25. Rage

For a brief time, about a month, things went well. Quietly, improving slowly, but improving. Kurtis' recovery was gradual, progressive, but it was recovery, nevertheless. Ethan turned out to be what they needed: not only a discreet, sincere, respectful and dedicated professional in his work, but eventually, someone with whom they could talk and be at ease. He remained determined not to reside continuously in Croft Manor - nor did he make the slightest gesture or comment about anything that wasn't strictly professional or asked in the first place. No one could ask for more.

Until suddenly, events twisted again, as it came with their damn luck- and it all started with a seemingly futile event, which nevertheless had its intrinsic importance.

Kat appeared bruised.

"What's that?"

Anna's shrill voice made her jump. Quickly, she covered her forearm with the uniform's sleeve. She'd unconsciously raised it to pick up the backpack from the floor. I'm an idiot, thought the young lady Kipling, furious with herself. "It's nothing." She replied, shrugging and hanging her backpack on her back. "C'mon, we're already late for Science."

She stepped forward, but Anna stopped her, grabbing her - delicately, though - by the shoulder. Oh no, Catherine thought. Those eyes. She knew those eyes very well - and that expression. Lately, they were starting to give her the creeps. Although not by themselves.

"Kat." Anna said, very serious. "Show me your arm." At her hesitation, she added quietly. "Please."

Sighing, the girl - no, the lass already - climbed her sleeve and showed her forearm. The skin showed a blue spot in the center, pink on the inside edges and already yellowed on the outsides.

She heard her friend take a deep breath. "Who did that to you?"

"No one. I fell. At home."

"Kat." Anna gasped. "At least don't lie to me. I know you've not fallen anywhere. Please, tell me the truth."

"It's not important." Kat covered the bruise again.

Anna dropped the backpack suddenly. "It is important. Who has it been? Your father? Did your father..."

"No." Kat sighed, and rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand. "You know that my father only beats my mother, not me."

"Until the day he starts beating you as well."

"Leave it, Anna. Please. It's not him." She tried to move forward, but Anna cut her off again. She was breathing heavily.

"If you don't tell me, I'll find out myself." She muttered, altered. "I can do it. I can and I want, and I will."

"Please." Kat's voice trembled. "Please, Annie, I'm begging you. Don't cause me more problems."

Maybe it was because of the diminutive, although in any other context she would have hated it. Anna softened. She dropped her shoulders, dejected. "Causing you problems? Me?" Her voice was sad, almost tearful. She pointed to her forearm. "The problem's already there - and you say that I am the problem?"

Kat shook the golden curls, denying fervently. "Of course not. Only... you already deal with too many things. You've had a very bad time lately. I didn't want to bother you with nonsense."

"It's not nonsense. It matters to me. You're my best friend... you... you're the only friend I have. If someone hurts you, it doesn't help me at all not to know. Doing nothing." She breathed hard again, feeling that rage invaded her. "Tell me who did that to you. Please. Please."

Kat sighed and looked around with an unhappy expression. "If I tell you, you'll promise you won't do anything."

"You know I can't promise that, Kat. Actually, as soon as I know, I'll go for that motherfucker and I'll crush her. I swear." She spat between her teeth.

Her friend sighed and looked at her sadly. Even with disappointment. "That's why I don't tell you. For you'll do exactly that - and I don't want you to do it. What's more, you don't help me anything that way. It makes everything worse." She sighed and looked down. "You frighten me, Anna. I'm sorry, but I must admit it. Since you're back... maybe even before... you've changed. You're not the same. There's something in you. Something dark - and I hate it. It terrifies me."

Silence thickened around them. Surprised, for Anna didn't use to shut things up, Kat looked up - and her friend's reaction froze her. She was pale, so much that even the lips seemed blue, and they trembled. She blinked rapidly a couple of times, then her eyes filled with tears and she lowered her eyelids, suppressing a sob going up her throat.

For once, Kat repressed the urge to hug her. She stared, instead, at the swollen veins in her neck. "And just so you don't do any stupidity on your own." She warned her, because she felt she should. "It wasn't Clarice Rochford. You heard me? It's not her. Clarice doesn't approach me or anyone else, since before you left. Moreover, she looks at you with a face of terror, and at me as well. You don't need to threaten her again. Understood?" Sighing, she turned and walked away, quickly, as if fleeing.

Anna waited to be completely alone. Then she gave free rein to her rage and wept, with fury, with resentment.

Kurtis grabbed the steel bar with both arms and pushed himself up. Slowly. Progressively. Higher. Stronger. He began to rise above the bar, first his head, then his torso. Higher. Stronger.

He descended slowly. He breathed hard. He rose again. Muscles tensed, veins and joints marked deep in the skin. A sweat film covered him. He started to redden. He breathed again, then rose even more. Higher. Stronger.

Ethan watched him, speechless. After a few seconds, he closed his mouth, swallowed, and opened it again. "Y'know?" He said. "You're naturally making progress and at the expected rhythm. No need to beat yourself like that, so soon. Take it easy."

Kurtis didn't answer - could not, anyway. He breathed hard again, let out a growl. Descended - and rose again. Higher. The shirt was soaked with sweat, stuck to the skin.

"Well." Ethan shrugged. "At least your arm is completely healed and back to normal function. More than normal – extraordinary."

He heard a soft sound behind him and turned. Lara had entered and was watching Kurtis in the exercise bar. She opened her lips slightly, smiled.

"Rest reassured." Ethan said. "I'd never seen anyone so fervent on his rehabilitation! What a willpower."

She nodded thoughtfully, smiling to herself, like a secret joke. She kept watching him until finally Kurtis came down and sat again on the bench where he'd risen from. He sighed and bent, sweaty, on the legs still extended and immobilized, still unusable. Recently he'd been given good news though, since his spine hadn't been particularly damaged. He would walk again. Since then, Kurtis trained intensely, as before... at least half of his body.

"How do you feel your arm?" She asked.

Kurtis stretched and folded the joint. Except for the already diffuse mark left by the healed wounds, there was nothing in particular to highlight. Nothing but the mark of punctures and drippers, which, however, were on the other arm, the healthy one. Now both seemed identical. "Fine, I guess." He replied, breathing again. "A bit weak, far from my original mark - but getting better." And as if addressing a mute reproach, he looked again at his useless legs, and frowned.

"Patience." Ethan recommended. "Those are going to take a while, you know. Broken on several sides. Tonight, we'll go again with the massages and exercises."

Those massages and exercises were anything but pleasant, but Kurtis just nodded and didn't protest.

Lara broke away from the door frame, where she'd been leaning, and went toward him. In her way she took the wheelchair. "No." Kurtis muttered, and shook his head, frustrated. "Please, don't."

"Don't be a kid yourself." Lara placed the wheelchair next to him. "Ethan and I can't carry you from place to place, you weigh a lot. Pride is meaningless here. Besides, someone is here to see you."

"Who?"

"An old friend."

The young schoolgirl, tall and strong, crossed the courtyard quickly and went to sit under a stone archway, in the shade, in a sheltered corner. Then she quickly took out a small notebook, opened it on a marked page and dropped it on her friend's lap, sitting next to her.

She looked down, picked up the notebook and quickly read what was written. "Maggie, you need to improve your handwriting." Clarice Rochford snorted with contempt. "A lot. What the heck is this?"

"Solutions for the upcoming test. We just need to learn them by heart."

"How do I know they are correct?"

"Because I took them from that idiot, Catherine Kipling. She's never wrong."

For a moment, Clarice froze. Then she stared at her in panic. "Wh-who did you say?"

"Kipling. That pathetic blond – but good with Maths. Well, she's good at everything, crappy nerd. She passed the test last week."

Clarice took a deep breath, slammed the notebook and handed it back. "Take this. I don't want it."

Maggie blinked, dumbfounded. "What? Like what…?"

"Take it, I said! Give it back to the nerd. And never, never mess with that one again. Not worth it - less for a shitty test's sake!"

She saw her friend keep her notebook, with a sullen gesture. "Fine!" She snapped. "You're welcome, Clarice! I strive to get you help for the test and this is what I get..."

"Take the answers from whoever you want, except Catherine Kipling! Is it clear? And if you do, don't come here later."

Maggie was still sulking. She dug into the garden soil with the tip of her leather shoe. "You're just afraid of Croft... ouch!" She shrieked and writhed, but Clarice had grabbed her tightly by the braid.

"You're right!" The pretty lady Rochford spat. "Yes! I'm afraid of Croft! Croft's crazy! Crazy, do you hear me? And you would do well not messing with her..."

She released her. Maggie let out a groan and rubbed her scalp. "No clue what that lame tomboy did to you... daughter of a brute and God knows what father. If she threatened you, you should have said it..."

"I won't say a thing. I'm not going to do anything." Clarice clenched her teeth. "And neither do you! Just don't touch a single hair from Kipling's head."

"Why? Because she's her soulmate? Besides, you're late..."

"What!?" Clarice looked at her again, pale, furious.

Maggie laughed."I had to pull her strings a little, the silly fool. She didn't want to give me her notebook. So, I taught her a lesson..."

"What... what did you do to her? What have you done, idiot?"

"Enough, Clarice! It was nothing. I twisted her arm a little. Maybe she's bruised now...she's so weak..."

Clarice rose suddenly, white as a wall. She took two steps back, looking at her in horror. "You're crazy! Batshit crazy!"

"What's wrong with you? It was nothing, I say! What can she do to me, or that Croft? I really don't recognize you, Clarice..."

"Get away from me, loon!" Clarice turned and grabbed her backpack tightly. Going out into the courtyard under the arcades, she hurried away, looking back, frowning - and suddenly she looked forward and stuck in her spot.

Anna Croft was coming toward her. At full speed. Giving impossible strides. Flushed face. Clenched teeth. Her eyes, those blue eyes so cold, almost bulging out of the sockets. The twisted face in a monstrous grimace. Demonic. As if really insane.

Clarice Rochford had to change her panties that day, because she pissed herself right there, instantly, out of pure fear, and that considering she hadn't seen anything yet, for Anna hadn't even got started yet. Later, when it really became horrible, there was nothing left in her bladder to empty. She never told anyone, of course. Even though nobody would've noticed such a small detail, considering the horror that Anna unleashed later.

Her knees faltered, she dropped her backpack on the grass, raised her hands, terrified, in a pathetic gesture of supplication, of fragile defense.

"It wasn't me!" She screamed, terrified, with a tearful and piping voice. "I didn't do it! I swear, Croft! I haven't touched her!"

Anna stopped a few steps from her. She clenched her fists, hanging on both sides of her body. Her knuckles cracked. She twisted her mouth in an angry, horrible grimace. "I know." She spoke quietly, slowly, calmly. Terrible. "I already know it. Get out of my way, Rochford. This doesn't concern you." She looked up and stabbed Maggie with her eyes, several meters behind Clarice. "I'm coming for her."

The stocky man, dressed in a suit and moving hesitantly, leaning on a cane, pushed the balcony door and went out onto the terrace. Supporting all the weight on his healthy leg, he opened his arms. "Well, well, well! Look who's in a wheelchair now!"

Kurtis frowned. "Who?" He muttered, pointing to the aforementioned object a few steps away from him, who was sitting on a divan on the terrace. "That thing? We have it to decorate the corner."

Colonel Matthew Kendrick laughed, limped to his old friend and bent down to hug him tightly, patting his back. "How's that?" He stood up again, shining. "I haven't stayed in a damn wheelchair either. "Y'know how?" He rose proudly the leg of his pants. There, where his own leg had been before, there was a metal structure, which served as a prosthesis.

"Musta been left your legionnaire's pay on that, cyborg." Kurtis said. "But I'm glad to see you on your feet... or else."

The colonel laughed again and sat, carefully, hesitantly, at his side. "Not at all. This hasn't gotten out of my pay," he explained, rummaging through his jacket. "The Legion has taken over. Injured in act of service - or whatever. Didn't cost me a single buck. High quality titanium! I'm still getting used to it, it's a bit awkward - but better than sitting life. Want some?" He offered one of his Havana cigars.

Kurtis shook his head. "I mustn't."

"How so? She bossing you around? Although for a woman like her, I'd quit smoking right now, let me die if I lie."

The ex-legionary patted his chest. "I stuck my own broken rib in here. It's healed but won't be the same. The only thing left for these lungs to explode is to keep getting more shit inside them."

"Fuck, Trent, I'm sorry." He looked at the scar on his arm, noticed his legs, and then put the cigar away. "Then I'm not smoking either. For your pierced lungs."

"Thanks Matt. Glad to see you recovered."

For a moment, the silence thickened between them. Then the colonel pointed back to his legs. "What happened to you, kid?"

"I fell."

"I recall it's the first time in your case. You never got your bones broken before."

"There's a first time for everything."

An intelligent, sharp look showed up on the colonel's aged face. "All these years, we've been friends, Trent. I've seen strange things... around you, and I've never said a damn single word about it."

That's why you're still alive, Kurtis thought, although deep down he knew that harming Matt Kendrick was a price he wouldn't have wanted to pay - under any circumstances.

"Something tells me," the colonel ventured, "that one of those strange things has caught you this time."

"It was coming for my daughter."

"Jesus, is the girl okay?"

"Yes. It didn't succeeded."

"Well done. The man who doesn't defend his family is not a man. And nothing you can do is enough in that sense."

Kurtis laughed softly. "You're not even married, Matt."

"Lack of a chance, friend. Had I found a suitable woman, I 'd have married and thrown dozens of brats into the world." Kurtis's laugh intensified. "Hey, don't laugh! Shame on you, fool, to have a woman like that," he added, gesturing toward Croft Manor, "and not marry her."

"Shut up, Matt."

"I'm just saying..."

"Well, you've just said it."

For a moment he said nothing more. The colonel watched the English countryside, the beauty of the Surrey hills around the mansion. "My God, I'd stay here."

"You can... this manor has many rooms."

"No thanks. I'm already aware of the happiness you live in, no need to rub it on my face." He abruptly changed the subject. "Speaking of splendid women, a few weeks ago I was visited by a certainly remarkable one."

"Who?"

"A police inspector."

Kurtis rolled his eyes. "So she found you."

"I can't say the visit was unpleasant." Matt clicked his tongue. "God, how I like women with spirit."

"So, did she manage to get something out of you? She's hard to handle."

"Nothing, but she gave me a good time trying." Kurtis snorted when hearing this. "I think she's now in New York, annoying some old acquaintance of yours."

Poor Marty. "Well, let her stay there." Kurtis muttered. "Let her stay a while."

What happened next Clarice would remember as in a reddish, horrid nebula, like the bad memory of a nightmare, of something that doesn't seem real, but that it was and that would haunt her for the rest of her life. She wanted to get out of Anna's way, as she commanded, but instead her knees bent as if they were butter and she collapsed on the grass, trembling, crying in sheer terror. Releasing a sigh of exasperation, Anna sidestepped her and headed for Maggie, who was waiting for her with a frown and arms in a jug.

Idiot, Clarice thought, why doesn't she run? Not even then she knew why she thought such a thing. Clarice couldn't even remember being so terrified of Anna. On second thought, a few strands of cut hair were nothing compared to the horrors that face raised. Fear had come suddenly, magnified, exaggerated - but justified, as it turned out soon.

"What do you want, moron?" Maggie spat. "You coming for trouble? Did your little friend came crying to you?"

"She didn't." Anna replied slowly. Calmly. "She didn't want to tell me it was you - but I've seen it. What you did to her. I've even seen how you did it."

Maggie blinked, surprised. Did she? But it couldn't be. She was alone with Kipling, when she twisted her arm, when she made her scream, pressing her against the wall. There was no one else. She must have slipped of her tongue. What does this loon say?

"Did you like it? You enjoyed it?" Anna's voice rose slightly, she began to tremble, breathing quickly. "You like to hurt people, right?"

The tall girl watched her with a frown, beginning to get restless. But she was determined not to be scared, like that weeping Rochford. "I enjoyed it." She admitted and shrugged. "Yes, I enjoyed hurting that crappy nerd. I had fun twisting the crappy nerd's arm. She cried and pleaded, the pathetic one. Is she badly hurt? Poor little girl. Did you kiss her? Did you kiss her poor little nerd arm?"

Anna noticed how her ears began to ring. She took a deep breath. She was choking. She choked.

She heard someone sobbing. Clarice Rochford.

"Pathetic?" Anna panted. "You are pathetic. You and all those who hurt those better than you. Those who are weaker. You daughters of lords and ladies like me, you behave like garbage. Yes, you are garbage." She raised her arms, opened and closed her fists. "And there's only one way to deal with garbage."

She heard someone laughing. It was her. She was laughing. In her face. "Whoa, how scary! Skinny Croft. Butch. Your mother's an ordinary slut, who doesn't even know which man she had you with, and you're the same as her. Go with your girlfriend, fucking tomboy. Go and kiss her little arm..."

A red fog covered her eyes. She pounced on her, threw a punch toward her face – and hit the target.

Maggie let out a scream and backed away, covering her nose with her hands. A thread of blood appeared between her knuckles. Without stopping, Anna pounced on her again, punched her again, kicked her, grabbed her by the hair, twisted it.

To her opponent's credit, she tried to defend herself. Maggie returned the blows, broke her lip, tore her blouse, pulled her hair - but Anna didn't stop. The blows kept falling on her - and she was strong, surprisingly strong, and she was enraged, out of her mind.

"Enough!" Maggie shrieked. "Stop it, crazy! Crazy shit!"

The next punch hit her in the stomach. She gasped, bent. A kick in her legs made her fall to the ground. Anna threw herself on her again, kept hitting her. Maggie couldn't see anything. She tried to breathe through her nose. She couldn't.

"Help!" Someone was yelling from afar. Clarice? "HELP! Anybody hear me? Help! She lost her mind!"

Maggie raised her hands, stuck her nails in Anna's face, scratched her hard. She tore her clothes apart. She tried to put her fingers in her eyes. She failed, felt a bite in her hands.

"I'm going to kill you." She heard Anna's gasp. "I'm going to kill you."

Anna's hands curled around her neck. Finally, fear arrived. "STOP!" She shrieked. "Alright, alright, I give up! I won't do it again! I won't touch Kipling! I swear! I...I...swe...!"

Her hands clenched her throat. Maggie couldn't breathe. She couldn't.

Stronger. Stronger.

Lara reunited with them later. The colonel wanted to get up to welcome her, but she stopped him with a gesture. "Formalities aren't required here, Colonel." She smiled. "Not among friends."

Matt gave up getting up, but said: "Darling, if formalities aren't spent in a lady like you, then they shouldn't exist for anyo... argh!" He winced. "Fuck off, Trent, watch your elbow! I'm already an aged man!"

"Then stop behaving like a fucking kid, Matt."

"Is he always that jealous?" The colonel addressed Lara.

"Only when you flirt with her in my face." The ex-legionary growled.

"Both of you are kids." Lara concluded, sitting on the couch, and casting a sidelong glance at the wheelchair. "Still haven't managed having you sit in that for more than 15 minutes."

"I don't need it."

"Whatever you say." Lara leaned back and closed her eyes. Matt watched her in silence.

"I think, Lady Croft..."

"Lara, please."

"I think, Lara, you could use some of your tomb raiding again."

She smiled, amused, and rubbed her eyes. "I concur. It's been almost a year... and I'm already tired. This kind of life's not my thing."

"Shame you had to end babysitting this asshole."

"Fuck you, Matt. She's not my babysitter."

"Your nurse, whatever." He looked around. "Would've liked to greet your little spawn. Where is she now? How is she doing?"

"She's fine, Colonel, thanks. Although," Lara sat up, looked up at the sky, then toward the road, and frowned. "She should be back anytime."

"Oh, well, let the kid get distracted a little. Must have had a bad time lately."

You can't imagine how, Lara thought, but she didn't say it.

Later, when she was asked about that, Clarice Rochford couldn't answer. She was blocked and burst into tears. Posttraumatic stress, they said, with humanity and understanding. She can't be forced. She'll speak when she can, and if she can't, then she must not speak. Recovery first.

But what she couldn't say, unfortunately, happened anyway and she saw it. And what she saw could hardly be explained in words.

Clarice remembered seeing Anna Croft strangling Maggie Hartman with her own hands. She remembered seeing her brutal, sadistic expression - although she didn't even know what that word meant - while doing so, her mouth twisted, salivating, her eyes like popping out of her sockets, while she muttered that she was going to kill her.

She had no doubt that she meant it, and she was doing it. Killing her. That monster.

Maggie kicked and tried to get rid of her claws, clutching her throat, but despite all her tries, she failed. It was impossible. For once, the skinny Croft girl was stronger than anyone else. That day Clarice learnt that the most horrible sound in the world was that of a suffocating person, who cannot breathe, who struggles to do so, and who's losing the fight.

Rochford, who could, shouted with all her might. Asked for help. She even yelled at Anna, asking her to stop, to stop. It wasn't worth it. Not for a twisted arm. Not for Kat Kipling. But then she stopped abruptly. Something was happening. Something strange. There was something around Anna, a strange reddish aura - maybe orange – warmer, later burning. Like the fire of an oven. A kind of magnetic field, or energy, around her. Only Anna seemed no to realize.

Maggie was starting to turn blue, her eyes wide, her movements weaker and weaker.

Then the aura exploded.

As if struck by a huge whip, Anna let go of her opponent's neck and bent back, abruptly, brutally, almost touching the ground with her head. She let out a horrible scream, her eyes blank, before a shock wave, which seemed to start from her own body, swept everything around her - including Maggie and Clarice themselves, who felt pushed backwards like rag dolls thrown into the air - and burned the grass and shook the cloister structure.

The columns cracked. The windows exploded in unison, generating a shower of broken glass. Maggie's body disappeared inside the hallway, in a whirlwind of backpacks, pencils and notebooks. Clarice felt herself flying and hitting a column, and stamping herself against the ground, my God, this hurt, and she didn't even lose consciousness then.

She was still awake for a few seconds, enough to see Anna bend forward again, bleeding from her mouth, nose, ears, and then collapsing face down on the scorched grass, while her body continued to shake, as if prey of epileptic spasms.

Then Clarice passed out.