Chapter Thirty-Seven
Writing words writing stories writing, write, wrote, writ, words, the words, are written, words, words, words-wordy-words, stories, tales, seconds, dripping, dripping seconds, stories, Dripping Seconds, okay, okay, enough with this rambling.
Hey! How are you? How did you like the last chapter? Was it emotional enough? Show enough of the connection between Henry and Whitney? Did it have enough suspense? I hope so. I liked it, but it felt really weird, like I wasn't quite writing it the way I did the last few, but I think it was good anyway. I hope this chapter is good too; there will be quite a bit of action going on.
Maggie's point of view:
Jasper and I sat in silence for awhile, staring at the solid stone walls of our room. I knew it wasn't the same room as before because it was so much smaller, it was hardly more than a closet. It was all that we could do to try to avoid Jasper's vomit. Not that I blamed him for throwing up. I would have to, had they hurt me like that. I did when Jasper picked me up right after my head had been reinjured, so I knew what he was feeling. But still, I didn't want to sit in his vomit. That's disgusting.
After awhile my fever began to get worse and I became really tired and confused. I wondered if part of it was dehydration, as I hadn't been able to drink or eat much in awhile, just some tea back at the house when we were safe. It was only a few hours ago, but it felt like a lifetime.
I turned to Jasper, speaking for the first time in a bit. "Jasper, how's your hand doing?"
He moved his fingers slightly and winced, going pale from the pain. "Not great," he admitted.
"I'm sorry," I said. I stood up to go to the door and stumbled, slamming my shoulder into the wall. "Ouch," I hissed, and walked back over to Jasper. "Well, the walls are solid."
He smiled a little, amused slightly by my joke, and then stiffened as we heard the door open.
"How are we in here?" William asked, his voice teasing. I shrank against Jasper, wishing they hadn't taken my blanket from me. I clutched his arm tightly to me, doing my best not to look afraid.
William stepped all the way in. "Stand up," he said, gesturing to me. I stood, reluctantly. "Come here. You will do it, or I shatter his hand." I walked over to him, frightened. "You will be silent. Are we understood?" I nodded, catching Jasper's eye and pleading with him not to do anything stupid.
Someone suddenly came up behind me and jammed something over my head. I couldn't see, and I struggled for a few seconds, trying to clear the darkness from my eyes. My attacker demanded I calm down, and hit me a couple times, just missing my nose, to make his point clear. When I quieted down, he removed the cloth from over my eyes and pushed me over so that I was sitting on the floor.
"That," said William sternly, "is why you don't cross me. You do exactly what I say, and quickly."
I nodded, resisting the urge to touch my nose and check for bleeding.
"Now, stand up," he said. Despite my dizziness, I stood up, trying to avoid being hit again. "We're leaving," he told me, and Jasper stood up immediately, not breaking eye contact with me.
"You want to come too, Jasper?" he asked, surprised. Jasper nodded, still watching me.
A horrible feeling started in my stomach. "Jasper, don't…sit back down, please. Please, Jasper."
Jasper refused. "I'm coming. Where you go, I go, Mags." He tried to smile through his fear.
"Touching," William sneered, "but no such luck." He shoved me through the open door, and I hit the floor, banging my head and my cut-up arm on the stone. My vision blurred, but I didn't pass out.
"Maggie," Jasper yelled, and I heard a brief, painful sounding scuffle and then the unmistakable sound of human hands hitting human skin, and Jasper crying out in pain as they hit him.
"Stop it!" I shouted, sitting up. "Stop hitting him, please," I began to cry, much to my disgust.
The horrible sounds stopped, and I managed to stand back up. Jasper ran to me and hugged me. His nose was bleeding; I could feel it through my shirt. "Are you okay?" I demanded, whispering.
"Yes, I'm fine, it isn't too bad. Are you okay? I know you hit your head," he whispered back.
"I'm fine," I told him. "I'm just dizzy and my arm hurts where I fell." He tightened his hold on me.
"Well, this is sweet," hissed William, his voice horribly joyful. He grabbed onto my arm, and yanked me into a standing position. "If you are coming, Jasper," he challenged, "then come now."
Jasper stood up, much to my dismay. "Please, Jasper, don't. You'll get hurt. Please don't."
"I'm not leaving you," Jasper said stubbornly. "I'm not making you do all of this alone, Mags."
I felt my eyes fill with tears, and I couldn't say anything. William began leading me down the hallway, and Jasper followed. He reached to take my hand, but his guard yanked his arm back, separating us so that we couldn't hold on to each other. My head began to hurt worse, and I felt sick.
"Here we are, then," William said, opening another room and pushing me in, causing me to stumble and bang myself up again, only to have Jasper land on top of me and knock the wind out of me before the door was slammed shut behind us, extinguishing all light except that from a tiny lamp.
"Oh, Mags, I'm so sorry! Are you okay?" Jasper asked, scrambling off of me, much to my relief.
I gasped for breath, finding myself having a really difficult time getting my breath back.
"Mags, are you okay? Maggie? Come on," he said, shaking my shoulder. I coughed a couple times and sat up, trying to smile at him so that he wouldn't be worried about me. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, you just knocked the wind out of me, I'm fine. Why did he take all the time to bring us here?" I asked him, not expecting him to have an answer, but wanting to ask what I was thinking about.
"I think he's coming back," Jasper said, sounding nervous and a lot different due to the blood that was rapidly drying inside his nose. He seemed to notice and touched his nose, wincing as he did so.
"Don't touch your nose," I told him, grabbing his hand. I didn't let go, liking the feeling of holding his hand. He glanced at our hands and smiled. "I'm scared," I admitted, smiling a little myself.
"It's okay. I am too." We both stiffened as we heard footsteps come up to the door, and the sounds of a key rattling and turning in the lock just above our heads. I squeezed his hand, and he squeezed my hand back. "Shh," he said softly. "It's going to be okay, you'll be fine, it's okay."
The door came swinging open, just missing my head as we struggled to press ourselves against the wall in order not to be hit by the swinging door. "Get out, Jasper," William snapped, sounding deranged and furious, which was the scariest for him to be. I turned away so I didn't have to see his eyes, they reminding me too much of the poster and Daddy talking about how I should avoid him.
Jasper remained seated next to me, his arms around me. "Go, Jasper," I whispered, pleading with him once more. "Please, go this time." I gave him a small push away from me, and he stood reluctantly, exiting through the door. The door remained open, but William remained between us.
William Waingaurd, murder and deranged criminal, faced me and drew his gun, aiming it.
"No!" Jasper yelled, and there was a scuffle of someone holding him back. "No, Maggie!"
"Three years…three years since I got my last chance to kill you. And I had two chances, but I missed. Three years, third chance. Three is lucky, after all." He cocked the gun, smiling. "Three."
I stepped back instinctively, feeling my back press up against the cold stone walls. I tried to think of something to say, something brave to give Jasper hope or to be remembered by before I died, but the only thing that came out of my mouth was an accusation. "You killed my mother," I said, too loudly.
He stopped, lowering the gun ever so slightly. I could tell that he was confused. Going off on a whim, I continued my outburst. "You killed my mother! You couldn't even kill her yourself; you let a car do it for you." I said it with contempt, as though disgusted with him, and tried to conceal my shaking.
Instead of confusing him, I had made him angry. The gun shot back up into position, and his eyes narrowed into furious slits. "Shut up, Margaret!" He said, his hand tightening slightly on the gun.
I tried to calm him back down. "It was clever though…I always thought it was an accident."
"It was well done," he said, self-congratulating and letting his death-grip on the gun loosen a little. He smiled a bit, but his eyes were still insane. "I read the newspapers and I knew that I had won."
"When did you manage to do it? I thought we would be keeping a better eye on it," I said.
His eyes grew even more insane and furious once more. "No more talking!" he shouted. He aimed the gun at my shoulder. His hands were shaking. He was trying to hurt me, not to kill me. "No more talking! You will be silent! You will! I have been waiting for years, before you were born."
I understood that he was going to do it this time instead of putting it off and talking, that he was actually going to kill me. "Jasper," I whispered, wanting him to know. "Jasper, I-"
"I said no more talking!" William roared. He fired the gun, and I felt a horrible stabbing pain at the side of my head. The force knocked me backwards, and my head hit the wall, causing me to fall to the floor, feeling blood already beginning to creep through my hair. I noticed the darker shadow of William over my already shadow vision as he stood over me, and quickly shut my eyes. "It is finished," he said, not bothering to check for my pulse in his insane rage. "She has fallen and died."
I wondered if I was indeed dead, or dying. My vision faded behind my closed eyelids, and I was aware of shadow leaving and someone (Jasper?) replacing it. The door closed with a thump.
"Maggie? Oh God, no, no…Maggie, wake up! Please wake up!" It was Jasper. He was crying, I noticed dully, as though reading a book, not really connected. The pain in my head throbbed, but it didn't matter, because it wasn't really happening to me. I didn't try to move. I was observing.
"Please don't be dead, no…Maggie…please." I felt him lifting the girl on the floor up and cradling her against himself. "Please, Maggie, don't be dead. Don't go. Please." He was wrong. It wasn't me bleeding; it was someone else who I didn't know. My vision began to become deeper, darker, and I wondered if I, really me this time, was going to pass out. I remembered that it was me, that it was me who had been shot, who was bleeding, maybe dying, and panicked. I struggled against the feeling, grabbing blindly for Jasper's hand and squeezing it when I found it. He squeezed my hand back, relieved. "Oh, thank God, Maggie. Hey, you're okay; I think it just grazed you." He shook my shoulder gently. "Open your eyes, Maggie." I opened one eye, but it was dark despite the lamp."There we go."
"Dark in here…"I mumbled, struggling to focus my eyes. I touched my hand to the side of my head, and it became sticky with blood almost instantly. Head wounds bleed easily, I reminded myself.
"Ah-ah, don't touch it," Jasper said gently. "Come on, can you stand up for me? If we get closer to the light I can check to make sure it didn't hit you too badly." He was talking as though to a child.
I stood up and immediately swayed, the pain in my head becoming terrible. I leaned into Jasper, collapsing against him as the darkness became stronger, rising up and taking me down with it.