After the Earthquake

Part 10

Horror came over Hazel. How could she have trusted him so easily? She tried to stay calm as she ordered him, "Let me out of the car." He pretended as though he couldn't hear her, and as they made it onto a more discreet road, he pressed down on the pedal even more. They were flying through the country lanes. "Let me out. I need out." Still, she was ignored. She fumbled desperately at the door, but it was clear the driver's controls had locked it. "Please, you can't do this. How did you get the police car? Did you steal it?" Despite Hazel's seemingly calm manner, inside she was churning.

She suddenly understood how stupid he had been. She agreed to leave the house at three in the morning with a man she barely knew, and she even left a fake note for her household so they wouldn't miss her. He had turned up in a car that was not easily recognisable, and she had willingly got in the car with him without asking any questions. For the second night in a row, she didn't know whether this would be her last.

Her breath came through short gasps of air, but aside from that she felt a strangely calm sensation. Angrily, she told herself off for not feeling more upset about this and doing more to stop Leonard, but another half of her was telling her to remain calm and accept fate. What good would panicking do? She would never be able to overpower a young, healthy man.

She sat back and began to appreciate the views around her; the dark and mysterious glow of the night, the whistling wind blowing cold air through the filter, the numerous stretches of stars far above her head. Sometimes she was certain that she took this world for granted.

After a few more minutes, the clock was almost reaching the fourth hour. Hazel forced herself to look elsewhere other than her lap, and she saw a huge building looming in the distance. It was easily one of the biggest she had seen, and as Leonard drove her into the grounds, she became filled with dread. Exactly how large was this operation? What did they want from her? Did they want her dead? Were they working with Thomas Waters?

The car door beside her opened and she jumped back to attention. She was hustled out of the car and indoors, where she looked disgustedly at the decoration of the place. It looked very much like an office, and the fact that such a criminal place could look so ordinary made her feel sick. She was led through some long corridors and up a few flights of stairs. A door opened in front of her and a middle-aged man flashed her a kind smile. She was not so naïve as to fall for it.

Both Leonard and this new man sent her into a room which reminded her of an interrogation room. She had no idea what this room was for, or why she was here. That seemed to terrify her even more. "Hello, Hazel. We've been waiting for you."

"What do you want? Are you going to kill me? Why haven't you done it already if that's what you want?" Her mind told her that such bold words were not intelligent to use in such a situation, but she wasn't sure how much longer she would be able to use any words.

"Kill you? Scott, what have you done to this poor woman? What has he told you?" His face filled with concern and horror as he looked between the two other people in the room.

"Don't play that game with me. This definitely isn't the police station, unless you brought me to the most corrupt one in the country almost an hour away from where I live." Hazel's anger was hard to hold back, but her common sense forced her to sit still in the chair she had been assigned.

"Scott, what have you done?"

"I didn't say a word to her, just that we were going to the station." He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

"Are you kidding me? Don't sugar-coat it." Hazel leapt from her seat in fury. "You told me we were going to the station, and then you took a wrong turn. I asked you to let me out of the car because I panicked, and you locked the doors. You kept on driving through all my questions and took me to this place out in the middle of nowhere." Her fists were bunched together and shaking. In just a few seconds more, she would beat this man to a pulp. She had tried her hardest to keep her tears in so far, but she couldn't help letting a few trickle down her cheeks. "I thought I was going to die."