X – Chris's Promise

October 17, 2016

There was both tension and awkwardness in the air as Caroline and Victor were alone. Tension because Caroline was insanely distrustful of Victor and, frankly, of the rest of her kidnappers. Awkwardness because it felt as if there should have been some kind of conversation.

Of course, Victor's face was cold and stern and steadily watching Caroline, like he was watching her just minutes ago in her classroom.

Just minutes ago. Time was confusing to Caroline. It had, according to her watch, literally been just minutes, but there was so much that changed within the span of those few minutes. She had gone from a free human to a kidnappee. Her students had gone from hopeful geniuses to petty criminals. And it took just a few minutes.

She looked at Victor. She remembered what had passed in those few minutes. She remembered the signs of acknowledgment that passed between the officer and himself.

“So...” Caroline began.

But Victor would have none of it.

“Nobody hears about it.”

“About what?” Caroline's voice was quite obviously quaking in fear, but she still found the boldness somewhere in herself to ask the question.

“You know what I'm talking about.”

Victor made an advance to Caroline until she was at the wall and his face was centimeters away.

“Nobody,” he said in a low voice that was about twenty times scarier than his loudest and wildest scream, “and I mean nobody hears about you know what.”

There was no typical “Do you understand?” question after that, but Caroline nodded in fear. She tried as best as she could to hide it, but she was failing quite miserably.

Victor, however, did not seem to take advantage of this fear. He did not smile in a way that bragged about how obviously in control of the situation he was. He looked at her coldly. It was a secret that she shouldn't have known. She found out, and it was... not quite a plea for her silence, but a command. Silence would happen, or...

Again, interesting thoughts of death crossed Caroline's mind as Victor slowly backed away from her and took a seat. He wasn't looking directly at her anymore, but any idiot would have known that his full attention was on her. Caroline looked around for a seat for herself, but found none, and thought it would be silly, foolish, rude, and stupid for her to try and take a seat on the wooded floor. So she stood.

- - - - - - - - - -

Hours later, and Victor had already begun nodding off in his chair. Caroline, at a few instances, almost slumped to the ground, but quickly picked herself up and stood. The blood was rushing to her feet, and she constantly felt weak for it, but she continued standing.

Until 5:00 PM brought a tired-looking James Hill to the front door.

“Sorry. That took longer than I expected...”

Victor stood up, nodded, and walked off toward the noise of conversation. James took off a jacket that he had acquired and tossed it into a closet.

“Miss Johnson,” he said. Caroline remembered that playfully serious voice that she so often heard when Victor had come to see her during office hours in order to discuss something painfully important and interesting.

“...James...” she said. She was still noticeably shaken by the “events that transpired” within the past few hours.

“I'm assuming that you're wondering why you're here, to begin with. I'm assuming that you have a lot of other questions as well, but this is probably the most important one.”

She nodded quickly and looked straight at him. James didn't seem to show the same air of seriousness that Victor or anyone else did at all. In fact, he looked almost casual.

“To put it bluntly, your life is in danger.”

It shouldn't have come as a surprise to her, seeing as she had held a gun and been kidnapped only hours earlier, but she put on the usual face of fear and shock.

“Are you really surprised, Caroline?” James asked with amusement. She said nothing, but understood what he meant. “You're going to have to bring your poker face if you want to survive, Caroline...”

“Why me?” she asked.

“Well, let me pull out a metaphor to explain it to you,” he began. It wasn't meant to sound cruel, but Caroline took it as a direct attack against the merits of studying English.

“If you have a problem with, say, termites,” he continued, “it's not enough to simply kill any termites you see. You have to go straight to the source. You have to go to the queen termite. The one who creates the other termites. And you have to kill her. Because no matter how many other termites you kill, the problem won't be solved until you pinch the source.

“In this case, the source is you.”

“Me. Why. Why me?” Caroline's voice was still quaking, but the rest of her body seemed more under her own control as opposed to earlier when it appeared to be under the control of a small earthquake.

“Because it is you, Miss Johnson, who created this.”

James made a sweeping gesture about the room, and Caroline followed his hand, expecting to see something tangible and of significance to her. His hand stopped and Caroline's eyes returned to James's.

“I don't understand...”

“Please, Miss Johnson,” he said, as if she were a small child trying to understand how to put two and two together. “Aren't you the one who was always telling us about the corruption of power? Aren't you the one who was always telling us about how we need to keep our own government in check? Aren't you the one who was always telling us about 'saving the world' or something romantic like that? Well, what do you think we're doing now?”

James still had a slight smile on his face, but he was looking less friendly by the second.

And Caroline still had no idea what he was talking about. Changing the world? All you've done is kidnap me...

“James... I think it's better if you join your friends in the kitchen now, don't you?”

The two of them hardly noticed a tall dark figure enter the door. His voice was smooth and deep and friendly and yet James almost jumped when he heard it.

“Ah, maybe you're right,” he said sheepishly and walked off to where Victor had walked off before.

Caroline turned to face this man, who gently pulled off a coat and a hat and hung both in a closet.

“You must be Miss Caroline Johnson,” he said as he closed the door behind him.

“And you are...?”

“Chris Tan. Pleasure to meet you.”

He held out a calloused hand with dirty fingernails that suggested farm work to Caroline. She shook it, and felt a strange kind of warmth come from him.

“Miss Johnson,” he said with a voice that was both businesslike and friendly, “I'm sorry to bother you on such short notice, but it seems like we have less time than we thought.”

“Less... time...?”

“I think James has already talked to you about how dangerous your situation is. He is not exaggerating. And I'm sorry that I have to give you this decision when you have almost no information, but...”

He trailed off and watched Caroline, who gave a short nod of encouragement. Chris continued.

“You have two choices, and which choice you make depends on how you respond to the oath.”

“What oath?”

Chris looked toward the kitchen and looked back at Caroline.

“Oh, well. It's probably better if I tell it to you anyway. It's a simple oath, Miss Johnson. Do you promise to never leave evil unchecked? To fight back against it when you have the resources you need?”

Caroline weighed each word carefully and thought about what might come next. It was simple; there were two answers, yes and no, and whichever answer she chose would determine her fate. Determine her fate like her fate might have been determined by the gun. It would be a less romantic death. And yet, she didn't want to answer this man dishonestly. She felt that she could trust him, which was bizarre, because she had only known him for mere minutes, and yet she felt she could be comfortable trusting him with her darkest secrets. Not that she had dark secrets anyway, but had she had any, he would be the first person she would let know.

And then she realized that he had stopped talking and was not about to continue.

“Is... is that it?” she asked half embarrassed. He nodded.

And her honest answer was “no”. No, she would not be able to fight evil every step of the way... probably because she was to scared of... something, but what? Exhaustion? Death? And then she thought about everyone else in the house, and how they all must have taken the same oath. They all seemed fine. Friendly, even, except when there was trouble. She wouldn't be alone, if she said yes.

And she remembered that question that she was asked all the time when she was going into teaching. “Why do you want to teach?”

“Because I want to save the world.”

It was such a young, innocent, naive goal, and yet...

“I'll do it,” she said with confidence. She pulled a pen out of her pocket and, making sure that it would write by testing it on her hand, was all set for a paper to sign.

Chris laughed and walked toward the kitchen.

“Miss Johnson, your word is good enough for me.”

Caroline followed, hardly aware that she had, in fact, discovered Chris's one true weakness.