Waiting by Erin Dennington ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 83 Davis knew that they should hurry but the going was tough in the unfamiliar territory, so after awhile he gave up and let Stella lead. She walked ahead of him with a lot more confidence in the dark, but then again, she had already "been in" the laboratory once before. As they walked along, Davis' mind drifted to the next stage in what they had to do. The presence of the camcorder case by the entrance suggested that Bill and Marty had changed the plan, as well. The plot working well hinged on the guys being able to record Matthew's "confession," but if they did not have the camcorder, then Davis did not see how they could tape the manifesto. So that meant that they would have to rethink their plan and come up with a better way to take Matthew down. Davis had grown up in a middle class family who had scraped and saved every penny that they had made so that he could go to college. There had been many a time when Davis had been chased around the school's playground by the class bully, who would taunt Davis so much that one day he provoked Davis into a fight. This bully knew that Davis' family did not have extra money to spare and one day his stupid taunts became even more bold than they normally were. Davis, knowing that he was very out-matched, tricked the bully into following him underneath the jungle gym where Davis then jumped off and landed on the bully. The bully had an intense need to see his victims up close so that he could see their expressions as he taunted them. This time that characteristic proved to be his downfall. A broken leg and phone call to his parents later and Davis had become the class superhero. This current situation was very similar to the childhood one in that Davis was the underdog and Matthew was the bully. There would be no jungle gym to escape onto this time. However, if Davis could only discover the one weak flaw in his enemy, then he could easily take Matthew out, just as he had taken the bully out when he was only 10. The tricky part would be finding that one weakness and exploiting it. Knowing that Matthew was a greedy man at the core, Davis considered and threw out several alternate plans. They needed to exploit his weakness, not let him use it to his advantage. That is why Davis knew it was even more imperative that they find Christina, so that he could ask Matthew's wife just what they should do. A corner of his lip turned up as he realized that this new plan might just be the thing to help Christina get over Matthew's betrayal. Stella, who had been walking ahead of Davis by no more than a foot, suddenly stopped and Davis almost ran into her. "What's wrong?" he asked and she moved aside so that he could see. Christina, looking bedraggled and battered, was hunched over a lab stool, holding her left arm closely to her side. In the dim light from the overhead emergency lights, Davis could see the discolorations on her neck and cheekbones. He assumed that they were bruises; it was obvious that she had suffered at Matthew's hands, which made Davis resolve even more to make Matthew suffer even more than he had originally intended. Stella strode over to Christina and placed her palms against Christina's side. "You have a cracked rib," she said, gently running her fingers against Christina's ribs. "Does it hurt worse here?" she asked, stopping her fingers directly above the kidney. Christina nodded, her breath shallowly wheezing out. Due to the lack of light in the immediate area, Davis was unable to see exactly what Stella was doing to Christina but he assumed that she was using her unique, magical touch on Christina. When Stella pulled back and moved out of the way, he could see that Christina appeared to be able to breathe once again without any sign of pain. Now that she appeared to be healed and free of pain, Davis asked Christina what she remembered about what had happened. She told them that she had been hiding in the waiting room by sitting absolutely still when her husband had appeared out of nowhere and abducted her. "He told me that if I did not go with him freely, he would make me go with him, but he ended up hurting me, anyway. I don't remember how I got here or what happened to me after we got here, since I was out cold." Davis told Christina that they had formed a plan to rescue her and bring Matthew down, but they had been forced to alter it when the group had split up and too much had gone wrong in the intervening time. "We don't really have a new plan," he told her, "unless you can give us a weakness of his that we could exploit and use to our advantage." Drawing a deep and pain-free breath, Christina hopped down off the stool and said, "Then follow me; I know just what will hit him the most." 21:17 - 11.30.02 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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