Secrets, Lies, and Other Acts of Love
Chapter 13: On the edge
“Don’t look down,” Jonathan whispered to himself as he clung precariously to the
ledge of the hotel, two stories above the street. “Don’t look down.”
He moved his feet cautiously along the narrow ledge.
He was very scared and just six years old.
But he was not your average six year old. For as long as he could remember, Jonathan
and his mother had lived a life in hiding and on the run. While Jonathan didn’t really
understand why they had to move a lot and change names sometimes, he had learned
the rules fast. One of those rules was that you never enter a room that doesn’t have a
second escape route. Another was that you always had to listen for danger. The third
was that you trusted your instincts.
When he had heard the door to the room crash, he had acted on those instincts and
fled out the window and onto the ledge.
He had barely made it when the gunfire began.
Sean was dead. He had only known Sean for a few hours but he had liked him. He
had liked all of them. Sean, Luke, Lucky, and Jason. Although he admitted that Lucky
was his favorite and Jason sometimes gave him the creeps because he rarely smiled.
But Lucky and Jason and Luke had left hours ago to rescue his mother. And now Sean
was dead. Which meant he was alone.
At least this time he hadn’t had to actually watch the man die. As bad as it was to hear,
he knew from experience that it was worse to see.
Finally after what seemed like forever, he made it to the window of the adjoining hotel
room. The window was cracked open slightly and working carefully Jonathan was able
to open the window so that he could slide in.
The room was dark and deserted.
Jonathan sat down on the bed. For the moment he was safe. Then he started to shiver.
And finally he did what any six year old would do.
He started to cry.
Helena’s quarters
The compound
The bitch was crazy, Lucky realized as he watched Helena pace the room. This must
be her private quarters he realizes. They are filled with pictures of her dead husband
and children, almost life size portraits that seem to dominate and control the room. He
recognizes Mikkos, Stavros, and Victor from his parent’s stories. He doesn’t see any
of Stefan. He tries to find a resemblance between Stavros and Nikolas but fails. The
rest of the decoration reminds him of Wyndemare when Stefan was alive, elegant yet
oppressive. There is a heavy scent in the air that he recognizes as the same kind of
incense that Lu sometimes likes to burn.
The overall effect is one of creepiness.
The way Helena is acting is even creepier.
She dismissed the guards once he was bound and gagged. Then she went to each
portrait and began talking to it, like the person in was still alive and in the room. It was
strange to hear her bragging to a dead Mikkos about she was going to find Jonathan
and raise him to be the kind of Cassadine she would be proud of. Or tell Stavros how
she had killed Stefan to pay Stefan back for his betrayal.
Unwillingly, and for the shortest of minutes, he finds himself feeling sorry for her. Her
obsession with the Cassadine past had cost her any chance of finding any true
happiness in the present. She was more pathetic than evil.
Than he remembered the welts on Emily’s back and her blood spurting against his
hand and he knew that Helena was evil.
Evil and insane and very powerful.
He was going to die. He knew that. Hell, if he was honest with himself he would admit
that he had never really expected to make it out of Helena’s compound alive. All he
had cared about was finding Emily and making sure she was safe.
And he had done that. He had taken the homing beacon that Jason had planted on him
and put it on her. She didn’t even know what he had done. Now Jason and Luke
would be able to find her. God willing, they would get her out of this nightmare alive.
Emily and Jonathan would be reunited. And he would have kept his promise to
Jonathan.
And he would have saved Emily’s life just like he now realized she had saved his. In
more ways than he could count.
He remembered the funeral where he had first spotted her, where this whole nightmare
had began. He remembered the rush of feeling when their eyes clicked. His desperate
need to help her.
It had been the first time in three years that he had felt anything. With one look, Emily
had resurrected the dead. Him. All the parts of him that he thought had died when Liz
had died had miraculously been reborn.
It had been so unexpected that he didn’t recognize it for a while. He had called it
friendship or caring or concern. Never what it was. And when he did begin to
understand his feelings he had started to fight them. Insisting that he would love Liz
forever.
And he would. In his heart she would hold a special place. She had been his first love.
The love of his youth. The love who had taught him how to love. But she was gone.
And he couldn’t or wouldn’t spend the rest of his life loving a memory. That would
make him no better than Helena, living in the past and letting the future disintegrate in
her hands.
It was crazy but he owed Helena on same level. These last 30 minutes, watching her
talk to a picture of a dead person, Lucky had realized that in some strange way he was
doing the same thing. Living in the past. Holding onto something that he should have
let
go of a long time ago.
He had finally figured out that loving Emily was not the betrayal of Liz. Not loving
Emily was. Liz had taught him the power of love and when he turned his back on love
he was betraying all that Liz had taught him.
Until Emily he had been in danger of living like Helena, in love with a memory and
living
in the past. That would have broken Liz’s heart.
Lucky knew he was going to die. Knew that the gun Helena was holding would soon
be used to end his life. He prayed three things to a God he hoped would be merciful.
The first was that Emily would be safe.
The second was that she would somehow know that he loved her.
The third....The third was that he get the chance to take Helena with him.
Luke and Jason waited outside the gates to the back entrance to Helena’s compound.
The gate was 12 feet wide, made of heavy wrought iron metal, and surrounded by at
least half a dozen guards. That was better than the dozen guards that surrounded the
front gate.
Luke was impatient. It had taken longer to finish wiring the explosives than he had
hoped it would be and he was feeling uneasy.
“30 seconds.” Jason whispered as they checked their watches. They had set off the
dozen bombs planted around the perimeter to go off in succession, one right after the
other, including one planted near the back gate. They would use the resulting confusion
to enter.
“10...9..8..7...6..5..4...3..2...1...” Like clockwork the bombs exploded, beginning with
the first one near the main gate. In less than one minute, the perimeter was a mass of
flying debris and confusion.
“Let’s go” Jason said. Shouldering the automatic weapon strapped to his shoulder,
Luke followed Jason into the complex.
Once in the perimeter, they quickly entered the side of the building. The explosives had
triggered sirens and alarms and the place was going crazy. Luke and Jason had to
duck into a room to avoid the onslaught of Helena’s guards sent to control the
disturbance.
“I’m going after Lucky,” Luke said to Jason. “You get Emily and get her the hell out
of
here.”
“You don’t know where Lucky is,” Jason protested. “You don’t stand a chance.”
“No choice,” Luke replies. “It’s either save Lucky or face Laura if I come home
without him. Personally I’d rather take my chances with Helena.”
Jason nods. He knows he’d do the same if it had been Michael. If he had been given
the chance to do the same for Michael.
“Here take these.” He hands Luke a few extra grenades. “Good luck”
“You too.”
“Jason.”
“I know.” Jason meets Luke’s eyes. “Whichever of us gets the chance kills Helena”
Luke nods and the two men leave the room and head in separate directions. Jason
follows the beacon to rescue his sister. Luke to find his son.
Both know the odds are against them. Neither considers going back.
In her cell Emily barely registers the commotion. All she can think of is Lucky. And
Jonathan. She smiles softly when she thinks of her son. She wonders what will happen
to him know. He is so much younger than she had been when she had lost Paige. How
will he cope with losing her?
Had she been wrong all those years ago? Should she have told Nikolas the truth? How
different life would be? Jonathan would be living at Wyndemere with his father. He
could have had a home, not a series of motels and apartments and sometimes
cardboard boxes on the street corner. He would have known his aunt and uncles and
his grandparents. He could have gotten to know his great grandmother. Lila would
have loved him.
Or he could be dead a voice inside her reasons. Or Nikolas could be dead, eliminated
by Helena to make room for the new Cassadine heir. She had a vision of her son, her
sweet Jonathan, being raised to think and feel and act like Stavros Cassadine. Her son
as ruthless. Her son as Helena’s pawn. Her son raised by someone as evil as Helena
Cassadine.
She will never know if she made the right decision. All she really knows is that she
made the only decision.
She wishes it was over. Wishes that Helena would just finish it. She has never been
good at waiting. All her life she had been impatient. Impatient to grow up. Impatient to
fall in love. Impatient to be important to someone.
It was funny but now that she knew the end was near, knew that any time now the
door would open and Helena’s guards would escort her to her death, she didn’t really
feel fear. Regret. Longing. Worry. Sorrow. But no fear. She wasn’t scared.
But a few seconds later when she hears footsteps coming down the hall and the door
flies open, she realizes she lied. She was more than scared. She was terrified.
The hotel
Jonathan had stopped crying a long time ago and was now thinking. It was getting later
and he couldn’t hide in this room forever. There was the possibility that someone
would come in and find him. But how to get out of the hotel? And where to go once he
got out?
The where to go was easy once he thought about it a little longer. He would have to
find another hiding place, someplace where he would be safe. But somewhere where
Lucky and the others could find him once they finished rescuing his mother.
As for the how....Jonathan opened the door to the hallway a crack. He spotted a small
boy, close to his age, running down the hallway.
Jonathan grinned and his eyes lit up as he watched the boy playing in the otherwise
empty corridor.”
“This was going to be easy, he thought to himself as he made his move.
Emily’s cell:
The door crashed open and Emily stepped back, her heart in her throat. She wasn’t
nearly as eager to die now that it was fast about to become a reality as she thought she
was. She stepped back and then looked up. Her eyes widened in shock.
“Jason!” She threw herself in his arms.
“Are you okay?” Jason held her from him and carefully inspected her. “I know about
your back, but other than that did she hurt you?”
“How did you know....”Her voice trails off.
“There’s not a lot of time to explain. But we heard you on Lucky’s wire...”
“Lucky was wired?” Emily looks down...they heard it all...her confession..Lucky's lack
of response...everything..
“There isn’t time for this.” Jason says not without compassion. “We have to get you
out of here.”
“I’m not leaving without Lucky,” Emily shakes her head.
Jason lowers the gun so that is at his side.
“The two of you are a matched set.” he says. “Luke went after Lucky. My job is to get
you out of here and back to your son.”
At the mention of her son, Emily nods. She needs to get to her son. She will have to
trust Luke to find Lucky. She looks past Jason’s shoulder at the door.
“Jason!” she yells and reaches for the weapon he has put down. Before Jason can
react, Emily picks the gun up and shoots the two guards who are about to enter the
cell. They are dead before they hit the ground.
Jason is stunned. But he is not sure which stuns him more. The fact that his little sister
just shot two men to save his life. Or the fact that she looked so natural doing it.
“Come on,” he grabs the gun back from her, but after a second’s hesitation gives her a
smaller pistol. “Let’s get out of here.”
In Helena’s quarters:
For the second time in 72 hours Lucky Spencer has a gun to his head. He doesn’t like
it any better this time than he did the first time.
Especially since Helena has already pulled the trigger.
Twice.
She is playing some kind of Russian Roulette with him. He watched as she loaded the
one bullet into the six chambered pistol. Saw her smile as she raised it and pointed it at
his head. Tried not to flinch when she pulled the trigger. Heard her amused laughter
when despite his best efforts he did flinch.
He really truly hated her.
He was still gagged, but he had been working on his hands, gradually loosening the
bonds. It was a race against time and he was going to lose but he was still going to die
trying. Bad use of words. If he could just loosen his hand to reach the switchblade
strapped to his arm, he could slice her throat before she blew his brains out.
She is about to pull the trigger a third time, when a knock sounds at the door.
“Who is it?” Helena answers impatiently, she is having fun and doesn’t want to be
disturbed.
“Jacob.” The voice of Helena’s right hand man replies. “There is a problem around the
perimeter that needs your attention.”
Helena shrugs. “All right, come in.”
