Seeing Black (33 page)

Josef let out a breath as if contemplating his next
move. “Nikolai.” He nodded to Ogre-man, whose name was apparently
Nikolai, and in the next second, Jill was once again being
manhandled. He pulled her towards him, caging her with his arms
from behind. She stood right in front of Alexander. Tears streamed
down her face. Josef shifted the gun from Alexander, sideways to
Jill’s temple. “Nikolai can’t speak, but he’s great at following
orders. He never flinches. This is how I see it. If you
are
telling the truth and there will be cops or killers here soon, I’m
fucked. I won’t go to jail. I’d rather die. But I don’t believe
you. There are no cops and no killers. Nothing. You are bluffing.
You came here alone. Who would give a warrant to search the rich
and powerful Rocco Taylor’s home? No one. You would have called the
cops seven months ago. Paul Black would have called the cops. And
look how things turned out for him instead. So the only leverage I
seem to have here is your lovely girlfriend, my delightful niece. I
don’t seem to need her anymore since you seem to be the one with
all the answers. Poor Black was subjected to a few harmless tests.
Please. That boy Black, Reynolds, and all the other children were
nothing but homeless orphans. We fed them, and we gave them a good
place to live in exchange for some tests, tests that could have
potentially changed human evolution. They should feel honored.”

“Harmless? You lobotomized children, you sick fuck!
You rammed electricity into their heads!”

“A world where there are no
weapons of mass
destruction.
” Josef air-quoted the words. “A world where wars
are fought using the mind. A much safer, cleaner, world. That’s
what we were trying to build.”

“Safer? Safer from whom? You’re a monster. A world
full of you and Rocco is not a better world. It’s not a safer
world. So tell me, how far did you get with your twisted little
experiments? Because as far as I know, you got nothing. There’s no
study, no research, nothing that can duplicate that. You didn’t get
any closer to finding anything out. It was a waste. You’re psychic.
It’s genetic, like a disease, like being color blind. You can’t
recreate that. You either are or you aren’t. But your little
“disease” went away, not because you’re an old decrepit man, but
because you overdid it with the plane crash.” Alexander continued
antagonizing Josef. “And now you’re hoping to use the only other
person who was psychic to experiment on, to see if there is any way
you can get your powers back.” Alexander looked over to Jill. “Not
to mention, you’re still deluded in this twisted plan to create
these perfect psychic soldiers. Your plan is crashing down on you
because now people know your secret.”

“What people?” Josef pushed the tip of the gun
closer to Jill’s temple.

Alexander’s voice cracked, but he continued to talk.
“So you held her captive here for seven months. What did you do to
her? What did you discover?” Alexander took a cautious step towards
Jill. “Nothing! You’ll never discover anything because it’s a
bullshit experiment and you are a bullshit scientist. You once held
all this power. You could have used it for good. Instead, you
decided to kill, steal, and hurt, and your greed and cover-ups
caused you to lose the exact thing you were trying to recreate. If
you’re lucky enough to make it to the police, because, I assure
you, there are a lot of angry people coming after you, the police
will have a field day with all the shit they have on you. I can see
all the charges now.” Alexander took another cautious step as he
ticked off item by item. “Grand theft.” Step. “Murder.” Step.
“Kidnapping.” Step.

“The police will not do anything. I am rich. I can
buy them off. Don’t think for one second I give a fuck about the
police.” Josef’s voice faltered. His hand shook against her temple,
Jill’s eyes were squeezed shut, and Ogre-man unknowingly held her
up. If he let go, she’d crumple to the floor.

“Oh really? Isn’t that one of the reasons you’ve had
Jill in here? Because you want to know if her mother told anyone
that you and Rocco are murderers?”

“She was in on it too. Esther was in on it too.”
Josef said as if that explained it all. Jill paled. Her eyes
opened, unblinking. Alexander gave her a sympathetic grin.

“She wasn’t a murderer. Maybe she was greedy. But
she wasn’t a murderer, Jill.” He must have noticed her stunned
expression. “Jill, honey, she wasn’t a murderer. As soon as she
found out the shit they were doing to those children, she left.”
Josef’s gun pushed further against Jill’s temple. She flinched.

The sound of screeching tires came from behind them
by the front gates. First, it was one car; then they heard a second
and a third. There were more car doors being slammed closed and
then more screeching tires. Josef was flustered. All sense of
control was gone and replaced with something worse than
control—uncertainty. Confusion. He was a man on a ledge. Would he
jump? Would he take Jillian with him? Jillian could read
Alexander’s face, and she knew how impulsive he could be.

Jill let out a primal scream, “No! Xander, don’t!”
at the same time that Alexander lunged towards her.

Laugh as much
as you breathe, and love as long as you live.

-Helen

The light shown so brightly, Jill was blinded. A calm
that she hadn’t felt in months—seven months, two weeks, and six
days to be precise, encased her body. Peace. Finally, peace. She
lay on her back, her head on the hard sandy surface. She breathed
in the hot humid air. Something trickled down her chest. Something
wet. Slowly, it moved down from the pulsating artery under her neck
by her clavicle. It moved down some more until the liquid made its
slow way between her breasts and down to her stomach. It was so
hot. Her luscious red curls stuck to the sides of her neck. She
felt the flush of her cheeks. Her eyes, barely slivers, could see
the moon shining down and reflecting against the ocean. The only
noise she could hear was the far-off thrashing waves of the sea.
The nearby trees slowly swayed back and forth, back and forth with
the tiny breeze that barely, just barely, pushed the beads of sweat
further between her breasts. Contentment, that’s what it felt like.
It was as if she’d written “The End” on the novel that was her
life. It was over. The nightmare was over. Wonderland was no more.
She had made her way through the correct rabbit hole and had come
out the other side. A new woman.

She could see, barely, but it was there, something
moving across the dark moonlit sky. It was the shape of a diamond
and was flapping. She tried to squint, but her bruised eye wouldn’t
allow for much. The object flapped side to side around the sky like
a bird. She tried to lift her body up, at least slightly, to see if
she could make out the object, but she was too heavy with
exhaustion, with the heat of the night, with contentment. The
object continued to sway, hovering over her. Then the wind, the
small measly breeze, stopped and so did the object. Some bigger
force had frozen time: the wind stopped blowing, the trees stopped
swaying, and the object stopped hovering. Then the object plummeted
down. At first, it glided lower, lower, and lower still. She
followed its movements with her eyes. And then it just fell
noiselessly. She gasped. It was a low gasp, but it was a gasp
nonetheless. The breeze began to move again, and something felt
right in the world. The black object was gone, but it was okay. The
night was still beautiful. Life was beautiful because she had
survived.

She turned her head, and a pair of the most
beautiful penetrating eyes were staring at her. They were still so
full of life, even after all that had happened. The look of pure
adoration still shone in the sea of blue. She tried to smile, to
show
him
, the man whom she had loved since she was a little
girl, the man who had loved her since he was a little boy, that she
was okay, but the smile was unconvincing. A lone tear made its way
down the corner of her eye, over the bridge of her nose and down
before it fell onto the sand. Alexander reached over and wiped it
away, licking the salty tear. “You okay?” he whispered. The back of
his hand caressed her cheek. They lay on the beach together, their
bodies facing the night sky, but their heads turned towards each
other. Nose to nose. Deep blue sea against jade-colored eyes.

Jillian inched her head a little closer so her lips
could make contact with his. “I am.” That was all she could say
because it was the truth. She was okay. She was okay because she
was alive and because all the secrets were gone. Her affliction was
gone because of the one and only lesson her father had taught her:
to control her visions. She wouldn’t be held prisoner any longer by
the worry that at any moment she would have a psychic episode that
would leave her vulnerable and helpless. She could, if she so chose
to, never have a vision again. That’s how powerful she was. That’s
how much she had learned. She had since learned the entire story
about her mother, and although it saddened her to know her mother
wasn’t the same person she had idolized for so many years, she
really didn’t feel much pain about it. Her real mother had been
Helen, the woman who remained with her on the island and then in
her heart all her life.

“Let’s go back to the room?” he asked. He stood up
in one quick fluid motion and held his hands out to hers.

“In a minute. I’ll meet you there.” Jill said. She
sat up, knees to chest, chin to knees. Alexander bent down, planted
a light kiss on her forehead, and walked away.

Jill remembered those final seconds of the
nightmare. Alexander had charged to her rescue. Josef had been
ready to pull the trigger, but a shot from behind them, straight to
Josef’s leg had instantly crippled him, and he’d fallen to the
ground. A mortal shot to Nikolai had soon followed. Alexander had
caught Jill right before her legs had given way. Within seconds,
four heavyset Hispanic men and one familiar and very attractive
man, who she’d remembered as the man who’d danced with Heather all
those months ago, Brian, appeared. They had dragged Josef away.
And, just as quickly as it had all begun, it had all ended. She’d
been pretty certain Josef would not survive the evening. Minutes
later, the police had shown up. After hours and hours of
questioning, Jill had told them everything she knew, everything
that had occurred, all the secrets. The only thing she and
Alexander had seemed to forget was which direction Brian and the
vengeful drug lords had taken Josef. Further, Jill and Alexander’s
description of said men had probably been a little off.

Not five minutes had passed when she felt Alexander
behind her. Since they’d been reunited a week ago, he was never too
far behind. Jill closed her eyes when she felt him surround her. He
sat behind her, his hard muscular chest to her back, his bent knees
on either side of her, his arms encircling her. His chin was on her
shoulder, and they both stared out to the ocean.

“Baby? You okay?”

“Xander, you came back?” Even she wasn’t sure if she
was talking about the present or his rescue of her.

“I’ll always come back.” When she didn’t say
anything for a long time, he continued to talk. “The last seven
months were hell for me, Jillian. I love you. I love you because
I’ve known you my entire life. I love you because we went through
an unusual experience together on the island and then a dangerous
life-threatening experience together, but I also love you for so
many other reasons. I love how you never directly ask me for
something. You say, ‘Wow, it’s hot in this room,” which means,
‘Please, turn on the air for me’ or ‘I’m so thirsty,’ which
translates to ‘Please, go get me a glass of ice cold water.’ I love
that you never know the words to any song. None. Not one. You think
you do, and you sing at the top of your lungs, but the words are
always wrong and out of tune. You sing terrible. I mean real bad,
Jillian. You have no musical inclination at all, and I love it. I
love that you love so much and so hard. You love Oliver, and you
love me unconditionally. I love that you are a pain in my ass. I
love that you challenge me. I love that you fight with me. You
don’t let one thing slip by you. I’m so head over heels in love
with you, Jillian. And most of all, I love that you love me just as
much as I love you. I know you do. You don’t even have to say it
because I know.

She kept looking forward, his warm breath on her
ear. She tried to keep the tears at bay, but his words were the
most beautiful words she’d ever heard. He turned to look at her.
“Do you really want to be left alone? If you do, I’ll leave you to
it, but I promised you on that window and on that ledge that I’d
hold you as long as you needed me to once I got you out of that
prison. So I walked to the room but then came back to tell you.
Love, this is me, holding you. As long as you need me, I’ll hold
you.” He was gentle, and he was beautiful, so she cried and cried
and cried some more. She let it all go. There, on the beach,
encased in Alexander’s strong arms and legs, she let it all go. She
left it all there on the sand. Seven horrid months. All that had
happened. It would all stay right there on that spot on that beach.
Once she finished crying, it was over. She wouldn’t carry those
memories with her. When she released the last sob, Alexander kissed
her cheek and stood. He held out his hand, and she took it.

She finally spoke. “No, I definitely don’t want to
be left alone. I never want to be left alone again.”

She stood, brushed sand off the back of her legs and
her hair, and then did the same to him. He began to lead her back
to the hotel, the hotel that she now owned. She was the sole
heiress of the deceased Rocco Taylor, the murderer.