Inside the asylum, we run into a pair of nurses. Seeing them staring at us, Damien wastes no time pressing them into service. “You! Go get the Surgeon! Tell him to meet me at the operating room. And you… help me get this damn gurney into the elevator!”
Once we are alone in the elevator, I break free of my emotional paralysis long enough to warn him. “Damien… there’s something you should know. The last time I saw your father, I begged him to kill me.”
“So?” he asks, frowning. “Everyone he lays his hands on ends up begging for it. Not everyone gets their wish, though.”
It’s not the answer I expected and it causes me to frown, in turn. “Really? Name one example.”
He glances at me sharply. “I understand you’re nervous, but this is my father we’re talking about. I think I know him well enough. Certainly better than you.”
After that I cease arguing, and it’s not until we exit the elevator that I remember what he told me a week ago at the hospital. “My father doesn’t know me,” he had said and I believed him. I close my eyes and try not to think about whether that means the reverse is also true.
The operating room is at the end of the corridor and it is fully equipped with everything a surgeon might need. Large and brightly lit, it looks and feels just like an operating room at a major hospital. I find it oddly comforting, even though I’ve never liked hospitals. Lying on the stretcher, I’m about to drift into a light sleep when I hear a sound that makes my blood run cold: familiar heavy footsteps echoing from the hallway. As I turn my gaze on the door, it swings open to admit the tall figure of the Surgeon. Even this early in the morning he is dressed in a suit and tie, and as he strides toward us briskly I feel my heart racing. Beside me, Damien tenses noticeably.
“Hello, father,” he says, politely. “Thank you for coming.”
The Surgeon raises his hand. “Don’t thank me yet, boy.” Ignoring a sharp intake of breath from his son, he steps up to the stretcher and looks down on me. “Well, well, little vixen. You’ve found your way back to me, at last. No doubt you wish me to make good on my promise?”
I open my mouth to reply, but no sound comes out. In desperation, I shake my head left to right. No. Please. He gives me a cold smile, simultaneously tugging the blanket off my shoulders.
“You’ve managed to get yourself shot, I see,” he says, irritably. “Tell me – how did that happen?”
At once, Damien tries to intervene. “It was an accident, that’s all. Nothing to concern yourself…”
“Silence!” the Surgeon cuts him off, icily. Without taking his eyes off me, he adds: “I want her to answer. Now, vixen… be a good girl and tell me the truth. Who shot you, where and why? Remember, you can’t lie.”
The naked threat in his tone is unmistakeable. Lying there, wounded and vulnerable, I can’t help but feel afraid. Not even Damien’s presence can reassure me, in this moment. Clearly, his father is the one in charge here – and, having been tortured by him twice before, I have no desire to be tortured some more. I run my tongue over my lips to moisten them and then, I tell him what he wants to know. As I relay the events of the past twenty-four hours – down to the last, painful detail – I can hear Damien groaning quietly.
“Damn it, Jane,” he says, under his breath. “Why did you tell him that?”
Still with his gaze fixed on me, the Surgeon snaps at him: “A better question to ask would be, why didn’t you? I must say I’m disappointed in you, Damien. My own son, lying to me… I never thought I’d see the day.”
Damien, however, is unrepentant. Leaning forward slightly, he stares his father squarely in the eye as he replies: “Sure, I lied. Like you say, I’m your son, not one of your interrogation victims. And don’t even try preaching to me about the moral obligations of a son to his father. You’re in no position to lecture me on the subject, given your history.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” the Surgeon asks, adding quickly: “No, don’t bother answering that. Just tell me one thing – why did you lie?”
There is an infinitesimal moment of silence, during which they both struggle to maintain composure. I look from one to the other, noticing how alike they are in appearance and posture, their pride of bearing. For a while it looks like a stand off, with neither of them likely to back down. At last, though, Damien lets out a loud sigh. In a soft, yet clear voice he says:
“It’s simple, father dear. You always said it’s ok to bend the rules, to get what I want. Well, I want her.”
I have to bite my lip, to stop myself from crying. This is despite the fact that I knew the answer, all along. I mean – it’s one thing to know something and quite another to hear it spoken out loud. But while I work to control my emotions, the Surgeon explodes in anger.
“A woman?” he shouts, incredulous. “You’re telling me this is all about a woman? That you put both our lives in danger for a piece of ass? If so, I should lock you up in the asylum, because you’ve clearly lost your mind!”
It’s a frightening display and I fully expect Damien to respond in kind. Instead, he merely laughs.
“Oh please,” he says, sneering. “You risked your life more than once to save my mother, and you barely knew her. At least I’ve taken the time to get to know my lover, before making the decision.”
Clearly, he has scored a point, because the Surgeon glowers at him in silence. Emboldened, Damien starts to outline his plan:
“Also, your life is not at risk. No one knows we’re here, yet. We have plenty of time to…”
This is as far as he gets, before he is rudely interrupted. “Enough!” The Surgeon’s voice resounds around the room, cold and authoritative, like the man himself. With Damien staring at him in surprise, he continues angrily:
“I won’t listen to any more of this nonsense! Your mother was a totally different proposition, Damien. For one, she was a refugee, with no passport and no official record in this country. Two, the mafia were not really after her. They only wanted her money. This here, however…”
He pauses, in order to gesture toward me briefly. “This is the vixen,” he says, emphasising ‘the vixen’ part. “She is one of FBI’s top agents and a wanted person, all around. The FBI wants her as a witness and the mafia want her dead, for crying out loud. I can’t blame them and neither can you, my son. She knows too much.”
It is difficult to argue with the facts and after a brief pause Damien is forced to agree. He does so grudgingly and without relinquishing his position. “I know… and I don’t care. I want to save her, and I think I have the way. But I need your help. It’s the last time I will ever ask for it, I swear.”
My fate hangs in the balance while father and son stare at each other. The suspense is almost too much to bear, with the seconds dragging by slowly. Then, just as I think I can’t take any more, I hear the Surgeon say:
“No.”
He says it quietly and with absolute finality, extracting a cry of horror from both Damien and me. Being wounded and strapped down, I can’t do more than this, but Damien is not so restrained. With an unearthly yell, he pushes me out of the way and lunges at his father. As my stretcher rolls away, I raise my head and watch them struggle. It appears Damien wasn’t joking when he said I could never beat him in a fight. In five seconds flat, he has the Surgeon on the ground, with one arm twisted behind his back. After securing the hold, he growls menacingly:
“I’m sorry to do this to you, father, but I can’t accept that answer. Now, either you will help us, or I’ll break every Goddamn bone in your body, until you change your fucking mind. What’s it gonna be?”
His father doesn’t answer at once, but cranes his neck and stares at his son in silence, his face a mask of rage. I have to admire him for it. I know from personal experience just how painful that position can be – and if Damien’s expression is anything to go by, the Surgeon’s arm is about to be ripped from its shoulder. The pain must be excruciating, yet the Surgeon gives no sign of it, besides a slight tremor in his voice, as he says:
“My poor, deluded boy… you don’t stand a chance. If you can’t see that, you must really be in love. But no matter – my men should be here any second. They’ll help you to see reason, I’m sure.”
They are ominous words and they have the desired effect. “You’re lying!” Damien hisses, simultaneously glancing over his shoulder at the door. “You had no reason to ask your men down here, until now.”
In that very moment, the door swings open. The two men that enter are the same ones that assisted the Surgeon when I was first captured. They may not be the brightest tools in the shed, but they surmise the situation quickly, nonetheless. As they pull out their guns, the Surgeon shouts at them:
“Don’t shoot! That’s an order!”
The men exchange a look of disbelief. As I watch them advancing slowly, my heart sinks. There goes my last chance to get out of this alive. Damien, it seems, is thinking the same thing.
“Jane was right… You just wanted her dead,” he says, accusingly. “That’s why you called the guards, to help you dispose of the body.”
“Damn right,” the Surgeon says, flatly. “And you’ll thank me for it, some day.”
By the time he’s finished speaking, the men are upon them, pulling them apart with brute force. There is a brief struggle, at the end of which Damien is pinned to the ground, face down.
“Tie him up and take him to my quarters,” the Surgeon says, his voice cold. “I’ll deal with him later.”
While the men do his bidding, he turns toward me. His footsteps echo off the concrete floor, striking terror into my heart.
“Please, Sir.” The remainder of the plea stays stuck in my throat, as he leans over me and places his hand on my forehead.
“Shhh… It’s ok, little vixen. It’ll all be over, soon.” His tone is soothing, yet his words make me tremble. Mewing in terror, I strain against the straps, and he reaches down and tightens them, automatically.
“Be still now, my dear. You don’t want to upset Damien, do you? This is hard enough for him, as it is.” His hand strokes my forehead, wiping the sweat off it. I tremble more violently, wondering why he doesn’t simply finish me off. Then I realise he is waiting for Damien to be taken away. Evidently, he doesn’t want his son to witness the killing.
“Please, Sir,” I beg him, in a small, trembling voice. “I don’t want to die.”
From the other end of the room, there comes a heart wrenching cry: “For God’s sake, father, don’t do this to me! I love her! I love her!”
The Surgeon’s brow furrows, a pained look coming over his face. “Take him away, now!” he yells, without turning around. From my position on the stretcher, I can see the men dragging Damien to the exit, bound up tight. His shouts ripple through the air, long after he’s gone. Then, abruptly, they are cut off.
“Alone, at last,” the Surgeon says, and pulls out the syringe. I can’t help it – as soon as I see it, I wet myself in fear. Then, I am crying, my eyes squeezed shut, my body shaking violently, all over.
“Come now,” he chides me, while pressing his fingers over a vein in my neck. “It’s just a little prick… You won’t feel a thing, I promise.”
I shake my head left to right, with such force that he has to pull his hand away, in order to slap me. Slap! Slap! Slap! Hard, heavy-handed slaps, designed to stun me into submission. I’m so distressed that I keep thrashing regardless, until a particularly heavy slap robs me of consciousness. As I slip away, I hear the Surgeon scream. I tell myself it’s just my ears ringing, and then I know no more.
*************************
One more chapter coming after this.
