Chapter 43: A Complete Whole

Sobbing, Katrina banged her fists against the door. "Let me out!" she cried, over and over. "Vincent!" She heard his boots stomp down the stairs and then there was silence. After kicking the door, Katrina began to pace the room.

"My God. My God," she whispered, holding her pregnant belly as if to shield the baby from the terror she felt. "Something bad is going to happen."

Screams from deep within the House of Wax could be heard faintly through her open window. She pressed her face against the glass, trying to see through the darkness, but soon gave up in frustration.

"Mother fucker!" Katrina shouted, kicking the wall. She paced back and forth a few more times before sitting on the bed, breathing deeply in an attempt to calm herself. Closing her eyes tightly, Katrina tried to think of something to do, a way to get herself out of the room. Her eyes widened as she remembered something that had happened months before . . . before she had gotten pregnant.

She was in the barn with Bo, both of them stripped to their undergarments and sweating profusely as they stoked a huge fire in the fireplace. Katrina wiped a trickle of sweat from her brow as she helped Bo throw the remains of their two latest torture victims . . . two prostitutes from Woodston . . . into the raging inferno. When all the body parts were being consumed, Bo pulled on a set of heavy leather gloves and stuck his tools into the fire to burn off the blood and tissue that no soap and water could ever get clean.

Katrina retreated to the coolest part of the barn so she could watch him work and smoke a joint at the same time. As she watched Bo . . . his muscles glistening with moisture, a cruel smirk on his face . . . for the first time, she wondered what it would be like to have him, not Vincent, pressing down on her naked body. The thought made her blush. It also made her feel intensely guilty. She closed her eyes, trying to will the flicker of desire away.

When she opened her eyes, Bo was standing in front of her, a strange look on his face. Hazy and confused, drugged out of her mind, Katrina opened her arms and Bo walked into them. Their kiss was heated, his fingers slid underneath the sides of her panties and pulled her towards him, she let out a breathy cry into his mouth . . . and then it was over. He looked down at her and his gaze made her blood run cold. It wasn't that they had kissed . . . it was that the man standing before her was Vincent.

Vincent, yet not Vincent.

It was as if they were really one person . . . Bo and Vincent. She loved Vincent completely, she was his, but the reality was that her heart was entwined with them both. She wasn't really just Vincent's. She was also Bo's. Just as the twins both belonged to her. Together, the three of them made a complete whole.

It didn't make much sense to her, but that was what her marijuana-ridden mind came up with.

She realized he was still looking at her. Bo grinned, and she knew that somehow, some way, he knew exactly what she was thinking. Without another word, he went back to his fire and she followed to help. They said nothing for the rest of the day, until they were back in his truck on the way home.

"Katrina, when the time comes, you have to promise me you won't worry."

"What?" she asked, completely confused.

"When the time comes," he insisted, "you can't worry. When I'm dead, Kitty Kat, you shouldn't worry. 'Cause we'll always be together, you know. You and me and Vincent. Even if one or two of us isn't alive."

"What the hell?" Katrina cried. "What are you saying?"

"I'm sayin' I'm gonna die one day, Kitty. It'll have somethin' to do with wax, I know. And I'm only tellin' you this 'cause I've been havin' these fucked up dreams. Don't ask, 'cause I ain't gonna tell you what they're about . . . but I just wanted you to know that. That . . . and you were meant to come here. You were meant to live. It's fate, 'cause we're entwined like a fucking spider web."

He grinned at her. "I'm glad I got to kiss you, for once."

And she had smacked him on the arm.

It had confused her at the time, but for some reason she understood it all now.

Bo was going to die. He had known it, even back then. His thread was about to be cut.

The thought made her physically ill, and she vomited onto the floor. Staring down at the puddle of bile, she realized Bo had said "if one or two of them were dead."

"Vincent!" Katrina screamed. "No. Not both of you!" She ran to the window and began to scream over and over again.

The House of Wax was on fire. And it was melting.

Katrina flew back to the door, banging on it so hard she stripped the skin from her knuckles and arms, leaving them a bloody mess. She ran back to the window and punched through it without thinking, shouting incoherently out into the darkness. The pain from the gashes startled her out of her terrified hysteria and she stared at the House of Wax, watching as smoke billowed from its windows and flames blazed up its walls.

She formed a plan in her head, not thinking of its dangers, and rushed over to her bed to begin knotting her sheets together to make a rope ladder. Blood trickled down her pale hands onto the bedding, but Katrina paid it no heed. When the ladder was done, she pushed the bed over to the window and tied the sheets to one of the wooden legs. She had one leg out of the window when she realized that the sheets were too short, it was too far a jump for her to make without breaking something. And she remembered something else, something that made her gasp.

"The baby . . ." she whispered, clutching her stomach. "I can't risk the baby."

A loud creaking sound filled her ears, a chilling, terrible noise that echoed throughout the little town. She looked up and gasped in horror as she saw the House of Wax cave in.

"My God, Vincent!"

Katrina took two steps backward, her fingers pressed against her lips. With a choking cry, she grabbed the lamp from the nightstand and began trying to beat down the door. The acrid smell of burning wax and flesh made her gag as she hit the door over and over. When it became apparent that the lamp would do no good, Katrina sank to her knees in defeat. She gripped her hair in her hands and began to sob as she hit her head on the door. Suddenly she sat up straighter, her eyes wide.

There was someone in the house.

Katrina pulled herself up and pressed her ear against the wall to hear better. She could hear footsteps coming up the stairs, along with soft muttering. Before she could call out for Bo or Vincent, someone began banging on her door. And somehow, she knew it wasn't any of the Sinclair brothers.

"Shit . . ." she whispered, reaching for her knife.

But it wasn't there.

Her breath caught in her throat as she remembered that Vincent had taken her knife when he had pulled her up the stairs to lock her in the room.

Katrina took a deep breath and whispered the only words that could comfort her.

"A complete whole. We are a complete whole and no one can break us apart."