Chapter 8

I didn't die. I probably should have, considering what Paul had been trying to do to me. But I didn't die.

I woke up on the floor of the ranger station, only to see Jesse standing a few feet away from me. But he wasn't looking at me. He looked like he wanted to kill someone and when I turned my head I saw who exactly that someone was.

Paul was the first to notice that I was awake. He smiled down at me. "Hello, Suze."

Jesse turned his head to look at me, and I saw him relax just a little. Apparently he'd thought that I was dead. It certainly explained the murderous look he'd been shooting Paul.

"You're boyfriend and I were just talking about you," Paul continued. He came over to me and pulled something from his pocket. It was a knife. A rather sharp and pointy one at that. It took me a minute to realize why Jesse wasn't moving to stop him. It was because he couldn't move.

I tried to get away from him, but Paul stopped me. My entire body went rigid and all I could do was stare at him.

Paul smiled. He sat down beside me and pushed my shirt up, exposing my abdomen. "You know," he said, letting his knife hover over me, "back when there were Samurai warriors in Japan, they considered honor to be above everything."

I blinked. I couldn't understand why exactly he was choosing to share this with me just then, but I stayed silent.

"When a warrior would lose a battle," he continued, "he'd take his sword, stab him self in the side, then draw it up across his chest to his heart." As he said that, he took him knife and cut a long, shallow line across my stomach. Blood followed the blade. I bit my lip, trying not to cry out or make it obvious that I was in pain.

I stole a glance toward Jesse. His eyes were riveted on my face.

Paul drew back the knife, watching my face. His smile widened. Keeping his eyes on my face, he drew back his arm and brought the blade down across my abdomen.

I cried out in pain. I couldn't help it. It hurt like nothing I'd ever felt before.

The second time was even worse. He cut a long gash just over my belly button before twisting it up to cross the first slash.

Just then there was a loud banging on the door. All three of us-Paul, Jesse, and me-looked up in surprise. A second later someone yelled, "Open up! It's the police!"

I'm not joking. It was like a scene from a really bad movie.

Paul went back to what he'd been doing, obviously not caring about the police. The knife came down a third time, harder and faster, and I couldn't help but scream.

And then the door just sort of flew open. Seriously, one minute the police were banging on it, yelling for Paul to open it, the next they were rushing through it. Paul didn't seem to care. He just drew his arm back and.

Nothing happened. Paul and I both looked up to see Detective Arnold with his fist wrapped around the arm holding the knife.

What happened next was all a blur to me. I remember Detective Arnold wrestling the knife from Paul's hand, and then slapping handcuffs onto his wrists. Then I only heard parts of what was said, since the paramedics arrived then, and they were trying to bandage me up.

I did hear, though, Paul saying, "We had a deal."

Detective Arnold simply responded, "I don't make deals with murderers." Then two other cops led Paul outside. The detective glanced down at me. "Are you all right?"

I nodded, even though really, I wasn't. I wanted to ask him what Paul had meant when he'd said that he and Detective Arnold had a deal.

It wasn't until the paramedics were loading me onto a stretcher that I remembered Jesse still couldn't move.

I opened my mouth to tell him he could move again, but by then the paramedics were hurrying me out of there and toward an ambulance that had been pulled up alongside the ranger station.

I did, though, hear someone say, "You can go now." But before I could find out who it was, the ambulance doors shut, cutting me off.

*** A/N What'd you think? Do you want to know what's up with Detective Arnold? Well do you? You'll just have to wait, I'm afraid.