Chapter 6

Integrity

The cold water in his face woke Spencer from the dark hole he was hiding in. He didn't want to come back, just to be hurt and have to find his way back down again.

Rough hands shaking him.

"Wake up, Freak. You are going to help us."

The cuffs were again undone and he fell hard on his face on the floor. He managed to turn his head to the side this time so his jaw and ear impacted with the floor. Painfully, he climbed onto his knees. Again the stabbing pains into his abdomen stopped him from standing. He turned blind bleeding eyes towards the man standing by him.

"G-give m-me a m-minute, p-please, and I will s-stand."

No hands grabbed at him, but no one spoke either.

Spencer forced his arms to the front, biting hard on his lip, and tasting blood, to prevent him from crying out. He pressed down onto the floor with his hands, feeling something like an electric shock shoot up his arms into his body. It felt as if his head would explode.

Carefully, he put one foot at a time onto the floor, and, shaking and trembling, using the wall to pull himself up, he managed to stand.

He leaned on the wall, his head back, trying to feel past the agony from the kicking to the groin. New tears forced themselves from behind his torn eye lids, stinging the already hurting skin.

All he wanted to do was curl up and feel Aaron pressing behind him, and nurse his pain. The hand in his hair, pulling him, told him that there were other things waiting for him.

Aaron, where ever you are, please, get these people out, and save yourself.

The man turned him round and cuffed his hands behind him, and pulled him off the wall. Bent forward at the waist, and limping with small steps, Spencer was led to the front of the theatre again.

The tall man spoke to him.

"It seems, FBI, that the police won't negotiate with us." he said. "They are calling us terrorists, which, of course, we are not. We have said that each hour that goes by, we will assassinate a hostage, until they open negotiations with us. You are going to choose which hostage will be first." The man smiled nastily, but it was lost on Spencer. "I know you can't see, so each hostage has a number. You will choose a number."

Spencer shook his head. "I will not choose a number. I won't play."

He felt a kick to the back of his legs, and he fell onto his knees with a cry of agony.

The hand then pulled his head back so that it was bent as far as possible. A soft cry of pain escaped open lips, and he again felt fingers crawl down his forehead into his eye sockets again.

Spencer cringed away from the hand, but like the last time, there was nowhere for him to go.

Spencer could hear some of the hostages crying. He guessed that this show was for them. He was determined not to give in to their demands. If the government wouldn't work with terrorists, then he surely couldn't

"This time, kid, you will hear your eyeballs pop when I push them into your skull."

If his eyes had the possibility of recovery before, this time he was sure he would be blinded.

The fingers pressed into his eyes. He felt liquid run down his face again. He didn't want to scream to give them the satisfaction, but he screamed anyway. Again the red swirling pattern of pain, and again, feeling as if his eye balls were going to be pressed out of their sockets.

In his mind he called out for Aaron. He called for help, to be freed again.

He screamed again as the pressure increased, and he heard his cries echoed by one of the hostages.

Suddenly he started to choke, as he threw up, but his head was pulled back and he wasn't able to eject the liquid from his mouth so he could breath. He was dry drowning and the fingers in his eyes were blinding him. He coughed and choked and screamed.

Then, as the screams changed and the sound bubbled through bloody foam in his mouth, he breathed in deeply, and drew blood down into his lungs. His heart beat so he could hear it, but he couldn't breathe through the blood flooding his airways.

As he died, he felt the satisfaction of dying with his integrity intact.

Aaron I love you…..please,... Be proud of me………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………

The tall man looked down at the body at his feet.

That was not supposed to happen. The Fed was his last bargaining chip.

He was annoyed. The man was weak

He picked up another of the phones from the bag and called the same number. The answer was the same though. They would not negotiate with terrorists.

"The first hostage is dead. We will leave the body in the foyer near the window. As before, you will not attempt to enter the building. You may send one person the see the body through the doors, and then move away. If these instructions are not obeyed, we will decrease the waiting time to half an hour."

He shut the phone and switched it off.

He kicked Spencer's still body. "Dump it in the foyer." he said to the other two. Then he turned to the hostages.

"You have half an hour to decide who is going to be next."

Most of them were crying with grief having watched the young man brutally killed in front of them when he could have saved himself.

But rather than despair, his death inspired courage in his fellow hostages. Each in their own way determined not to let these men break them.

The two men each took a foot of the corpse and dragged it out of the theatre into the wide corridor. They dragged it down the ramp and past the merchandise stand where Aaron was crouched, and the body was dragged towards the foyer. ………………………………………………………………………………………………

At first, Aaron couldn't see what the two men were doing. It was dark in the corridor and in the foyer, only the emergency night lights were on.

Then he saw that they were dragging a body. Aaron's heart sank. They were starting to kill the hostages.

Then he saw whose body it was.

Oh god! It's Spence!

He ran out of his hiding place. He could not stay hidden and watch them treat the body of someone he loved that much with such derision and in such a cold and indifferent way.

"Get your filthy hands off him!"

The men dropped Spencer's feet and turned to face Aaron.

Aaron sprayed the men's faces with the detergent.

Immediately their hands went to their faces and clawed at their stinging eyes. Aaron landed a punch to the face of the man on the right, sending him backwards, hitting his head on the wall on the way down. The other man tried to hit Aaron, but with eyes sprayed with detergent, he couldn't see properly, and missed. It gave Aaron the chance to send him the same way as his companion.

He took their guns, and hit them both again with one of them. He couldn't bring himself to shoot them as they lay in front of him.

But they wouldn't be getting up for a while.

Aaron knelt next to Spencer, his tears falling onto Spencer's beautiful face, beaten and cut.

And dead.

Aaron picked him up and carried him back to his hiding place.

He wrapped his arms around his body, and buried his face in Spencer's soft hair.

He kissed his unresponsive lips and gently touched his lifeless eyes.

He pulled the body close and kissed his hair.

Aaron broke down, crying bitter tears of anguish.