*Author's note: This part is not the final version of it. I can't find that file at this present time. No major changes will occur, though. I will continually edit these and all stories I write; I'm compulsive that way. :) Sorry FOX and TnT...
Chapter 4 The School
The black that stretched out
before her eyes and came to stark contrast as she blinked. She moaned in pain as
she moved her aching body.
Still slightly confused, she looked around.
She saw sweepers sitting next to and across from her. To her right sat her
tormentor; he stared fixedly at her. She looked away in disgusted and through
her blurred vision, she saw a friend, Sydney.
Lyle turned to her and
held her head up so she could focus on him. She blinked to clear her eyesight
and her thoughts as he started talking.
"Leigh, I know you may have
trouble thinking straight, you have only just awoken; but I need you to tell me
where to go from here."
She asked, slightly slurred, "Where, iz here?"
"We are at the intersection near Andover Center. We are directly across
from an old clothing shop and..."
"A pizza, a pizza plaze," Leigh
finished.
"Yes," said Lyle, "That is correct."
She closed her
eyes and moaned, "No, no I can't."
"Yes you can, Leigh, tell me!"
"It hurts!" she shouted.
Sydney tried to intervene, "Lyle,
please-"
"No, Sydney, you were not brought here for that," he lifted her
head higher and studied her face, "Come on Leigh," he whispered.
She
jolted in a spasm as she tried to find the school, "Turn… right, stay on the
left," a tear slipped down her soft cheek as she dug into Jarod's mind for the
answers, "You'll find him at the school."
He stroked her cheek as
struggled to clear her head, "Thank you."
* * *
The limousine
parked by the main entrance to the school. In front of them, to the side, was a
huge stairway leading to several doors.
The sweepers stepped out of the
limo, pulling Sydney out with them. As Lyle started to get out, he motioned to
Leigh to follow him. When she shook her head no, he grabbed the back of her
shirt and dragged her out onto the concrete sidewalk. She slowly stood up and
brushed herself off. She tensed to run, but Lyle caught on and slammed her
bodily to the ground.
He took off one of her handcuffs and snapped it to
his own wrist, "Sanchez," he barked, "Strike two. Next time, you had better
watch yourself around the Centre. It's a dangerous corporation to have unhappy
with your performance," he slipped his gun off the holster, "And I can be a
dangerous man to have with a gun pointed at your back. Do not mess with this,
Sanchez. If you screw this up you may wish you hadn't for the rest of your life.
Now, tell me where to go from here."
"I'll show you."
He pulled
her up by the cuffs. The momentum carried her into him. He held her close for an
instant too long before shoving her off and towards the stairs to lead the way.
They walked that way up the stairs and through the doors into the heated haven
of the hall. She pointed to another wide staircase in front of them. "That leads
to the eighth grade wing, we're in the seventh grade wing now."
"Where's
Jarod?"
"Science. Both grades' science rooms are down this hallway."
"Lead the way."
Leigh brought Lyle, the sweepers, and Sydney
down the hall past a cluster of classrooms. They were dark and empty now, but
Leigh could almost hear the kids chatting to each other. As if in the distance
she heard papers rustling. A teacher talked in his loud, clear voice about the
history of the Romans. She moved her head as if to banish the noises and
continued until she reached two doors and yet another stairway.
"The
right's seventh, the left is eighth."
"Which one is Jarod in?"
"I don't know."
"Which one!" Lyle hissed.
"I don't
know!" she snapped back.
He heard rustling in the right classroom.
"He's in seventh," he whispered to the sweepers.
"How many other
entrances lead to the classroom?"
She just glared at him.
"Tell
me, Sanchez," he pushed her up to the wall.
"Why can't you leave him
alone?"
"Sanchez, it's a bit late for this. Tell me now, or I'll order
the sweepers to shoot him so he can't escape through any entrance."
"There's one in the back which connects both science rooms," she
mumbled.
He relayed this to the sweepers. One stepped cautiously into
the eighth grade room. The other covered the seventh grade door. A few seconds
later, the second sweeper entered the seventh grade room. Leigh could hear Jarod
leap from his chair and run to the back of the room only to have the first
sweeper enter through the back, who forced him walk back to the desk he had been
sitting at.
Jarod's voice wavered as he asked, "How did you find me?"
"Our cue."
They entered the room. Jarod was taller and leaner
than she had seen in the DSA's. He wore a gray shirt and tie with darker gray
pants. His dark hair gleamed in the bright lights. He had amazing, intense brown
eyes that shone with fearful reverence for his captors.
Jarod's genius
mind quickly calculated ways to escape. The windows behind him; it would be easy
to break the glass and jump to the patch of bushes directly below…
"Don't even think about escape, Jarod. You move an inch the wrong way
and I'll shoot her myself."
"Meet our new pretender: Leigh," Lyle
explained, "She found you for us."
She had pained blue eyes. A bandage
wrapped around her stomach was still damp red from the Centre. Jarod gazed sadly
at her bruised face.
Leigh desperately tore herself from Lyle's grasp.
She lunged away from him, only to jerk to a halt when the handcuffs linking them
stopped her.
"Jarod run!" she shouted.
"It's okay," he whispered
to her. Her heart broke as he allowed himself to be slammed against the wall by
the sweepers who snapped handcuffs onto his wrists.
"Is there no
humanity left in your heart, Lyle?" he asked struggling with the sweepers who
pulled him toward the door, "She's only a teenager."
"Bring him to the
limousine," Lyle said in annoyance to the two sweepers who shoved Jarod forward.
* * *
Guilt wracked her mind now. There he was, sitting
only a foot away from her. Why had she? Questions sprang to the front of her
mind, those sad, guilt-ridden ones nobody ever likes. The bastard who threatened
to kill them both had won this battle. But the war wasn't over as long as she
was kept at the Centre; she always had the option of escaping with Jarod. She'd
show Lyle.
He did not care what they had forced her to do. Lyle was
smart enough to get answers from anyone. Those bruises across her face told him
how. How could Lyle do that to her? She only looked fifteen. She also looked
drugged and delirious.
He tipped his head backward against the cushion,
careful not to show the emotions that bombarded his conscious. He was tired of
running, but he never wanted it to end this way. It was impossible for them to
escape, not with Leigh linked to Lyle.
He whispered to Sydney, still
leaning back, "How long was she at the Centre?"
"A few days," he
responded.
Jarod's heart sank. Those days were only the beginning.
"What did he do to her?"
"I do not know."
"What is he
going to do to her now?" he pressed.
Sydney sighed, "Only time can tell
that, Jarod, but certainly nothing good."
"I was hoping you would not
say that," he paused.
"Why don't you just ask it now, Jarod."
He
knew him all too well Jarod thought, "Who will be my exploiter this time?"
Sydney looked sadly at the younger man. The look was stronger then
words.
"No, not Lyle, I can still remember what he did to me at the
Centre. He could be even worse with two pretenders."
Lyle interrupted
their conversation staring coldly at Jarod and Sydney, "I am glad you hold me in
such high regards, Jarod."
Lyle glared at Jarod, who returned the gaze,
coolly and daring.
"I have something that will make you like me even
more," he stroked Leigh's hair as she tried to get as far away from him as
possible.
"Leave her alone," Jarod defended.
"I do not take
orders from you, Jarod. Willie," he said to the sweeper sitting next to Jarod,
"Shut him up."
"My pleasure Mr. Lyle," said the sweeper gruffly, as he
produced a full syringe. Willie grabbed Jarod's arm tightly.
"No!" he
yelled, looking in horror at the sweeper, "Sydney please, help me!"
"Yes
Sydney, help him. Like always. Let him escape, Syd!" Lyle mocked.
The
sweeper injected Jarod.
Sydney looked away.