Chapter 8: Liam
The day has been longer than any other day I can remember. It’s been business as usual, but something has been nagging at the back of my mind. A small little creature poking around the outskirts of my brain. I can’t quite put a finger on the problem so I can’t find the solution and that is causing all kinds of irritation. And that irritation is causing less and less work to get done, which is just adding to the agitation to grow. This time is crucial for our plans. We are rapidly approaching the twenty four hour mark. In our world it’s time to reach out and make a truce or wage war.
Suddenly my phone rings. I don’t even look at the caller id before picking it up.
“What!” I bark into it. While jamming my finger to the speaker button.
“She hasn’t eaten or taken a single pill.” One of my soldier’s voices come there the phone. It takes a minute for his words to really register what he's saying. Isabelle, my captive, the wife of my enemy. The woman with the dislocated shoulder, which I happen to know for a fact hurts like a mother fucker. “She is also breathing even funnier then she was last night”
“Boss?” He says when I say nothing, a million things running through my head, and that small creature starts growing doubling and tripling in my brain clawing at the walls until its front and center.
“And you are just now calling me now why?” The words come out before I even really realize what I’m saying. I don’t normally care so much about those who are put down there, for the most part they are out of mind. I am starting to see that this is not the case with this woman.
“I um I didn’t want to bother you if it could be avoided.” And that right there sends the agitation in to full rage.
“So, you presume to know what would be a bother to me!” I am enraged but in all honesty it’s not at him. I don’t know what exactly it is at but I am pointing it in his direction since he brought it out with his words. He says nothing. At least he is smart in that regard.
“ I will be there with in the hour.” I say as I snatch the phone off the desk in front of me and slam my finger down on the call disconnect button. Then I grab my jacket as I dial Dr. Carsons number. He answers on the first ring.
“Meet me at the Catskills.” No further instructions leave my mouth before hanging up and getting into my 1967 Mustan Shelby GT 500, yes, I have my very own Eleanor. Using more force than probably necessary I throw the shifter into reverse and pull out of the garage then throw it into first and gun it hitting fourth gear before I even getting out the drive way. Skidding tires and almost fish tailing as I turn on to the road. My main house that I live in is outside of the city where I am more able to see if some one is coming for an attack versus my penthouse in the city I am really almost two hours form the Catskills but what is a GPS time if not a challenge and no true Irish man backs down from a challenge.
The closer I get to the Catskills the tighter my skin feels, and the more I feel the need to claw at it. This feeling is foreign to me and completely unwelcome and I have no words to put on this feeling I am feeling. All it serves is to fuel the rage currently coming off me in no doubt waves that would have any lesser man in my presence pissing himself. Though all my efforts to calm it down I am failing. So when I pull up and side and jump out of the car and I see my men stand straighter it then I know it far worse then I thought. I slam the door and stomp up to the building, no one speaks. They simply stand there as I fling the door open and make my way down to the cell I see the guy who called me earlier, Patrick, standing outside of, he stand at attention looking straight ahead like he is trained to do but the line of sweat that dots his brow does not escape my notice. I walk right up to him and get into his face. I’m a good six iches taller than he is but the size difference in our actual build is very noticeable and with what im pushing off he seems to have trouble swallowing.
“Open the fucking door.” I say through clinches teeth. Patrick is quick to reach in his pocket, stumbling for the key to unlock the door. It takes him a few times to get the key in the lock and get it open. Once it is unlocked, he quickly gets out of the way so I can push the door open. When I get the door open and stomp into the room, my vision goes red. The first thing I notice is that the cap from the water bottle still holding the meds that the doctor left for her to take, the next I see is a tray containing a rather unappetizing looking wrapped sandwich and a bag of crisps. I am not sure why that bothers me, its more than we give the others we keep down here. But it truly lights the old fighting Irish deep under my skin. What truly guts my and stops me dead in my tracks though is when I finally look up and see the apparent object of these new uncharted feeling running rap aped through my body.
Isabelle is standing leaning against breathing heavy, breast heaving with the effort it took for her to get up. Her dress ripped and dirty, bare footed with her hair a mess hanging wildly all round her. Dr. Carson was right she some how got her arm in a sling she made out of her dress. But what really causes my pause is the look in her eyes. She is here, but she isn’t. I have done many things in my life that no good man would do. Things no one person should have to do. And no one should have to see. I’ve looked into the eyes of worse monsters then I who have show no remorse, no care and taken their lives with out a blink of my own eyes, watching while their life leaves theirs. I’ve seen the look on a mother face when having to do the unspeakable and bury a child. I’ve seen people beg for one more day to live and right their wrongs, I’ve seen other beg for death. What I have seen before in my thirty two years of life, until this moment, is the complete void of anything. Its like she has nothing. Like she is just a dark void of nothing.
That more than anything has my heart pinching in my chest.