Robert Crane - Alone

I paused by a window in the corridor outside my room and stared across the grounds. What would Mom think of all this? I wondered. Where was she? Why did she leave? I swallowed hard. What caused her to flee? Was she in trouble?

Was it me?

The smells of dinner filled my nose as the volume of the crowd in the cafeteria was on a steady rise, so loud now I could hear them from where I was on the other side of the building. Most of the professionals had gone home for the day, but the casually dressed metas passed me in the hall, on their way to evening meal. Their conversations were excited, those of people among friends, and they dropped off when they saw me.

I realized I had been staring out the window at a lamp for the last five minutes. Going to the gym to work out again didn’t appeal to me, and I had a feeling Dr. Sessions wouldn’t be getting back with my results this evening. I thought of Mom again and knew that what I wanted was to go to sleep and try to dream of her.

I walked down the hall to my door and opened the handle. It wasn’t locked, because I didn’t have a key for it. Since everyone hated me, I supposed I should get a key, so that no one could sneak into my room while I was away.

I closed the door and flipped the light switch and realized that I was, by far, too late, because not only had someone snuck in while I was at dinner, but they had stayed to wait for me.

“Hello, little doll,” came the whispered, throaty voice of Wolfe, towering above me. His hand came down and grabbed me around the neck while I was still too stunned to react. “Wolfe has been waiting for you.” He pulled me close to him and I felt his hot, stinking breath on my face, then felt the warm wetness of his tongue licking my cheek. “It’s time to play.”

However I might have responded, speech was not possible with his hand squeezing my larynx. His black eyes were bulging out and his smile was a grin that revealed his spiked teeth. I felt them brush against the side of my head as he pulled me close and took a long breath through his nose, inhaling on my hair.

“Wolfe has missed you twice, little doll, but now we can be together and play the way we’re supposed to. Then, whatever’s left of you when Wolfe is done…” I felt his breath drift down to my neck as he embraced me and his teeth slightly bit into my shoulder – enough to puncture the cloth of my turtleneck and the skin but not enough to cause a deep wound – and a little sucking sound followed for about a second. “… they can have. That will make them happy. And you…will make Wolfe happy first.” A half-insane titter of glee came from him and I heard the smacking of his lips.

I made a guttural sound of choking and he loosened his grip as he moved me in front of him, enough so I could take a breath but not much more. I could already feel the pins and needles in my feet and I tried not to jerk too much for fear of breaking my own neck. I must not have been the first person he’d placed in a chokehold because he’d learned to grip low enough on the neck that he didn’t cut off all circulation.

“Pl…pl…” I couldn’t get a word out.

He turned me around in his hand so that he was behind me. I could feel his body pressed against me, as though it were an iron wall at my back. My feet touched the floor again but his grip assured me that if I tried anything out of line, I wouldn’t survive until the agents came to my rescue. Not that they would at this point. Not after what I did. I was alone here.

“Pl…please…” I rasped through the barest opening he gave me to speak.

I could hear a moan of pleasure. “Yessss, little doll. Begging is good play. Pleading is fun.” His other hand crept around my waist and I felt a shudder of revulsion when it came to rest on my belly and one of his claws raked through my clothing, giving me another superficial laceration.

I felt a twinge of pain, sharp despite the shallowness of the cut, and I felt the trickle of blood start to run down my abdomen under my sweater. His finger ran to his mouth and I heard the sucking sound again followed by another little moan of pleasure that made me ill. “I can taste everything about you in your blood. Your fears. Your doubts…every exquisite little part of you…this will be satisfying for both of us…” His hand slid around my belly again and I grunted, my fear for my life momentarily outweighed by a rising sense of disgust.

“H-how…” The words stumbled out as my mind sought out any delay I could find. “How did you find me?”

His grip tightened and once more I found myself in a battle to breathe. “It’s not your place to speak or ask questions. You are to be silent except for the occasional moan or scream.” His fingers dug into the cut he had made in my stomach and it suddenly wasn’t superficial anymore. I would have screamed, but he had a choking grip on my neck, as though he anticipated it.

“I’ll tell you,” I heard him say through the searing agony in my guts. “You shouldn’t have left all those agents lying around when you ran from Wolfe last time…two of them were alive, you know…and very helpful, after Wolfe spent some time playing with them…very helpful…and tasty. They were no little dolls, but they made a fine distraction until I could get my hands around you…and in you…” He stabbed his finger back into me and I wanted to scream but was out of air. Lights blurred my vision and the edges of everything in the world smoothed out. A flash of light blinded me.

I felt a spasming shock of pain, lighter somehow than what was going on in my guts but still painful, and I felt his grip loosen. Another flash, another shock and his hand slipped from my neck. My hands found their way to my belly to staunch the bleeding. It felt like he had torn loose my intestines and I crumpled into a pile on the floor just trying to catch my breath. My eyes made their way up to an astounding sight.

The windows had exploded inward and men in black tactical vests swarmed the room, guns firing all around me. The one in front that was a little too small for his tactical equipment was blasting away with the same type of weapon I had seen Kurt use at my house. With a shock I realized it was Hannegan, his gear tight on his massive frame. Wolfe seemed to be resisting the weapon even more fiercely this time, shrugging off the shots. Shotguns were going off in cascading blasts of thunder in front of me, the muzzle flashes lighting the room.

A scream from Wolfe seemed to stop time and I saw a blur of motion from his hands as he lunged forward. Kurt went flying, hitting the wall and bouncing off, landing in a heap on three of his fellows. He was lucky; Wolfe had punched him rather than using his claws.

The next hit from Wolfe was a slash and it caught two guys with shotguns that had closed on him. One of them lost his head, literally, while the other started gushing blood from the chest. Wolfe lashed out with a kick in the other direction and I heard it make contact with a Directorate agent standing above me, just out of my field of vision. There was a sickening crunch of flesh and bone drawing and breaking, then a desperate sucking sound that tapered off after three breaths; it was audible to me only because he landed less than a foot to my right. I dared not look at the dying agent for fear of who it might be.

My hand clutched at my wounded stomach and I tried to get up on all fours but failed, lying prone on the ground. I saw another body hit the floor in front of me and realized that there was only one pair of feet still standing and it was the booted set belonging to Wolfe. I raised my head to look up at him as he stopped in front of me. He looked down with a twisted anticipation that made me feel nausea that had little to do with the fact that I was nearly gutted.