Over Exposure (Darkroom Saga) Read online

  I don't know how I got here, but this time I will die to get out. I'll fucking die trying if that's what it takes. I will attack because there's nothing left to lose. My dreams died with Victor. Every hope went into the unnamed casket that passed through the fire at the crematorium. They no longer bury the homeless, there just isn't enough realtor space. He wasn't collected; unidentified, kept in a fridge in some mortuary until it becomes apparent no one is looking for him, no one to claim him, because his brother is here, his wife is a prisoner, and his best friend shot him with his father as a witness.

  To the world he's an unwanted unknown, but to me, he was my galaxy. I know he's gone. My every thought and laboured breath is sucked into the black hole of his demise, every reason I had to live instantly snuffed. The stars don't shine in my heart, the sun is wiped from my sky, there's no way for rainbows to offer salvation when my tears are hidden in this dark hole, away from him. I couldn't even bury him, grieve, mourn. I've been robbed of everything. Everything!

  I should have let that bastard shoot me too. I know he wanted to. He hates me, so why make me suffer even more by taking Victor? Why didn't Peter just kill me? Why shoot Victor at all?

  It makes no fucking sense!

  Haven't I suffered enough for one god damn lifetime? How much more am I supposed to take before the pain becomes terminal?

  Rocking, wailing, I wish the hurt would stop. In my head all I see is him, smiling, feeling his arm around me, his jubilation so blatant. It was perfect, pure, precious. Three bullets, three silent shots, the blood, he crumbled, the world froze, my heart stopped, dizziness spiralled like a hunting raptor, and then suddenly air rushed in, my scream, me running away from the gun, blindly, falling down the side of the mountain right onto the contour road. Vital seconds I wasted. If I could have just stopped and used my head, used my phone, reported it immediately, maybe they'd have been in time to save him.

  The cops said his body was missing, but that's a lie. It's not missing, Peter fucking knows where it is.

  If I have one motivation to get out of here it's to find Peter, to stare at his bloodthirsty face, into the eyes of the hateful thug, and kill him. I want to watch him die the way he made Victor die. The way he made my baby die.

  I have to honour Victor's memory. He was a good man...

  Wracking, I roll over, sniffing because I have no way to blow my nose.

  I need you, Vic. God damn it, I fucking need you!

  Sobbing, the ache becomes agony, my grief so concentrated it coagulates my breath, stagnating my blood.

  I don't want to live without you. It's too hard.

  It's not fair!

  *

  Jude:

  Staring at the life support, my delayed reaction kicks in. I went into Marine mode, calm and efficient, getting the job done, stripping him, swabbing him, scrubbing up, performing surgery while staring at the live feed from the endoscopy. I extracted all three bullets, drained the fluid and blood from his lung, sewed him back up, put him on IV and replaced blood loss with a transfusion.

  He's type O negative and I'm just lucky I had enough of it in storage because I'm the same blood type. I have a supply for my own personal use, in case of emergency – my own.

  His kidney will never work at full capacity again, but he was a health nut, diligent and disciplined, it was in pristine condition, but a bullet can undo the best of intentions. Then again, the human body has no limit when it comes to repairing itself. Sometimes it can take years, but if anyone can do it, if anyone has the sheer willpower and determination to do it, it's Victor. He's indomitable, focused, single-minded to a fault.

  Now I wait, but I fear brain damage may have been incurred. His pulse was so weak I thought he was gonna die on me, right there on the operating table. But how the hell do I get him for an MRI without detection? I can do basic entry level tests here, but it would be a thousand times easier if he was conscious.

  I tossed both our phones on the way over, in separate locations, knowing they'd be used and we'd be tracked and found. They wanted him dead, and if they know I helped him we'll both be terminated before nightfall.

  There's nothing more I can do except keep the pager with his heart-rate on me, take myself off to the gym and ask Ralf to beat me broken so I have an alibi for not having a phone or showing up at the kill-zone when given a direct order.

  Fuck knows what Alpha was trying to prove by calling us all to witness Victor's extermination. We're expendable. If he can drop his own son without regret, his precious golden child, then we're all a commodity. We're lackeys and I'm sick of his shit.

  I've kept my head down and outta trouble, following orders, but only because I've needed the space away from the home cell to finally indulge in and entertain thoughts of heresy. Alpha would end me for doubting him, but this is proof. Victor holding onto life by a meagre thread is all the proof I ever needed. The dude is a paranoid schizophrenic with a god-complex. Alpha's dangerous, unhinged, and intolerant because of delusional narcissism.

  He's no more god than I'm a fucking angel. I'm a man, no more, no less. He's a man, no more, no less. That's why I used my computer skills. I'm his techie, I'm the one who can hack anything, especially his shitty home computer and camera feeds, because I set up the protocols in the first place.

  I've been gathering intel on him for three years, building an iron-clad case against him. One I plan to quietly and anonymously plant in the FBI's hands when I make a break for freedom.

  That time is nigh. After this Victor will either end me for his father's sake, or he'll be on the run with me.

  Either way, this ain't gonna end well for any of us.

  Chapter 4

  Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships!

  ~ Ansel Adams

  Jude:

  Sitting down at my computer, I accept the Skype, staring into the camera so Alpha can see my swollen and bruised face, my cheekbone still so puffy I can hardly see out my left eye. My lip's split, I have a cut across my eyebrow, in short I look terminally fucked up.

  He's about to speak when he stalls, the ire displayed on his visage changing to interest when he leans forward, ordering, “Stand.”

  I stand. We're in different hemispheres, I am in the first week of spring while he is reaching the end of summer, savouring the last days of Utah's heat. Pulling up my jumper I rotate, showing him the strapped ribs and the discoloured flesh riddling my torso with blue and green bruises.

  Sitting again, I stare down, muttering feigned contrition, “Forgive me, Alpha.”

  “Have you sinned?” demands from my speakers, filling my 'home' with his voice.

  “No Father, but I failed to reach the execution. I was savagely attacked by a band of thugs. My accent makes them think I am a tourist. I was grossly outnumbered this time...” hanging my head completely, I mutter, “I failed you.”

  “They took your phone?”

  I nod, looking up, staying in character, doing my damnedest to appear remorseful.

  “What numbers and calls were stored in your phone? What of the call history?”

  Looking into his wrathful face, I reply honestly, “None. I store no numbers, I delete all history daily, and I replace my burner phone every week.”

  “Good,” grumbles at me. Leaning back, he seems cheery, which is alien for him, “You have not sinned, but Seth is on his way, assist him in the search for Victor's body.”

  “Yes father.”

  The connection is severed and I sag against the chair's back, relieved that he bought it. Ralf relished the opportunity to nail my bones to the floor, but it had to be convincing. The struggle to speak, the slurring of my voice through the swelling, the pain, it's not a show, I'm living through it to save two lives. Mine and Victor's.

  ~~~

  Four Weeks Later

  Shauna:

  “It's time you came out of storage,” orders from the door.

  Blinking against the light, I'm
disappointed with myself. I fell asleep. I'd fail in the military, or on a police stake-out, and I'd make a piss poor prisoner of war. I know what it's like to be tortured and I would have sold my soul to the devil to get it to stop.

  I didn't know god doesn't recognise Jesus. I didn't know his real name is Immanuel and that he's acknowledged, but not worshipped. I didn't know that half of what I was raised to 'believe' is wrongly translated and edited so that it would be favourable to Romans. But boy did I find out the second I uttered the name Jesus. He went batshit at that name. So I used god, and even then Vengeance wasn't satisfied. I'd need a master's degree in theology to have answered correctly, and he knew it. He thrived on my ignorance, using it as ample excuse to cut me open so he could watch me bleed.

  I'm a dirty angel. It's tattooed above my ass forevermore, compliments of the angel of vengeance. I will never forget that in god's eyes I'm filth.

  “Woman, I gave you a direct command. Get off your lazy ass and come here, now.”

  Lazy? My lazy ass? As if I have a fucking choice in the matter. What, do the other prisoners get ironing boards and a week of laundry? That wouldn't surprise me. I don't think anything can surprise me now.

  It hurts to move. My abdomen cramps, from hunger or trauma it's hard to tell. I'm unsteady, a little woozy, and the light is piercing my head with the viciousness of a pencil to the brain. Holding my hand up against the glare, all I can make out is the silhouette of a big man.

  He reaches out, clamping a left hook grip around my upper arm, and hauls me into the passage. Shoving me ahead of him, he snaps, “Walk!”

  Keeping a steadying hand on the wall, I stumble forwards, my thighs the consistency of jelly, air feeling too dense to breathe.

  The grey of the paint and the cream of the floor melt together, swirling with the fluorescent light, my vision tunnelling, my heart racing. It stings when I smash my head on the hard epoxy coating the floor, red caging my sight with spots of brilliant yellow.

  I think I'm going to hurl.

  Before I can get the air to stabilise my heart-rate, sucking it in to cool the drumming of my pulse and the fire burning my blood, he yanks me off the floor.

  The whole world vanishes again and the burning becomes intense, cramping my gut and forcing bile and drool out in a dry heave.

  My mouth is watering uncontrollably, coating my taste-buds with the flavours of suffering, richly acidic and ferrous. I rest my head on the ground, squeezing my eyes shut, wishing the pounding in my ears would still, the pressure is making me feel ill.

  Curling into myself to ease the knifing ache in my abdomen, I cling to the floor, grateful for the cool air coasting through the dust. I must have passed out again, or almost... he let me go. I don't remember him releasing me.

  Boots step on my fingers and I gasp at the agony, my body too weak to gather the air for a wail, my voice husky and hoarse.

  “Leave us,” says another voice. It sounds a long way off.

  Jeeeez this pounding in my skull is making me seasick. Clutching my head, I cry.

  I'm weak. Pathetic. I have no strength. All I can do is breathe and hope the biliousness passes.

  Something heavy sits on my head, covering my hands, and a voice says, “Are you all right?”

  I'm tempted to ask if that's a rhetorical question. What about my predicament looks 'all right'? But I'm afraid if I open my mouth I'll vomit. If I speak my mind he'll plant my front teeth into my throat, because that's how they roll.

  It's a hand on mine, and it peels my fingers away, getting a grip on my wrists, forcing me up, hefting under my arms and lifting me off the floor, curling me into an easy bridal lift and walking with me toward the soft light illuminating the end of the corridor.

  Taking a swift left when he reaches the L in the walkway, his vigourous motion saturates my senses, the smell of leather, metal, and spicy cologne, wafts off his chest. Stalking with me, I've yet to look up, because I don't trust my fragile grasp on consciousness. Storming into an elevator, the gold plating back mirrors an image at me, and I shrivel a little more at the sight of broad shoulders and arms riddled with tattoos.

  Why do they keep kidnapping me? If these guys have such a boner for violence and torture, why don't they just do one decent session and smash my nose into my frontal cortex, imbedding it deep in the grey matter and putting me out of my fucking misery.

  Closing my eyes against the sight, a new wave of hideous terror blossoms in my veins, choking air, murdering holiness.

  There's something holy in everyone, an essence that has no name and no location, but we all have it, and hurt – horror – suffering – feed on this essence, depleting us, burrowing out what was whole, leaving it fragile and crumbling.

  My husband's dead.

  Sucking air in desperately, hysteria hoods my mind, locking me inside the well of bottomless dearth. It's deep inside me, so icy icy cold, tears keep trickling when I shouldn't have anything left to cry other than the shredded soul haunting my body.

  I feel empty and pitifully sad. Grief is a cancer, it robs reasons to live, it's a burglar without conscience, without empathy, it will take your eyelashes off your eyes if you let it because it will steal all you have, your skin, your mind, your tears. It vandalises the sacrosanct haven where your immortal quintessence is seated, rendering you useless and apathetic.

  Heartbreak is grief too. It's a death. That spirit crushing agony that has no name, no title, no designation, but is inflicted on every person who ever had the courage to fall in love, who flew to the pinnacle of romance only to trip off the highest peak, tumbling headfirst onto the rocks, the dirt, scuffed, grazed, cut, broken, disfigured by the cruel reality that people lie, dreams die, and promises whispered in lust are just tools of manipulation.

  And when you think you have it all, one person can burglarise you of everything you cherish and treasure. Your whole reason for getting up in the morning can be stolen with the squeeze of a trigger, with a lie, with guilt. Security and trust is an illusion, indulged in frequently by the deluded worshippers who believe in soul-mates and happy ever afters.

  I thought I had nothing left to lose, with this gaping wound inside my essence I now know I have more to yield. My self-respect. That tiny pearl of holiness still existing inside this abandoned body, it's a blip away from winking out of existence. Then I'll be numb. Forever numb.

  It terrifies me. Paradoxically I welcome the sensation of.... nothing.

  This monster, this man, he's going to destroy the little within me that remains. That miniscule kernel which survived abuse, torture, imprisonment, personified madness. It's in his eyes. They belong to a devil, to a horror so vast it would give God nightmares.

  He's going to crush my heart, strip my soul, and force my mind to perish. The only way to survive horror is to welcome the insanity it delivers.

  Surrendering to the cancer feeding on my heart, creating a void where once I cradled happiness and hope, I prepare to mentally die.

  There is no escape but to corrupt my own mind. Sacrifice the soul, starve the spirit, cut off the essence, kill it.

  Kill it.

  Kill it.

  KILL IT!

  Chapter 5

  Remember this; remember that you are my servant.

  I created you to be my servant

  ~ Isaiah 44:21

  Shauna:

  Placed on a plush velvet couch, the man drops to his haunches in front of me, pinning open my eyes with flexed fingers to examine my pupils. Deftly seizing my wrist he plants harsh fingertips into the soft underside of my skinny arm.

  Staring at him, I recognise the face as belonging to Victor's dad, but he looks completely different to the man I met up on Signal Hill. I don't even know his name. He's my father-in-law and yet his name is a mystery to me.

  “You're dehydrated, your blood sugar's too low, and you need a decent meal.”

  And with that inane observation, that I could have told him without the pretence of being a professional checking
out a patient, he stands, moving to a phone, lifting the ornate receiver and barking orders into it.

  I remember Victor telling me they were excessively wealthy. It explains the brash décor smothered in gold plated - mother of pearl - gilt everything. It looks like the fucking holy of holies in here. The amount of gold employed in this room would make King Solomon feel destitute.

  He vanishes somewhere behind me, the only signal he's still here is the clomping of boot heels on the polished floor. The white marble floor with bronze grouting running garish veins between each square.

  Why am I here? Why the fuck did he lock me in a basement and dress up like Peter? What kind of a sicko does that?

  He comes back, sitting opposite me, extending his legs, linking his ankles, resting silver-back gorilla sized arms on the rests, watching me with those burnt peat coloured eyes.

  “What's your name?” I ask him, wishing I could lie down and cradle my throbbing head. The warm light filtering ambiance from crystal lampshades dilutes my ability to focus. I was kept in the dark too long. How long was I down there? Here? Where is here?

  “God.” His face is deadpan, his voice serious.

  “Is that a joke?” I double check. Some people like to josh with a serious face, just to watch reactions.

  “You will call me god.”

  “Are you serious?” I ask, my voice hitching, the ache in my limbs hurting. I'm just so damn exhausted.

  “Shauna, you are sitting in the ninth level of my upper kingdom. I am god. You will never know my name because you are a woman, and no woman may utter my holy name through her deceitful lips.”

  A wave of disorientation washes over me, stealing lucidity, sucking me into the vacuum of pain where Vengeance held and tortured me.

  Vengeance told me god still lives, he's not out there somewhere, he's right here. It angers him when we pray to the sky instead of to him.