Discovering Normal (23 page)

She told him how he’d suggested Audrey’s name when they’d exhausted most other choices.

She told him how they’d both come down with food poisoning from bad tuna salad while on assignment in Willowrose, Kansas before they were even an official couple. She held the plastic wastebasket for him; he returned the favor for her.

She told him about the Christmas trees she selected each and every year that were way too tall for their nine foot ceilings, the twelve pies she made him taste so she could decide which to enter in the fair. He’d picked the raspberry and sure enough, she’d won.

She sang camp songs into his ear and recited Shakespearean soliloquies until she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Still he slept and she waited because certainly help must be on the way.

Time dripped on as she held him tight and tried to remember what safety felt like.

A door opened somewhere and Beth turned to the sound. Her gun was gone, but her instincts sharp. She heard a whimper, a slur and the sound of movement until a figure in white became apparent on the stairs.

“I beg thee,” a voice heavy with tears said.

Beth shifted, still cradling Chris as she struggled to see. Dara-Dawn, hands bound and crying, was led toward them along the narrow ravine of rock. It was hard to forget that tottering feeling of pregnancy when your center of gravity had somehow left for parts unknown. Beth sucked in a breath as she watched the girl take careful steps though an AK-47 was wedged in her back.

The huge man
Beth had seen hovering nearby Holden
nudged with the gun until the girl stumbled to the slice of rock that held Beth and Chris.

“Please!” the girl cried as she fell.

Beth would’ve broken the girls fall if she could only move, but Joanna was already down, crying and pleading.

“I’ve done you no ill, Omish-Ogden!”

“The Most Masterful is displeased.” The hulking man paused only briefly as if he were wondering himself. “There is much to be done and you are no longer chosen amongst the Flora-Sky.”

He turned and lit up the stairs and was gone with the luck of health and freedom.

Beth turned to the girl. “Joanna.”

Her hands were cuffed behind her back and she rolled against the rock like a turtle that couldn’t find balance. “Stop!” she cried. “Stop!”

Beth wriggled from beneath Chris and lowered him to what she hoped was comfort. She crawled to the spot where Joanna King thrashed. With three bodies now side by side, there was no room to walk. She helped steady the girl and hoisted her to a sitting position.

“Joanna. You’re Joanna King.”

“Stop!” the girl spat. “Stop saying that. I
am
Dara-Dawn The Chosen.”

Beth glanced at Chris, still completely oblivious to the sights and sounds of this wet and gloomy hell, then back to Joanna King who so wanted to believe that she was Dara-Dawn. “When is your baby coming, Joanna?”

She shook her head and twisted.

“Why did they bring you here?”

She didn’t lift her head as she hissed, “Because of you! They sent me here because of you and your lies.”

Beth gently touched the girl’s arm. “They’re not lies, Joanna. If he were really who he claims to be--if he was greater than the rest of us--don’t you think he’d have compassion? Don’t you think he’d care about your child?”

And then the torrents came, a flood of tears as she curled into Beth and let them flow. Beth pulled her close and wished so that there was someone else here with strength with wisdom, with courage. Beth held her tight, stroked her hair and whispered. “Some good people are coming for us, Joanna. They’ll be here soon.”

She shook her head violently against Beth’s chest. “No! He’ll stop them. He’ll stop them all.”

“He can’t stop them, Joanna. He’s not going to win.”

“The child is not his.”

“Excuse me,” Beth lifted the girl’s head to better understand.

“The baby that Chanta-Clara claims belongs to the one of evil, your husband.”

Beth felt the cold mist of the water below as she struggled to make sense. “Chanta-Clara?”

Joanna’s face was wet with her tears. “Chanta-Clara is not with your husband’s child. If in fact there is a child at all, it belongs to The Most Masterful. Your husband did nothing, though much hardship was inflicted upon him.”

And Beth couldn’t have felt better if the stone crumbled away and the sun appeared. “Thank you for telling me that, Joanna.” Beth ripped a piece of the fabric she wore and
attempted to hand it
to the girl
before she realized she was bound. Instead Beth leaned up and wiped Joanna King’s dainty nose and let her blow.

“I remember so little.”

“I know,” Beth said in a voice that sounded so different from her own. “But you’re going to be all right.”

Joanna raised her eyes to meet Beth’s. “We’re never getting out of here.”

“
W
e will, Joanna. You just have to have faith in the real truth.”

“I don’t know what that is anymore.”

Beth looked at her husband in the body of what so easily could be a different man. “None of us know for sure.”

A loud clapping of hands echoed through the cavern.

Beth and Joanna both glanced to the path of stone just across the way. Bryan Holden stood smirking as he applauded. “Bravo! Bravo! Well done, my fine little ones, well done.”

Beth stood up and inched toward the terrifying place of no mercy, because she was the only one who could. “You are just a sick man, Bryan.”

And though his body remained composed, his eyes flashed the evil that he was so quick to accuse everyone else of. She wasn’t treading lightly
--
they could very easily die
--
but wasn’t enough simply enough? “You may defeat the three people here
who
you’ve done your best to manipulate, but you’ll never win. Not really.”

“I’m growing tired of you, Mrs. Stoddard. So very tired.”

He began to pace, to glance down at the vastness below and then back again. “Do you know what lurks there?”

Beth stood quiet and still because she deemed it the smartest thing to do. A small army lined the stairs, guns poised and ready. She hadn’t heard them descend, but wasn’t surprised at all to see them. How many others were there? Was it possible that Deej and George had made it through this? Beth tried to count--at least a dozen--and the chances that they’d all be on a plane home tonight seemed to be diminishing with speed.

Bryan Holden spun to face her. “I aske
d you a question, Mrs. Stoddard! D
o you know what lurks in the vastness beneath us?”

“Water I would guess.”

And he smiled. “You would be accurate, but you were an exceptional student I’m told. The frigid Baltic feeds into the mighty fortress of the Flora-Sky.” He stepped so close to the edge, the toes of his suede slippers were without support. “Such a cold way to die.”

Beth felt the
stirrings of
Joanna
behind her
as her own heart raced with the knowledge that he was sick enough to truly do it.

Bryan Holden lunge
d then and grabbed Joanna’s arm and violently hoisted her
as she wobbled, unable to use her shackled hands to steady herself. She let out an anguished cry
. He wasn’t strong, that was evident, and
Joanna’s pregnant
frame would have generally proved to be too much, but he’d used the element of surprise. He always used the element of surprise.

“Don’t!” Beth s
houted
so loud even Chris stirred behind her. She glanced at him and prayed he’d sleep, prayed he’d remain so blissfully unconscious while their lives ended. She’d been so wrong to come here, so wrong believe she could’ve helped him
--h
elped anyone. Now her children would be without either parent to love them and she should’ve known better.

Joanna continued to squirm in a desperate effort to break free.

“Joanna, be still! You’ll fall otherwise!”

And then Bryan Holden emitted that cryptic and sinister laugh once again. “Oh, Mrs. Stoddard, she will fall when I deem it time.”

Beth tried to remember that her best bet would be to convince him that she was still submissive. But it was hard when he was so damned heinous. “You are a sick and twisted little man.”

And with that he flung Joanna to the ground as if she didn’t matter at all anymore--dead or alive--and lifted his arms to the heavens as if he had pull. “I am The Most Masterful of life death and all eternity
!
My true followers know; my enemies perish. You felt you could trick The Most Masterful with guns and plans! It
i
s impossible, Mrs. Stoddard. Simply impossible.”

She looked back at Chris who was awake now though obviously not completely aware. He’d taught her so much over the years; so many tricks to pull when nothing else seemed to be working. Maybe Bryan Holden’s weakness was the truth.

“There is a bevy of law enforcement outside these walls, Bryan. You can kill me, Chris, Joanna, your baby, but you still won’t win.”

He stood rigid and staring with his arms still aloft in some sort of sick, reverent praise.

Beth chanced it and took a step toward him. He didn’t move
,
just closed his thick-lashed eyes. “Bryan, your father tricked you. He tricked so many people. He wasn’t God-like; he wasn’t even very nice. He was a greedy man who used people for his own purposes. But we can help you, Bryan. There is help available. Stop now before anyone else is harmed.”

And then the very human part of Joanna King that had been covered and denied for so long screamed a desperate scream. In milliseconds the sanction on the stairs moved forward, firing shots around Bryan, but in the direct line of Beth and the
hysterical
Joanna. Beth dodged as instinct
had
taught her, but Joanna--bigger and far less aware--was hit in the shoulder as she fell to the ground, still so horribly conscious.

“Stop! Beth
pleaded
, but then realized there were even more now. She crawled to Joanna’s side, trying desperately to shield Chris from the zinging ammunition.

“The United States Government commands you to surrender!”

Beth struggled through the confusion, and made out the form of George with a stealth pistol and Deej close behind him, followed by the best of the SWAT.

“You have no choice, Bryan Holden, surrender now before any further bloodshed.”

The damp cavern was filled with the putrid smell of smoke and fear. Beth hoisted Joanna up, tore another strip of her sash and attempted to blot the blood. “Hang on, Joanna. We’ll get you out of here.”

“I want my mother,” she whispered, staring straight into Beth’s eyes.

“I know. We’ll call her.”

Beth held her close and looked back at Chris, still lying so lifeless on the floor. She reached out, touched his thin and bony leg. He glanced her way as if it was all a movie he’d been invited to view. 

Brian whirled around, grabbed a gun from the inner part of his cloak and snatched Chris. Even emaciated and weak, he was still too bulky to be pliant and Bryan had to adjust to prop his withering frame against his hip. He placed the tip of the Glock against Chris’ temple.

Chris just hung against him, too weak and unsure to do more.

Dear God.

George advanced, but Beth heard the click of Bryan’s gun.

“No!” she screamed to both George who could ruin it and Bryan who was mad enough to see it through.

She lowered Joanna to the stone and popped up. “Please don’t do this, Bryan. Please.”

He met her eyes then and she detected a flicker of hurt. “Do you think I care about your pleading? You and your driveling give me all the more reason to end the reign of evil.” He pulled Chris into a tighter headlock.

And then it happened. George leapt from the stairs to the stone, firing with Deej calling commando orders behind him.

Guns blazed, men fell and George was among them. Fell to a heap on the floor wriggling to indicate life, bleeding to indicate perhaps not for much longer.

Deej didn’t stop, just ploughed through, getting closer, leading the way as men tumbled around them. They approached the platform of stone and then Bryan Holden screamed into the cavern. “Halt or I will end this now!”

He lifted Chris, cocked and poised the gun.

Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t
--
Beth couldn’t really be sure. He seemed a coward in so many ways--enlisting heavies for the dirty work, innocents for the manipulation--but he was cornered now
, knew
he was losing when he was certain he should’ve won and there was nothing left to do.

She leapt, used her foot to kick the gun from his hands. He teetered, let go of Chris who crashed to the plat
form of rock. The gun spun and Beth
lunged for it, turning it on him.