28.
I can’t remember I’ve ever dreamt that much in one night. Dreams that balanced on the edge of nightmares and were so loaded with emotions they cut through my heart.
My parents appear in them. Of course I don’t know what my parents look like, but in the dream I gave them an outlook myself so I know and feel that they are my parents. I walk in between them, extremely happy I found them, but suddenly they’re gone. Time and time again they’re abandoning me, even before I could talk to them. I wake up in the middle of the night with a ginormic feeling of guilt towards Jabar and Diedie. Although I know it’s undeserved, after all you can’t control your dreams, it hurts.
The rest of the dream is even more horrible.
I remember fragments of images. Noël and I standing in front of an altar and a priest that’s keeping me covered, that’s threatening me with death if I don’t say ‘Yes, I do’. The fear and disgust I’m feeling in that dream are extremely intense and realistic. At a sudden movement Noël’s face changes and Lucas stands next to me in the church. A rollercoaster of feelings is the result: I’m happy and in love. More in love than in the actual life, but dreams just strengthen feelings. When I want to hug and kiss Lucas he changes back into Noël.
I’m now sitting on the edge of my bed, trying to recover. No matter how hard I try to get those nightmares out of my head, they keep beleaguering me like an army of bees.
My shirt is soaking wet with cold sweat and I feel so miserable I feel like getting under the blankets again. How did it come this far? And can it even become weirder? Getting kidnapped and then still being proposed by a walking piece of parchment. At this moment I just want to cut myself off from the world and give up.
And then I immediately call myself to order. Give up? Not a bit of it. Even if it’s just because my list of strengths says I don’t give up easily.
What I especially remember from the dreams is Lucas’s voice. The words weren’t clear, as if he talked to me from a far distance or through walls. But it was definitely his voice with those deep and warm tones. His presence and voice were the only events from my dreams that felt good. If only he was here with me, it would make this imprisonment more bearable. I chuckle. Then I wouldn’t even mind being locked up in a bedroom. The bed would be the only thing Lucas and I need.
I get up and walk to the toilet. Washing and getting dressed under the eye of a camera is one thing, but I fucking hope that the one who’s spying on me has the decency to grant me my privacy during a toilet visit.
I already saw it tonight: they’ve already fixed the handle of the bedroom’s door, unfortunately. But that was to be expected. Besides I think Selena gave me a double portion, I feel weaker than the days before. I suspect that even transforming my hand won’t work and get a seat on the toilet, sighing.
I need to keep trying to find a computer or a telephone with which I can reach Jabar. Even with the few coordination points I have, Jabar would creatively get busy.
Would Noël have already informed Jabar on my condition? Would Jabar have warned the police when he got that picture Selena made of me? It’s a possibility. Jabar could report it as a normal kidnapping. The police don’t need any background information about our kinds or whatever. He’s rich, so the police could assume it’s about ransom money, although it isn’t about that.
In the meantime Jabar will know there’s more behind the kidnapping than merely the extraction of his money. And I know him, he’s extremely careful. Maybe he hopes I can escape without having to involve the police. Or first they try to find me themselves. He knows I can stand rough handling and that I don’t want him to take unnecessary risks or drum up people who could discover our ‘secret’.
My stomach contracts of hunger. There’s a lot of negative to tell about an imprisonment and not eating when you want to, is one of those negative things. I take a hot shower and can’t do anything else after that but to put on the sweated shirt I was wearing tonight. The dress isn’t immediately a garment you wear during the day and above that the thing limits, through his tight straitjacket, me somewhat in my freedom of movement.
I’m just dressed, my hair still wet from the shower, when the chamber’s door opens. I expect Selena but, to my great amazement, it’s the man that came in the tube room tonight. He’s holding a pistol on me, just like the one from Selena; a Beretta 92F, but doesn’t wear a white coat in comparison to tonight.
‘Come along, you,’ he says with a face on which no emotion is to be seen. Now that I’ve got a clearer look on his face, his bulging eyes attract even more attention.
If I don’t get ready immediately he swings with his pistol. ‘Now.’
‘Couldn’t Selena come? Is the poor little vampy sick?’
‘No,’ he answers abruptly.
‘And little Ed still isn’t cured?’
‘Little Ed?’
‘The devil.’
‘None of your business.’
‘Okay, but aren’t we going to introduce to each other?’ I ask grinningly.
He doesn’t answer and looks inscrutable at me.
‘Or do you want me to call you human executioner?’
Only for a second he twitches his mouth. ‘Than I’ll call you wall mould.’
It can’t be he saw me in my transformation, that seems impossible to me. Probably he has heard it from Noël or Selena later on. But it’s clear he isn’t off his stroke by what I say.
‘Fine with me, doesn’t sound bad. Or do you like it better if a call you Hitler junior?’
I try to draw him out again, hoping he’ll reveal something about his activities.
‘Call me whatever you want.’ He puts a threatening step closer.
‘Coming already, coming.’
On a distance of one meter he follows me to the hall. I think I hear moaning, but not in the same intonation as tonight. It rather sounds like an enjoying moan, which surprises me. As we move further through the hall I hear giggling and soft talking.
The last door on the right is open and I can put a face to the voice. Selena. So it’s her room. And she’s clearly having some company. Aha, that’s why madam couldn’t come and get me; it’s her day off from pestering and playing rascal.
I throw a backward glance to the doctor to probe his reaction, but again nothing is noticeable on him. I slow down my pace when we walk past the open door. ‘Doc’ doesn’t urge me to fasten up, so I take a sneak inside.
What I get to see takes my breath away and breaks my heart in a million of pieces.
Lucas is lying on the bed, naked and with a beatific smile about his lips. Selena, the slut, is sitting on top of him on a place that makes clear they’re not just chattering with each other. She moves her hips sensually up and down while her hands rest on his chest. Her long hair falls in front of her face when she leans to him and kisses him long and intimate.
I can’t move forward anymore, I just don’t manage to do so. The sight paralyzes me and even turning my head away seems to be an impossible task. The Doc seems to enjoy the events and doesn’t urge me to walk further.
The next thing Selena does makes me sick. She grabs his hands and leads them to her breasts. She then suddenly looks at me. I shrink back frightened as if I feel being caught. The smile she throws at me is full of satisfaction and victory.
I can’t hold it any longer. I feel a belch coming up, lean forward and puke my bile out. The green stuff contrast sharply with the white cork floor and smells horribly sour.
‘Manon?’
Lucas’s voice sounds really surprised, but I don’t look up. Then I hear Selena yell ‘Hey!’ and the next moment I feel warm hands on my shoulders.
‘Manon? What are you doing here?’
I get up ashamed and nauseous and look at Lucas with tears in my eyes. I don’t know what to say.
‘Manon, what are you doing here?’ he repeats.
I swallow saliva down my throat that’s as dry as dust and turn the tables. ‘What are you doing here?’
I hope my gaze looks as cold as I’m feeling.
‘I…’ He looks into to room, at Selena.
Selena yells: ‘Lucas, darling. Just come back.’ Then she looks at me says: ‘Oh, hi, Manon. Do you know him?’ On which a mean smile follows that’s clearly saying she knows it all too well and that it’s her entire intention.
‘Don’t you know you’re dealing with a murderer?’ I don’t feel sad anymore, but enraged! Fucking enraged!
‘What are you saying, Manon?’ Lucas looks confused at me. It doesn’t seem he’s part of the gang here. He seems to be as much off his stroke as I am.
‘They’re keeping me captured in here,’ I hiss.
‘Lucas?’ Selena is now standing next to him and doesn’t make the slightest effort to hide her nudity. She puts a hand on his upper arm and caresses it slowly while she’s continuously keeping an eye on me. ‘Come. Manon has to go. She needs to have breakfast with her husband-to-be,’ she says tormenting.
‘Husband-to-be?’ Lucas looks hurt at me.
‘What?’ I yell in a moment of pure frustration. ‘As if you’re not fucking someone else!’
Lucas can’t answer anymore. Selena pulls him into the room and smacks the door shut in my face, very childish, still sticking out her tongue at me.
Doc doesn’t need to urge me, I want to get out of here myself and walk to the stair.
Then I’m caught by a horrible realization!
If Lucas isn’t part of this all, which I really think, because no one can act that well, then he’s doomed!
Selena enticed him to this place just to pester me. Of course she knew, by keeping an eye on me, I’ve slept with Lucas. The whole fuss just now was foul play and she has probably hypnotized him to get him into her bed. Can vamps apply it on each other? I haven’t got the slightest idea.
And of course there’s no way Lucas will leave this place alive, because she let him see me! She will kill him, it’s as sure as death and taxes!
I want to turn around when I’m halfway on the stair to help or warn Lucas. Whatever. But Doc is poking me in my back with the Beretta I need to keep descending. Pistol or not, a human life is at stake! The panic and fear about losing Lucas, although he’s sharing the bed with someone else, make my adrenaline level go up like crazy.
With my right arm I hit Doc’s pistol holding hand away from me. He loses his grip on the pistol that falls off the stair with a loud noise, after which I immediately rotate my hand and get a hold of his wrist. All of this doesn’t even take a second and before he realizes what’s going on, I butt him with my head and give him a kick in the crotch. He cries out. As a final move, I push him down the stair. Unfortunately I don’t see how he crashes down, because I rush up the stair again to Selena’s room.
I batter furiously at her door and yell: ‘Lucas, she’s gonna kill you! Lucas!’
I pull and push the door handle, but she has locked the door! I keep battering at and kicking against the door, but with the little energy that’s inside of my body, it hardly has any point. I drop down exhausted to the floor.
The pistol! Stupid cow!
I jump up and run downstairs. The Doc is lying unconscious on the ground at the bottom of the stair. The pistol is a meter away from him. I get a hold of it and run with two steps at the time up the stair again. My breathing goes with difficulty, as if have just run a marathon and my muscles protest heavily. But I don’t ease off.
I unlock the pistol and aim at the door handle. I just have to put up with the fact that I could hit Lucas by accident, there’s nothing else to do. If I hit Selena with it, it’s only much to the good.
Two shots are enough to destroy the lock. I give a kick against the door and it swings open. With the pistol held in front of me I walk inside the room, carefully watching around me. It’s alarmingly quiet. Something isn’t right.
‘Not one more move! Drop the gun!’
I see Selena standing in the left corner of my eye. She’s holding the pistol on the side of my face. I turn around abruptly. Now we’re standing in front of each other with the pistols in between us and aimed at each other.
‘Maybe you should drop the gun, bitch,’ I say as calmly as possible, but my heart is raging like mad.
Her eyes flash hate at me. I consider my chances and possibilities. It’s too dangerous if I try to attack her. She knows what I can do and keeps a careful eye on my every movement.
Then I hear a soft moan and a weak voice: ‘Manon… here.’
Selena looks triumphantly at me. She knows that if I’m looking aside at Lucas, she can unarm me. From the way his voice sounds, he suffers and he’s wounded. Now what? Even if I walk to him, Selena will never let me save him. She’d rather shoot me; her look unmistakably lets me know that.
‘Lucas? Are you alright?’ Stupid question, I know, but what else can I do?
‘She… she has stabbed… me down,’ he says with difficulty. ‘My stomach…’
Oh, God, oh, God, what do I have to do?
Selena sees my doubt and takes advantage of it: ‘If you want to save him, you’ve got to be quick. Drop the pistol and then the doctor will patch him up.’
‘And I surely have to believe you? Why did you do this to him?’
‘It’s his only chance. We can keep standing here like this, I don’t care, but he’ll slowly bleed to death.’
Even if I succeed to escape with Lucas, I can’t find a doctor or hospital in time. I don’t even know where I am and whether the house is far away from a city or town. And now I know Lucas is as much a victim as I am, I can’t leave him like this. Damn it, why do men always think with their private eye? If only he had known how to keep his hormones under control, he would have never been in this situation! Unless he got hypnotized of course.
I unwillingly drop my pistol to the ground.
Selena grins and then yells: ‘John!’
‘John is counting the floor tiles downstairs,’ I say.
‘You’ve doomed Lucas if John isn’t here soon.’
‘No, you’ve got that on your conscience.’
‘Oh, I feel so guilty right now,’ she sneers.
‘Bitch!’ And pseudo-catholic!
Selena picks up my pistol and rushes out of the room. I can hear her descend the stair and afterwards calling John’s name a few times. I quickly go to Lucas and kneel next to him. He doesn’t look good, absolutely not. He has a gaping wound in his side that looks severe and deep. The blood is gushing out. His eyes are closed and he only breathes superficially.
I lay his head carefully on my lap and softly slap his cheek: ‘Stay awake, Lucas, stay awake. They’re coming to help you.’
I don’t know whether he hears me or not, because there’s no reaction at all. I fear the worst.
Selena is back with a limping John. If looks could kill…
The two of them pick up Lucas and carry him out of the room. As in trance I look at the track of blood that stays behind on the ground. They leave me alone in the room because they know I have nowhere left to go. But I don’t get it. Why does Selena hurt Lucas if they’re going to patch him up afterwards?
I suck my breath at a following realization! The empty tube! They’re going to patch him up, only so he can serve as whatever they’re planning to do with those people in the tubes. With the image of a scalped Lucas in my mind I run through the hall, down the stair, through the living room, towards the cellar. I almost slip on a pool of blood, but still know how to keep standing. Even if I can’t come out of my bed for a weak from exhaustiveness, I need to see where they’re taking Lucas.