Captured by a Demon

III Chapter - The Injured Man

Rachel was distracted on Friday as her most recent nightmare kept flashing before her eyes. This time it wasn’t so much of a nightmare than a reminder. She hadn’t thought or allowed herself to think about the injured man for a long time. After the Demon let her go, she had searched for him, asked about him, but nobody knew him and as she didn’t know his last name or the way he normally looked like, she did not have much to go on. She always thought he had died there and thinking about it again caused some old pain to resurface.

She closed her eyes remembering their first encounter.

...

He was beaten up very badly. Rachel remembered standing frozen next to her little sink and staring at the newcomer in her room. He had a big black eye indistinguishable from the few strains of black hair that had fallen on his face, the face itself was swollen and nose bloody, the wounds and scratches on his arms and hands indicated that he had tried to defend himself. Although he seemed tall and muscular, he must have been overpowered by several opponents judging from his injuries. He seemed to be unconscious.

“What did he do to you?” whispered Rachel thinking what this man did to deserve this kind of physical wrath from the Demon. As far as Rachel knew, the Demon operated more with manipulation and mind games and physical violence was rarely used. Even the scars on her legs were almost faded from the only time she got physically hurt during an interrogation. It had been the very first one.

Rachel was at a loss on what to do, but seeing a helpless injured person like this, snapped her right out of the numb and hazy nothingness of before. She cleaned up his face as much as possible and, with great effort, managed to drag him onto her bed. He was very heavy. Then she banged on the door to get the guard’s attention. The guard opened the door slightly.

“This man is injured and needs medical help,” Rachel said in one breath. “Take him to a doctor, he cannot be here!”

The guard looked over to the man on Rachel’s tiny grey bed and shrugged.

“All cells are full,” he mumbled roughly and shut the door again before Rachel could protest.

All cells are full? Rachel didn’t even know there was more than one... was this some sort of a sick prison? But she had never heard anyone else, she had never seen other captives. She always thought she was the only one. That they had only kidn*pped her. But obviously there were others.

She looked back at the man on his bed, whose breathing was steadier now.

I guess she had someone she had to take care of now. For some reason that almost made her smile.

...

“Miss Quillen?”

Rachel snapped out of her trip down memory lane and raised her head to see an irritated Doctor Doyle looking back at her.

He did not look happy. “Did you finish with these?” he croaked pointing at the big books on advanced microbial function.

“I am almost done, Doctor Doyle,” she murmured feeling her face turn slightly red and reaching for the pen, “I only need about twenty minutes more.”

Doctor Doyle grunted and left mumbling how he wished today’s youth was not so caught up in daydreaming and hippy music. Rachel turned the radio’s volume slightly down, but moved it closer to her so she could still hear all the lyrics. Even Margaret and Henry had started to enjoy the music Rachel picked out.

“A letter came for you,” said Henry casually throwing an envelope on Rachel’s desk. She pushed it aside and continued her fervent attempts to finish the citation checks doctor Doyle needed. She didn’t want to give neither him nor Doctor Shelly any reason to doubt her.

“Thanks and, by the way,” Rachel lowered her voice, “I was sort of asked to hand out party invitations to you guys.”

“Awesome, is that one?” Henry smiled and looked at the envelope on Rachel’s desk.

“No, dumb ass, I don’t know what that is. I meant verbal invitations.”

“Ah, what has happened to the world?” Henry sighed and feigned sadness as he lowered his voice glancing at Doctor Doyle in the other room. “The old ways are falling into oblivion.” Margaret smirked. “Yeah, I already heard it from my friend Fiona, I’m guessing the birthday boy is Simon Trent?” she said.

“Yep, he’s my friend Ella’s boyfriend... or I guess fiancé now.” Rachel added.

“Can we invite people too?” asked Margaret. “It is not often there are bigger parties in this town. My sister would want to come and I guess Fiona might like to take her new boyfriend as well.”

Rachel nodded and they continued their work joking about sporting equipment that they might have in their homes to give to Simon. Henry thought he might have some old weights in the garage that are gathering dust and Margaret figured she had a strong jumping rope she had never really used. Rachel was not very sporty herself, but she had a couple of things to choose from that used to belong to her brother before he was sent to jail.

In the evening, the three of them had agreed to meet up in front of the local movie theatre before heading to the party. At home, Rachel did a light make-up and was torn between a dress and a skirt. It was cold outside, so she settled for the tight long cotton grey skirt and matching grey crop top with long sleeves. She put on some red lipstick for a pop of colour and, happy with the way she looked, went to meet her friends.

“My sister Ally and my friend Fiona are coming any minute now,” Margaret said as she, Rachel and Henry had already shivered in the cold night outside of the movie theatre for a good 15 minutes.

“They better hurry up,” said Henry, his teeth starting to chatter.

“It’s your own damn fault that you’re too cool for a hat and pair of gloves,” remarked Rachel.

Margaret laughed and elbowed Henry, who rolled his eyes.

Margaret’s bubbly sister Ally arrived shortly and only when they had decided to stop waiting around for Fiona – mostly due to Henry’s insistence -  and start walking towards Simon’s party, did Fiona appear, her hand around a tall dark-haired man.

“Hey, guys, sorry, I am late," she apologised and hugged Margaret, "this is my boyfriend Bash. Now are we waiting for someone else or can we go, it's freaking freezing?”

Rachel looked at Fiona, who was a striking tall blonde wearing a fashionable mini skirt and high heels. No wonder she was cold. Rachel had always been amused by those girls who insisted on being uncomfortable for the sake of beauty. She herself settled for no less than beauty and comfort, But the man next to the striking blonde was even more remarkable. Dark hair falling on his sculpted face in a slightly haphazard manner, he towered over them at about 6.4 feet and his sharp jaw did not show any sign of surrendering to the cold, although similarly to Henry, he didn’t seem to have any hat or gloves either. Rachel was surprised to see the man’s dark green eyes fixed on her the moment she looked at him. The man did not seem to be the least bit embarrassed when Rachel caught him staring. But there was something very familiar about his burning gaze. Rachel could not put her finger on it. After a few seconds the man tore his eyes from Rachel and nodded to the group with a friendly smile.

She felt the man glance at her every once in a while as they all headed to the party looking forward to a fun night.  At one point she could've almost sworn she heard the dark-haired man mutter "Rachel" under his breath.