Save Her

Drayden - Chapter 3-2

I throw the balled-up paper quickly and hard. He dodges it but I barely see him move out of the way and the next thing I know I’m on the floor with my right arm pinned behind my back. He pushes on the back of my head with one of his hands and holds me down with such strength that it doesn’t make any sense at all. He presses my right eye socket into the hard thin carpet. It hurts! He’s immobilized me efficiently and thoroughly, and I can’t believe how much stronger he is.

“Get off me!” I yell. My voice sounds afraid.

He raises my arm behind my back until the pressure on my shoulder joint is too much. I scream. The pain is extraordinary. It’s slow and deep, and I realize what he’s doing. He’s trying to break me.

“Don’t!” I yell, but it’s too late. My shoulder dislocates. I scream in agony.

“You’re out of your league,” he says before he finally releases me.

By the time I roll up to defend myself he's already gone. I push myself up off the floor with my good arm and go to the hallway where I expect to see him walking coolly away, but the hallway’s empty. Tengen has vanished.

My right shoulder screams in pain as I go back into my brother’s office and lock the door. I know I won’t be able to focus on anything except the pain until I fix it. I have to pop it back into place, but the thought of doing so is unbearable. I take small inhalations of breath until I have a full load of oxygen in my lungs and then I charge at the far wall. I ram it with my shoulder but it doesn’t pop back in, and it worsens the pain to the point that I feel faint. I scream and fall to the ground, and I can’t remember anything hurting so much. My right arm is practically immobile. I lay there for a minute, and the pain overwhelms me until I’m able to push myself up with my legs because I have to try again. Tears form in my eyes. The thought of ramming my shoulder into the wall again is as acceptable to my brain and my nervous system as jumping from the roof of a tall building. I take a deep breath and then will my legs forward. Just before impact I angle my shoulder forward and impact it against the wall with all my might. The shoulder pops back into place, and it feels like I crushed tiny pieces of bone into my joint space. I yell loudly and fall to the ground and wait as the pain slowly subsides. It’s a few minutes before I even attempt to lift my right arm. When I do, it’s weak but okay.

I had been in fights before, so I’m very aware of the way time speeds up, but this was unlike anything I had ever experienced. He had swiftly overpowered me. My last vision before being put on the ground was the balled-up paper sailing past him. The rest happened in a blink. He was there, and then he wasn’t. I think back to the way he shook his head in warning before I threw the wad of paper at him. It hadn’t been just a warning, I realize; it had been a dare. He wanted me to throw it at him. He wanted to take me down. He wanted to hurt me.

My shoulder aches. The deep throbbing locks a permanent pained cringe on my face as I flex my hand and bend my elbow to loosen up and make sure everything works okay. I raise my shoulder and wince and then try to raise my arm sideways. It hurts like hell. Dammit, I had gotten my ass kicked, and that was a lot for me to accept. I had never lost a fight before. Not ever. And I had been in my fair share. Sure, I wasn’t always the outright victor, but at least in those close battles where no one really wins, my opponent had left just as damaged as me before someone either stopped the fight, or an unspoken draw was accepted. But not in this case. Tengen had been quicker and stronger. Unbelievably strong. I was helpless with him on top of me. I replayed the manner he said I was out of my league. He was calm when he said it. He took no deep breaths. I had never been ‘out of my league’ in my entire life. Not in any capacity could I not hold my own — not in sports, academics, debate, or fighting; now, I’m wondering if that was ever really true.

I’ve got to find the gray box and get out of here. My instructions are clear: the gray box is inside the back of the desk. I go to the desk and examine it for the first time. It’s a steel behemoth that could date as far back as the ’60s. My shoulder screams at me when I try to lift it. I push at the desk to get it away from the wall, but it’s so heavy it barely budges. Anxiety explodes into my head. I have to get out of here. I had already been seen, and my brother had been clear about the danger of this task. I push at the desk again and again, ignoring the sharp pains that shoot down my right arm, until I’m able to get enough room between the desk and the wall for me to sit on the floor between them. I look back at the door because I think I might have heard something. I wait quietly for a few seconds, but there’s no movement outside the frosted glass. Hopefully, Tengen is gone. The thought of seeing him again sends a shiver of fear up my spine. I leverage my back against the rear of the desk and push my feet against the wall. It makes a loud screeching noise, but it moves. I push with all my might until my legs are outstretched completely. When I look at the back of the desk, it’s as I feared: welded tight.

I’m sweating now, sitting on the floor, and angry that my brother had known his fate and could do nothing about it. What else had he said? ‘I got myself into trouble even though I had only the best intentions.’ With the back of my elbow, I angrily hit the metal plate of the desk behind me.

“Geez, Reginald, you could have warned me,” I whisper as I ponder my next move. If only I had an angle grinder. That would do the trick. But I couldn’t leave now to get one. I stand up in aggravation and yell as I kick the back of the desk over and over again. The gray steel accepts my blows mockingly and barely dents. I stand and grab the edge of the desk and lift. Its weight is tremendous. My shoulder feels like it has a fire brewing inside, but my frustration at everything gives me the willpower to wedge it off the ground and continue raising it until it finally topples over, causing a veritable earthquake as it lands on its front. I collapse along with it and am suddenly overcome with paranoia. I look again at the door. Nothing. I quiet my breathing to hear a sound but hear nothing except the pounding of my heart.

From my collapsed position, I have an odd angle up to the back of the desk. There I see the hint of a metal prong peeking between the dark gray of the desk and a small gray extension that upon closer inspection doesn’t quite match the color of the desk. I excitedly turn onto my knees and ignore the shot of pain that radiates wickedly through my shoulder as I reach up to what has to be the gray steel box my brother had told me to find. I grip my fingertips on it on both sides and try to wriggle it free, but it barely budges. Some magnetic hold keeps it strongly connected to the bottom of the desk. I change my grip and pull with all my remaining strength and free it from its bond, sending twenty-five pounds of steel thudding to the floor of the office. It measures approximately nine inches in every direction. It’s thick metal with a hinge on one of the sides and a locking clasp on the opposite side. A tunnel through the middle of it measures the width of the hitting part of a baseball bat. The rest of the cord had been tucked into the hole. I pull it out and inspect it. It’s thick, about five feet long, with a plug at the end with five larger-than-normal cylinders to be plugged into a unique outlet. This is meant for the odd outlet I had found at my brother’s place — the one with its own breaker I had switched on. I look into the tunnel of the box and see through it to the wall of Reginald’s office. I put the box down and unclasp the clasp and open the box. Inside are thick tips of stainless, hollow metal pins, rowed similarly as the weird markings I saw on my brother’s forearm at the morgue.

Now is not the time to analyze anything. I have to get going. I wriggle the bulky steel box snugly into the backpack, close the zipper, and then unlock and open the door a small crack. I see nobody. Adrenaline rushes my heart rate and puts me more on-edge than I already had been.

I sense danger lurking nearby. It’s like nothing I ever felt before. I don’t feel alone, and the paranoia is affecting my breathing and my thoughts. I think about Tengen and how easily he dispatched me, and then I feel afraid. I wait at the door and take long breaths and try to slow my heart. In between breaths, I listen for any sounds. Everything’s quiet, but I can’t shake the intensity of the fear I feel, but I know I can’t just stay here and hide. I have to go. I have to go now. With Reginald’s murder and his warning about the danger, the last thing I can allow is to let somebody get the box, especially after he had warned me to be careful. “Waiting can get you killed,” I say quietly before hoisting the heavy backpack over my pained shoulder and exiting into the hallway.

As I’m moving, I remember with dread how far away the car is. “Just keep moving,” I tell myself. “Destroy the box,” I say. “Destroy it,” I say again.

I walk as fast as I can to the steps and take them two at a time, the heavy steel box slamming into my back with each step. I head towards the back entrance instead of going through the main entrance because the paranoia fully encompasses me, and leaving out the front feels like a mistake.

I see the exit ahead and pick up my speed. Suddenly, I hear footsteps behind me, but when I turn around, nobody’s there. I hurry forward. I’m almost out of the building. I get to the doors and slam into them with my good shoulder and exit into the cool night air, and then I stop cold. He’s there. Tengen. Right in front of me, smiling that friendliest of smiles as if he had been waiting for an old friend.

“You found it! Wonderful!” He says. I grip the straps on the backpack.

“Stay away from me,” I say, trying not to sound afraid. I look around quickly and see we’re entirely alone. It’s dark, and it’s just the two of us.

“He wanted me to have the box,” Tengen says.

“I don’t think so. You want his notes, right? Tell you what, get out of my way, and I’ll email them to you,” I say, wondering how I will get past him.

He steps closer and his smile turns to a sneer. “You can’t possibly understand the value of what you carry. Reginald understood and look what happened to him.”

This makes me angry. I lift the backpack off my shoulder and lay it on the ground behind me. I loosen my neck, roll my shoulders, raise my arms and make fists. I’ll take him this time. Bad shoulder or not, I’ll win. That’s for damn sure. I’ll bite him if I have to. I’ll kick and bite and fight as unfairly as I need to so I can get the steel box away from this boy-band poser and then destroy it at my first opportunity.