The Florencia Lozano Homepage - Fan Fiction
LIES FEARS & LOVE
BY TROG |
CHAPTER
53 |
chapter 53
LLANTANO MOUNTAIN
Todd had been driving for hours, stopping only for gas.
“Where the fuck is this place! How much longer!” said Todd.
RJ opened the map on his lap and tried to calculate their location as Todd drove as fast as he could around the winding road that circled the bottom of Llantano Mountain.
“According to the map we should be there shortly, but the roads are steep and winding as you start to climb up, not to mention old and dirt, so it could take a while,” said RJ.
They had driven in silence for hours without the radio on, only Todd‘s loud brooding was audible. His knuckles were white from clutching the steering we’ll with nervous intensity and his jaw was clenched and tight.
“Blair’s going to try and kill Tea...isn’t she?” asked Todd, out of the blue.
“I don’t know, man. Her anger is definitely focused on her. She kept saying that Tea stole everything from her...even her baby! I really think it’s all about the baby she lost...when she saw Leo...she just went over the deep end. But still, I can’t believe that she’s capable of killing Tea,” said RJ.
“She shot Max Holden for cheating on her...she’s capable of anything. She comes from a family of lunatic women. I should have seen it coming....I should have seen it...I was just too caught up with T....”
RJ looked at him and noticed tears forming in Todd’s eyes. He swerved suddenly, pulling over, and got out of the car, slamming the door shut as walked down the road. RJ turned around and noticed him about ten yards away, leaning over with his face buried in his hands dejectedly as he watched. RJ shook his head and just waited a few minutes, giving him some time alone. Sharp pangs of guilt stabbed at his gut as he sat there staring down at the map on his lap feeling completely helpless and culpable. If anything happened to Tea or those kids, he’d never forgive himself. Not that he’d have to worry about that because Todd Manning would kill him anyway...of that he was sure.
Finally Todd climbed back into the car. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was pale, but he seemed more composed as he turned on the engine and sped off again up the road. After a few minutes they saw a sign that read “Blackstone Bluffs” and Todd increased his speed until they came to a motel with a gas station beside it.
“This is it!” said Todd pulling into the parking lot.
“How can you be sure?”
Todd got out of the car and looked up at the old Mobile gas station sign with the red, winged horse, just like Starr had said. He ran inside to the little convenience store as RJ jumped out of the car and followed him inside. Todd looked around the place and noticed an older man behind the register. Taking a hundred dollar bill from his pocket, Todd slapped it on the counter.
“Hey, mister, I can’t change that,” said the clerk.
“You don’t need to change it...it’s yours for the right information. Early this morning I got a call from my daughter...I think it was from here. She’s about this tall, blonde, 8 years old. She was traveling with two women and a baby.”
“Oh, sure, I remember her. Cutest little thing. She said she had to call her daddy and asked me to help her with the phone.”
“Where did they go.”
“Well, I can’t say...I think they headed next door to the Blackstone Motel last I saw of them.”
Todd turned quickly and walked out the door as RJ followed.
RJ had a hard time keeping up with Todd’s quick pace. They entered the motel office and noticed it was empty. Todd walked over to the desk and hit the little bell on the counter non-stop!
DING-DING-DING! DING-DING-DING! DING-DING-DING! DING-DING-DING!
A heavy, blond woman came out from the back looking very annoyed.
“Hold your horses, mister. Stop ringing that damn bell...I can hear you!”
The woman looked up at these two long-haired, well dressed men and instinctively put her hand beneath the counter, feeling for her baseball bat.
“What do you want?”
Todd placed another bill on the counter and as the woman’s hand went for it Todd slapped his hand on hers.
“Lady, I need to know if you rented a motel room to two women with a baby and a blond little girl, earlier this morning.”
The woman stared at him and shook her head.
“No...I didn’t.”
Todd looked dejected and started to walk away.
“I rented them a cabin up at the top of the mountain.”
Todd and RJ turned quickly.
“Yeah, I thought it was kind of strange, two pretty young women like that and those two lovely children wanting a hunting cabin at this time of year.”
“Where’s the cabin. How do I get there?” asked Todd desperately.
The woman continued to size them up.
“Is this some kind of domestic dispute...I don’t want any trouble up there.”
“Lady...this is life and death. Those are my kids and one of those women is very sick.”
The woman leaned over the counter.
“Well come to think of it, I did find it a bit odd that the smaller, dark-haired woman was wearing next to nothing and she was bare-footed! I mean up here at this time of year it can get pretty cold.”
Todd stared out the window, looking up to the dark top of the mountain, recalling what Tea was wearing when he left her. Raking his hands through his hair he turned back to the woman behind the counter.
“How do I get up there and how long will it take?”
“Here’s a map of the trails leading to the cabins...I’ll write the lot number write on there for you. And it’ll take you about half an hour...but you better hurry. It gets dark pretty quickly up there.”
Todd grabbed the map and ran out the door with RJ close behind him. The woman waddled to the window and noticed them getting into an expensive black sports car and watched it peel out of the parking lot. She scratched her head a bit.
“Drug-dealers, I bet,” she said to herself, walking back behind the counter and calling 911.
CABIN
Starr and Leo were asleep in one of the cots as Tea put more wood into the stove, wanting to keep the place warm for them. The sun was descending on the horizon and the fading light was casting long, black shadows across the room forming sinister ribbons of dark and light that slashed across the walls as Blair stood in a dark corner eyeing Tea quietly. Blair looked over at the sleeping children and pulled the gun out of her pocket, pointing it at Tea and motioning for her to stand up.
“Come on. Let’s go outside...I don’t want to wake up my babies,” she whispered to Tea.
Tea got up and headed for the door. Opening it, she turned around and looked at Leo sleeping quietly in Starr’s little arms. His golden hair was spilling over his face and as he breathed softly it billowed like a feather away from his nose. He was a cherub lying there, a soft, doughy angel sleeping the slumber of the innocent, unaware of the danger and evil around him. Thomas Leon was the essence of her love for Todd Manning, the most poignant proof that it existed and whether she lived or died she knew this part of them would live on. She wondered if this was her last vision of her son, and the last memory of her lover.
As she stepped out on the small porch, a gust of chilly wind ran through her and she wrapped her arms around herself for warmth. Blair closed the door quietly behind them.
“Let’s go...move...that way,” instructed Blair, keeping a safe distance behind her.
“Where are we going, Blair?”
They got to the end of the clearing and noticed the entrances to a number of paths going off in different directions. Blair walked around looking at all the different trails as Tea watched her trying to make a decision. For some strange reason Tea kept remembering a poem she’d read in college about roads drifting off in different directions and in choosing one over another, one’s destiny was forever sealed.
The two women stood there in the tree shadows of the blustery, late afternoon, looking at their paths, selecting their destiny, but only one of them got to choose, the one holding the gun.
“Move, Tea...start walking that way,” said Blair holding the gun up as she pointed up a long, narrow dirt path. Tea looked up and started walking slowly, her feet cold and aching as she tried to avoid the many jagged rocks along the dirt path and dug her feet into the hard dirt leaving deep, well defined tracks in her wake.
As they went deeper into the woods the forest started getting darker as the trees got denser and Tea noticed that the path was strewn with fallen leaves and pine needles and she could no longer leave her footprints behind. Suddenly they came to a fork in the path and Tea stopped and turned around.
“Which way, Blair...where are you taking me. The kids will be getting up soon and they’ll get scared if we’re not there.”
“Don’t worry about my children, Tea. I’ll be there when they wake up...but you won’t.”
Fear crept into Tea’s eyes as Blair smiled at her and waved the gun around slowly, toying with her.
“Blair...you can’t do this. If you...kill...me, you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison. You’ll never see Starr or Todd again...is that what you want?” asked Tea, trying to engage her in conversation, perhaps getting through to her somehow.
“No one knows we’re up here. No one will know, or care, where you are.”
“Todd will,” she said quietly, “Todd will find me.”
Blair laughed.
“Todd will forget you in a minute, just like before. And I’ll be there to comfort him and be a wife to him.”
“What about Starr, Blair? She knows I’m here...how will you explain it to her.”
“I’ll tell Starr you left so that we could get our family back. That’s what Starr wants more than anything so she’ll believe it.”
Tears started to fall from Tea’s eyes.
“And what about my baby...what will become of him.”
Blair lunged forward suddenly, the gun pointed at Tea’s chest, her finger gripping the trigger nervously as Tea jumped back quickly.
“That’s MY baby...MY baby! He came out of my body! He’s mine and Todd’s...not yours!” she screamed as her voice echoed eerily off the trees and the sound continued bouncing throughout the woods, fading slowly away.
“Blair...listen to me. You lost your baby...think...try and remember. You lost your baby,” cried Tea, trying desperately to jog her memory.
Blair stared at her. For an instance she seemed lucid and her free hand slid down her body and caressed her empty stomach. Her eyes seemed far away for a moment and they filled with tears which fell softly down her cheeks as she shook her head slowly.
“No....no....no! I didn’t lose my baby...my baby’s with Starr,” she said, suddenly looking up at Tea with abhorrence. “You‘re trying to trick me! You took Todd, you took Starr and now you’re trying to take my baby too...but you won’t. I won’t let you. Now move...that way,” she said pointing toward the left path.
Tea started moving up the left path, but suddenly fell and cried out, her foot gashed and bleeding from hitting a large, sharp rock sticking out from the leaves on the side of the path. Tears formed in her eyes as the sharp pain shot up through her foot. She grabbed her foot with both hands and massaged it.
“Blair, I can’t walk anymore. Please...let’s just go back to the cabin,” she said sitting on the ground, nursing her foot.
“MOVE!,” screamed Blair, as she stuck the gun in Tea’s face with such force, it slashed a small cut on her forehead which immediately started bleeding. Tea jumped up quickly and started up the path again, limping softly, as Blair walked behind her.
They walked for a while till finally they came to a clearing. The dying sun filtered softly through the trees and there was a deathly silence in the air as the two women stood a few yards apart looking at each other without blinking. Once again here they were at a stand off--ancient rivals--staring each other down to see who blinked first. Once again trying to keep what was theirs and trying to take what wasn’t.
Blair looked at Tea in her thin, scanty clothing, torn and caked with dirt from the path. A small, thin trickle of blood ran down the side of her pale face from her forehead as Tea pushed her wild, tangled hair back with swaggering bravado as if preparing to do battle. Her dirty feet were all torn up--bruised and bleeding. She was shivering wildly, but her head was held high and her chin was jutted out as she looked at Blair defiantly.
Blair sneered. She wanted Tea to show fear, to grovel for her life, but she would not. She held up the gun and pointed straight at Tea’s head.
“Now, you die, Tea.”
2002 Copyright by Trog
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