Chapter the Thirteenth
In which Someone is taken
It was three-fifteen at Briarwood Academy which meant home time for most of the students. Delia had heard the bell, but chose to ignore it; instead, she sat at her seat finishing up her schoolwork until a girl with shoulder length blonde hair sat in the chair in front of her.
"What was up with Rhodes this afternoon?"
But Delia only shrugged. She had noticed, but hadn't been able to come up with an explanation as to why their teacher had been acting weirdly since he had come back from lunch.
"I haven't a clue, Georgina, but he's a spazoid anyway."
"He's been looking at you ever since we came back from lunch, gross," she shuddered, thinking the unthinkable. "Anyway, the real reason I wanted to talk to you was to ask you if Alexander has asked anybody to the end of the year dance."
Delia frowned, "I don't think so, but are you wanting me to put in a good word for you?"
She laughed, "Could you, please?"
"Sure."
Georgina got up, "Has anyone asked you, yet?"
"No," Delia would rather kiss the feet of the nazarene than attend the insipid dance, but she kept her mouth shut to avoid offending Georgina.
"Maybe Aaron will ask you," she gave Delia a wink, "see you tomorrow."
"Yeah, see you tomorrow, Georgie," she watched her leave and then resumed her work.
Since the beginning of the school year, Alexander had volunteered to help his homeroom teacher set up the classroom for the next day and while he did that, Delia stayed and finished up her useless school assignments which would give her more time at home to do whatever work that her father gave her.
Delia didn't know how Alexander did it. She could barely stand to participate in the extracurricular activities she did and they were more fun than rearranging bulletin boards and the like. Of course, she had other pursuits that occupied her time when she was alone. She smiled to herself as she tried to hurry through her work. One day Alexander would know who he was and hopefully, he would join her and she would show him what real fun was.
Delia was engrossed in her work when she heard someone clear his throat and when she looked up, her teacher was looking down at her.
"Um, Miss Thorn, it's three-thirty, I think you should go home," he gave her a shaky smile.
She looked down and then back up again, "But I'm not done."
"And I've got to get going, too."
Delia got up from her desk and began to pack up her things. She didn't understand. Usually, Mr. Rhodes didn't mind when she stayed late and she wondered if this had to do with how bizarre he had been today. "Sorry, I didn't realize that you wanted to go," she zippered up her backpack and put it on.
"It's okay. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Sure," and she could feel the weirdness again. Her classroom was on the third floor of the school and she took the stairs two at a time to the first floor. Her first stop was Alexander's classroom, but it was dark and empty. Delia frowned. Both he and Mrs. Dixon should be here, but maybe something happened and she had sent him home early. She made her way to the front doors, opened them and was greeted by the early summer heat and the usual chaos of teachers trying to get kids organized to go home.
She made her way down the stairs to the area reserved for the picking up and dropping off of students and while there were many cars, Tom's was not among them.
She walked out to the sidewalk in front of the school and turned right, checking all the cars that were parked on the road. She made it all the way down to the corner of the street and then doubled backed and did the same on the street to the left of the front of the school, but there was no car.
As far as she could remember, Tom had never been late picking them up, he was always outside waiting for the both of them. Maybe something had happened and her father, or Tom, had called the school and told them that he would be late and she hadn't gotten the message.
Delia went back into the school and back to her brother's classroom. It was still dark, so she turned on the light. Maybe, he had left his things here and had taken off somewhere, but a quick search revealed nothing.
She shook her head, screw this.
Alexander, where are you?
There was no response from him and then the bottom fell out of Delia Thorn's world.
NANDER!?
But it was like someone had turned down the volume on him, or had made him fuzzy.
As they got older, they realized that distance was no barrier to their ability to communicate with each other, so him not being with her wasn't the reason why she couldn't feel Alexander.
Delia needed to remain calm, but each passing second was making that difficult. She was at a loss to do anything but make her way to the office to see if somehow, against all her better judgment, there had been some kind of mix-up.
When she had first found out who she was, she was obsessive in keeping her brother safe. Anyone who had so much as looked at him came under Delia's unerring scrutiny. Damien, no doubt after Alexander had come to him, had spoken to her about being so vigilant in regard to keeping an eye on her brother and had told her to back off and because she had not wanted to keep pissing off Xander, she had listened to her father. However, now that there was only emptiness when she reached out to him, the likelihood that she would ever leave him alone again was slim to none and slim had just taken the last train out of town.
Once in the office, she went straight to the secretary, "Mrs. Cooper, I can't find my brother and Tom isn't here. Was there a message about someone else coming to get us?"
The secretary checked the bulletin board and shook her head, "Sorry Delia, no messages about a change in plans. Would you like me to page him?"
But there was no point. She knew her brother wasn't here and that there had been no change in plans; Alexander would have told her, in person or otherwise, that he was leaving without her. Why she couldn't communicate with her brother was a mystery, maybe he had learned to block her out, but both Tom's and Alexander's absence was beginning to look like it could only be explained by one thing and Delia felt sick to her stomach.
"Mrs. Cooper, will you tell Ms. Coates to come out."
"Delia..."
"Please."
The secretary phoned into the principal's office and told her there was a problem and that she should come out at once, which she did.
Ms. Coates smiled reassuringly, "Hello, Delia, what..."
"Tom took my brother and..." and with a gasp, her hand flew to her mouth as realization dawned on her.
One the first day of class, Delia had deemed Mr. Rhodes safe and after that, she hadn't given him anymore thought, but she thought about him now. He had been fine in the morning and had been his usual awkward self, making jokes that none of his students found funny. When class had resumed after lunch, whenever Delia had looked at him, he had looked away. She had picked up some weird emotions...fear, anxiety, shame. Delia had wondered if her teacher had developed some kind of crush on her and she had considered arranging an accident for him, but she now understood why he been so strange.
"Mr. Rhodes was in on it! Whatever happened to my brother, Mr. Rhodes knew about it. He was acting oddly when he came back from lunch."
"Oh, I'm sure that's not the case. Maybe there was a mix-up, or maybe Alexander is somewhere in the school."
Delia could feel a soupy mess of emotions bleeding off Ms. Coates, but first and foremost was not concern for one of her students; she was afraid of what this would do to her reputation and her job if it were true that Alexander had been taken and Delia's fear was now replaced with blazing rage.
When she was younger, Damien had taught her to control her temper and Delia now called on those skills in order to help her deal with what was going on. She began by taking everything that had to do with her brother and putting it in the box that Damien had taught her, in those early days, to visualize in order to harness her anger. To that box, she added her fury and impatience with Ms. Coates, otherwise her principal was in imminent danger of losing her life.
Damien...she needed to get Damien here as quickly as possible. Theoretically, the quickest way to do it was to send a message, but it would be too full of emotion and would end up being more complicated than getting her father on the phone.
Delia turned to Ms. Coates and put herself inside the woman's mind. She didn't have much practice doing it with someone who wasn't her brother, but it didn't matter since the situation at hand didn't call for a high degree of finesse.
The second Delia did it, the woman's face went slack.
"Maybe if my teacher was involved then Alexander's was too. Why don't you check the school, you incompetent moron."
And Ms. Coates left the office to do what she was told. Delia would have liked nothing more than to send her out into the busy street to get run over by several cars, but she thought it best to let Damien take care of anything like that. Next, she turned to Mrs. Cooper, "I need to use the phone, go away."
And the woman rose and left the office and Delia didn't care where she ended up.
Delia picked up the receiver, reached down and dialed the number to Damien's secretary. She knew her father was in a meeting so calling either his office or cell phone would be a waste of time. It felt like an eternity before Michael answered the phone.
"Damien Thorn's office."
"Michael, I need to speak with my father; it's an emergency."
"He's in a meeting, Delia."
But it wasn't the answer that she wanted and she had already had enough of Ms. Coates and her stalling and with Michael, who knew exactly who Damien was, she could be more honest, "Get my father NOW or I will end you where you sit!"
There was silence on the other end and she knew that he was moving as fast as he could to get Damien, but it wasn't fast enough as far as she was concerned.
"What's wrong?"
The second she heard her father's voice, she thought about not telling him and somehow handling this on her own. First, because she knew that whatever had happened to her brother was a failure on her part as his protector. Second, saying it out loud would make it real but she realized that not telling him wasn't an option.
"Tom took Alexander," her voice quivered.
"Are you sure?"
"He's not here, he's not anywhere; he would never leave without telling me and I can't feel him. It's like someone turned him down. Can you feel him?"
Damien paused, "Are you in danger?"
She now knew that Damien couldn't feel him either, "No and I can take care of myself."
"Delia, I don't want you doing anything. If you have to protect yourself, okay, but otherwise let me handle it and this isn't your fault so don't you dare blame yourself. I love you and I'm leaving now."
"I love you, too," she hung up the phone and as she made her way to the leather sofa in the office, she failed to heed her father's advice and now began to stew in her own guilt. She removed her knapsack, sat and waited for Damien Thorn to show up.
...oOo...
Damien hung up on his end. Who else was involved with this? He had spent time with Cecile this morning and had sensed no deception on her part. He picked up the phone and dialed the house. It took only moments for her to answer the phone.
"Good afternoon, Thorn residence."
"Cecile, is Tom there?"
He had reached out to her for three reasons. One, to test whether she had been a part of this. Two, if she hadn't been a part of this, then he planned to send her to the school and three, he hoped that somehow, someway, there had been a mix-up and Tom had delivered Alexander safely home.
"No, he should be at Delia and Alexander's school. What's wrong?"
There was genuine concern and confusion in her voice and Damien watched as Thomas entered the office, ready to make a glib comment about Damien walking out of the meeting when the look on Damien's face stopped him cold.
"Tom took Alexander."
"Mon Dieu...what can I do?"
While Cecile wasn't particularly religious, Damien could almost hear her crossing herself, "I'm sending a car to come and get you to bring you to the school."
"Should I call the police?"
"No, I'll handle that."
"Would Alexander's dog be of any use?"
"Couldn't hurt, be ready..."
"I'm ready now," and she hung up.
Thomas, who had heard what his boss had said, put his head out the door and told Michael to call Charles and Anna up to the office and that it was an emergency and then came back into Damien's office and closed the door.
Thomas knew all the police officers on the Chicago Police Department who were disciples of Damien's, but was only interested in one: Trevor Pendelton, head of the precinct not more than two miles from where Thomas and Damien were standing. Thomas explained the situation to Pendelton and told him to make sure that Tom's car wasn't in a ditch somewhere and to start putting men together, on the Q.T., to find Alexander and gave Trevor the address of the children's school.
"And I'm warning you right now, no press. I'm going to have our people at the Sun-Times and the Tribune keeping track of this and if they get wind that anyone has called in with a so-called anonymous tip, you're head will roll," Thomas hung up the phone.
Charles McFadden and Anna came in, a smile on her face which quickly disappeared once she could feel the somber vibe in the room, "What is it? What's going on?"
"Tom Evans took Alexander," Thomas looked from Anna to Charles.
Anna strode to the desk, grabbed the phone and called downstairs to Paul and told him to come up immediately. Once she hung up, she looked up at Thomas, "We're going to the school, yes?"
Thomas looked at Damien, who nodded.
They headed out to the executive elevators, but first, Damien stopped by his secretary's desk, "Take your car and drive to my house and get Cecile. She'll have a dog with her, and then take her to the children's school."
Michael nodded and left his desk to go do as Damien ordered.
They were waiting for the elevator and when it opened, Paul was standing there. He moved aside as the others got on. "I've already received a call from the head of legal that you walked out of the meeting," Paul's gaze went to everyone in the elevator.
Thomas spoke up, "Delia called Damien; she thinks Tom took Delia. I've got the police making sure that Tom's car isn't in a ditch somewhere."
"He's been taken; Alexander would never leave without telling Delia."
The elevator car reached it's destination and everyone but Paul exited. "Bring him home," he couldn't look at Damien, so directed his comments to his niece.
Charles drove, heading out to the children's school and in the car, nobody said anything to Damien. Instead, they focused on figuring out why Tom had taken Alexander and what the plan would be once they arrived at the school. Their boss sat in silence, staring out the window and they figured that if he wanted something, he would speak.
From the moment that Delia had told him that Alexander was missing, he had taken his emotions and put them away, they would not serve him in finding his son. There was a placid, almost serene look on his face, but that belied the inner turmoil raging inside him. He had considered security for his children, but they had balked at the idea. Damien and others kept an eye on some of the more militant religious groups and after the so-called second coming, all was quiet. But mostly, he had figured that anything like this was incapable of happening; clearly he had been wrong.
He was also terrified, more terrified than he logically should be. It was doubtful that Alexander as Antichrist-to-be was in any real danger; however, Damien was also a father and all he knew was that his son was gone.
What were my last words to Alexander? Did I tell him that I loved him?
He struggled to keep his thought process on what could have happened. He had not spoken to Tom this morning. He had gotten a late start at the office, so he had been home when his kids had left for school and had watched as Delia and Alexander had grabbed their lunches and snacks and then had taken off outside.
He allowed a small flicker of rage to move through him. If whoever was behind this, because it wasn't Tom, didn't kill the Thorn's former chauffeur, then Damien would.
Then there was the broken communication between him and his son. Though Alexander wouldn't understand how his father could talk to him in his head the way that his sister could, that was not reason enough for there to be a lack of communication between the two of them. Alexander didn't know enough about himself to purposely shut himself off from his father and Delia certainly hadn't done it.
The change on his face was imperceptible. Besides himself, there was only one who was capable of stepping in and doing this and that was his Father...but why? Surely Satan could find an easier way of disposing of Alexander than to go through the charade of having him kidnapped?
Damien stared vacantly out the window, watching the scenery rush past, but seeing nothing. He closed his eyes and set himself thinking as to why his Father was letting this happen and praying that whatever this was, Satan didn't something fatal in mind for his second-born.
...oOo...
Once they arrived at Briarwood Academy, everyone could see that the police had made it there first. Damien got out of the car and made his way up the steps as the two officers who were standing guard stepped aside to let him pass.
Once inside the school, he stood in the foyer, looking like a general taking the battlefield and Thomas couldn't help thinking that their god had better help those who stood in Damien's way because Damien's wouldn't.
Damien didn't know where Delia was, so he sent a message to her: I'm here.
Apparently, she wasn't all that far away as her voice could be heard by those in the hall, "And now, you can deal with my father!" Then the sound of running feet got closer as she came peeling around the corner straight to Damien.
He nodded to the others and they moved towards the office and then Damien lead Delia into one of the empty classrooms.
He watched his daughter as she stood before him, her unfaltering gaze directed at him. She was shaking, not from grief, but fear. Damien was well acquainted with his daughter's response because it was one he received from disciples who stood before him awaiting the wrath of the Antichrist.
He went to Delia and pulled her to him, "Right now, I'm a father minus a son and you are a sister minus a brother. You're not my disciple, okay, Junior?"
Delia unloosed the grief that she had held back and began sobbing in her father's arms and after a minute or so, he lifted up her face, "I know you think that it's your fault..."
"It is my f-fault!" Delia was barely understandable through her sobs, "I couldn't protect him and now he could be..." but she couldn't finish.
"Do you think I'm a negligent father for failing to provide security for the children of the most powerful businessman and the face of the planet, not to mention the children of the Antichrist?"
"No," and she vehemently shook her head, wanting to let her father know that in no way, shape or form did Delia blame him.
"Okay, so now that we've absolved each other for Alexander being taken, I need you to be calm," and Damien gently went into her mind and instantly she stopped crying. "I can feel you and right now, I need to pay attention for Alexander or Satan. Once you calm down, we can talk." Damien spat in his hand and held it out to his daughter, "I promise to do everything I can to bring your brother home safe...now you."
For the second time, Delia put her feelings in a box and locked it and this time, until she was back with Alexander, the box would stay locked. She spat in her hand and she shook hands with her father, "I promise to do anything to bring back my brother," Delia wiped her hand on her pants and offered her leg to her father, who wiped off the spit. "Why can't we feel him?"
"Because," Damien took a deep breath, "Satan is preventing it."
Delia could do nothing but stare at her father.
"My best guess is that this kidnapping happened with no one behind it apart from whoever planned it. Under normal circumstances, mysterious and supernatural things would be happening to get Alexander out of it, just like things must have happened when my Father had to step in when people couldn't protect me and I was too young to protect myself. But like you had those visions, Satan is using this opportunity to awaken Alexander to his true self."
Delia frowned; none of this was sitting well with her.
Damien didn't need to be empathic to be able to read his daughter, "Junior, he has instincts. I told you once, when we had our conversation about you, that Alexander chooses to ignore some of the more blatant facts about us and our family. He doesn't want to be different, well now he's about to get a rude awakening and have to embrace his difference to get himself out of this."
"We don't know what can kill him," her voice was a whisper.
"I am one hundred percent sure that Satan will not let anything happen to him. If nothing kicks on in Alexander, he'll sit back and watch while Satan gets my son and your brother out of whatever has happened to him. As a father, I love both my children equally, but when it comes to religious matters, Alexander is more important and he needs to be able to do things that need to be done."
"Like kill."
"Like do lots of things, including kill. Alexander is smart and he'll keep a level head and if he listens to himself, he'll open that part of him he's been choosing to ignore and his instincts will guide him. We deal with the fallout of Alexander possibly having to kill, which includes having the talk with him about who and what he is."
Sister wise, Delia didn't like it, not one bit. There were far too many what ifs and unknown variables for her liking. Something could go wrong, or they could be mistaken and the plan might just be for her brother to die. She closed her eyes. She knew that one day, her father would no longer be here, it was the way of the world, but Alexander...Delia would rather be dead than to live without her brother. However, she was also the daughter of the Antichrist, granddaughter of Satan and the protector of the future Antichrist and in that sense, her life was not her own. She looked up at her father with a sureness in her heart that hadn't been there moments ago, "We have to have faith."
Damien reached out and touched her face, "That we do, Deedle. Come on, let's see how the others are faring."
Once they got to the principal's office, they walked into controlled chaos. Anna was just hanging up a phone and Thomas was in the corner talking to Ms. Coates.
A policeman came over, took out a notebook and looked at Delia, "When did you notice your teaching acting strangely?"
"Everything was fine until after lunch. Mr. Rhodes began acting weird, staring at me and then looking away when I caught him. He wouldn't call on me when I put up my hand and didn't talk to me, like he was ashamed to look at me."
The policeman left the office and the phone rang and Anna picked it up, "Okay, I'll send them down." She hung up and then turned to the others, "They found something."
Damien, Thomas and Delia followed Ms. Coates, leaving Anna behind.
They went down a hall to a door that lead to stairs. Downstairs, around a corner, they found a door that was normally locked, but now contained two police officers and Charles. The room was cramped with only a few chairs, a table, a monitor and two videotape machines. Charles nodded to one of the cops and he pressed a button.
The time on the monitor read three twenty-five and everyone in the room watched as the front door of the school opened and Alexander Thorn came outside. He stood by the door for a few seconds and then headed down the steps. Once at the car, he opened the door, threw in his knapsack, got in and closed the door. However, unlike what would have normally happened, and that's that Tom would have waited for Delia, the car pulled away, leaving with Alexander.
"If I would have been earlier..."
"Then he'd have both of you," Thomas looked over at Delia.
Damien reached down and pressed a button to rewind the tape. He watched his son get in the car and watched Tom pull away and thirty seconds later, a second car pulled out and followed. The camera had not been able to capture the license plate.
"That car," Damien rewound the tape again.
It was a mid-size car, tan in color with absolutely nothing special about it, making it the perfect vehicle for someone, or someones, to use to follow Tom out to wherever he was supposed to take Alexander. The selected members of the Chicago Police Department now added the description of the tan car to Tom, Mr. Rhodes and Mrs. Dixon as something else to look out for.
"I think someone needs to go through these tapes with an officer. Maybe, the person driving the car was surveilling the school." Thomas grabbed a chair and put it behind Ms. Coates, "You are going to make yourself useful. You are going to look at these tapes and see if you can find anything wrong…a person who doesn't, or people who don't, belong on school property. I am assuming that you can do that?"
"Yes, but these tapes only go back a week."
"Are there more than these?"
"No, we just tape over them."
Thomas exhaled, "Okay, then start with this one. Go back to the beginning of the tape and if you can't find anything, then start with the earliest tapes that there are."
One of the police officers remained with Ms. Coates and the two of them began to go through the tapes to see if they could find something suspicious.
Charles, Damien, Delia and the other police officer returned upstairs to the office and while they had been busy downstairs, Michael had turned up with Cecile and Alexander's dog.
Delia went to Milo, knelt and buried her face in his neck, stroking down his back. She had made a promise to keep herself together, but being this close to Alexander's dog was making that promise difficult to keep.
Milo, sensing her wonky emotions, whined and nuzzled her.
"How are you holding up, Sweetpea?"
Delia could do nothing but shrug.
"You hang in there," and Cecile put her hand on Delia's head and watched as Damien entered the room and she went to him, but she didn't touch him, she knew better than that.
"If anyone can safely bring that boy home, it's you."
Damien gave her a thin, hollow smile and she went to the leather sofa and sat down.
Delia took Milo out into the hallway and Damien followed them. She knew that her father must have thought the dog might be able to locate his master, but now that they were waiting for whatever was going to happen to play out, all they could do now was wait.
While they were in the hall, Trevor Pendelton came in the front door and made his way to them.
Damien looked down at Delia, "Go tell Thomas and Anna to come here and stay with Cecile."
"But..."
"You will stay with Cecile."
Delia recognized the look on her father's face as one which wouldn't be argued with and both she and the dog took off to the office and moments later, Thomas and Anna came out and went to Damien.
"There's been no report of an accident with a car matching the description of Tom's car. Motivations?" Pendelton looked at Thomas, not wanting to look at Damien.
"It's not religious, it just doesn't feel right for that, but we can't rule it out. More likely than not, this is business related, which I much prefer for one reason: whoever took Alexander has no idea how badly he screwed himself because he has no idea with whom he's screwing. I've got people looking into business transactions for the last five years. If we don't find anything there, we go back further than that."
"As of yet, no one's spouse has called in to report anyone missing; but if anyone does, one of our officers will handle the calls. It's not going to be long until dead bodies start turning up and we'll deal with that when the time comes," Pendelton looked at Damien then, wanting him to know that this would all be kept quiet.
"What happens now?" Anna handled waiting around about as well as Paul, which wasn't very well.
"We wait to see if someone contacts us about ransom," Trevor and Anna went to the office, leaving Damien and Thomas alone.
Thomas pulled the door closed and looked at Damien, "I know in my gut and you know too that this isn't religious. Since all that crap with the second-coming, we've kept track of the more militant groups who would try something like this and we haven't heard anything which means that whoever has Alexander has no idea that they're holding your son." Thomas was silent for a moment, "I don't mean to pry..."
"I can't feel him. I think my Father is using this as a way to have Alexander connect with who he really is and until that happens, I'm as much in the dark as you are."
"If whoever did this is smart, he's kept the people involved to minimum, not more than two or three others apart from himself, and that's good for us because the fewer people involved means a smaller mess to clean up and the more control we have over everything once this is resolved and then we can make whoever did this pay," Thomas reached for the door and opened it for Damien.
Both of them went back into the office and joined the others since there was nothing to do but wait.
...oOo...
For three hours, time dragged its feet. Downstairs, Ms. Coates and the officer kept at the tapes. At one point, the principal began to call parents to tell them that the school would be closed tomorrow, but did not say why. She also didn't tell them that depending on how Damien Thorn decided to deal with this, the school might never be opened again.
Upstairs, people waited for a phone call about ransom, but it wasn't coming, which Trevor Pendelton didn't have to tell anybody was bad.
Delia was lying on the couch, her head resting on her father's thigh when
DEEDLE!?
"Xander!" and she took off running into the hall.
Nander, I'm here!
Delia was shortly joined by Damien, who had excused himself by saying that he was worried about his daughter.
I'M SCARED!
Tears rolled down Delia's cheeks. She could feel her brother's fear and she couldn't comfort him.
Nander, I know, but Damien is with me. He's going to talk to you and then he'll know where you are and we will come get you.
Xander, think to me and I'll know where you are.
Alexander obeyed his father and Damien now knew exactly where Alexander was, but panic soon filled his head.
PLEASE COME GET ME. I WANT TO COME HOME. I WANT DEEDLE BUT PLEASE DON'T BRING HER HERE!
Delia was whining and crying and Damien could feel how badly they both wanted to be together.
Hang on, Xander.
Thomas came out into the hall and came over to the pair of them.
"Alexander is on Lake Michigan, a boat called the The Devil's Due."
Thomas was silent for a second and then went over to get one of the other police officers, who after talking with Thomas, went inside to get Trevor Pendelton. Trevor came out and after a chat with Thomas, headed over to Damien.
"Do you know where on Lake Michigan?"
"Yes," once Alexander had thought his location to his father, it was like a channel had been cleared and Damien now knew everything about everything.
Trevor went back inside, where he would reveal a surprise development in regard to Alexander's location.
"Damien, I'm coming with you."
"No," he could feel her and she was about ready to crawl out of her own skin for want of her brother.
"You can't expect me to stay here!"
Damien put his arm around Delia's shoulders and lead her away from the others, "I know you're the older sister and his protector, but some things might have happened that he might not want you to know about just yet."
"But that shouldn't matter. I know he killed them. He needs me," again it was becoming difficult for her to keep a lid on her emotions.
"Delia, he doesn't want you there. He's ashamed of what he did and...it's a male ego thing, just let your brother have some privacy right now. You can be with him, up here," Damien gently tapped the side of her head.
Anna and Charles had joined Thomas in the hall and Damien motioned them over, " Anna, you follow in my car; I'll go with Trevor and Thomas. Charles, take Cecile and Delia home. And Michael, if you know what's good for you, you'll keep this to yourself."
"Of course," he was suddenly afraid even though he knew he wouldn't be telling anyone anything.
Everyone went off to do as Damien instructed and soon, Charles and Cecile were in the hall, with Milo sitting patiently by Cecile's side.
Logically, she knew her father was right. He would want to pay attention to Alexander and that would be difficult to do if he had to deal with her, "Take Milo."
Damien hugged his daughter, "He's alive and fine, Delia, we just have to help him deal with whatever has happened. I love you and I'll be back." Damien kissed her on the forehead and everyone who was going with Damien left, including Milo.
Damien's coming to get you right now.
Delia, what's going on?
And she would have loved nothing more than to tell her brother everything, but it wasn't her place.
Xander, I can't say anything, but you and Damien are going to be having a talk once all this settles down...stay with me until Damien shows up.
As Delia walked out of the front doors, she was fairly certain that she would be the last student to ever do so.
...oOo...
As the car turned from East 89th Street onto South Walton Drive, Damien told Alexander they were nearly there. One other cruiser had accompanied Trevor's car and all three vehicles converged and there, moored at the pier was The Devil's Due. Damien ran to the boat and nobody there dared to tell him not to and once on board, he called out, "Alexander!?"
"I'm downstairs!"
Damien turned around and pulled on the handle of a tiny door and flew down the stairs, a police man with his drawn gun was close on Damien's heels and both of them hit the ground at the same time.
"Oh God, Jesus Christ!" The cop turned away in disgust, nearly throwing up on Damien's shoes because there was Alexander Thorn, safe and sound, sitting in the middle of something that resembled a horror movie.
AUTHORS NOTE
Wow, I can't believe it's been a year since I first posted! I originally wrote this with Delia as the one who was taken, but seeing as how the last four or so chapters were about her, I decided to challenge myself and have Alexander be the one who was kidnapped. It meant changing a lot of things, but it expands Alexander's journey in regard to finding out who he is. In the end, I think it worked out to be the better story.
Hope everyone's enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it!
