Warning: Rated for language and violence.
The main characters of this story are based on characters from the cartoon 'Code Lyoko.' I do not own, nor do I claim, any copyright to these characters.
O o O
The bell rang, and the students fled the room. Suzanne watched the stampede with a chuckle. It was the last class period of the day, Tuesday, and all the kids wanted to get on with the important things in life. With the dance coming up this Saturday, that meant gabbing about who's taking who, who's wearing what, and who's jealous about it.
She gathered her papers up and sighed. For the first time in a long time, she really emphasized with her students. The last thing she wanted today was to be cooped up in a stuffy classroom. She smiled and sighed wistfully and walked to the teacher's lounge.
She did meet Jim for lunch on Sunday. She had dressed in just slacks and a shirt that day, expecting a casual day out like they had done before Saturday evening. But when she saw him, she had to suppress a laugh. He was dressed in a suit that probably hadn't been out of his closet in years! She shook her head as she walked up to him, stood up on her toes to kiss him, then told him to go change into something more comfortable. When he returned a few minutes later and more suitably attired, they left and had a wonderful time.
Suzanne hadn't felt this way since high school, the heady intoxication of new love. After her disastrous marriage to Clark, she firmly closed off that part of her life, not wanting to be hurt so badly again. For a while, she looked longingly at other couples, coming together and falling in love, watching that love grow into marriage, then children, but after a while, she was able to observe dispassionately. She thought she had made quite an accomplishment, not getting entangled with another person, not having to risk the emotional pain when the entanglement finally turned into a stranglehold.
Then Clark reappeared in her life, throwing it into an uproar. All of the careful defenses and walls she had put up over the years were shattered in a heartbeat by naked fear. And then Jim rode in.
She had always known about Jim's crush on her. She had always thought it cute, in a detached kind of way, that a man his age could still feel puppy love. Now, here she was, feeling the exact same way. Suzanne still wasn't sure what would have happened Saturday night if Jim hadn't stopped. The part of her that still wanted to be detached and self-sufficient shuddered at the thought of waking up with a man beside her. Then there was the part of her that sorely wanted to drag his carcass home and polish the carpet with his back.
She was ultimately glad Jim backed off on Saturday. She, like him, wanted to take it slow, so she could reconcile all of the feelings inside her. There was no guarantee that things could really work out between the two, and she didn't want to get hurt nor lose a good friend if things went sour.
She had just walked into the teacher's lounge and set her things on the table when her cell phone rang.
"Hello?"
"You don't really think I've forgotten about you, hmm?" came the voice of Clark Hertz.
O o O
Emily LeDuc was sitting on a bench near the park, waiting for her friends to arrive. She just couldn't wait to tell them what she was going to wear to the party on Saturday. Also, she had talked her parents into letting her and her friends and their dates spend the night at her house! It was going to be so much fun! And it sure would be good to see her family again...
Suddenly, an arm snaked around Emily's throat and constricted, She tried to cry out, but couldn't. Who ever it was increased the pressure and the world started going gray on her. The person then dragged her back over the bench, and into the woods behind her.
As she passed out, she heard a man say, "bait for the hook."
O o O
Aelita Hopper sat in her room and daydreamed. She wasn't in her dorm room though, she was in her old bedroom at the Hermitage.
When she was brought to earth from Lyoko last year, fragments of memories started filtering back in to her mind, in the form of nightmares. Those nightmares first led her and the gang to this house, the house she and her father lived in before they entered Lyoko. Last summer, when she finally got back all of her memories, she remembered enough of her life here that she knew the room was hers.
Before last summer, she sometimes came to the Hermitage to try and remember more about her past. Since the summer, she came, not only to remember the past, but to dream about the future, the one with her and Jeremie in the center.
She was shaken from her dreams by the sound of the front door crashing open. She got up and walked to the stairway, starting to go downstairs, when she stopped. She heard the sound of a man, muttering to himself, seemingly dragging something. She didn't recognize the voice, so she hung back. The sound receded, and the pink haired girl carefully went downstairs to see what was going on.
When she got to the landing, she didn't see anyone there, but heard something back in the family room. She carefully finished her descent, then quietly crept back to the room where the noise was coming from. When she got to the doorway, she carefully peeked around.
There, in the middle of the room, was a strange man with his back to the doorway. He was bent over a bundle of some kind, working. After a moment, he moved, revealing what he was working on. Aelita almost gasped out loud when she saw the unconscious form of Emily LeDuc lying on the floor. She had lost her glasses before being brought here, and her hands were bound with what looked like wire. The man, in the meantime, was busy working on the room. He found an old chair and was using it as a step stool. He was putting what seemed like an eye bolt into the ceiling. When he finished, he got more wire, threaded it through the eye bolt, and secured it somewhere out of Aelita's sight. He then bent back over Emily and slapped her.
She awoke with a cry, then tried to scream when she saw the man, but he clamped a hand over her mouth.
"Quiet now," he told her, "it's not your time to sing yet. Don't make me hurt you before it's time; I'll be really upset if I have to start before I'm ready."
Emily's eyes got wide, and she remained silent.
The man let go of her and pulled out a cell phone. He dialed a number and waited. Finally when his call was answered, he said, "you don't really think I've forgotten about you, hmm?"
O o O
Suzanne was in shock.
"Clark, what do you want from me?" she said to her ex.
"I want to hear you scream like you never did when we made love," he replied, "I want to hear the anguish and regret in your voice as I rip your traitorous heart from your chest! I want you to beg, grovel, that I end it quickly, and I want to look into your lying eyes as they go cold. That is what I want, Suzanne; and you will give it to me, every ounce!"
"You're mad, Clark! What did I ever do to deserve this?"
"YOU LEFT ME!" he screamed, "you left me, just because of a few lapses in resolve. You never gave me a chance to repent and prove myself to you! I have spent years trying to make myself worthy of you again. All the other girls, they're gone, no more. I went back, tracked each one down, and made them pay for what they made me do. And when I finally found the last one, I called you, asking for forgiveness, to come back to you. And you said NO!"
"What do you mean, 'made them pay'?"
"I have their lying eyes and tongues here, waiting for you. They are the tokens of my remorse. Accept them, take me back, and this will all stop."
It was all Suzanne could do to stay upright. He killed them?
"Clark, I don't know what to say. We have so many differences and issues to work through, I'm not even sure counseling would help."
"Counseling! Psychiatrists! Witch Doctors, with their questions and drugs and probes and knives! They've done nothing but try and stop me! And now they have gotten to you! So it has to be this way now, I see. You will come to me, now. I am in an abandoned house on the other side of the park next to the school, called the Hermitage. Come quickly and face your judgment! Come quickly, and alone, or another will take your place!"
There was a moment of silence, then a new voice came over the cell phone.
"Mrs. Hertz? He's got me tied up, and he says he's going to kill me if you don't come alone!"
"Emily? Emily LeDuc?" she frantically asked.
"YES!" she shrieked. Then Clark's voice returned.
"Come quickly, and come alone, or I will have more eyes and another tongue to add to my collection."
O o O
Aelita didn't know what to do. She heard the conversation the man had with someone on the phone, and she was scared to death. Up to now, she had thought that demons only existed in ones dreams, yet here stood one, or the closest thing she had ever seen. The man finally took his head away from the phone, whispered something to Emily, and shoved the phone in her face.
"Mrs. Hertz? He's got me tied up, and he says he's going to kill me if you don't come alone!" she said into the phone, almost sobbing.
As soon as she said that, the man grabbed her hands by the wire that bound her and lifted up. Her wrists had swollen in the time she had been bound, and there were little drops of blood around the wire. When he applied pressure to the wrists, she cried out her last answer, "YES!"
The man eased the pressure on Emily's wrists, said one more thing into the phone, and ended the call.
Aelita carefully crept back the way she came. When she got to the stairs, she hunkered down so she wouldn't be seen from the hallway, and took out her cell phone and dialed.
"Jeremie, it's Aelita," she whispered, "I'm at the Hermitage. Some man has kidnapped Emily and is threatening to kill her unless Mrs. Hertz comes here alone."