Eyes of Time - 5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Impasse

Your friend is in a safe location. So is your family. If we got to them then so would they. It is for the best. Contact me, I can help you.

James

The words in that note ring in my head for a long time. I believe I might even be in shock.

All looks hopeless. My cell phone dangles in my hand as the last few words of a female computerized voice says how my brother’s phone is out of reach. It’s the second time I’ve tried. So are my father’s, his wife’s and Sam’s. I’ve checked. I consider calling Tina but that would only endanger her even more.

A deep wheel of despair threatens to overwhelm me as I try to figure out what to do. Should I run? Hope that eventually they will release them to safety?

I could never do that. Trying to get to them myself, well, where to start? And what to do in the improbable scenario of actually being able to get to them?

If only banging my head on the wall would help matters some, because that is what all the frustration in me is almost getting me to do. I feel like screaming, or weep helplessly until someone comes and saves me from this.

How I miss the comforting arms of my mother in moments like these. The way her perfume would surround me, her dark blonde streaks of hair tickling me on the face, smooth skin enveloping me in happiness and secure thoughts.

But I also remind myself she would want me to strive, telling me how she knew my strength and was oh so proud of me. Wish I had such a faith in my abilities like she did, and I hope she still does, wherever she is, watching for me. I feel the urge to make her proud of me, to struggle and fight all I can to bring safety to those few that love me. (Even though I’m not sure my step mom actually loves me, but I wouldn’t want her hurt because of me.)

I have to get out of the house, it’s suffocating me with all my helplessness. I have to figure things out before I actually do something, but here is not a safe place to do so. As soon as I leave the house and meet the fresh air on my face, I start going aimlessly in an unknown direction, letting my blades roll on the pave-walk and lead me somewhere else. It isn’t the final destination that matters right now, it is the journey that will help me gather my thoughts.

I have to make decisions, life changing, all encompassing decisions. But first I must weight all my options. I must go over everything that happened in the last days. Understand who is friend and who is foe, who wants to help me and who wants to kill me. Because there have been plenty of opportunities for both instances, and none of the intervenient has proven to be one dimensional, easy to read or classify.

My mind wonders through all the details it can gather, all little aspects of the past days, and I let it drown in its interior thoughts, going for the ride. Somehow it feels like chaos, the entire chain of events disentangled from any meaning. But I know there is always something behind, that no action is random or ordinary. If I learned something in my History course so far that was it. Every wave of thought was triggered by a past one, any action a reaction to a previous one. All I have to do is try and connect the dots and make sense of the chaos. I have to find its patterns, its triggers and consequences. I have to find its source.

When was the last time my life was normal? Well, wrong question, I doubt I can be classified as normal. Ok, when was the last time my life made sense? Was it only two days ago that I was leaving the store to go home and face the books and a bit of couch rest for the night? Before the accident?

The car crash was definitely a turning point, but was it the trigger? No, the accident was a consequence, not the starting point. In all the haste to run away, my friends being ripped from me, and all the helplessness invading me I almost (almost) forgot what I had been doing in that library.

Being run over by a car was the first major life threatening event in my life, ever. I have gotten scrapes and bruises obviously, everybody does, but I can’t remember one broken bone, one over bleeding wound. If not for an appendix infection I’m not sure I would have recognized a hospital setting, or its characteristic smell. What I mean by all of this is that were it not for my vision I wouldn’t have been hit by that car, I now know this with even more confidence in my abilities that I had a few days previous. After running through obstacles filled streets and alleys, escaping certain death, and doing it with a precision that would have been terrifying had I had a mind to think about it at the moment.... I know there’s no way in hell that car would have hit me.

That leaves me with only one other option as the trigger, and I almost want to push the thought away.

I’ve reached a park, an unfamiliar one. It’s dark already but the street lights are enough that some resistant teens still feel the need to be trying their skills on their skates. Defying gravity and the concrete steps and hills. Were it any other day I would be itching to join them, to be carefree and audacious too. But not today, at this moment I can’t even pay enough attention to them to admire what they’re doing.

I look around, out of habit now, to make sure no one is watching me. Nobody is. I don’t recognize the park, I’ve never been here before and I only have a general idea of where I am, but this is somehow comforting. I don’t want to be in familiar places at the moment, they don’t seem very appetizing, actually my mind can’t come up with one at the moment. Maybe it’s for the best, if I don’t know where I am how can someone else? Right?

I go back to my analyses, and try to find the strength to face the facts. The pure and cold truth is my vision was the trigger. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, I’ve had other visions before after all, but this one was different. No matter how much I’d strived to convince myself it wasn’t, all the events so far imply a change, and I can’t ignore the source of that change. That was not a regular vision, I did not see the past, and that thought alone is enough to send shivers down my body, fear coursing in my veins. So powerful is the anxiety that I think I might be sick.

I take deep breaths, not point in panicking just now, I should leave that for my next life threatening experience, and I know there will be more. And if I want to avoid a lethal outcome I have to get to the bottom of all of this.

Ok, I have figured the trigger, what now? What happened next and how is it connected? And more importantly, who can I trust? I think of what I know so far and I know that the vision and the killer are connected, if nothing else by that symbol the Math grad explained to me about earlier. That symbol is somehow the key, it was present in both situations. Symbols have been used through history to represent all sorts of things, and its destruction to imply a profound change, a will or order to eradicate a line of thought, a belief. A symbol was power, still is but mostly nowadays it is little more than a corporate thing, an image to a group. But something tells me this symbol holds more power than that, and I am even afraid to fathom the beliefs and goals that might be hiding behind it.

So my vision and my killer are connected, now I have only to find out how he knew I had my vision and that I was at that hospital. The first I can’t answer, almost nobody knows about my visions, and even less believe them to be anything more than insanity on my part. But the second question makes an image pop into my head, as clear as two days ago, when all of this started. A set of clear, concerned eyes, hovering over me and pleading me to be alright. Leo. He knew where I was, he apparently ordered for me to be taken there, and he had accompanied the killer to the library. I wonder why he didn’t outright kill me but I remember his words. He didn’t know who I was, it had been a coincidence, pity it hadn’t been a harmless one.

«I couldn’t quite hide the surprise when I saw your portrait sketched. I had to tell them I knew where you were.» I wonder who them were, and why they had a sketch portrait instead of a simple photograph. I don’t know why but I have his every word, his every move, his every breath, accurately burned into my memory. «Too bad I was ordered to kill you shortly afterwards.»

Too bad indeed. So Leo was the bad guy, along with Ugly-Hard-Face or what’s his name. They both had tried to kill me, at least had their chances. But while one did not falter in his attempt, and seemed quite ruffled at having failed, the other... just baffles me. He had me cornered, he could have done it a hundred times before that other guy James even showed up, he didn’t even try to fight for the chance to kill me afterwards. He just retreated, making an excuse about how I was too quick for him and had escaped. It makes no sense. And why in hell am I so obsessed with him?

Yes, I had to be honest, it was bordering on obsession now. Else we wouldn’t have had a moment while we were fighting for the gun, or worse, while he was pointing it at me. I sigh and rest my head in my hands. It figures, the first time a man really pikes my interest and he’s out to kill me. Not only that but it also happens during the most jumbled, traumatizing period of my life. How fair is that? But I can’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t so indifferent either. Even though I try to pretend it doesn’t matter, his own admission to his dazzlement about my person fills me with a feeling of warmth that I feel compelled to pursuit. Too bad I can’t, unless I want to end up dead that is. But if I’m being completely honest here I have to admit in a small, hidden dark corner of my mind, I wish we could meet again, to have another moment.

I shake myself from reverie. I stand up and take in gulfs of the night’s cold air. There’s still a part of the puzzle to solve. Two parts really, but I think they’re connected somehow as I seriously doubt there would be more than one person trying to save me, or whatever that other guy was trying to do. Well, I can’t forget that someone tried to warn me, and had it not been for that creepy computer message it would have been too late to run to safety. And that James guy apparently had his people as backup and was pleading me to let him take me to a safe location. I bet it’s the same people.

What was it that they had called themselves on the screen? The plural had been evident, I remember that much. Society? No, it wasn’t that, but it was some name for a gathering, a group of people with a communal purpose. The Community! That was it.

Maybe it was a ruse and they were trying to get my trust to try and kill me, but having that dude James car explode with him beside it wasn’t a very clever way to get it done. He would have been seriously hurt were it not for my senses firing up at that time, unless of course they aren’t the same people, but I doubt it. Having two groups trying to meddle in your life is enough, make it three is preposterous. You know whenever you see an action movie and you wish you were there, a protagonist as well? Well, you don’t want to go there, trust me, it’s not a nice feeling. Been there, done that.

And he seemed seriously distressed, and he felt pretty honest when he said he wanted to get me safe. But what if I’m wrong? Was he the good guy, or was there no good guy in this story? Well, no matter what his part is, he has me cornered (not a position I like to be, and I hope I can pay him back for that) and I just hope he won’t harm my family. His note says «it was for the best» and I honestly hope he is being honest, that they are safe. But even if I have no other choice but to go to him, I have to think of a backup, something that will protect my family and friend even if I can’t. Someone has to be able to help.

I’m a few paces ahead from the place I had been sitting, trying to get a grip of my thoughts. I had started moving again and I hadn’t even noticed it. That is when I spot a public phone. It doesn’t seem like much, but somehow it is relevant, like some idea lurking about, waiting to be spotted. I snort, who would I call for help anyway? The ones I could turn to have been taken from me and I don’t want to endanger anyone else. It’s not like I can call the police, because then... nothing. What would happen if I called the police? I turn to the public phone again. The only problem about contacting the authorities is explaining what has been happening with me, putting myself in their charge. I would be safe, but what would happen to my family then? Would they get hurt because I hadn’t fought for them?

And maybe I wouldn’t be that safe after all. I don’t feel like there is any safe place for me at the moment, and my instincts haven’t been wrong so far. And if what you see in movies is anything to go by their protection program isn’t much. If these people were able to figure that I was at Sam’s, could hack into my computer and get smoothly in and out of a five star hospital with guns in hand I don’t think the police protection will be that much harder to overcome in order to get to me.

But if I warned them about my family, and I was unable to do anything on my own, at least I would know someone knew they were missing. At least sooner rather than later, maybe they could even save them. It isn’t much, it is rather farfetched actually but I would certainly feel better, and that idiot James does deserve to have the dogs unleashed on him for messing up with my family. Good intentions or not.

I make my way to the phone and don’t stop to think anymore as I look for the local police station number. But I have to make it convincing, I have to convey the danger of it all so that they will take me seriously. A simple traffic cop won’t do, and that is why when the operator answers on the other side of the line I ask to talk with an available detective, one that is used to missing people cases. She tries to tell me that it’s not the standard procedure but I tell her these are my terms, and that people’s lives are in danger if she doesn’t comply. It’s a low tactic but I need to get my message across. Apparently it worked for the moment, and a few minutes later a male raspy voice can be heard.

“If this is a prank I’m warning ya, there will be trouble. I’ve way too much to do.” The voice makes me picture one of those noir movies, with middle aged detectives, smoking cigars and asking questions everywhere they go. It almost makes me smile, but the situation is dire.

“This is no prank sir, and even though I can’t tell you who I am, you have to believe me. People’s lives are in danger.” My voice is pleading, and I’m trying to make it not catch. Voicing all this for the first time is proving to be more difficult than I expected. But I have to keep girly emotions out of it, or the guy won’t take me seriously.

I proceed to tell him the names and addresses of the people missing, not stating any relation to myself, even though I believe they will figure the connecting link on their own, at least if they know what they’re doing. I tell him I believe there is some sort of group of people behind it, even though I don’t know their motives. If I made it sound too much like a conspiracy theory I’m sure he would hang up and pay it no mind. It’s not much that I’m telling him, I know that, but maybe they can find some evidence, some lead on the people that took them. I need to make sure they will be looked after.

“If what ya saying is the truth, then it is very serious. I’ve half a mind to not pay it any attention but you sound real ‘nough.” I sigh in relief at this statement.

“I’ll look into it, but tell me Miss, how do ya fit into all this? If your emotion is real, and I wanna believe it is, then what’s your story? Are you in danger too?” I want to scream that yes, that I’m scared, that I don’t know what to do, but I can’t, I have to figure this out. I just hope I won’t regret it.

“There is nothing you can do for me sir, just please, try and do all you can for my... for them. Please?” At the last part my voice catches, and I’m going to hang up when I think of something else. I ignore whatever he’s saying to try and convince me and ask him is name. That must have stunned him because it takes him a few minutes to reply.

“I’m Detective Halley, and..”

“Thank you detective,” I interrupt him. “Please save them.” I hang the speaker right away. Pulling the cell from my pocket, the one that James gave me, I memorize the number for the station and the name of the detective. Just in case.

Afterwards I go somewhere else. Still no destination in mind, but I don’t want to be there in case they can locate the phone booth from where that call was made. I realize with a pang that there isn’t anything else I can do. The night air is starting to get noticeable, the hairs on my arms standing on end, little shivers starting to numb my body. I head for a more public, recognizable place to do the inevitable. Ever since I left Sam’s house I knew it would came to this, but it is still hard to do.

I don’t trust anybody at this moment, I have no place to go, but I’m cornered and this is the only way out. I much rather do something than wait for them to come and try to kill me again. It hurts to hear the even spaced rings, it hurts to hear sound on the other side of the phone.

“Hello?” I could hang up but I bet he already knows it’s me. Life just sucks sometimes.

“James?...”