The Mirrors of Fate (23 page)

“
Don’t move.”

Panic stunned her body. A hot, frighteningly familiar voice whispered in her ear.

“
Act natural,” Alan instructed. “If you dare make a scene...” He left it up to her to fill in the gap. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked, his hot breath grazing her earlobe. “You seem scared about something.”

Her quivering lips rendered her into a stuttering fragile shell. “A-Alan. P-Pl-Please, don’t do anything.”

“
I’m not going to. But I couldn’t guarantee the same thing for your date.”

Oh God, Mr. Lohan!
“What did you do to him?”

His reply was dark, low and dangerous. “Nothing Mr. L didn’t deserve.”

Mr. L
...The same name Mr. Lohan said his old student called him. Maria felt her head spin. She fell limply back upon him, shutting her eyes. “Oh God,” she exhaled in terror.

“
Breathe, baby, breathe. It’ll all be over soon.” He affectionately brushed his cheek against hers in a show for the passing strangers.

His voice now, different. His face, probably even more so from when she last saw him. She could even feel a change with his frame. Impressing themselves into her captive waist were biceps more defined than before. Were even his frame and mass changing that he needed to hide the transformation with a bulky jacket?

“
Just tell me what you want,” she said. “Just tell me what it is. Stop playing games with me.”

“
Stop playing games?”

“
You heard me, you sick bastard.”

“
All right then.”

He abruptly removed his hands from around her. Maria spun around, staring at him. A baseball cap was hung low over his bent face, and all she could see was him mockingly flashing her that same megawatt smile, the one she had grown so used to seeing, the one he was probably enacting now just to let her know how easy it was for him.

“
My good lady,” he said in the same playful English accent he had used to amuse her once before. He bowed before her, and when his head was lowered to the ground he removed his hat. With one look up, he gave her finally a clear but extremely quick view of a face which rendered her speechless. “I bid you adieu,” he finished quickly.

Maria stood shocked. The features she caught sight of in that erratic instant were not his own. They belonged to a completely different person. A prominent scar dominated his cheek; his unrounded eyes were fully brown; the shape of his nose and the condition of his skin were completely changed, and holy God, she didn’t know why!

He had become someone else. But the face struck her not only for its dissimilarity but for something else. She had seen it somewhere before...somewhere she was not sure of.

“
Alan! Stop!”

But he continued walking away down the sidewalk. His figure began disappearing in the crowd of shadows.

Maria hesitated. She knew what she had to say, but if she did, what did that mean she believed? Having no choice, she shouted, “David, stop!”

Finally, that made him halt in the crowd. Her jaw hung loose when her fears were confirmed. Oh God, why? Why did he have to react to that name? She clenched her teeth for a moment in an attempt to gather a quickly fading composure. He turned to look at her from the distance, his face full of satisfied complacency. His pace was slow as he gradually came back to her stiff shell, dissipating every sense of security she could have had. When he was finally before her she spoke first.

“
So...it really isn’t Alan. Who are you?”

His dark eyes were intense. “I thought you’d figure that out by now. But I guess I’ve given you too much credit.”

His insult didn’t faze her. “You’ve been wanting to get rid of me ever since we met. I’m right, aren’t I? From the very first day I met you in that classroom. But I can’t figure out why. Believe me when I say this, you and I have never met. If you think I’m someone from your past, you’re wrong.”

“
I know you don’t know me, Maria,” he said darkly. The hair hanging over his new eyes made the curving of his lips into a sideways smile look all the more demented. “And guess what? I truly don’t know you either.”

She held fast to composure. If he did not know her, then what was motivating him to do all this?

“
Why are you after me? What have I ever done to you? What has
Mr. Lohan
ever done? Isn’t he your friend? Your old teacher, damn it!?”

“
Old teacher, yes. Friend, depends on your perspective. But whatever he was to me in the past has nothing to do with the present. Since he has nothing to do with my mission here, he’s a hindrance, so I had to remove him from the—well,
your
equation.” He smirked. “Why so much concern for some lecherous guy, Maria? He’s out of the way like I wanted, and I’m sure a few concerned parents will thank me for that. If I were you, I’d be worrying about myself instead.”

“
You bastard. What did I ever do to you? What did I do to deserve any of this?”

He clicked his tongue to pity her. “Maria, Maria, Maria. Always the victim, aren’t you? It’s not what you did. It’s what you didn’t do.”

What she didn’t do? What the hell did he mean by that?

“
I want answers,” she said. “If you’re really
that
David, Mr. Lohan’s old student, how can you be standing here? Tell me. Tell me or I swear I’ll scream out loud, and it’ll make even these people stop to look at things they don’t normally bother to.”

“
Heh, what more can I say than my name is David? It’s finally nice to meet you properly now.”

He took a few long strides forward and within a second was standing over her, gripping her arms. In another quick movement he bunched her sweater’s long sleeves up and held her naked wrists. She froze in fright.

“
And let me help you wipe any silly notions from your head. My hands might be cold, but you can still feel them. I’m not dead.”

Her eyes widened in fear.

“
It doesn’t matter who I am. You still don’t understand the most important thing here, but that’s just fine. You will very, very soon.” He drew her into him abruptly and glared into her face. “You can’t always run, Maria. It got her because of you. Why did you desert her when she needed you the most?”

The look he gave her was so full of venom, so full of hatred she could scarcely breathe. People had stopped to stare at them. Without warning, his lips brushed against hers in a cold, alien, long display of false affection that made the strangers go about their way again.

When he released her he spoke for only her ears to hear. “By the way, aren’t you even gonna go check on your date?”

Mr. Lohan!

A frantic yell came from inside the diner. Heads from outside turned suddenly. “
God! Someone call 911! There’s a body in the men’s room!”
someone shouted.

Dread filled her. Maria turned to face him again but all she saw was an empty space in front of her. She stood there on the sidewalk looking for him. Alan was gone.

* * * * *

CHAPTER EIGHT

Where once was stability and joy, now was mayhem and pain. And that the mental bedlam would cause her to retreat within herself was only inevitable. No matter how much she tried to change her state of mind, Maria knew her efforts would amount to nothing unless she got control of her situation.

Her meeting with David had shaken her. Mr. Lohan being found in the bathroom lying unconscious with a bloody nose, a dislocated leg and a broken jaw had shaken her even more. She was scared, more scared than she had ever been in her life. Alan, David, or whoever the hell he was, wanted to get something across to her. But for the life of her, she couldn’t see exactly what.

It got her because of you. Why did you desert her when she needed you the most?

What was the “It” he was referring to? Whom had she deserted? She knew there were connections, links he obviously wanted her to put together herself, but nothing helped her figure out the truth.

She couldn’t have had a part in whatever he was talking about.

Though she knew little, she had come to one conclusion because of their encounter. Alan’s real name, if he wasn’t lying about that as well, was in fact David, which meant maybe he really was Mr. Lohan’s old student. But how was that even possible? Mr. Lohan couldn’t have been mistaken about David’s actual death.

Mr. Lohan was her only key to finding out more about this David character. With him, hopefully she would be able to figure out what Alan/David really wanted. Why he wanted
her
. But unfortunately Mr. Lohan was again at the hospital and she had no option to go see him this time. It was already Saturday morning, and she had to prepare for her meeting with Louie Singh.

“
I think yellow is too bright. I mean, it’s a cute dress, but we don’t need you looking like a banana.”

Maria looked across at her mother and grimaced when she saw her holding up a long neon yellow strapless dress in her hands. Though the hideous dress deserved aversion, her mother was the recipient of Maria’s disgusted glower. The woman’s insensitivity seemed magnified every time she picked up a selection and expected Maria to give a sincere opinion on it. Even with all that happened last night with Mr. Lohan, Maria was expected to cast her cares aside and focus solely on their trivial shopping venture.

Above all else, the meeting held top priority. Her parents insisted on getting her something suitable to wear for her dreaded encounter that night.

“
Well? What do you think?” her mother asked again about the ugly dress.

“
It’s hideous. Your choices suck, Mom.” She said it with intentional coldness.

Her mother’s face fell. She took the insult with injury but bounced back quickly. “I was just looking at the damn thing. Don’t be like that. You’re lucky I convinced your father to let me pick out something for you. If not a dress, it’d be one of their traditional-looking outfits. Those sari dress-type things. What do you think, Montgomery?”

The tall, broad shouldered, heavy build of a man stared stupidly at it.

“
Well,” he said in his low, husky voice, “I don’t know much about dresses, Mrs. Jaghai.”

Or anything else for that matter,
Maria poked fun at him discreetly. He didn’t look like he was good for anything other than standing like a big, intimidating light post, which was basically his job. Her father hired him to escort them as they went shopping that afternoon for an appropriate dress. He was their bodyguard, so to speak, and he definitely looked the part with his gray suit, squared, gigantic shoulders and hard features. Albeit, he was easy on the eyes. Why couldn’t Father match her with someone like him—big, dumb and easy to direct?

His presence certainly attracted stares, but he was not the only reason people were looking pryingly and whispering. The con-artist case had still been spreading around White Crest. Since the start of the day, all she and her mother had received were sympathetic looks and people trying to approach them to ask questions.

In growing hurry, Maria’s mother took her hand and dragged Maria along to other racks in the clothing store. “My Lord, if we don’t find something good, your father is going to put my head on a platter.”

We can only hope for small mercies.

“
Maria, you need to tell me what kind of dress you want. I can’t do this searching in the dark. Oh Lord, if only Seema were already here. She could help me with all of this.”

If there was but one positive thing about that night, it was that Maria’s aunt Seema would be coming for a visit. She was the absolute opposite of her brother, Maria’s father, lively when he was reserved, loud and brash when he was quiet and poised. Whenever Aunt Seema was around, her father’s bite became little more than a nibble. But Aunt Seema’s ability to tame her brother’s roar wasn’t the best quality of the woman Maria fondly remembered. She was kind and understanding in a way that her parents could never be. The only thing Maria actually looked forward to that night was hearing her aunt’s loud, flavorful voice again.

“
Mom...When can I go see Mr. Lohan?”

Her mother didn’t even look at her. Her voice lowered and she began talking through her teeth. “You know we all talked about that already. You’re not stepping foot out of our sights again. You’ve already lost your car, are you seriously pushing for more? Don’t think that the next time you pull a stunt like that we won’t call the police and report you as a runaway.”

Wisely she fell silent.

“
I still can’t believe that you—no wait, that isn’t unbelievable. It’s just like you to disobey us and go out in the first place when we told you not to leave the house at all.”

“
But it was about schoolwork, Mom.”

“
Maria, your life is more important than schoolwork. Didn’t you see how your poor teacher got beat up last night because of that maniac? You would let schoolwork kill you? That could have been you.”

Strangely, her mother’s enduring stare, for the first time Maria could identify, did not seem harsh or judgmental. Only concerned. And could her mother’s hand have trembled a moment ago when she mentioned the idea of her dying?