Rule number 4: It’s good to have a backup plan, things will go wrong frequently.
I once read The Green Mile. You know, the one about the magical black man who heals people through touch. I liked that book a lot. But right now I am reminded of a certain scene from it. For those of you who’ve read it, I think we all know the scene I’m referring to. King called it ‘The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix’. For those who haven’t read it; what are you waiting for, the end of the world? To quickly summarise: there is a particularly disturbing scene where an execution by electric chair is botched with disastrous and traumatising results. In this case, I am Delacroix. Only difference is it won’t kill me, but I’ll wish it did.
“Do you know the odds of being struck by lightning?” he asks in a tone much too cheery for his present actions from behind my seat. I refuse to humour him and resolve to keep my mouth shut for once.
“What, that sharp tongue of yours has gone soft already? No matter, you don’t have to answer.”
Following this declaration a low hum begins to emanate from not too far behind me; it’s on. Roll on one.
“The odds are about the same as winning the lottery.” he announces matter-of-factly. “So congratulations, you’re about to win the lottery…again and again. Until I feel you’ve learned your lesson.”
Shivers run down the length of my spine. My body strains against the bindings holding me to the seat. Even pitted against the full force that my seventy kilograms of weight can leverage, they don’t budge. Not in the slightest. The only thing this achieves is allowing them to bite into my skin. But anything is fine as long as I can free myself. Anything to avoid the marks on my skin becoming brands seared into my flesh. The familiar click of a switch being flicked is just barely audible over the constant hum of his lightning apparatus and my breath is caught in my chest. I know what’s coming next and I now understand why Victor didn’t cover my mouth. He wants me to scream. He wants to hear me scream. He wants to feel my fear as I cry out in pain. He wants me to know that only he will be able to stop the deluge of suffering. But he won’t: he’s not that kind.
He’s the kind of person who will wait until I have no more strength left to even whimper. Then he’ll make it stop and release me from the chair. He’ll feed me and help me recover, at least physically. He’ll take care of me as he slowly twists my mind beyond recognition and I, in return, will never want to betray him. The man who saved me from unending pain. I didn’t notice it before but my legs are shaking. The straps around my legs chafe with each movement but I can barely feel them. I can only focus on the next pain. I swear I can already feel a sharp tingling spreading across my body when he utters his next words. “ROLL ON TWO!” he bellows. I see he’s read it too is my last thought before everything goes black.
Knocked out twice in one week. This does not bode well for my self-esteem. At least I thought I was knocked out before I blinked and obtained two pieces of information: I can blink and the lights are out. Still in the middle of wondering why it’s dark and why I don’t feel like a piece of charred toast when a body slumps to the ground beside me choking and wheezing for air. In the same second, the straps binding me to my seat are cut swiftly and I’m pulled out of it by the front of my hoodie. I say pulled, but honestly it felt like I was lifted from it.
“Grab my hand. Don’t let go.” Two clear commands. Surely, there could be no confusion there.
“What? Why?” Ladies and gentlemen, my final two brain cells expending their lives on these two questions.
My would-be saviour ignores them and grabs my hand to place in their gloved hand, clasping them tightly together. I would be more embarrassed at this impromptu hand-holding if not for the situation I find myself in. My mysterious saviour darts off without a moment’s notice, pulling me along with them as we race away. Away from the image of the imposing leather chair waiting for its victim. Away from the room that hums.
I’ve never been much of a runner, I always preferred Netflix marathons to actual ones. But I don’t remember putting one foot in front of the other as fast as you can being this hard! Despite the fact that we are dashing across a level ground, I damn near stumbled three times and dragged us both to the ground. Each time I lost my footing and began to keel over, I would be pulled upright with an irritated grunt and continue our sprint. Despite this, their grip on my hand never slackens in the least. I maintain that the lack of vision was my downfall and not my lack of athletic prowess I repeat to myself. No matter how or where we run the thick, misty ink-cloud would continue to envelope us. Benighted and bewildered, most of my senses are rendered useless. I have no way of orienting myself. I must trust that I’m being led to freedom. Or at least to a more tolerable form of torture. Trust is a commodity not often exchanged these days. Two sets of rapid footsteps smack against concrete as the seconds trickle by. One, determined and resolute, the other, fearful and apprehensive. All in the rhythm.
I can’t go on any longer. My legs begin to sway beneath me, struggling to bear my weight. My lungs are two strides away from jumping ship and escaping through my mouth in protest. I’m about to voice my inability to continue when we come to an abrupt stop. Are we here? My attempts to pierce the gloom surrounding us are thwarted once more. Doubled over and glad for the respite, I take the opportunity to refill my lungs with much needed oxygen. Stale oxygen though it may be, but I’m not in a position to be complaining. Beggars can’t be choosers and all that. Still in possession of my hand, I can feel their body recoil as they raise a leg to deliver a deafening blow to the space in front us. Pure moonlight and chilling air pours in from where a now decommissioned door stood previously. Wasting no time at all, we’re stepping outside and I get my first look at my hero. Well, heroine.
Ruby hair, pulled into a tight, thin side braid on one side and free flowing on the other, falls to her shoulder blades. Past it, a pair of curious silver irises drink in the moonlight. The bottom half of her dark-olive face is covered by a dark-grey half-mask emblazoned with the Stray’s insignia. No no no. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as it were. I slip my hand quickly from her grip and stagger backwards to put distance between us.
“Y-You’re one of them. You can’t fool me!” I find myself exclaiming in a high pitch. Hysteria has taken control of my vocal cords and is having quite the time playing around with them. I predict a difficult time in trying to wrest back control of them.
“I’m not fooling anyone, dumb-ass. Look you have two choices here; come with me and have a better chance at living or stay here and see what Victor will do to you.”
“Lord knows I’m not his biggest fan, but why are you helping me?” I reply with my vocal chords now at normal Batman levels of depth.
“I need you to do something for me. I save your life now, you owe me one. And I intend to collect on that debt.”
“Ah a little quid pro quo, I see. And if I refuse?”
“I can always throw you back in there. I’m sure Vic would love to have his little lab rat back.”
My brows are furrowed in thought wondering whether these are my only choices here. I have no doubt that she could throw me back to Vic, literally and figuratively. But what could she want from me that the Strays can’t give her? Now that is a matter of great interest.
“Could you think any slower? Is your brain on a single bar of Wi-Fi or something? We don’t have all day.” Sounding slightly miffed, she crosses her arms in her brown leather jacket and taps her boot for effect.
Ah Wi-Fi, how I’ve missed you so. In fact, I can think slower. But she is indeed correct. The sound of multiple footsteps pounding the ground is growing louder by the second; our pursuers are coming. Well mine anyway. I need to make a choice now.
“Alright, you’ve convinced me.” Well no, the sound of many presumably angry people chasing us convinced me but that’s just semantics. “I’ll let you tag along and be my sidekick.”
She snorts in derision as her reply and curtsies mockingly holding the hems of an imaginary dress. “The Duchess of Cornwall, at your service.”
It becomes evident to me that is not our first time meeting. Unfortunately, our first was facilitated by my screaming like a little girl. I always knew you’d come back to haunt me. My cheeks flare up in response and I’m thankful for caramel toffee skin that doesn’t give away such emotions. In one breath she’s crossed the five meters of distance I’d put between us previously and the front of my hoodie is scrunched up in her fist placed mere centimetres from my chin.
“But I’m nobody’s sidekick. Got that, princess?” she rasps through the mask. I gulp loudly. I can’t do anything but nod slowly in agreement. She’s not that much taller than I am but she certainly knows how to use it to her advantage. Piercing, silver eyes peer down at me from a distance that feels like the difference between an ant and the large hand that could destroy its home at any second. A wolf is baring her fangs at me and my hair is standing on end. She releases me from her ironclad grip and the tension eases slightly. Just as quickly as she revealed her teeth, she puts them away. Out of sight but it would be a mistake to think they’re gone. A potentially deadly mistake. The muscles I didn’t realise were tensed begin to relax as I smooth over the front of my hoodie. Shouts from the place we’d just escaped reach both of our ears at the same time. We have to go. There go my muscles tensing up again.
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