Et Tu?

Cellblock Earth: Chapter 5

Trigger Warning: The content in this chapter may be distressing for some readers. Discretion advised.

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

Tory held a large glass goblet filled with pure water to her mouth and watched Vivi across the table.

They were seated in the corner on the patio of an upscale café, where Tory was sure the host had placed them so their untidy appearance wouldn’t bother the other patrons. Mystery #1, she decided, was why he had agreed to seat them at all. She had seen by his cold eyes and the slight curl on his upper lip that he would have much preferred to tell them to get lost before he called the police.

But instead, he had picked up two menus with a distinctly put-out attitude and shown them to the most out of the way table available. She didn’t mind at all sitting out here. The night was lovely and temperate, with a silken breeze caressing their cheeks and a picturesque view of the street with the vast, dark expanse of the ocean beyond.

She just wanted to know why.

She also wanted to know why her road dog was acting so strange. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn Vivi was on something. She giggled and talked incessantly, barely allowing time to shovel the sumptuous meal she had ordered down her throat. Then again, Tory thought, maybe she didn’t know better. It wasn’t like she and Vivi had been friends very long. Never in their brief acquaintance had she acted in any way as if she were doing drugs, but that really didn’t mean anything.

Tory sighed quietly and drank her water, enjoying the clean, crisp taste. She had ordered grilled fish with vegetables which smelled delicious, but she had found herself not very hungry when it arrived. Meanwhile, Vivi was somehow managing to inhale her spicy meat stew and tell stories about the township in Pretoria where she came from at the same time.

“Hey… something wrong with your fishie?” Vivi asked, finally noticing that Tory wasn’t eating. Tory shook her head and glanced around, her eyes roving over the other diners on the patio.

“It’s good. I’m just not all that hungry, I guess.”

Vivi tsked, waving her fork at Tory.

“I know you must be hungry, girl. We been living off biltong and chips for almost a week.”

Tory eyed her companion and set down the glass.

“I’m not comfortable here, Viv. I don’t know how you got that money, but I think you should be hanging on to as much of it as you can. We could have grabbed a couple burgers, and it would’ve been fine.”

Vivi looked down, stabbing her fork into a chunk of meat.

“I told you not to worry about the money, didn’t I? There’s plenty.”

She sat up straight in her chair and looked at Tory.

“You’re hurting my feelings now, bokkie. I want to share my good luck with you, but all you do is worry about tomorrow. There might not be a tomorrow, you know? You got to enjoy what you have today.”

The apprehension nagging at Tory skyrocketed.

“Why would you say something like that?” she said, leveling an intense stare at Vivi. “I feel like you’re not telling me something I need to know.”

“I don’t know nothing you don’t know. You being paranoid,” Vivi muttered, returning her attention to the food on her plate.

Tory stared at Vivi for several seconds, then made a decision. Pushing away from the table, she stood and retrieved her bag from the floor. Vivi’s head snapped up in surprise.

“Where you going?”

“I need to make a call and then I’m going to figure out where to crash tonight. I want to get out of here. This place is giving me the heebie-jeebies.”

A disgruntled expression formed on Vivi’s face.

“You can’t wait for me?” she asked.

The whining tone in Vivi’s voice made Tory dig her fingernails into her palm until she felt them bite into the skin.

“I don’t want to,” she declared. “I’m out of here. Find me later if you feel like it.”

Before Vivi could protest further, Tory left the patio and walked back through the restaurant towards the entrance. As she passed the host’s podium, she flipped him her middle finger, keeping her gaze fixed on the door. Once outside, she turned left and kept walking until she reached the end of the street. The desire to put distance between herself and the café propelled her forward. She knew she wouldn’t be seeing Vivi again. Something wrong was going on with her and Tory didn’t want any part of it.

Feeling the pull of the ocean even in the darkness, Tory headed back in the direction of the beach. She longed to hear the rhythmic sound of the surf in her ears, cooling down her overheated and frayed nerves. A few blocks into her trek, she pulled a small burner phone out of her jeans pocket and hit speed dial. As she listened to the number she had dialed ringing on the other end, she resumed her path to the shoreline. A male voice answered on the third ring.

“Tory? Are you okay?”

She smiled as the deep, warm, familiar voice washed over her like a soothing balm.

“Hi, Wayne. How are you?” she said.

“Worried about you. Did you make it to Cape Town?”

She frowned slightly, hearing his anxiety through the phone. She hated causing him any kind of distress, and she would not have involved him in the mess her life had become, but she needed the contact with him. He was the only remaining link to her old reality and she clung to it as if it were a buoy in the middle of a storm-tossed sea.

“Yeah, I made it. Not sure where I’m gonna go here. That girl I told you about got weird, so I’m on my own again.”

“Tory, please watch yourself,” Wayne urged. “Man, it’s driving me nuts thinking about you all alone in freakin’ Africa, of all places. Could that psycho have taken you anywhere further away from here?”

Trying to lighten the mood, she quipped, “At least it’s not the Middle East, right? I could be up to my eyeballs in sand and AK-47’s. And somehow I don’t think burkas fit my style sensibility.”

Wayne laughed, then stopped himself abruptly. He obviously didn’t feel like jokes, and Tory couldn’t really blame him.

“What can I do to help? I feel so useless this far away.”

Reaching the end of the block, Tory could hear waves crashing ahead and stopped walking to focus completely on the conversation.

“Were you able to find anything out about Jason?” she asked, thinking she should dampen the rising hope she felt. It was always so hard to take when there wasn’t any good news. Wayne surprised her, however.

“I actually did. I went by to see Tony’s parents yesterday. Hadn’t talked to them since… Well, you know, since everything went down.”

Tory murmured in response, wincing involuntarily. The mere mention of Tony sent her into a paroxysm of guilt. Wayne was very aware of that, although he kept reassuring her that what happened at Moorbrook High School was not her fault. She politely begged to differ with him. She knew she very much had a hand in those events and she was going to own it, no matter what.

“Anyway, I asked if they had heard from Tony and they said he called them a week ago from the middle of nowhere Montana. He told them he was out there with some girl named Helena, a man named Nik and your brother.”

Tory realized she was holding her breath and exhaled. She finally had a location after two months of nothing. The joy she felt was positively exhilarating.

“Oh, my God, Wayne, that’s- that’s awesome!” she exclaimed. “Did they know anything else? Is he all right? Who are these people he’s with?”

The hesitation in his voice brought Tory’s ardor down a few notches.

“That’s all they could tell me, Tory. Apparently, he didn’t stay on the phone long and didn’t give them any details. They’re devastated by the whole thing. They tried to tell him to come home, that they would help him deal with the police and all, but he wouldn’t even talk to them about it. He just said he would try to call again and then he hung up.”

With all of the excitement she had felt only seconds before about to be crushed beneath disappointment, Tory resolved to only focus on the good in what Wayne had just told her. After all, it was a lead, a start.

“Okay,” she said. “That’s still huge, Wayne. He’s alive, he’s with other people and he’s in the U.S. That’s way more information than I had before. Thank you.”

Wayne muttered in agreement, clearly not satisfied.

“But what are you going to do, Tory? I don’t see how any of that helps you.”

Beginning to pace up and down the sidewalk where she had halted, Tory crossed her arms and held the phone close to her cheek. Now that night had fallen, the temperature had dropped considerably, and the wind coming in off the ocean carried a distinct chill.

A shiver passed over her body and she tucked her arms in closer to her chest. She would have to find a place to go soon. She tried not to dwell on the question of where she was going to sleep tonight and if it would be warm. Instead, she concentrated on the image of Jason that had come into her mind when she had asked about him. The picture was so vibrant and sharp, it almost felt like she was looking at a photograph in her hand.

“Listen, Wayne, I’m gonna try to get enough money together to come back to the States,” she said. “I have no idea how to do it, but I’ll figure it out. It’s risky for me, but I have to find Jason. I feel like he’s in trouble. I’m not going to be able to rest until I see him.”

Wayne’s agreement was much more definitive this time.

“Yes, come home. I’ll buy your ticket; I have some money saved. Don’t worry about the risk. We’ll make sure you stay under the radar. Do you have your passport?”

Tory stopped moving, her mouth dropping open.

“You would do that for me, Wayne? I-I…” she trailed off.

“Yes, Tory, I would and I’m going to,” he said, his voice full of conviction. “Passport? Do you have it?”

“Uh… no. B has it. At least I think he does. No big deal. I’m sure I can get a fake one. I’ll do some digging around tomorrow. Oh, my God, Wayne. There’s no way I can thank you for this.”

Before she could hear Wayne’s response, the phone lifted out of Tory’s hand and a punishing grip descended upon the back of her neck. A wave of nausea threatened to overtake her when Bastien’s low, furious voice spoke into her ear.

“Believe me when I tell you there is no need for you to have a passport, Victoria.”

Her knees weakened and almost buckled as fear flooded through her. She tried desperately to calm down and hold it together. Dealing with B absolutely required having her wits about her. She could feel the anger radiating from him, and her thoughts raced to come up with a plan.

“B, don’t take it personally, okay? I just didn’t fit in at Camp Sleepaway. At least you have one less mouth to feed up there now.”

Bastien’s hold on her neck tightened for a moment and she grimaced as the gloves he wore pulled on her trapped hair.

“Oh, but I do take it very personally” he said. “You’re the whole reason we’re all here. Without you, the purpose is defeated. And I will not have that.”

“You’ve got like, six other people, B. Why does it make a difference if I’m there or not?” Tory protested. “Look, I’m not really cut out for the cult thing, all right? I’m more of a loner.”

Bastien released Tory’s neck and quick as lightning, placed a vise-like hold on her upper arm. She swallowed a frustrated sigh and glanced at his face, being very careful not to look him straight in the eye. In her few months with him, she had become savvy to most of his underhanded maneuvers. His magazine model face was immobilized into a perfect mask and Tory began to comprehend the depth of his ire.

“They are incidental to me. You are the one I want, Victoria. I can see you are under the impression that you have a choice about this. I have to rid you of that delusion.”

Making sure she was paying attention, Bastien held the burner phone in front of her and threw it forcefully down. It hit the ground and broke apart. Lifting his booted foot, he brought his heel down on top of the largest piece and ground it into slivers of plastic and metal parts.

“Goddamn it,” Tory muttered.

Irritation replaced her previous caution about B’s displeasure. She tugged her arm, trying to dislodge it from his grasp.

“Let go of me, B. I want to go home. I’m not special, all right? You don’t need me for whatever it is you’re doing. I’ve got my own problems I have to deal with, for Chrissakes.”

To her utter surprise, Bastien broke out into a laugh. The sound was not at all pleasant and Tory rapidly deduced it was not happy laughter. Goosebumps broke out all over her skin and fear returned to snake along her veins. Taking hold of her other arm, he held her completely still and gazed closely at her uneasy face.

“The funny thing is you honestly don’t have any idea just how ‘special’ you really are, Victoria. It’s likely that there quite literally is no one else like you in the entire universe. Except for your brother, of course. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Tory fidgeted as he held her and focused her eyes on his throat. She was damned if she was going to make it easy for him, the son of a bitch.

“You’re talking crazy. I’m just a girl. Nothing different about me” she said.

Bastien nodded and smiled.

“I know that’s what you believe right now. You’ll come to know otherwise. I just want to make one thing totally clear to you, Victoria.”

He released one of her arms to capture her chin and made her meet his eyes.

“You are mine. I found you, and you belong to me. You will never succeed in escaping. I will make sure you don’t ever see daylight again before I allow you to get away.”

Shocked by his declaration, it was too late by the time Tory noticed the glint of the hypodermic needle in Bastien’s leather-clad fingers. It sunk into the side of her neck before she could react. She was out in seconds, slumped into his waiting embrace. As he carried her to a car parked a few yards away, Vivi emerged from the dark, watching.

“Hey. You ain’t gonna hurt her or nothing, are you?” she asked timidly. “I feel kinda bad for ratting her out, you know.”

Bastien deposited Tory in the back seat, fastened her seatbelt and straightened up to look at the hovering ragged girl standing on the sidewalk.

“She trusted you, didn’t she?” he asked casually, removing his gloves as he spoke.

Vivi shrugged defensively, shifting her eyes away from him.

“Well, yeah, I guess so. But it’s hard when you’re out on your own, man. You gotta do what you gotta do. It’s nothing personal. She knows that. That’s a tough one you got there. Don’t be fooled by how she looks.”

“I agree with you one hundred percent” Bastien said. “She definitely is not to be underestimated. Unfortunately, I think both of us did.”

A muffled crack whipped through the soft night air and Vivi crumpled to the ground without a sound, a thin stream of blood beginning to flow from the hole in her forehead.

Bastien regarded her body emotionlessly as he slipped the gun and silencer back into his pocket.

“It won’t happen again,” he said, and climbed into the car to slip quietly away down the shadowed street.

🌍🌍🌍

Chapters: 1,2,3,4