Impetus (22 page)

CHAPTER 3
1
 

Solomon hurried down the back stairway. He knew this was a risk. He was not supposed to be down there. King had warned him more than once. And with King already on the warpath, this seemed like an extra-foolish idea. But this situation was different. There were kids involved. He could not in good conscience think about his own well-being at a time like this. He would always protect children like Ms. Stella had protected him.

He exited the stairway, hugging the shadows where he could find them. He had been down there so many times that he knew where to stand to stay invisible.
After confirming it was clear, Solomon stepped out into the bit of light available. Ms. Stella was not in her usual spot. She had found the energy to move to the opposite side of her cell closest to the cell next to her.

“
Ms. Stella,” Solomon said. He went to the front of her cell and down to one knee.

“
Solomon, my dear.” She seemed more upbeat than usual. Though her frame appeared more meager than he was used to. Maybe it was because she now sat beneath a strand of light that crept through the cell’s barred window. He was used to conversing with her from her shadowy part of the cell. “We have new friends,” she said.

Solomon looked at the other cells, three besides the one Ms. Stella had been held captive in.
One of the cells held a smallish woman and two men. The men appeared cleaner than the rest. The cell next to that held three men; the largest of them had a bloodied head. The cell adjacent to Ms. Stella held two teenagers. Solomon figured those were Mick’s kids.

“
Y-y-your f-father is w-worried,” Solomon said, past Ms. Stella and toward the kids.

“
Dad,” Kathryn said with a note of elation. “Is he all right?”

Solomon nodded.
He was well enough. That was the best they could hope for at the moment.

“
Can you get us out of here?” Chester asked from the cell to Solomon’s left.

Ms. Stella answered the question for him.
“The monsters holding us all prisoner do not obey any sort of rules.” She cleared her throat. “As I was just telling you before Solomon arrived, I have been down here for the better part of eight long years. They don’t care about me, or anyone for that matter. I am nothing more than a pawn in their twisted games. The longer I stay alive, the longer they can hold Solomon captive.” She looked over at Solomon. Love filled her bloodshot eyes. “I beg him daily to leave me. But he refuses time and again. He is too good at heart to do it. It pains me more each day to see him tormented.”

“
Where is Mick?” Chester asked.

Ms. Stella again spoke, looking at the children.
“Your father is most likely upstairs. Close to King.”

Solomon nodded again.
“He is in m-m-my cell.”

“
Why are we here in the first place?” Sandeep asked.

Greg said, holding his head,
“Don’t try to make sense of crazy, Sandeep. We’re here because that King guy is crazy. And he’s surrounded by crazy. This whole damn thing is crazy.”

“
Unfortunately,” Ms. Stella said, “you are correct. You will not get anywhere with them by reasoning. They will use you like they use everyone and everything else. And once you run out of usefulness …”

The ro
om grew silent as everyone came to their own conclusions.

“
We can’t just sit here and wait,” Greg said.

“
It appears we don’t have much of a choice, Greg,” Chester replied. He then looked toward Solomon. “Mick told me about you, Solomon. He said you were the first good person he had met in a very long time.”

Solomon felt the same about Mick. In fact, even though it had only been for a few minutes, he knew these people that Mick associated himself
had the same type of good nature. If Ms. Stella liked them, then so did he.

Heavy f
ootsteps on the stairs hushed the room.

Solomon darted from sight and
back into the shadows, watching, nervously waiting.

Clyde tripped over the last stair and
went headfirst into Ms. Stella’s cell, catching himself at the last moment on the bars. He then pushed himself back off like nothing had happened. He fumbled for his keys once he’d stopped in front of Ms. Stella’s door. “King wants to see you,” he said to Ms. Stella.

“
Well, tell him I don’t want to see him,” Ms. Stella replied in the most serious of tones.

“
You don’t get to decide that, bitch,” Clyde said. He found the correct key and unlocked the door. The door creaked open. “When King calls, you come.”

“
You may come,” Ms. Stella said. “But that is because you are a weak man with no morals, Clyde. Whatever happened to that poor boy I rescued all those years back?”

Clyde laughed.
“Rescued? I didn’t need your rescuing, bitch. You basically kidnapped me.”

“
Have you become so jaded that the truth now escapes you, Clyde? Has your mind been so poisoned that there is no way to save you?”

Clyde walked over to Ms. Stella and looked down at her.
“Save me?” he said, pointing his middle finger toward his chest. “It’s not me that needs saving, Stella.” He chuckled, his fat jiggling. “Say good-bye to your new friends. You won’t be seeing them again.”

Solomon remained in the shadows, silent.
He had seen the way Ms. Stella was treated. Clyde and King had no respect for her. But it felt different this time. While he was still a captive of the building, the captivity of his soul felt undone in a way. His decisions and actions did not need to pass through a filter any longer.

Clyde reached down and grabbed Ms. Stella forcefully by her frail arm and heaved her up to her feet.

Ms. Stella winced in pain at the sudden jolt.

“
Leave her alone,” Nate said.

“
Shut your mouth, boy,” Clyde said. “I’ll be back to see you soon.”

Ms. Stella spit what little saliva she
could muster as Clyde. “You’re a monster.”

Clyde
reacted instantly. He punched her in the face.

Ms. Stella
crumpled to the floor.

The rage came over him again, and
Solomon could not hold back what had built up inside him any longer. The years of torment. The years spent captive. The utter filth that surrounded him. The lack of respect for not only the elderly but for a good soul such as Ms. Stella. It was too much. Consequences were no longer included in this thought process.

Solomon
darted from the shadows like an angry bull. Before Clyde knew what was coming, Solomon ran into his back at full speed, knocking Clyde clear off his feet and headfirst into the brick wall in front of him. He moaned in pain.

Solomon
dropped to his knees by Ms. Stella’s side. “M-Ms. Stella,” he said, brushing a tuft of bloody hair from her eyes. She had a small laceration above her right eye from Clyde’s punch. Her eyes were open, but the life behind them seemed dimmer than it had been a moment ago. “I—I’m s-s-s-sorry.”

“
Solomon, my dear.” Her voice seemed distant. She reached up to his face but had no time to touch it.

Clyde grabbed Solomon by the neck and hoisted him up. He then punched Solomon multiple times in the back of his head.
Each punch brought a quick flash of bright light to his sight.

But Solomon was driven by something deeper than rage. Something that seeped from his very fiber, morphing to
an unyielding hatred that would never be stopped again.

Solomon turned and grabbed Clyde by his neck.
His thumbs pressed firmly against his trachea. He stared deep into Clyde’s eyes. He looked for something good. Any kind of gleam that would make him stop. Something that reminded him of the child he’d once considered a friend. He saw nothing worth saving.

Clyde
’s feet dangled over the floor. Solomon’s grip was unrelenting and strong. This was for all the kicks to the back. All the punches to the head. All the torture he put Ms. Stella through. This was for all that and a multitude of things more.

Clyde gasped for breath. He tried to pry Solomon
’s hands off, but they would not budge.

“
Please,” Clyde whispered with the breath he had left. His goggles formed white circles where they touched his bloodless face.

But Solomon was past caring.
He was determined to make that the final word that Clyde ever said. Until Ms. Stella spoke.

“
Solomon,” she said in the softest, most caring of ways. “Let him go, my dear. This is not who you are.”

Solomon looked back quickly at Ms. Stella, who had struggled to her feet. She held on
to the cell bars for support.

Solomon
turned back at Clyde. His face was now a hue of purple he had not seen before. He released his grip, and Clyde tumbled to the floor. At that moment Solomon had no idea what to do with the rage that tore through him. So he yelled. At the top of his lungs, he yelled. Like a mother bear protecting her cubs. He cared not who heard him.

Ms. Stella slowly came over to his side. When she reached him, she put her scrawny arms around him the best she could and hugged him with all the energy her body could muster. She put her head on his chest and wept
for the pain that tormented him so deeply.

“
Watch out!” Kathryn screamed.

It was already too late.
Clyde had pulled a gun from his waistband. While still on his knees, he pointed and fired, hitting Solomon in the side. Solomon and Ms. Stella fell to the floor in unison. Clyde pointed the gun at Solomon’s head, but Ms. Stella was in the way.

“Move bitch,” Clyde
wheezed, still trying to find the air that Solomon had taken from his lungs.

“
I will not let you hurt him anymore.” Ms. Stella forced herself to her knees. “There comes a time, Clyde, when a person can no longer be given leniency because of their mental condition, or who they once were. If you choose to be who you are now, then you must deal with the consequences.”

“
There’s nothing wrong with me,” Clyde laughed. “You’re the ones with problems. I’m fine. You can’t see that. So that makes you all crazy.”

Ms. Stella
swayed on her knees. Her head hung heavily as if it were forged from lead.

“
Get up,” Clyde said to her, waving the gun. “I said, get up.” He walked closer to lift her from the ground.

In a motion that seemed overly energetic for her age and shape, Ms. Stella
lurched forward as Clyde got within arm’s reach. She then reached down to Clyde’s boot and removed his dagger, one he always kept in the same spot, one Ms. Stella had eyed every day he came to hurt her. The very dagger he had poked and teased her with over the many years.

Before Clyde could react,
Ms. Stella stuck the dagger upward and below his rib cage. She pushed it again, farther into his body with the little power she had left, until only the hilt remained visible.

Clyde
’s face froze in shock, his mouth open. He dropped the gun and then quickly followed it to the ground. “You bitch,” he said exasperatedly. Ms. Stella had punctured a lung with her thrust. Clyde lay on the dirty cell floor like a fish out of water nearing the end. His breaths became more labored and further apart. They all watched silently until the breaths stopped coming.

Solomon, despite
having been shot, rushed to Ms. Stella’s side as she toppled from her knees and onto her back on the floor. “M-Ms. S-S-S-Stella.” He cupped her head on his. It was only then that he realized what had happened. The bullet that had thankfully missed Solomon’s arteries had not done the same for Ms. Stella when it exited him and entered her.

She smiled sweetly.
“My dear, dear Solomon,” she said. She caressed his cheek as she had when he was a boy. She then coughed and heaved. Solomon steadied her the best he could. The patch of red beneath her grimy shirt began to grow rapidly.

“
N-no,” Solomon said. His eyes welled with tears, something he could never remember happening before. “I—I—I’ll g-get h-help.” He shook his head angrily. “M-M-Ms. S-S-Stella. N-n-no.”

“
I can help,” Laurel said. “I was a nurse. Get me out of this cage.”

Ms. Stella grabbed hold of Solomon
’s arm. She looked at him through fading eyes and said, “No one can help me now, my dear.” She smiled a truly genuine smile. “I am eternally grateful for having had a chance to know and love you over these years. My life would have no meaning without you, my dear. You are a beautiful man both inside and out. And don’t you dare ever let anyone make you believe otherwise.”

Tears flowed more freely down Solomon
’s face. “P-please d-d-don’t go,” he said. “Please.” He kissed her forehead. “I sh-should have k-killed him w-w-when I c-c-could have.”