The Mystery Eight

Chapter Ten: Ill-timed

Damien tried to loosen Jarvis' grip but he couldn't. Jarvis got to the tube and started to lift Damien in. Suddenly, Tara charged into Jarvis, knocking Damien to the floor. Both Tara and Jarvis fell into the tube, and it instantly locked when they were both in. The next thing Damien knew, there was blood splattered across the glass of the tube. There was so much that no one could see through the glass.

He began to bang on the glass "Tara!"

There was a dead silence amongst the room. No reply or any indication that either of them were alive. He began to pull on the opening to the tube but it wouldn't budge. He fell to his knees from dizziness.

Nissa and Devin were looking over at Damien and saw that he was all alone.

"What happened?! Damien has bruises all over him" Devin said concerned

"I sure hope he's okay... I have a feeling Jarvis had something to do with it." Nissa exclaimed.

The next door clicked opened for both teams, Devin and Nissa proceeded through.

Damien began to stand up, and his vision returned to him. He felt his head, and it stung. As he pulled his hand away from the injury, he saw blood on his fingers. 'Damn, he fucked me up good...'

Suddenly remembering what happened, he screamed, "TARA!" Damien banged on the glass and still couldn't get it to open up.

Damien's ears began to ring, he put his hands on his head to rub his temples. The gravity was pulling him to the floor, and he couldn't resist. He collapsed to floor unconscious.

Two years ago

Damien walked down the dark alley and saw the dealer he was supposed to be meeting up with. "Where's the stuff." He asked briskly.

He wanted to get it over with, he wasn't much for getting to know his 'plug' he only wanted what he came for.

"It's right here" the mysterious man in the black coat lifted his trunk and showed a briefcase that contained small bags of cocaine.

Another car pulled up, and a man covering his face with his hoodie stepped out, and approached the dealer, "I'm here for the white nurse."

The dealer pulled it out, ready to hand it over, but a woman stepped out of the dealers vehicle, causing them to pause the deal. She was dressed promiscuously, and had bruises on her arms. "Can I please lea-" The dealer struck her across the face, leaving a bright red hand mark on the right side of her face. "Back into the car now!" He shouted at her.

Another woman stepped out of the same car as the man in the hoodie, "Hey, you have no right to touch her like that!" She stepped forward, with her fists bawled up, and moved in front of the headlights of the car, revealing her face.

"How could you deal from this guy!" Tara gritted her teeth.

"Put your woman in place, before I have to." The dealer sternly said to the man in the hoodie.

He looked at Tara, and tried to defuse things before they would get out of hand "Please, just wait in the car."

"No Josh, this is bullshit. I didn't want to be here to begin with but you dragged me here, and you just let this piece of shit abuse a woman in front of you, without going to her defense! And same to you asshole." She pointed at Damien, but he just shrugged and tried to stay out of the heat of things.

There was click sound, and next thing to Tara's knowledge, there was a gun pointed at her. She instantly regretted being in the current situation.

'How could I have gotten myself into this mess, I am much better and staying out of these types of things, dammit Josh.' Tara's thoughts began to race.

"Woah, woah" Damien put his hands up and started to back up, his heart began racing and the dealer pointed the gun at him, "None of you are going anywhere, we're going to finish our deals, then we can all leave." He swiftly aimed the gun towards Tara "Except for you. You'll be staying with me."

Bringing his attention back to Josh, "Now, let's finish our deal" he reached his hand out to Josh, and Josh handed him cash, and in exchange he gave Josh the case, and did the same with Damien.

Josh and Tara started returning to their car, but the dealer quickly stopped them, "Come here." Tara looked at Josh, with fear in her eyes, praying he'd say or do something to help her, but he just watched as she slowly made her way over.

As she approached him, he pistol whipped her, causing her to fall to the ground, and wince in pain. He put his foot on her head and began to apply pressure, slowly. "You are nothing, and you will never be anything."

She couldn't move, and he started pressing his foot down much harder, causing blood to gush down her face, and her vision to start going dark. She was on the brink of going unconscious.

"No one disrespects me." He raised his foot to stomp down on her skull, but was tackled to the ground, knocking the gun out of his hand and causing it to fire off. Damien quickly pushed himself off of the dealer, and jumped back, as did everyone else from the loud bang of the gunshot. Near the exit of the alley Damien saw a man running at full speed, and two other guys who went in the opposite direction of him.

Tara started to come back to her senses, she lifted her head up off the floor, feeling the blood drip off her face into the puddle on the pavement. She saw the other woman on the concrete, laying in a puddle of blood. Before anyone knew it, there were sirens off in the distance. Josh rushed to Tara and grabbed her arm and lifted her to her feet, "We have to go now!"

Tara attempted to stand up but stumbled and fell back down onto her knees. Josh ran to his car, and sped off, leaving Tara on the floor, impaired, with no way out of the situation.

Damien quickly ran to his car, started it and looked up, seeing Tara on her knees, blood running down her face.

'Why is this the situation I get put in' Damien sighed and stepped out of the vehicle, and ran over to her, "I'm going to help you get to my car, but we need to be fast, the police are coming, lean on me if you need to." She stood up, and started stumbling. She almost fell, but caught herself and leaned some of her weight onto Damien, and they rushed to the car.

He sat her in the front seat, slammed the door shut and slid over the hood of his car hopping into the drivers seat speeding off.

The ride was eerily quiet, and neither looked at each other since pulling off. "I'm going to drop you off, and I'm going to leave. Nothing more nothing less." Tara nodded in agreement, anything to prevent her from remembering this night sounded good to her.

They pulled up to a phone booth and she stepped out of the car, neither looked nor spoke to each other, and Damien pulled off.

Damien began to wake up from his dream, he sat up and looked up at the bloody tube he went unconscious in front of.

"Tara..." he put his hand on the tube where both Jarvis and her fell in.