the woman I loved.
“Thank you God!” I whispered out as I nuzzled my face into her hair loving the smell of it and the feel of her against me. What more could one ask for than one more day with the one you loved?