“So, are you going to tell me why you knocked and bashed open my door, Mr. Police? Because I am actually very sleepy and would be very glad to get back to my bed now at once.”
“What do you know about this guy?” he said, as he was bringing up a picture of a man to in front of my eyes from the left pocket on his suit.
The quality of the image was so poor that I wouldn’t have recognized him if not for the signature smile he had on his face, but there was no mistaking that amiable beam.
“Yes,” I replied honestly and coughed twice to buy myself some time to think, because I didn’t want to be dragged into any kind of troubles, especially when it’s related to a freedom-pursuer or a fugitive. “As far as I know, he is a… taxi driver.”
“How did you get to know him?”
“Well, I don’t really know much about him. He is a taxi driver, and yesterday, when I was flagging down a taxi, he stopped his car in front of me and told me to get in, and that’s it. That’s all I know.”
“You flagged down a taxi!?”
His surprised look scared me. “…Yes. So what’s wrong with this guy?”
“It’s none of your business. I have one more question for you. Do you know where he is at this moment?”
“No, how would I know?” I pretended to be as surprised as he just had been.
“Thank you, Mr. Ashton. That’s it for today,” he said, nodded and left.
I instinctively felt weird when he called out my name, which I had never told him, so naturally, but the sheer relief that crawled into my head when his silhouette that shadowed the light from the chandelier vanished prevailed over it, and I closed the door and locked it before walking back to my bed with a bad feeling that kept me wakeful, wondering maybe I should just go back home now. And I thought of my sister again, so undeterred by my last attempt, I phoned up her again.
“Sorry, the number you have dialed is not available at this time.”
And I giggled at myself for being simple-minded enough to actually think she would be sober at eleven o’clock on an after-party Sunday morning until a half-suppressed screech that resembled the wrongly murdered headband man’s reached my ears. I was alerted at first, but the thought of it was just another freedom-pursuers being beaten up somewhere on the street quickly eradicated my alertness, and knowing there was nothing I could help, my anxiety alleviated in spite of the pangs of conscience that were echoing under my skin and constantly giving me goosebumps. Sometimes we just had to learn to accept, I comforted myself.
And although the scenes of violence that came on the heels of the initial scream could not be seen from where I was, it was easily conceivable, as the screech had triggered the brutal images of the blood-stained pigeon feather automatically, regardless of my unwillingness. Then as the following prolonged grimaces emitted by the victim that enhanced my imagination reverberated across the sky, I tried to block off my ears by plugging my fingers in. It was futile. His distressing grimaces had already infiltrated and etched a deep scar on my soul. And there was nothing I could do to get rid of a virtual wound. So I started grazing my spine with my thumb, then my forehead with my index finger, my chest with my toe, and, at last, my ankle with my pinky with my insensitive legs crossed until a minor skin eruption took place.
I thought I had already developed a fully functional immune system against this kind of barbarism after the tragic demise of the headband man, but I was proved utterly wrong by my reddened ankle and the applauding crowd chanting a spell-like incantation, “Peel off his skin! Burn him alive! Monster!”
Then my heart thumped hard as a bitter resentment soared through me, making me feel like the hotel was on fire. And I could feel my timidness being eroded by the flame. I couldn’t believe there were people actually advocating this kind of nefarious acts. They were even more loathsome than those despicable uniformed officers, who were carrying out their violent duties. They were beyond doubt reprehensible, yet at least they got paid for they did. But what’s in it for the crowd? Nothing. They wholeheartedly supported it from the bottom of their hearts, and this was what really made me feel like I was falling apart. Was it really a good idea to live with these monsters for the years to come? Turning a blind eye to the wickedness of others due to interminable fear was understandable, but supporting it from the bottom of their hearts was a whole different story.
CHAPTER SIX
By the time the shouting crowd finally dispersed, I had already packed my suitcase and randomly shoved everything I brought here into it as though a war was coming. And as I was about to haul off, the fire alarm suddenly pulsated in a dizzy-making buzz that filled the entire building, and a clamor ensued. Astounded by the possibility that the raging fire in my heart had actually materialized, I flinched while blaming myself – by now I surely know it’s Kaylen’s fault as Kriss has told me that it was him who had ordered one of his men to set fire to the hotel so as to create a window of opportunity for them to kill someone in the hotel without being noticed and force me to go with them, but every time when I bring up about how I have blamed myself for the fire he caused, he will always laugh his head off and I will usually challenge him to a ‘duel’ for laughing at me, which is actually a card game we invented in the house together to kill time – and was unsure about what was going on until there was an awfully acrid burning smell gradually drifting into my nostrils, denoting the source of the fire was at somewhere below us, presumably at the foyer, as smoke would only billow upward.
Then I rushed out and I found that one-third of the doors along the corridor had already been swung open. Attendees were bolting out of their rooms like a flock of scared deer, all going in the direction of the emergency exits pointed out by the overhead emergency evacuation system, which most of the light bulbs were not functioning properly. Amid the chaos, my first thought was to go with the flow, but I hesitated when I saw a neatly uniformed lady with horn-rimmed glasses yelling loudly and straining her arms to usher people to the opposite direction of where the deer were dashing to, only very few of them were lucky enough to have decided to pay attention to her though. So I had dithered for a second or two before I decided to walk to her when the pungent smolder began invading this level and diffusing rapidly.
“Hey, why are you telling people to go the other way? Which way should I go?” I asked urgently, clutching my nose and mouth with one hand and my suitcase with another, when I realized she was that slim staff who provided me the mask.
“No there. No there. There no go. Here go go. Don’t there. There no open. No door, no door. Block. There block. Can’t go. Here has ladder. Ladder,” she blathered and seemed at a loss to know what to say with one of her fingers extending toward the direction of where people were sprinting to.
“There? Should I go that way?” I questioned, pointing to the same direction, and as I inhaled normally, the pervasive and suffocating smoke guilefully sifted through my sensitive nose and clogged up my lungs, giving me an actual feeling of being in mortal peril.
“Yes, yes, block.”
Her saying yes was the last thing I could discern clearly before I had begun gasping and gagging wildly. It was like there was a flamethrower tank rolling around and wreaking havoc in my vulnerable respiratory system and was definitely worse than finishing one whole pack of cigarettes at the same time. So, as my instinct urged me to get out of this place, I let go of my redundant suitcase and began moving vaguely in the direction of the crowd with my eyes shut due to the desert-like dryness, but was then pulled back violently by someone after several steps when I felt an irresistible grip of a slender hand grabbing the back of my shoulder, her fingers sinking into my flesh; I almost fell down and had to crouch a little so as to regain balance and staggered for the first few steps.