Johanna stood where her father had left her. She had not moved for hours from that exact spot and there she stood, waiting for a form of consolation, be it whatever for it came in.
After waiting helplessly for her father's return or at least a source of comfort, Johanna realized that her caring Toby was missing. Johanna gazed around her in a sort of daze, her eyes scanning the walls around her as she called the boy's name.
After helplessly searching for Toby after he had mysteriously vanished, Johanna walked up to her mother's room, tears threatening to spill over if she did not keep herself composed. She knew she had to be strong, but it seemed that the peril and danger would never stop. The ghosts would never go away.
Lucy was holding her baby and, to Johanna's dismay, was standing at the window and gazing out into the matured night, her face now holding tears of worry. The usual strength in her gaze had been eaten away by pure dread and she now held an expression that made the girl feel as if her mother's pain were her own.
"Mother," Johanna began, "you should be in bed."
Lucy barely gazed at her elder daughter. "I am so worried," she choked out with a fresh tear trailing down her moon bathed cheeks. Her lips quivered as she held in a choking sob.
"Father will be fine," Johanna promised her mother, though Johanna knew that the promise was not based on fact, but consolation.
Lucy shook her head. "It is not your father that most of my concern is directed towards. It is…"
"Mrs. Lovett?" Johanna breathed. Her mother was concerned over the one woman who had desired her husband for years?
"Yes," the blonde woman whispered to her daughter, closing her eyes as she took in a deep breath. "I'm so worried…she might be hurt…She was my closest friend…" Unable to contain herself, Lucy was overpowered by shaking sobs.
The baby looked up at her mother as if she were curious. She reached a small hand up to the woman's chin and touched the spot where her tears fell. Lucy sent the child half a smile and held the infant close to her, protection ceasing the tears and hardening her weakness.
Johanna placed a soft hand on her mother's shoulder for support. "I cannot find Toby, mother," Johanna muttered with a desperate glance.
With a wary look, Mrs. Barker studied her daughter's face. "He most likely went to help look for Nellie."
"What if Thorne is waiting for all of them? What if he has done something?" Johanna inquired, no longer disguising the panic in her voice.
In despair, her mother shook her head and gave the window another troubled stare. She had spent most of her life wondering the same helpless questions of 'what if'. She had roamed the world, spending most of her life wondering who she was, who her family was, and what had become of them if something dreadful had befallen them. Those two words nearly made Lucy sick.
"You know, they may need our help," Johanna said in bland tone. The girl now studied the night, marking its prominent features.
Without a word, Lucy handed her daughter the baby and said, "I am going to try and help them. Stay inside and run if something should happen…run and immediately get the law. "Lucy gave her daughter a fierce glance to emphasize the seriousness of the situation.
Johanna held her sister close to her chest and demanded, "What do you think you are going to do?"
With a backward glance as Lucy ran towards the door, she answered. "I have spent many years being a helpless fool. I will help my family, Eleanor and Toby included, even if it is the last thing I ever will do."
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Sweeney Todd pushed through a pile of wooden crates that stood isolated in the middle of a street. With a sickening dread, he remembered that he was very close to the dock that had shipped him to his fate and returned him to the dark world of London.
The night was close to its end, for a blue light was beginning to signify the coming morning. It was a blurry morning, the wind cold and biting.
He continued to wonder through the streets, shoving aside trash like a madman, tripping and turning corners as if he were blind. There was not a hint of Eleanor Lovett. Not a sign of struggle, an article of clothing…utterly nothing!
Sweeney kicked an empty crate in frustration, sending it crashing to the opposite wall. "Damn it, woman," Todd shouted to the sky, "I am sorry…I do not hate you…Now, come back home before I kill somebody!" Sweeney turned to yet another, abandoned street. His voice carried across the vacant road. "You, of all people, know I won't hesitate in doing so!!"
Silence greeted his threat, causing him to slump against a wall in defeat. He was now leaning against a wall that belonged to a rundown building, once used to house the captains of any ships that docked. Times became so hard, the captains decided to stay on their ship and avoid paying any bill for a room, causing the owner to close his small business and leave it in the care of no one. It faced the pier where Sweeney had first disembarked The Bountiful with the young Anthony Hope, nearly a lifetime ago…
The door to the building behind him opened, creaking in a tone that was far from welcoming. The barber cast the doorway behind him a suspicious glance before standing in front of it. The room smelled of mildew, no doubt from the water that was located in front of it. Dust entered his nose upon breathing, thickening in his throat as he stifled a cough. Leaning inward, he muttered, "Mrs. Lovett, are you in here?"
A sob of extreme anxiety was heard in the corner of the dark room. The man's heart gave a painful lurch with fear as he entered the deserted room, his eyes adjusting in the faint light well enough to see Eleanor Lovett's crumpled figure in the corner. She was bleeding from her mouth and a large bruise adorned her cheek.
He rushed over to her, knelt to his knees and grasped her shoulders. "What has happened?"
Barely able to sit upright, she opened her cracked lips and shrieked out only one word. "No!"
"Step away, Mr. Barker."
Sweeney turned towards that voice…the voice that had sent pain and agony crashing into his young soul; That one voice that he had begged to never hear again, for he would gladly face death than stand in front of his past prison guard, helpless and alone.
Victor Thorne stood, pistol in hand, and a sly smile playing on his lips. "I would not do anything foolish if I were in your place. I was ignorant enough to let your little daughter escape me, but this time," he gave the weapon a playful shake, "dear Mrs. Lovett will help convince you to confess your true identity to the law."
Sweeney sent Mrs. Lovett a steady glance. Though he wanted to brutally stab the man who had just reminded him of his daughter and her traumatizing kidnapping, he shifted his legging and remained silent, yet equally dangerous.
"Do not try to fight this, Barker. All you have to do is retrieve the local bobby, bring him here, and sing out your true identity. If you do not…I would hate to be the one to end this woman's life. But do not even think," he spat, "that I would not do it!"
Mr. Todd stepped in front of Eleanor in an attempt to shield her from any bullets. He made his movement subtle, inconspicuous.
"Do as I say, you miserable prison rat, and get the law here!"
Mr. Todd held onto his hidden razor, preparing himself for attack.
Mrs. Lovett reached towards Mr. Todd's leg. "Do not reveal…to the…law" she gasped. "Fight him," she barely managed to whisper.
"Move to it!" Thorne ordered. "I will give you the beating of your life if you don't. You think I was bad in prison, eh? You think that those days were a nightmare? Well, test me, Barker! Let us see if my skills have rusted with age or increased with practice!"
Still, Sweeney Todd stood still. "Very well," the man whispered. "I suppose you need a motive." Thorne raised the gun towards Mrs. Lovett and cocked it.
In a sudden surge of energy, Todd lunged towards his past guard and sent his fist flying into the side of the man's skull. Thorne smashed his head into the behind wall and was sent sprawling to the floor.
"I locked you in a room filled with rotting carcasses, Barker! Rest assured that I will do so again!" Thorne screeched as he clutched at his head, which had begun to bleed. He scrambled to his feet and lurched at the ex convict, his eyes gleaming in the rising sun.
The gun that was once in his hand was sent spiraling across the room and towards the immobile Mrs. Lovett. She grimaced and held the firearm in her bloodied hand. She would not dare shoot Thorne for fear of hitting Mr. Todd. She simply sat there, on the brink of unconsciousness.
Todd was now being pinned down by Thorne, who had managed to unsheathe a knife in the process. He now held it by Todd's cheek, mouthing words of impurity. All he had to do was grasp his razor. He should not have charged at the bastard without one!
With his boot, Sweeney sent a sharp kick to the man's side and regained his footing. He grasped the razor in his hand, smiling as he held his weapon with authority.
While he straightened himself, Thorne scrambled over to Mrs. Lovett and held her neck in his large hand. "Now, you will pay," he shouted as he pried the gun out of the woman's hands.
Toby had lost track of Mr. Todd as he followed him. Now, the boy wondered without an inkling of where he was headed, that is, until he heard the shouts coming from an abandoned building that lay along the harbor.
With a sickening dread, Toby advanced towards the neglected building. The shouting voices belonged to a man. In his mind, Toby matched the sounds he was hearing at the present time to a threat he had heard long ago…
"I WILL GLADY ENJOY SINKING MY BULLETS INTO EACH AND EVERY ONE Of YOUR PATHETIC FACES!"
Toby remembered the words with nauseating clarity and charged through the doorway, prepared to face the man who had threatened to kill them all. He had noticed Todd standing straight on one side of the room, his eyes staring at another site. Toby turned his head in the direction of the barber's gaze to see Mrs. Lovett lying in the corner with Thorne leaning over her hunched figure. Only, the man was holding something in his hand…something dark which was now pointed towards his guardian…A gun.
Toby let out a pleading scream, "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"
The gunshot rippled throughout the building, sending soft shudders through the glass of the cracked windows. Toby stood, immobilized by fear as he saw his guardian-the only mother he had ever known- slouched over after the bullet piercing the skin of her chest, shattering her breast.
Toby fell to the floor and reached towards the woman, uncaring if the assassin took his life then and there. Thorne, upon seeing the boy, reached towards Toby, and grabbed the boy by his neck. He squeezed until the boy began to see red spots which clouded all sights but were not merciful enough to erase the memory of seeing his only mother lying on the floor, bleeding.
In another moment, the pressure on the boy's neck was released and the child fell to the floor, clutching his throat and gasping violently for breath. He looked upward to see Mr. Todd standing over him; only the barber did not seem to see him. He only had sights on the murderer of Eleanor Lovett.
Toby crawled over to his guardian's bleeding figure and held her in a limp embrace, barely able to face consciousness.
Sweeney Todd, however, took on a more violent action. He whipped out his razor and charged towards the man who now stood over the bleeding baker, gun still in hand. In a flash, Todd raised his razor, and before Thorne had time to prepare his gun to fire at the barber, Sweeney Todd plunged his razor into Thorne's wrist.
Mr. Thorne hollered in pain and dropped his murder weapon. His screams were cut off as Todd pulled the razor out of his flesh and grasped the man's neck just as Thorne had with Toby.
"Do you recall the day," Mr. Todd asked the thrashing man, "I told you that I prayed Benjamin Barker would live to see the day you died?" He did not wait for an answer.
"Well," said Sweeney Todd as he lifted his razor to the heavens and the devil flashed in his eyes, "today will be the day."
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I regret to inform you that this is a cliffhanger and that the end to this enjoyable story is near. I hope you have enjoyed this and I can safely say that there are five at most chapters left for this story.