Robert Crane - Alone

“Now…” he breathed, lifting me into the air, twisting my torso and wrenching a scream from my lips. “Before we were so rudely interrupted…” His finger hovered in front of my eyes and he twisted me around and laid me facedown on the bed. The pressure of his hands around my neck hurt as his claws pricked through my sweater and drew blood. I felt him standing above me even though my face was buried in the bed. I screamed again but it was so muffled by the mattress that it didn’t even sound that loud in my head.

He wrenched me around, twisting my midsection once more and then forcibly placing an arm over my upper body, anchoring me in place. “Much better,” he said in a whisper. “Now I can hear you scream.”

I’m ashamed to say that the next sound I made was more of a whimper. At least if I screamed defiance I could have vented some emotion in his direction. As it was, the panic was so rooted in me that I had no idea what I could do about it. He was invincible, I was wounded, everything hurt. I’d watched a whole army of trained agents go up against him and lose. What could I do? He rolled me to the right and then left, enjoying the squealing sounds I made from the pain in my stomach when he moved me. I was crying from the agony; it was horrific and I just wanted it to end.

The bedspread was slick with blood by this point, and he pushed me again. I caught a glimpse of a notebook and pen as he climbed up onto the bed and straddled me, looking down, one hand at his side and the other being used to completely manhandle me. I flopped about, offering little resistance. The pain was so bad I felt like I’d been cut in half. The best I could do was let him flip me again and maintain enough presence of mind to let my hand go to the pen on the nightstand, grasping hold of it.

“Grr…uckle…” I made a pathetic kind of gurgling noise that was about 90% from the pain that was starting to dull as I verged on passing out and about 10% from being unable to articulate the terror, agony and rage that flooded through me with the adrenaline.

“Tsk-tsk, little doll…I told you, your place is not to talk…it takes Wolfe out of the moment…”

I made another gurgling sound as I tried to speak. I wish I could say I had some witty remark in mind, but I was far beyond that point. I was just trying to get him to hold up for a moment, to get him to listen to me.

It worked. “What’s that, little doll?” He leaned in close, tongue running along my cheek. “We’re destined to be interrupted any time, so perhaps Wolfe should finish now? Or perhaps carrying you away will heighten the anticipation for later?” His free hand pawed my chest, bringing a fresh wave of nausea as he took liberties with me that no one had ever taken before.

“Not…like…this…!” I spat a mouthful of blood in his face, causing him to recoil as I brought the pen up and around, driving it into his ear. His hand was already moving to wipe off the spit when the pen made contact. I didn’t have much strength left, but I used it all and aimed it perfectly. It sunk in and he tore off a scream that sounded like the world was ending in front of my face; then he hauled off and backhanded me so hard I flopped off the bed, landing on the floor facedown.

“BITCH!” His fury was white-hot and I could hear him above me. At this point I was immobile, unable to move anything but my hands, which had found their way to my stomach wound. “I’m going to finish you now, and I’m not even going to be nice, little doll. There won’t be anything left when I’m done with you—”

His hands seized me on the shoulders and he rubbed my face into the carpet hard enough that my nose broke. I felt him clutching at me, scratching and cutting as he used his claws to hack at the waistband of my pants – then I heard another horrific cracking noise and it took me a minute to realize that the sound wasn’t made by him hitting me but by someone else hitting him.

A blast of chill ran through the room from the window and I could have sworn that there was a winter storm even though a few minutes earlier it had only been cloudy. A gust blew in a circle and I realized my door was open. The breath of frost licked at me and the feeling of a deep chill ran up my spine, causing me to wonder if it was from the blood loss. The cold wind carried its own smell, unique, but a subtle reminder of the walks I had taken around the grounds in the last few days.

I used the last of my strength to roll to my back and realized I was surrounded by the prostrate bodies of the agents that had stormed the room. My eyes moved to Wolfe, on one knee, still impossibly tall, but faced down by a dark figure that stood between him and me. Wolfe was breathing in fits and crimson ran down the side of his face in a dark stream from his ear. “Jotun,” he said in a low voice. “You’re still alive after all these centuries.”

“Only just,” came the quiet voice of Old Man Winter. His height was not quite that of Wolfe when the beast was standing, but seemed like a giant from my perspective. “The millenia have been kinder to you than to me, I’m afraid.”

“Let me have the girl,” Wolfe said, dragging himself to his feet. “You can have the little doll back when I’m done, but I have to…have to…finish…I can even leave her alive when I’m done…at least a little…”

“I think not,” Old Man Winter said without pause. “I have another squad of agents on the way, and you know that with my help…” He let his words trail off.

“I’m not done with her.” Wolfe’s voice was infused with a kind of mania that chilled me worse than the freezing air. He stomped his foot and I heard a snap that I suspected was the sound of his foot finding a Directorate agent’s neck as it landed. “I won’t stop until I have her, ‘til we…play.” The last words came out in a twisted, lyrical note that would have filled me with disgust if I weren’t completely wrecked.

“You are done with her,” Old Man Winter said as the chill intensified, both from his words and from a howling tempest of cold winds. “You will not seek her here again unless you wish to face me…and as old as I am now, you and I both know that although one may survive a confrontation between the two of us, the survivor would never be the same…”

I thought I saw a brief tremor from Wolfe, but it faded as his eyes flickered and the most horrifying creature I could ever imagine bounded out the window. I heard the crushing of snow for a few footfalls, saw Old Man Winter turn to face me with those ice blue eyes, and then it was as if my brain blissfully proclaimed me safe, because I lowered myself back down and passed out.

When I woke up, things were hazy and a small woman was hovering over me in a lab coat. She flashed me a quick smile as I blinked at her. “Don’t try and sit up yet,” she said, brushing a lock of black hair out of her eyes as she leaned over me. I obeyed her, mostly because I didn’t feel as if I could move. I looked down to see my clothes replaced with a hospital gown.

The memory of Wolfe’s attack cut through the haze and I felt nausea set in below the pain in my stomach. I started to gag as I recalled every sickening detail of what he tried to do to me and I began to retch. Searing pain raced through my abdomen.

“Whoa!” The woman grasped me under my shoulders, helping me turn. I threw up over the edge of the table, unable to control my reaction. A disgusting feeling of being violated seeped into me and I retched again. I wanted to shower, to scrub my skin until it bled. I grimaced from the pain in my stomach that was made worse by my heaving. “You need to settle down. That maniac nearly pulled out your intestines and that’ll slow anyone down, even a fast-healing meta like yourself.”