Catharsis (Book 3): Catastrophe Page 18

  “Imagine what kind of reward would be offered for that information?” He tells me. “For the name of that girl. Or even her home address. Where she might have family. A family that might be,” he pauses again so that he can make sure he has my attention. “Persuaded to help locate her.”

  My eyes blaze as I stare at him, and I begin pulling on the Darkness. Maybe if I use enough of it, then I can find a way to get through this glass wall. It’s thick, but not impossibly thick. Maybe if I use the oxygen tank?

  “I see you,” he says. “You’re thinking. You’re not moving, but I can see it in you. You’re trying to find a way to get to me. Well, it isn’t going to happen. I’m safe.

  “I asked those poor boys what a person should do if they ever had information that might help them out. They gave me a number to call,” he continues. “A lawyer that works for their cartel. They told me to just call him and pass along whatever I could, and I would be compensated. Sounds like a great deal to me.

  “To make things go as smoothly as possible here,” he says. “I already called the number earlier and set things up.”

  Chadwick sees my eyes go wide, and he shakes his head a little bit.

  “No, I didn’t pass along your name to them. I just made sure they’d be able to take care of the situation once they had the name of the individual who’d been haunting them. I’ve been assured that they’ll take care of it immediately. Want to watch and find out? I know I do.”

  He pushes one last button on the phone and then brings it up to his ear.

  “Ren,” I say desperately. “Help me. Is he serious? What can I do?”

  “One moment,” he tells me.

  “Ren,” I ask again pleadingly as I watch Chadwick speaking to someone on the other line.

  “Is everything still a go?” Chadwick asks with a smile. “Our deal is in place if it all checks out?”

  “I was right,” Ren says suddenly. “It’s the same guy.”

  “Who is?”

  “The lawyer he is on the phone with is the same one you visited months back. Before Leyna,” he says and I can hear him swallow uncomfortably. “It’s the one that you bugged so that we could listen and pick up where to hit next. I’m listening to his side of the conversation now.”

  “The girl you’re looking for is named Catarina Perez,” Chadwick says and purses his lips to blow me a small kiss as he says it. And then he passes along my parent’s address.

  “Ren, what do I do?” I ask again. How can I stop this? Now killing Chadwick won’t even end this. I was too slow. I didn’t react quickly enough. My name is out there. This lawyer has it, and he’s going to hunt down my parents and do something awful to them. He’s going to kill them. Or worse. And it was all because of me. Chadwick was right. I caused all of this. Everything is lost.

  Except for the Darkness. It flares up and clears my mind, and focuses me. It brings up information that I had pushed aside months ago and had forgotten was still relevant.

  There is an easy solution to all this. And the Darkness brings it to me.

  That night I had planted surveillance throughout the lawyer’s house, I had left something else there, too. A present that we had hoped to never have to use. In case our whole operation was a bust and we needed to completely cover our tracks, Ren had supplied some explosives for me to take along. I had wired them into the house’s attic so that we could level the place and erase it from existence if there was ever a need. But then Leyna died, plans changed and it became just one of the many forgotten deeds of my past. That small bundle of explosives would have just remained up there forgotten forever or until he tried to sell the house and failed the inspection in a spectacular manner.

  “I’m trying to see if I can kill the power in the house,” Ren tells me. “Or maybe get the phone service to go out. It won’t be a perfect solution, but it’ll at least buy us time.”

  I watch as Chadwick ends his call, and then hangs the little intercom phone on its hook. He then mouths the words “good bye” to me as he stands up and turns away. He’s done with me and moving on.

  But I’m not done here. Not yet.

  “Ren,” I say calmly. “Blow the house.”

  “What,” he asks, a bit confused by my request.

  “The house. You’re going to have to blow it up,” I tell him. “It’s possible, remember? Back when I first set up the bugs on the house, I also wired the surprise in the attic. Didn’t think we’d ever use it, but we were just handed a gift.”

  “Cat,” he tells me softly. “I already thought of that.”

  “Then why haven’t you…” I begin, but he cuts me off.

  “I don’t think he’s alone in the house. I haven’t been able to check, but I think his family is in there. His wife. His kids.”

  His family. The lawyer’s family is there. We can’t blow it if they’re in there. Ren’s right. There must be another option.

  The Darkness swells again inside of me, and I can feel it pushing my thoughts. I know it’s nudging my thinking, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

  The lawyer has made his choice. He chose this path. He willingly embraces evil. He isn’t a good person. He doesn’t deserve to live more than my parents do. They are innocent in all of this. I’m trying to make the world a better place, this man isn’t. His family shouldn’t get to live while mine doesn’t. That just isn’t fair.

  “Do it anyway,” I say to Ren. “It has to be this way. There is no other option. We have to save my family.”

  “No,” he tells me, and I detect the strain of tears in his voice. “Maybe we’re wrong. We can’t just do this, Cat. There’s no coming back from a choice like this. That family is innocent. Those kids…”

  Ren’s voice disappears as a new voice comes on in the speaker. I recognize it from it all the weeks we spent listening to the man talk in his office about the cartel’s plans while he had no idea we could hear him. Apparently Ren has the volume up on one of the microphones in the man’s office as I can hear him connect a phone call.

  “Yes, sir,” he says with restrained enthusiasm. “Our source came through. We have her name.”

  “Ren, please,” I say. I’m listening to the man that is about to order the execution of my parents. I have to be able to stop it. Ren has to save me. “Please.”

  He says nothing as the man continues, “I have two teams ready now. Yes, sir.”

  “No,” I whimper. “It can’t happen again. Save them, Ren.”

  The man’s voice picks up again. “As soon as you say the word, then I’ll send the address and we can get this started.”

  “Thank you, sir,” he says and then stops. “What’s that? Where are they going? Get this. It’s almost in our own backyard. Yeah, I know. It’s on a street called…”

  With a small screech of feedback the line goes dead and the voice stops talking. It just ends.

  “Ren?” I ask. “What just happened?”

  Instead of answering me, I hear the dull thump of Ren’s headset hitting the ground and the distant sound of weeping. The weeping is only broken by the faint sound of Ren’s voice as I hear him say, “God save my soul.”

  My family is safe! He did it. He saved them.

  Part of me knows what this decision just did to Ren, but I’m unwilling to think about it. I can’t think about it.

  I’m thinking about Chadwick and what he’s done. What he just attempted to do, and how he thinks he’s going to get away with it.

  With a howl of rage that comes from the Darkness empowering me, I pick up the metal oxygen tank I’ve been pulling behind me for the past hour. I know the wall separating us has to be designed with bullet-proof glass, but I don’t plan on hitting it with a tiny bullet. I’m intending on smashing it with a ten pound hunk of metal. That difference in size has to count for something.

  Lifting the tank above my head, I channel as much of my energy as I can into my throw and I hurl it at the barrier in front of me. I watch as the cylinder smashes into the clear wall
like a small meteor that has been ejected from our atmosphere. It punches through the glass much more easily than I had anticipated, but as the metal casing crumbles upon impact while pushing through the shards; it explodes. The explosion is not large, or powerful, but it was unexpected. Apparently when the tank deformed and released its hold on the oxygen inside of it, one of the rending metal pieces of the container must have sparked against another piece. The resulting WHOOMP and flash of light that follows it blinds me for a moment and makes my ears rings.

  Shaking my head to clear the stars, I take a moment to silently thank Ren for his forethought in giving me eye and ear protection before entering this place. If these glasses hadn’t already been blocking out most of the light or my earpieces automatically tuning out most sound, then I’d most likely be completely incapacitated after that.

  But I’m not. I wonder how Chadwick fared on the other side, though. Hopefully that caught him a bit off guard.

  Opening my eyes and letting my vision return to normal, I see the shredded remains of the oxygen tank and cart hanging out of a good-sized hole in the glass. It isn’t quite enough for me to get through, but the overturned metal chair in front of me can help solve that problem.

  Picking it up and swinging it with an oomph, I smash the chair into the mangled tank and cart and knock them through to the other side. The metallic bwanging of it as it bounces off the desk on the other side is easy to hear through the large hole that has now appeared in the glass wall.

  The glass wall may have been intended from preventing an irate visitor from shooting an inmate or guard on the other side, but I doubt the designers had ever known they would have to plan for a girl-propelled oxygen bomb to hit it. There is only so much a person can plan for in life.

  Pulling myself through the hole and landing on the other side, I look to my right and see both Chadwick and the guard standing next to the still closed door and shaking their heads and rubbing their eyes. Neither one of them is on the ground or knocked out, but I didn’t really expect that. I’m just happy I caught them before they were able to leave the room. The oxygen exploding may not have knocked them out, but it did slow them down.

  “Chadwick Morrin,” I say and stand up to my full height as I turn to face him. “You’re done.”

  He doesn’t react as I stride towards him, and I realize he can’t hear me. I don’t think he even realizes I’m on this side of the wall, yet. That’s fine. He’s about to.

  He either sees my shadow or just senses my presence as I step up next to him, because he suddenly turns to face me and his eyes go wide. His expression brings me a joy that I wasn’t sure I was even capable of feeling anymore. It’s nice to know that it’s still inside me somewhere.

  The surprise quickly evaporates and he starts to say something, but instead of letting any sound come out I punch him in his chest just hard enough to deflate his lungs and knock the air out of him. There is a brief, but intense, whoosh of air as he exhales all the oxygen that was inside of him, and then he drops to the ground like someone hit him with a Taser.

  I’ll deal with Chadwick in a moment, but I want to take my time when I do. The other guard is still standing next to us, and he’s starting to figure out what is going on. He was disoriented from the blast when I stepped up next to them, but Chadwick’s dropping to the ground helped him figure out something was happening that wasn’t to his benefit. As he fully turns to face me, his far hand drops to his belt. I’m not sure what he has over there, a gun or baton or Taser of his own, but I don’t care nor do I plan to find out. With an expert precision, I jab him in the throat with the closed knuckles of my right hand and I relish the feeling of the crunch from his trachea imploding. I have no love for this man who just supplied Chadwick with the phone that was going to lead to my parents’ death, and he will have no mercy from me.

  His eyes scrunch together from the sudden and intense pain that rockets through his body, but I’m not done helping to relieve him of the burden of consciousness. Grabbing his face in my right hand, I bend my elbow a bit to give me leverage and then I thrust him backwards as hard as I can and release him. His head makes a crunching noise when it hits the metal door that reminds me of when I accidentally dropped a watermelon on the floor as a child. His body slumps and slides to the ground where I leave him in a curled up, twitching mass. I don’t believe I’ll have to worry about him again.

  Stepping back over to Chadwick, I bend down and pull him up to a standing position. He resists me at first, but then relents when I continue to pull him up regardless of his help. Standing in front of me and only inches apart, I can finally stare directly into the eyes of the man I hold responsible for what happened to my sister. I have thought of this moment numerous times and run through innumerable scenarios of what I would do when it happened. But I hadn’t planned on it being like this. In all my versions of how this might eventually play out, a scene like this was never even a blip on my thought radar.

  There are so many ways I have envisioned myself ending his life that I don’t know where to start now. My main issue that is bothering me is that I can only do this once. In my heart, I want to do this several times. Hundreds of times. I want to make his torture and suffering my full time career. A job where I get to put in eight hour shifts and enjoy every minute of it until I retire. Instead I only get to do it once. And my time is running out.

  I’ve been dimly aware of an alarm going off somewhere, but I’ve been ignoring it. It was an issue for somebody else, and I had a mission to accomplish. The Darkness helped keep me focused, but now it also alerts me to the fact that I can hear sounds on the other sides of both doors into this place. The one only a few feet away from me, and the one I had originally come through. Plus, I need to be able to escape this place unless I want to make this my tomb, also.

  Unfortunately, time is not something I have an abundance of.

  The Darkness whispers to me to make this quick. And preferably not make a mess on myself in case we can still use my “poor, little cancer patient” disguise to get out of here in the confusion.

  As I listen to the voice, I realize the Hunger is also whispering to me. I’ve just used quite a bit of energy getting through that wall. I could use a refill. And there is a source right in front of me.

  The voices make sense. I trust them, and I believe they would never steer me wrong.

  “Goodbye,” I tell Chadwick, and I bare my teeth and bite into the throat that is inches away from me. He jerks and struggles for only a moment and then his body goes still. Forcing his body back against the wall to give myself leverage, I pull and I drink and I take every last drop from him I can until the well dries up. I keep my hand pushed against his chest as I gulp the last drops down, and I smile as I feel his heart beat its last few, futile attempts at life. Once I can tell that that vital organ has worked its last job ever and I can get nothing more from him, I release him and let him slide down the wall.

  His pale, deflated body slides over and lays on its side, and the man that was once Chadwick Morrin is no more.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The energy rush Chadwick’s blood gives me helps drown out the sorrow I feel at knowing he suffered the same death as my sister. She deserved better. He deserved worse. In the end, though, he’s gone now and that is what’s important.

  The Darkness informs me that it has been almost thirty seconds since I first threw the oxygen tank, and my time is limited. Looking at the macabre scene around me, I realize it would be best if I was back on the other side of the divider and away from the carnage. It would definitely help my story. And my chances for a painless escape.

  Inhaling to steady my thoughts and nerves, I focus on slowing down the world around me. If time is what I need more of, then that is something I’m able to provide. As I exhale, I relish the silence that descends around me. The wailing blare of the alarm hasn’t ended, but with time slowing down it has become unnoticeable.

  As long as no guards know that I was the cause o
f all this mayhem, then I should be able to lean on my apparently frail frame and cancer victim persona to aid in my escape. I figure there is no way any rational human would believe that I, a petite teenaged girl, could possibly have done this. Not unless they witnessed it with their own eyes, and even then they may be reluctant to accept it. That can work to my advantage.

  All I have to do is get back across the divider to the visitor’s side of the room and then find a spot to cower and pretend like I have no idea what is happening. I’m sure some kindly guard will take pity on me and lead me to safety. Someone will step up and be a hero. I can only hope that their moment of kindness will allow me a moment to slip away and escape unnoticed.

  As I stand and make my way towards the gaping hole in the glass, I notice the many cameras around the room. Although I’m sure there is nobody in this room who is both still able to communicate and was a witness to what occurred, that doesn’t mean there aren’t others who might have seen what just happened. Those cameras must be monitored by somebody, and if Chadwick had enough influence in here to get the room set up for just the two of us, then he probably made sure someone was watching everything, too. Or at the very least, the explosion of the oxygen tank may have alerted someone to trouble and gotten them to glance at the screen. And if they did that, then they would have seen me attack the guard. And Chadwick. Even if they might not have believed a person like myself was responsible for such carnage, watching it unfold in front of them might be enough to make someone suspicious enough to not let me leave without some serious questioning happening first.

  “Mierda,” I curse with the realization. My assumed ‘easy way’ just ratcheted itself up several notches on the difficulty scale. Looks like I’ll most likely be fighting my way out of here after all. I don’t want to hurt the people working here or the guards on duty, but if that’s what I have to do then so be it.