NOVEL NEXT Chapter 23
Remi was the only reason Jason survived the first few seconds of Adaline’s appearance. Though his short discussion and time with Remi had helped him briefly pull things together, Jason was not ready to see the girl who had spent so much time in his nightmares in person.
“You can’t be here.” Jason’s lips barely moved as his head swam in murky numbness.
“Jason!” Remi’s shout barely registered with the stunned boy.
Red hands shot out and roughly pushed him further into his home. The front door slammed closed and shuddered as a knife buried itself into the wood around the height of Jason’s legs. It appeared Adaline’s primary objective was to ensure Jason couldn’t escape. Remi bolted the lock into place and raced over to the stationary Jason.
“Hey!” Remi grabbed Jason’s shirt and shook him. “Snap out of it Jason. You have to get out of here.”
A shout came from outside. Not from Adaline. Two quiet pops rang out and a pair of holes appeared in the front door. Wood splintered outwards as the projectiles continued through the door and buried themselves in the wall next to Jason.
Gunshots? Jason’s head felt heavy as he turned to inspect the small impact sites along the wall. She didn’t have a gun.
A window shattered somewhere near the back of the house and Remi’s head snapped up in that direction.
“She can’t have run to the back that fast. Someone else is here.” Remi’s strong arms dragged Jason towards the stairs.
Clumsily, Jason began climbing up with Remi’s help. He could hear thick shoes crunching shards of glass that signaled an intruder successfully using the broken window as an entry point. By the time the pair made it to the top of the stairs, the front door was blown off of its hinges with tremendous force. Jason shakily lifted his hand to open the door to his bedroom but Remi pulled him further down the hall to his aunt’s room instead.
“Here, here!” Remi hissed. “They’ll expect you to be in your room.”
A man screamed in agony down on the ground floor and a rapid series of suppressed gunshots immediately responded. Remi led Jason into his aunt’s bedroom. Being the master bedroom of the small two story house meant that this room was a bit larger than Jason’s own. The fleeing pair darted over to the walk in closet and closed themselves within its dark clothing filled interior. Jason collapsed backwards into a few coats and allowed himself to slide down to the floor.
“She’s here.” Jason put his face in his hands. “She’s actually here. I’m going to die.”
“Not just her apparently.” Remi placed her ear to the closet door. “There are a couple of men down there too.”
Jason wasn’t listening but was struck with a sudden idea.
“You could get rid of her? Right?” Jason’s question caused Remi to freeze in place.
The demon girl turned her head to the side, away from Jason’s pleading eyes.
“I told you. I don’t have power over death. I can’t just kill someone.” Remi whispered quietly.
“Okay but you don’t have to kill her, right? You could just make it so she forgets about me or something?” Jason responded eagerly.
Remi shook her head and kept her face turned away. “I told you. The attraction you have over girls is far stronger than anything I’m capable of. There’s nothing I can do to overwrite something like that.”
“But you could send her away!” Jason wasn’t giving up. “Make her show up in some random country across the world and-”
Remi whirled around. “And what? Delay your problem for a few weeks or months, sure, but you’re not thinking about the consequences Jason!”
The tears on Remi’s cheeks were like a bucket of ice water dumping onto Jason’s head.
“If this is about the price I’d have to pay-” Jason started to defend himself but Remi didn’t let him finish.
“You don’t care right? It doesn’t matter what happens to you. It doesn’t matter because you’ve lost someone and you don’t want to think about anyone else who would feel the same if they lost you!” Remi shouted.
It was a good thing that Remi could only be seen or heard by Jason. Anyone in the house would have been able to hear her outburst. Remi punched Jason’s chest. He winced, as he knew she was far stronger than a human, but felt little pain from the light impact. Remi continued to pound lightly on Jason’s chest as tears fell from her eyes.
“You idiot. I choose the price. I wouldn’t make you give up your life for our deal.” Remi sobbed.
Jason frowned. “Then…”
Remi stopped, her arms trembling on Jason’s chest.
“You still don’t get it, do you?”
All thoughts of their current discussion left Jason’s mind as the door to his aunt’s bedroom creaked open. Both Jason and Remi froze in place as heavy footsteps made their way to the closet door. Neither had time to react or come up with a suitable plan before the thin closet door was thrown open from the outside. Jason fell back, but relief momentarily flooded his system when he saw that it was a large burly man that had opened the door and not Adaline. It was Courtney’s driver.
“Come with me.” The man ordered and offered his left hand to Jason.
Jason reached out and took it. The driver was built like a brick house; over six feet tall, wide shoulders, powerful muscles, and a face of stone. His once pristine blue suit was ripped and torn. His right hand was down at his side, a handgun with a long suppressor in his grip and blood dripping from his fingers. Jason glanced up and saw that the driver had a deep knife wound along his upper right bicep and was bleeding profusely.
“What are you doing here?” Jason asked, knees trembling as he stood.
The man limped over to the bedroom door. “Getting you out of here. Follow me.”
Jason followed cautiously behind. The driver cursed under his breath and switched the handgun from his injured right hand to his left.
“Jason.” Remi sniffed. “I’m not sure about this.”
He ignored her. If she wasn’t willing to help then Jason would have to roll the dice with Courtney’s bodyguard. They exited the bedroom, the driver took the lead with his gun lifted towards the stairs. Jason became intensely aware of every creak they made with their feet, how loud their breathing was, and how quiet it had become downstairs. They moved slowly, one stair at a time, back down to the horror show below. Jason had been in his front room only minutes before but it had completely changed into a warzone. Walls were dented, smashed, and riddled with bullet holes. The front door was in pieces along the blood soaked floor. Jason spotted the reporter’s body still bleeding against the front step, another one of Courtney’s bodyguards dead in the center of the room, and bloodied footprints leading to the back door. Jason’s mind was struggling to take this all in when another blood curdling scream of pain sounded from the back yard. The driver’s good arm wrapped around Jason and roughly pushed him behind the man and towards the front door.
“Out.” The man hissed without letting his eyes leave the kitchen and the broken doorway beyond.
It took a gentle nudge from Remi to get Jason to move past the unmoving bodies that cluttered the floor. Jason felt sick but managed to hold his acid down as he made it outside. The driver scrambled after him while maintaining a constant eye towards the last scream they heard. Once he made it to the side walk, and around the corpse of the poor camera man, Jason spotted the car that Courtney had given him a lift in a few feet away. Tire marks could be seen on the road leading up to the car, and the fact that the front tires were up on the curb told Jason that these men had been in a mighty hurry to get here.
“Get in the car!” The driver shouted but not before tripping over the body of the camera man on the sidewalk.
Instinctively, Jason reached down to help the man up. As they worked to get the hulking man off of the ground, Jason heard a noise come from his house. They looked up and spotted a bloodied Adaline walking calmly towards the front door. The driver cursed, lifted his hand gun, and emptied the magazine. His shakey grip caused many of the bullets to striked the front of the house, but a few rounds made it into the front door. As this was happening, Adaline simply slid to the left, placing the doorframe between herself and the shooter.
“The car!” The driver coughed violently. “Now!”
Jason sprinted for the vehicle and threw open the passenger’s side door. Remi hopped in first and immediately climbed into the back seat, giving Jason plenty of room in the front. The driver managed to open his own door and practically fell into the chair. Jason’s heart dropped as Adaline sprinted around the corner and angled herself right for the car. The engine turned over, the stick slammed back into reverse, and the tires began to peel right as the deranged smiling girl took to the air.
Adaline threw herself at the vehicle, her head smashing into the driver’s side window as the vehicle was pulling away. It was an impact that should have knocked a girl like her out cold, but it barely slowed her down. Through the broken glass, Adaline managed to get her right arm in and plunge the blade in her hands into the left shoulder of the driver. The man swore, pulled on the wheel as hard as he could, and whipped the car one hundred and eighty degrees around on the street. The force was enough to pry Adaline loose and she tumbled away out of sight.
With a fresh wound oozing even more blood onto his ruined clothing, the driver wasted no time slamming the car into drive and crushing the gas pedal into the floor. Jason risked a look out of the rear window to see a battered but very much alive Adaline picking herself off of the pavement. She lifted her blood red eyes and met Jason’s gaze. For the first time since he saw her, the smile on her face fell away. All that remained was a burning, unending hatred directed squarely on Jason. He couldn’t look away. It was only when the driver swerved around the nearest street corner and nearly crashed into a passing semi-truck that Jason was able to break away from Adaline’s eyes.
Jason didn’t realize he had been holding his breath until that moment. He released a shaky breath and turned back towards the front of the car. That was the exact moment when the butt of the driver’s pistol hit the side of Jason’s head and the world winked out of existence.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Is it done?” Courtney asked with a trembling hand holding the phone up to her ear.
“Three of our men are dead. We weren’t able to kill the girl. Cops are going to be all over that house any second now.” The male voice sounded scared. “I’ve never seen anything like it. She was so quick. I swear we shot her multiple times but she kept on coming.”
“Did you get him?” Courtney emphasized every word.
“Yeah.” The man responded. “He’s out like a light. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Courtney collapsed into a nearby chair and let out a long pent up laugh of relief. It was done.
Finally. Courtney hung up her phone and tossed it into the air. He’s going to finally be where he belongs.
The plan had been to snatch Jason up from his home tonight. Fortunately, all of her men had already been in position when the nutcase had attacked Jason’s front door. Though far from clean, Courtney had accomplished her objective.
Jason was safe. Jason was hers. Jason never had to leave ever again.
Courtney danced around her room. The countless faces of Jason in all of her photographs plastered across every square inch of her walls filled her with love and anticipation. Everything was right with the world.
