Endings by Linda Richards (portable ebook reader .TXT) 📗

hope, anyway. I hope it doesn’t go downhill from here. I have to hope that.

“You look very comfortable,” he says again, still with an expression I can’t read.

“I have been more so,” I say like I’m admitting something.

I am aware of everything. The beating of my heart and the pulse at my brow. The lump that the lamp might be making under the pillow. The telltale cord following the lamp out of the bed, potentially sticking out like the tail of a puppy, though I can’t gauge that from where I am. Any one of those things, as well as others I have not considered, might give me away. So I pray for luck to be with me. I pray like I still have a god and hope for an answer. I pray. It’s all I’ve got.

“I’m feeling unwell,” I say.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Maybe … maybe a fever? I can’t tell. But I feel like I might throw up.”

He looks at me without saying anything for maybe half a minute. And then: “It doesn’t matter.”

I meet his eyes. “I know,” I say.

He sighs then. It’s a response I might find comical if this were a different sort of event. But he sighs as though he has resigned himself to something, then he approaches me, drops his hand on my forehead as though he is checking my brow for a fever.

My hand is firm on the shaft of the lamp. I am holding it so tightly I can feel my nails pierce the fleshy part of my hand. When I bring my arm up, it is with the confidence of someone who understands how much force will be required to hit her mark in order to make any damage at all.

I aim for his face. It is possible that, after I break the bulb on his face or head, I will also be able to electrocute him. I don’t know the mechanics of that, but it seems to me that electrocution is a possibility, and it is certainly my fondest hope.

I don’t think about what it means if my gambit works: chained to the bed in this abandoned house with my assailant dead at my feet. It’s a problem I long to deal with as I bring the lamp down on his head with my full force. I’m gratified to see the bulb pop as it breaks; to see a spark of bright light that I hope is electricity entering his body. Then more satisfaction when I note a trickle of blood run down his forehead.

He reels back, more surprised than injured. I feel my disappointment all the way down to my feet. It has been something. It has hurt him. But I can see right away that it is not enough.

“You bitch,” he says. He pulls his arm back to strike me and I brace myself for the fist he is making, preparing myself for an onslaught that might potentially kill me.

But a movement at the corner of my eyes pulls my attention, and I see it when Curtis launches himself at Atwater out of the shadows. Has he been waiting for his moment? I think so. And maybe he has decided to make this his moment because he feels if he doesn’t act now, Atwater might kill me.

Curtis is smaller than Atwater—not shorter but lighter—but he has the element of surprise on his side and, briefly anyway, it works. Atwater is toppled over. They grapple. It’s happening so quickly; I don’t have time to assess or determine. It’s all animal reaction. I want Curtis to prevail for so many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that, despite my best efforts, I’m still chained to a bed with my best card played.

There is a moment when Curtis rides Atwater like a pony. I even see his legs dig into Atwater’s flanks, for grip, for control, I can’t decide which. Maybe both. It’s not a good play, and I see it before it happens: Atwater stands, with Curtis clinging to his back like a monkey.

“Gonna crush you like a flea,” Atwater grunts, smashing his back against the wall, and I don’t hear Curtis’s bones breaking, but a part of me can feel it. I know that if I can’t manage to stop it somehow, Atwater will kill the reporter. And it won’t take long.

I cast around for something—anything—to do and my hand connects with the cord of the lamp. I know right away that it’s a shot. The only one I have.

Curtis sees me, straining at the end of my tether, my weapon again in my hand. They are just out of my reach. Curtis manages to maneuver the two of them closer. I hold myself back, so as not to blow what is likely to be my only chance, then chop again towards his head when I feel he may be close enough and will, additionally, momentarily be farther away.

I swing and basically miss. The broken bulb grazes his back and I see a trail of blood rise up, but it does not slow him down. He registers the pain, though. His attention is briefly diverted from Curtis. It isn’t much, but it’s enough. Curtis gets free. He is able to grab one of the antique chairs, swing it up, and crash it over Atwater’s head. Atwater goes down and stays down. From the force of the blow, and from this distance, I can’t even tell if he’s alive.

Curtis doesn’t check. He rushes to my side, his fingers going to the leg irons as he futilely searches for how to unlock them.

“Fuck,” he says. “It takes a key.”

“Check his pockets.”

“Ugh,” he says, but he’s moving towards him. Bending over him.

“Careful,” I hiss from the bed. “He’s a pro at this.” I don’t add that Curtis, of course, is not.

I’m watching Atwater carefully while Curtis bends over him, but so far so good.

“Where’s the team?” I ask while he searches. This all would have gone so much