Chapter the Fourteenth
In which Someone is taken—redux
The sound of the home time bell reverberated in the classroom and Alexander smiled as he heard the grunts of relief from around him. He sometimes wished he hated school like some of the others and he watched as most of his friends filed past him with looks of joy on their faces as they knew that the end of the school day had arrived.
Alexander hid as best he could that he actually liked school, he never told anyone that he did extra work at home that his father gave him, and both he and Delia had asked Damien, on several occasions, to send them to another school where the curriculum was tougher. But now however, it was a moot point since this was their last year here.
"See ya tomorrow, Thorn."
"Yeah, Mikey, see ya," Alexander high-fived his friend and said good-bye to other students as they passed him.
Alexander very rarely had to explain why he studied so hard. Most assumed that is was because Damien Thorn pushed his children, which Alexander refuted if the subject came up, wanting them to understand that his father was no tyrant at home.
He finished packing up his stuff and looked around; it was only he and Mrs. Dixon left in the classroom and his teacher was making her way over to him.
"Alexander, you don't have to stay and help, you can go."
Ever since the start of the school year, he had volunteered to stay later and help set up the classroom for the next day. This was the first time since he had been staying that she suggested that he leave on time.
"Are you sure? Because I don't mind staying, really."
"Yes, I'm sure."
Alexander watched Mrs. Dixon as she smiled at him. It was a nervous smile and beads of sweat had popped out along her brow; but she had been acting strangely since she had come back from lunch...looking at him and then quickly turning away when Alexander would look back at her. Now, as earlier, he felt her anxiety and her fear.
Alexander gave her back a smile more confident than the one she had given him, which seemed to calm her down a little, "Okay, if you're sure. See you tomorrow," he put on his knapsack and walked to the door.
"Alexander?"
When he turned around there was a pained expression on her face. Her fear and anxiety spiked and for a second, Alexander thought he was having a panic attack.
"Yes, Mrs. Dixon?"
She opened her mouth, but then seemed to changed her mind and then closed her eyes, "Nothing, I'll see you tomorrow."
Alexander smiled and then walked out the classroom, the smile falling from is face, shit, that was weird. He made his way to the front door and thought about telling Delia he was done early, but quickly changed his mind.
Over the past few years, his sister had become increasingly protective of him. There wasn't a new person at school who was interested in him who first didn't have to go through Delia. Even people at the house...anyone new in their family's life and they had to deal with his sister almost before they had to deal with Damien. He had talked to their father, who had given him some b.s. about Delia just doing her job as the big sister and he shouldn't worry about it; but if Alexander had a problem, he was to come and talk to him and not say anything to Delia.
He liked being close to his sister, but sometimes he needed a break, so he would sit in the car with Tom and they would talk until he decided he had had enough of a break and would send a message to her that he was ready to go.
Alexander opened the front door of the school and was immediately hit with a wall of heat and humidity. Kids ran past him and he looked out to his right, spotted Tom's car and ran down the stairs. Once at the car, he opened the back door, threw in his knapsack, got in, closed the door and sat back in his seat and then noticed something odd was going on.
It wasn't that Tom locked the doors. He always locked the doors when he and Delia were in the car so that nobody could get in. It was that the moment he was in the car, Tom pulled away from the curb and drove away from the school. And that's when Alexander also noticed that the partition between the driver and passengers was up and that never happened. He tried to unlock the doors, but they wouldn't unlock. Alexander pressed the button for the intercom.
"Tom?"
The intercom was working, but Tom wasn't answering him.
"Tom?"
But for whatever reason, Tom was choosing not to respond.
Delia?
Nothing.
DEEDLE!?
Still nothing.
Icy fear gripped Alexander and and made his gut clench. She wasn't ignoring him, and while he could tell that she was alive, whatever connection the two of them shared was broken and the messages that he was sending to her weren't getting through...like someone had tuned her to the wrong channel.
He sat back and wiped away the sweat that now dripped into his eyes and he felt a salty pool of liquid gather in the small of his back. For some reason, Tom had decided to kidnap him; or, perhaps closer to the truth because Tom wasn't nearly smart enough to do something like this himself, somebody else had put him up to it.
He didn't possess anything that would allow him to break the car windows or the partition, and he was pretty sure both were shatter proof or bullet resistant. The car windows were tinted, so drawing the attention of anyone in a passing car would be impossible. The locks in the back could be locked so they could only be opened by someone in the front of the car; he was trapped.
Alexander and Delia loved detective fiction, both in books and on t.v.. They had seen more than their fair share of shows about wealthy people having their children kidnapped for ransom, and whenever Alexander had asked Damien about anyone trying to take him or Delia, he had been met with amused looks on both his father's and sister's faces. Now that it was actually happening, Alexander was finding little about the situation that was amusing.
Who else was involved with this? There was Cecile, but Alexander highly doubted that. Cecile was smart, but she was far too honest. Paul or Thomas could be involved; both had the balls and intelligence to pull off something like this and knowing what went on in the Thorns' lives gave them an advantage that others lacked. There was Anna, but she, like Cecile, loved him and Delia too much to hurt them.
There was school, but no one at school was...Mrs. Dixon! She had been behaving weirdly since lunch! Alexander thought about Tom this morning; he had been fine. All three of them had discussed letting him and Delia drive on the Thorn's property. Whatever had happened to Mrs. Dixon and Tom had happened after lunch. Alexander guessed that made sense since it wouldn't allow Tom or Mrs. Dixon time to get anyone else involved, like the police.
Suddenly, a new wave of fear washed over him...what if someone had Delia?
He began frantically banging on the partition and pressed the button for the intercom again, "Tom! Please stop!"
But Tom didn't stop.
A hate the likes of which Alexander had never known possessed him and he made a fist and slammed the meaty part of his hand against the intercom button, "Tom, you stop this car, right now!"
But Tom wasn't stopping. He had been with the Thorns long enough to know that when it came to his children, Damien Thorn did not mess around. However, the knowledge that death possibly waited at the hands of his employer wasn't enough to make Tom stop, which made Alexander wonder exactly who it was who was behind all of this.
They had been driving for over an hour when they finally stopped. Tom got out of the car and opened back door and Alexander had every intention of attacking him, but he shook his head.
"They have Delia; if you try anything, they'll hurt her."
Tom's voice had gotten quiet at the end and Alexander knew that 'hurt her' had been Tom's nice way of saying that the last hours or days of Delia's life would be spent with her wishing that she had never been born.
He would have liked nothing more than to take off, but he wouldn't do anything to further endanger his sister. He had been complaining about her not leaving him alone, of not giving him space, but he'd give anything right now to be able to feel and hear her again.
Alexander scanned his surroundings and had no clue where he was. He could tell that it had been a manufacturing complex at one time, but that was all. Alexander watched as a car drove into the abandoned parking lot and pulled up beside Tom. A man got out of the car and one look told Alexander he wasn't the one in charge. It would seem that he was going to be passed on to someone else before he would end up where all of this was going to play out.
Tom gently pushed him towards the other man, and as he did, Alexander felt a surge of familiarity from the chauffeur and realized that this was the man who had been in contact with Tom and probably the others.
The two men didn't exchange any words and the other man reached out and pulled Alexander towards him. Tom opened his mouth to say something, but he never got the chance as the man who now had Alexander, quickly pulled out a gun and shot Tom in the head.
The new man shoved Alexander into the back seat and then got behind the wheel and drove away.
Alexander turned and stared out the back window and watched the afternoon sun reflect off the growing pool of blood spreading out from beneath Tom. He had been stupid. While Alexander had to admit that whoever had done this was bold, it was unlikely that he was more powerful than Damien, and Alexander was sure that had Tom gone to Damien, he would have been able to prevent all this from happening, including Tom's own death.
Alexander turned to face the front. That Tom had put him in harm's way was bad enough, but that he had endangered his sister...that was unforgivable and as the car pulled out of the dilapidated industrial wasteland, any sympathy for Tom, or anyone else in involved in hurting the Thorns, disappeared.
They drove until the man, whom Alexander began to think of as B, pulled into a shopping mall parking lot and drove around the back near some dumpsters and stopped. He turned and put the gun in Alexander's face.
"If you try to run away, I will find a phone and call the person who has your sister and tell them to do things to Delia that will have her begging for her life, do I make myself clear?"
Again, hate filled Alexander and he wanted nothing more than to get his hands on B, but if there were a plan in place for B to be in contact with someone who holding his sister, then it was best if he played along, so he nodded in response to B.
The man got out of the car, opened the back door and Alexander got out and B pushed him towards another car that was by one of the huge trash containers. B pulled out another set of keys from his pocket, unlocked the back door and Alexander went inside. B unlocked the front door, got behind the wheel and drove away.
They were on the road for a while and at first, Alexander had no idea where they were heading, until he recognized the baseball diamonds and soccer field near Calumet Park. The drove a little further and then B parked the car and turned around.
"We are going to walk to the dock and get on the boat that's there. If you try to run away, what will happen to your sister?"
"She'll be hurt."
B smiled, got out, opened up the back door and Alexander got out and as they walked in the direction of Lake Michigan, he could see the boat that B was talking about moored at a single pier. Alexander walked across the dock and spotted the name of the boat, The Devil's Due and he wondered if the boat belonged to whoever was behind the kidnapping.
Once on board, the man looked around until he found a small door and he opened it and motioned with the gun that Alexander should go through it.
Alexander walked down the stairs and ended up in a seating area. There was a small kitchen on one side and two doors, which he assumed lead to some kind of sleeping quarters.
"Bathroom?"
"If you can find it, you can use."
After a brief search, Alexander located the head and as he stood pissing, he looked around for anything that could be used a weapon and didn't find anything. There was the towel bar, but that was cemented into the wall and there was no way to loosen it without being heard.
Alexander washed his hands and checked the time; it was five-thirty and he wondered how much longer this was going to take until A, the architect behind all of this, would show up and Alexander would finally know what was going on. He left the washroom and B pulled him towards a chair, shoved him onto it, tied him up and now he could do nothing but wait.
RIP Billie Whitelaw
