Perfect Summer (14 page)

            I
had dropped my bag when he bumped into me, and when I bent to pick it up, I saw
a note beside it.

STUDY
GROUP MEETING TONIGHT at 7 in the science building, lab 5.

I smiled. What
a coincidence. I was about to go online to check the schedule, but now I didn’t
have to.

Chapter
12

T
he science building where the study group’s
meeting to be held was a bit too dark for my liking. It was 7 pm, and I still
didn’t see anyone else show up for the meeting, but I went ahead to the door of
the building, hoping to see if  it was unlocked.

I
tried the door, and it gave way, opening up just enough for me to enter the
building.

Except
for some light at the end of the hallway, which seemed to be coming from one of
the rooms, the hallway was dark, almost pitch black.

I
pulled out my phone and quickly sent a text to Drew, wondering where he was. I
thought he’d agreed to meet me for the meeting, if he could make it.

A
text came back immediately from Drew.

Drew: I’m running late because of football
practice, but I’ll be there.

Me:  Good. See you soon. But I think everyone
else is late.

After
I sent him the information where the classroom was, and which building, I put
my phone away in my jeans pocket, and walked faster toward the room with the
light. Maybe everyone was already inside, and I was lingering outside while
they waited for stragglers to show up.

As
I rounded the corner a couple of doors from the room, I heard a faint sound
come from there…the cheesy music to an 80s show. It was oddly familiar, but not
familiar enough where I can recognize it immediately.

I
finally reached the room and was about to walk in when I noticed there was no
one there. No other students, just a small computer monitor in the middle of
the room, playing the music loudly while collages of photographs flashed across
the screen.

The
walls seemed to enclose me, as I recognized in horror the same collage made of
my personal photos and of Aunt Sookie’s were flashing on screen. The same one
left on my computer at the Academy. Sloane’s.

The
music of the television show came clearly to me then. It was the theme song to
The Red Phoenix, the only science fiction show Aunt Sookie had been in, playing
the beautiful super heroine Red Phoenix.

It
dawned on me what this was about…a set up. Whoever left me that note about the
study class, had purposely gave me the wrong information, leading me here.

I
was not going to panic. I hurriedly walked out of the room and began almost
running down the hall. At first I thought I heard footsteps following me, but I
kept going, towards the front door of the Science building, which was at the
far end.

Thanks
to my volleyball practices, I was still in top athletic shape, but the distance
to the door seemed so far away. I was almost to the door when a dark figure
jumped in front of me. He was big and tall, and from the shadows in the dark,
he wore a baseball cap. The student in the grey sweatshirt who had bumped into
me today.

Instantly
my heartbeat rose, and my body responded to the familiar foul scent of the man,
who had attacked me at Aunt Sookie’s Academy by recoiling at first, and then
getting ready to fight. The memory of him grinding on me as he broke my elbow and
shoved his grubby hands into my mouth to keep me from screaming, made my
stomach clenched in fear. But at the same time, I felt an increase rush of
adrenaline go through me, fueling me newfound energy.

Before
he reached me, I turned around and ran as fast as I could the other direction,
grateful for the burst of energy and all the jogging along the beach I did with
Nat on weekends. I should be able to keep going for a good while until I can
find an exit. But glancing back, I could see he was right behind me, chasing me
with a relentless pace. He seemed determined to get me. And he was quickly
catching up.

I
kept running, and even tried to lose him but he was quick and fast, with
reflexes that was highly trained. What was he? I didn’t have time to ponder as
I tried desperately to pour the last of my energy into a power sprint.

I
took off for a while, and then slowed down to almost a crawl. The burst of
energy was fleeting and brief. I was almost exhausted and nearing the end of my
energy level when those grubby hands wrapped around my neck.

Chapter
13

A
t moments like these where you were at the
mercy of some raving lunatic, you’d pray to God that you’d have sense enough to
keep your mouth shut or at least say the right words.

His
hands were on my neck, squeezing hard, cutting off my breath, while I struggled
to get out. I had only a few seconds left before I would lose consciousness and
become brain damaged or dead. I didn’t even have the oxygen to spare to talk
him out of the situation.

Somewhere
in the back of my mind, I remembered what to do. Self-defense classes, karate
classes, and even something from watching martial arts movies with Drew and Nat
over the years. It was too late for regrets that I didn’t equip myself with
pepper spray or a stun gun as I had planned earlier. I had to make do with what
I had at the moment. I clenched my hands into fists, and pulled forward, trying
to slip through the hole I created. No luck, he held on tightly.

I
then pull forward and punched him in the ribs with my elbows. He let out a
grunt, and loosened his hold on my neck. At that moment, I lifted my foot and
stomp as hard as I could down on his foot, which made him drop his hands from
my neck. I started coughing, but as sore as my neck was, I had to get away.

Gulping
down air into my inflamed lungs, I moved as fast as I could away from him until
I was in the dark hallway. Somewhere there was another exit that was
accessible. I had dropped my bag near the entrance the first time I tried to
get away, but had to leave it. Hopefully it will let whoever happened to show
up, know there was someone in the building, and something wasn’t quite right.

“Bitch!’
the man’s voice angrily called out. “I’m going to get you once and for all.”

I
thought I had made some distance away from him, but I was wrong. The man, who
had been stalking Aunt Sookie for years, crept up behind me and grabbed my
waist. “No!” I shouted. “Let go!”

“Not
until I do what I’ve dreamt about doing to you once and for all!” he said.

“I’m
not Sookie,” I said. “I don’t even know why you’d waste your time going after
me like this.”

“You’re
her daughter,” the man said. “You look just like her when she was your age.”

“No,
I’m not. I’m her niece, but more importantly, I’m not her. She’s gone. She’s
dead. Why go after her?”

“Because,”
he said. “She was mine.”

“You
can’t own anyone,” I said.

“She
owned me,” Sloane said. “We were about to be married, but she left me, and came
to Hollywood. It changed her, turned her into a slut…a harlot, made her sell
herself out. All you see of her on television, in the Red Phoenix show, and
some films…it wasn’t her. She was a sweet small town girl, whose only ambitions
in life was to please me, make me breakfast, feed my dogs…then she took an
acting class at the local theater, got her guts up to audition for the star
role, got it, and then thought she was good enough for Hollywood. She left me
as soon as she got a small role in some commercial. Next thing I hear, she’s
dating people in the biz. Some hotshot actor, then some producer. Had a kid out
of wedlock with an actor…she had become morally depraved, and it was my duty to
make sure she didn’t taint the rest of the world with her lies and sins.”

I
took a deep breath, thinking through what I was going to say. I had to keep him
talking. Sooner or later, Drew will find me. He knew I would be here for the
meeting. I just hoped he would figure out the date and time was a set up and
try to find me…if only I can get a chance to text him…

“Are
you sure that was Aunt Sookie?” I asked. “Are you getting her mixed up with
someone else? That biography sounded a lot like Norma Jean Baker’s um, Marilyn
Monroe’s life. Because no one these days, um, no woman of Sookie’s age, would
go for that taking care of her man’s needs, making him breakfast, and feeding
his dog shit. You wanted a servant, not a wife.”

Great.
I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

I
cringed when Sloane threw me an angry look and slapped me. “Watch your mouth,
girl,” he said. “You don’t talk that way to your superiors.”

Wow,
Sloane was more messed up than I could imagine. The woman he described as Aunt
Sookie was someone else I was sure. It was the type of Hollywood rags to riches
bio the press machines back in the early days of Hollywood would put together
for most of their contracted studio stars. Back then, a role of a woman was so
different than today. Aunt Sookie never grew up on a farm, never got engaged to
some chauvinist, didn’t get knocked up by an actor, and sure did not live in
some small town where the only opportunity to act was in the small town
theater. This guy was seriously whacked. Putting his fantasy of Sookie in with
some Hollywood starlet fantasy of the 1940s.

He
wasn’t that old, (about thirty-six or so) too, not old enough to have been
alive in the 40s, but Nat had said Sloane was obsessed with comic books and
superheroes. Red Phoenix was a comic book super heroine from the 40s.

“Look,
I’m sorry Aunt Sookie disappointed you, ran off from your farm and became an
actress living in sin,” I said. “But she’s gone. She’s dead. She’s repaid all
the wrongs she’d inflicted on you. You can’t live in the past with her. You
have to move on.” I paused. “You’re young still, and attractive enough…you have
a whole life ahead of you. You can find some sweet girl who would want to stay
home with you, make you breakfast and feed your dogs, but you can’t when you’re
stuck in the past, only thinking of what happened between you and Aunt Sookie.”

Sloane
looked like he was chewing over what I just said to him, which made me relaxed
a bit.  Where was Drew?

“You
think I’m attractive,” he said, moving his suddenly lust-filled eyes all over
my body.

“Attractive
to some girl who likes men like you,” I said. Boy was that some roundabout
answer.

“Well,
I’m attracted to you,” he said, moving his hand closer until he was lying on
top of my thigh. He began moving his hand up and down my thigh. “That first
time I saw you at your Aunt’s acting school, you were on the ground of the
theater, and your dress was up to your stomach, showing off your filthy
panties.” He shuddered, as though he just climaxed in his pants. “You are a
dirty dirty girl. You’re just like Sookie, using your beauty to charm men,
leading them on, and then dumping them aside.” He leaned in, his breath
smelling like an ashtray full of rotten eggs and beef jerky. I almost gagged.
“I have to cleanse you, make you whole to be good enough to sit at the supper
table.”

He
pushed me down, and tore at my jeans, while fumbling with the button and zipper
on his… Oh no! This. Was. Not. Happening. I tried to kick him off, to knee him
in the groin, but he was a good hundred pounds larger than me, and had pinned
me in place with his body.

“No!”
I cried. “I don’t want this. You can’t force me to have sex with you!”

“Who
said we’re having sex,” he said, reaching into his jeans pocket. “I’m going to
brand you with an ‘S’ for slut.”

You
mean ‘S’ for ‘Scarlett’ as in the Scarlett Letter!

My
eyes widen in fear when he pulled out a pocket knife with the sharpest blade.

I
tried to head butt him, but he moved his head. Then I tried to find a hold on
him to flip him over like in judo, but he seemed to anticipate my every move.

He
laughed at my feeble attempt at escaping. “Ex-police officer, now a bodyguard
working for a security company known to be celebrity’s top pick.”

I
gulped.

“Donovan
Dynamics,” Sloan said. “How else did you think I can get some of those photos
of you?”

“You…people
trust you to protect them…” I was so angry, I raised my hand and slapped him
hard.

Did
Nat or Drew even knew he worked in their father’s company?

His
head fell back for a second, before he steadied it to look angrily at me. “For
that, missy, you will get fucked, roughly and painfully. I will mess you up so
bad that even dogs wouldn’t want to stick their dicks into you.”

He
ripped off my jeans and pulled my underwear down. I wanted to throw up. “No,” I
said forcefully. “You will not violate my body like that. You do not have my
permission.”

“No?”
he said.

            “No!
Asshole!” Drew grabbed Sloan’s head to punch him while he kicked away his
knife.

            “Drew!”
I sighed, getting up unsteadily.

            “Go,
run, go to the police,” Drew said quickly. “This guy’s ex-army. He knows how to
fight…”

            Sloane’s
fist slammed against Drew right when he said that, and Drew stumbled back. “Go!”
Drew said right before Sloane dragged him up and punched him again.

            I
turned to go, but I didn’t. Drew needed me here. I wasn’t some kind of damsel
in distress. I could fight. I could help.

            I
brought out my phone and called 911, telling them the exact location, and even
called Nat about Donovan Dynamics’ security breach…Sloane.

            Then
I ran to the nearest emergency fire system, broke the glass, and pulled out the
extinguisher. The alarm sounded, sending a signal across campus and to the
local fire department that there was a fire at the science building.