Chapter Twenty-Six – "It's Always Darkest Before the Total Eclipse"
Previously – Ethan is all set to murder Zendall while Derek has yellow-taped the Big Black Building, preventing Ryan, Erica and the rest of the Posse from rescuing them. Using a bullhorn, Derek has told Ethan to come up before anyone gets hurt. Ethan seems to want somebody to get hurt. As we join today's episode, Tad has cut the bomb's green wire after Di reveals that Dixie is not as dead as Tad thought she was.
The ticking stopped.
"Tad, you did it!" Di cried out, flinging her arms around him.
"Dixie isn't dead?" Tad asked her.
"I said the red wire," Aidan told him. "You don't listen, mate."
"Thank goodness he didn't!" Di laughed, a trifle hysterically.
"Dixie isn't dead?" Tad asked her.
--
Outside the Big Black Building everybody heard the deafening gunshot.
"What was that?" Erica screamed.
"Another backfire?" Jack asked hopefully.
Derek raised his bullhorn again.
"Ethan, we heard a shot. Is anybody hurt?"
--
Somebody was hurt. In fact, somebody had been knocked cold.
"Never say I never did you a favor," David Hayward was saying to Zendall, surveying Ethan's prone form and still smoking gun, evidencing that before he fell unconscious, he had managed to get a shot off which went right into the floor.
"Was that Karate, Kung Fu, Aikido or Kendo?" Zach inquired with professional interest, as he gently took Ethan's gun from him and slipped it in his pocket.
"None of the above," David said. "It was the Vulcan Death Grip. Works every time."
Those were the last words David said before somebody came up behind him and crashed a vase over his head.
--
"Derek, you've got to let me go in there," Ryan pleaded. "My sister, Erin, ran in before you got here and she hasn't come out!"
But Derek was unmoved. "I've told you twelve thousand times before, Lavery. Don't try to do my job!"
"Derek, Ethan isn't answering you!" Brooke pointed out to him. "We've got to get in there and find out what's happening!"
"Derek, please!" Erica implored. "There was gunfire! Kendall is in there! She could be hurt! She could need help!"
"I hate all of you with all my heart," Greenlee said quietly, ducking under the yellow tape and walking into the Big Black Building before anyone noticed.
--
"Okay, Fish 'N Chips, kindly escort these ladies out of here," Tad requested, fresh from his triumph over the bomb. "As far out as humanly possible."
"We haven't saved Kendall and Zach yet!" Di protested. "Tad, you have to let me stay and help you!"
Tad Martin could not believe his ears.
"Help me? HELP me? When have you ever helped me? Since the unfortunate day I met you, when have you ever done anything but lie to me?"
"I've done something else!" Di replied quickly. "I've loved you. I still love you, Tad. I'll always love you, no matter what."
--
Neglecting to close the door behind her, Ethan's accomplice stood grinning over the thoroughly unconscious body of Doctor David Hayward. Then she spied the thoroughly unconscious body of Ethan Cambias.
"Ethan, wake up!" she cried out, going over to him, kneeling and cradling his head in her lap.
"Who the hell are you, lady?" Simone asked from the doorway.
"Greenlee," Zendall answered.
"Like hell she is!" Greenlee snorted, walking past Simone and into the meat locker. "Man, it's cold in here!"
NuGreenlee stood up too quickly, allowing Ethan to roll out of her lap.
"Ow!" he said, coming to, as his head hit the floor.
"Oh, baby, are you hurt?" Simone cried out, going to him.
But Ethan was too busy worrying about the fate of his Master Plan to concern himself with his aching head. How long had he been unconscious? How long did he have before the bomb went off? He waved Simone away, stood up unaided and checked his Rolex. "Gina, get my gun!" he then directed her brusquely. "I dropped it somewhere when Hayward knocked me out!"
"Gina got here too late," Zach told him. "I've got your gun, Son. Got mine also."
"Shoot him!" Kendall urged her husband. "With either gun! With both guns! We gotta get outta here before the bomb goes off!"
"There's a bomb?" Greenlee asked.
"There's a bomb?" Simone asked.
"Lovely, we've been all through that," Zach said patiently. "There's no way I'm going to shoot my son!"
"Because Dad loves me, Kendall!" Ethan explained, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "And he trusts my better nature to come to the fore. It won't. My Father assumes that I won't really hurt anybody. He's wrong. Totally, utterly, completely and stupidly wrong. He probably doesn't believe there really is a bomb. Wrong again. You never ever get it right. Do you, Dad?"
Simone had heard enough.
"How the hell did you get this screwed up this fast?" she demanded of her fiancé.
"Ethan, let's end this now," Kendall urged. "Zach has got your gun and his gun and unless Phony Baloney Greenlee plans to bean all of us with vases, I'd say your Reign of Terror is kaput!"
"That's okay, Ethan," Gina said, leveling her very own gun at everybody in the room. "Phony Baloney Greenlee never leaves home without packing heat!"
--
"Where's Greenlee?" Ryan was asking Erica.
"Who cares about Greenlee?" Erica screamed. "It's Kendall you should be worrying about! Ryan, what's the matter with you?"
Actually, Ryan considered that a completely appropriate question. What was the matter with him? He had been deeply, irrevocably in love with Kendall not over an hour ago. Then he saw the Original Greenlee, and all bets were off.
"Go in there and rescue her!" Erica commanded, probably not meaning Greenlee.
"Don't try it, Lavery," Derek countermanded Erica. "That building is sealed off for a reason!"
--
Before Di could convince Tad to allow her to stay and help him with the Zendall rescue, the bomb ticking started again.
"I told you it was the red wire," Aidan said glumly.
"Well, nothing blew up when Tad cut the green wire," Di defended him. "Maybe it started ticking again because there's a built-in back-up failsafe thingy."
Tad nodded. "Yeah, that must be it," he muttered, truly at his wit's end. "A built-in back-up failsafe thingy. I shoulda known."
"Maybe there's a blue wire," Erin theorized.
--
"How ya doing?" Greenlee asked David, who was just beginning to come around as Gina leveled her gun at everyone in sight.
"I've been better," he diagnosed. "What hit me?"
"That," Greenlee replied, pointing at her gun-toting Recast. "The new improved factory-fresh taller than tall moi."
"Gina, drop the gun," Kendall tried. "You can't shoot all of us!"
"She's right!" Greenlee joined in. "You're outnumbered and outclassed."
"What should I do, Ethan?" Gina inquired emotionlessly. "Take them all down one by one?"
"Gina, there's a bomb about to go off!" Kendall said urgently. "What part of 'blown to bits' don't you understand? We need to get the hell out of here!"
"Listen to her, Gina," Zach advised. "There isn't much time left."
"Apparently, there's a bomb," Greenlee filled in David.
"Then why don't we get out of here before it goes off?" he asked logically.
Gina pointed her gun at them. "Don't get any cute ideas, you two. Should I whack them, Ethan?"
Ethan grimaced. This was not what he had envisioned at all. He wanted his father and Kendall swinging neatly from meat hooks, not a St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
"Hand over my gun, Dad," he requested of Zach, as Gina covered him. "And while you're at it, hand over your gun as well. Or else I'll ask Gina to start blowing people away, beginning with your oh so beautiful wife."
Reluctantly, Zach handed Ethan both guns.
"There are too many people in here, Son," he told him. "This couldn't have been part of your Plan B."
"If you're about to tell me I'll never get away with this, don't bother," Ethan replied soberly.
Simone decided to give it another try. "Ethan, baby, this is so wrong!"
"Should I shoot her first?" Gina asked Ethan.
"Wait a second," Kendall interrupted before Ethan could answer. "Before you murder any of us, and before we all blow up, you've got to explain how Gina fits into this. Did you hire her to pretend to be the new Greenlee so she could plant the Script you wrote that implicated Zach?"
"What if I did?" Ethan said, sounding bored but actually calculating how much time was left before the explosion.
"He told me about her six weeks ago when he abducted me," Greenlee recounted. "But he neglected to tell me she was eight feet tall and a ditz."
Gina bridled at that. "I am not eight feet tall, you Smurf! You're just jealous because Ryan loves me more than he ever loved you!"
Greenlee guffawed. "In your dreams, girlie!"
"None of this matters," Ethan told them all. "This whole wretched building is due to blow up any second." He checked his watch again. "Actually, it should have blown up five minutes ago."
Everybody in the meat locker ran for the door except Ethan and Gina.
"Hold it!" Gina ordered, cocking her gun. "You wanna go check the bomb, Ethan? I can keep our friends entertained till you get back."
"Tying them up will most likely help with that," Ethan said, producing some heavy rope from a nearby storage bin. When everyone was sufficiently bound, he hurried out to check the bomb as Tad, Aidan, Di and Erin kept looking for the blue wire.
--
Can Tad somehow overcome the built-in back-up failsafe thingy and deactivate that bomb once and for all before it blows the Big Black Building, and everybody in it, to smithereens ? Can the Meat Locker Hostages break their bonds and escape despite Gina and Gina's gun? Will Derek and the Posse get there in the nick of time already? Please read our next exciting chapter which will feature Zendall facing the jaws of doom side-by-side.. Yum! Reviews mean EVERYTHING!