Committed Epilogue...Sort Of!

Committed Chapter 25

Ariadne sat at the desk, waiting.  She had changed into a blue sun-dress which hugged her frame nicely.  She adjusted the straps for the fourteenth time, wanting to ensure that the dress always cupped her breasts so that they would always been a visual pleasure for Janus.  She knew he would want to enjoy her while she was still in this young body.  She almost shook with anticipation of their first night together.

            She realized that in this life she was a virgin.  That would make Janus extremely happy.

            She heard the window open behind her and stiffened slightly.  Her hands began to sweat.  She bit her bottom lip but didn’t turn around.  She felt so uncomfortable.  She adjusted the folds of her sundress and took in a slow breath.  She could do this.  Her love for Janus was strong enough to get her through this part.

            “Ariadne…?”

            Ariadne stood and turned to face Paris Montague.  He had climbed through the window into Janus’ study, a twenty-by-twenty room with the same red and gold colour scheme to the walls that had been present in the entrance hall.  A desk of dark mahogany, pristinely maintained by Janus’ servants, lay between them.  The walls on either side of them were lined with shelves of rare books, their cold brown and black spines lined up like soldiers.

            “Hello, Paris,” Ariadne said, smiling sadly.  “You shouldn’t have come.”

            “Okay, okay,” Paris nodded, glancing down at her hand.  “So, this is all going as part of the plan, right?”

            “Paris, you need to listen to me…” Ariadne began.  Paris started to walk around the desk and she stumbled back in fear. She caught herself and forced herself to stand still.  She needed to do this.  For Janus.

            “Paris, listen.”

            “I’m supposed to smash the ring,” Paris said, his eyes still locked on her ring hand.  “This isn’t you.”

            “You’re not smashing anything,” Ariadne insisted.  Hearing the words from Paris’ mouth, knowing that he had every intention of following through with this sick, demented plan, was more than Ariadne could bear.  “You won’t do it!  I won’t let you!  I love Janus too much!”

            “No, Ariadne, you don’t,” Paris said, looking up at her now.  He was begging, Ariadne realized.  How pathetic.

            “I do, Paris.  That’s what you need to understand.  I love him completely.”

            “I can’t do this,” Paris said, turning around, forming a tepee with his fingers in front of his mouth as he began to pace.  “I can’t smash the ring.  Not when you’re like this.”

            “Exactly,” Ariadne sighed, feeling that the worst was over now.  “Paris, I understand that you are upset, but what we had was a lie-“

            “You have to smash the ring yourself.”

            Ariadne blinked in surprise.  “That’s never going to happen, Paris.”

            “It has to happen,” Paris said, suddenly rushing forward and grabbing her hands.  How had he made it so close to her?  “Ariadne, you don’t love him.  A few hours ago we were running from him!  You hated him!  You have to remember that!”

            “I wasn’t in my right mind!” Ariadne cried, yanking her hands away from him.  “I was sick!  I love Janus!”

            “No!  Ariadne, no! No, no, no!  You love me!”

            For a moment, Ariadne said nothing.  Then she started to laugh.  She laughed so hard her sides felt like they were splitting.  She felt forward, bracing her hands against her knees, and laughed.  Paris just stood in front of her.  Somehow, the sight of tears rolling down his face only made everything funnier.

            “Why would I ever smash the ring?” Ariadne giggled.  “Why?  It’s the reason I remember every time.  It’s the reason that Janus is able to find me every time and make me remember.  We belong together.”

            “No,” Paris whispered.  “He stole you.  Not from me but from yourself.  You deserve to choose for yourself and he has taken that away from you.  He has used this magic to steal you from me, every time.  He has tricked you into thinking you love him.  But you love me.”

            “I don’t love you,” Ariadne shook her head, wanting to laugh again at his arrogance.  “I don’t understand how you could possibly think that I love you.”

            “Because you told me.”

            “I never said anything like that,” Ariadne said, thinking of Paris’ pathetic declaration of love beneath the city.  How had she ever allowed herself to go down into that filth with him?  It boggled the mind.

            “No, not this time,” Paris shook his head.  “But before.  The other times.  Before he made you forget what your heart really wanted with that ring.  With that stupid, evil, cursed ring!”

            “What are you…” and then Ariadne remembered.  Her eyes widened as the memories came back into focus.  It was tough sometimes, having the memories of thousands of lives in her head.  She found it really hard to deal with them all.  Thus far, she hadn’t.  She did remember that she usually avoided thinking about her past lives.  Why think about those when she had her current one to make new happy memories with Janus?  But now, she remembered what Paris was talking about.

            Names flashed through her mind.  Theseus, Paris, Romeo, Eros, and countless more.

            “You’re…”

            “My brother,” Janus said, stepping into the room, suppressed pistol pointed at Paris.  “Well, not in this life of course.  But back when I was Cain…”

            “I was Abel,” Paris nodded.  He lifted up his left hand so that the light flickered off of the ring there.  Ariadne looked at it as he twisted it around so that the Mark of Cain, the same one on Ariadne’s ring and on Janus’ ring, was pointing upwards.

            “I haven’t really had a chance to tell you how impressed I am,” Janus said.  “I thought I’d gotten rid of you for good in 1945.  Used all of my the money I’d acquired through…what’s the word for it now?  War profiteering?  Anyway, I thought I’d made it so that you’d never find Ariadne.  Moved her to Canada, made sure that nobody in your family knew that her family had moved there.”

            “I tracked down the records when my platoon was storming one of the concentration camps in the Fatherland,” Paris replied.  “I survived, so the ring passed on, and I had the memories of where you’d sent her.”

            “As I said, impressed,” Janus grinned, still pointing the silenced pistol at Paris.  “I also thought you’d die in that war and some eager German officer would pilfer that ring off your corpse and save a lot of trouble.”

            “You wouldn’t have really wanted that.  The whole point of this ring was for me to suffer throughout eternity knowing that you’d enslaved Ariadne, the woman I loved.”

            “She has always deserved to be with me!  Not a weakling like you!” Janus roared.  The pistol shook in his hand.  “Get out here!”

            Paris stepped forward calmly, filing past Janus into the entrance hall.  As he passed, Janus pistol-whipped him over the head.  Ariadne flinched as Paris cried out, falling to the ground.

            Paris kept moving forward into the hall and Janus followed.  Ariadne continued after them, feeling too confused to say anything.  Memories of past lives came to her.  Her life as Juliet, in Italy, with Romeo, now Paris.  She remembered keenly the realization that they’d never be able to escape from Janus, then, in some bizarre irony, known as Count Paris.  She remembered their joint suicide, the only escape they saw from him.  The only chance to avoid the nightmare of another lifetime with him.

            But why had she thought that way?  She loved Janus.  She loved him completely and utterly just like he loved her.

            The man whom Janus had hired to find her, Achilles, was still in the entrance hall.  There was nothing to read on his face as he watched Janus pistol-whip Paris again so that he fell on his knees in the center of the hall.  Also present were the police Officers Seth and Antenor.  Antenor watched the scene with a wicked grin on his face.  Ariadne didn’t like him.

            “You thought you could get her to choose you instead of me!” Janus screamed at Paris.  He pistol-whipped Paris across the jaw and blood flew out, blending into the floor as Paris collapsed onto his hands.  “She’s mine!  She belongs to me!  She has always belonged to me!”

            “She never belonged to you, Cain,” Paris whispered, pulling himself back up onto his knees.  “She never belonged to me either.  You tried to buy her, to own her, and that drove her further and further away.  I loved her, and she returned my love in kind, of her own free-will.”

            “No!” Janus screamed.  He struck Paris in the side of the head this time.  Blood was now running down the side of his face.  Paris groaned, and took longer to pull himself back up, but he managed it.

            “You couldn’t stand it.  Couldn’t stand knowing that Ariadne, the woman you, in your own demented way, loved had chosen me over you.  You had woman falling over each other to be owned by you but of course you wanted the one who refused to be owned.  Refused to give herself to you.”

            “You stole her from me!” Janus screamed.  He struck Paris across the face again.  And again.  Ariadne felt herself flinch with every blow.

            “She loves me, Cain!” Paris roared, forcing himself back up.  One of his eyes was beginning to swell shut and his lip was fat and bleeding.  But he kept talking.  “She loves me, every time.  Thousands of tries, and no matter how hard you try you can’t make her love you for real.  So you slip that ring on her and you make her become this puppet that you can own.  You killed me back then, thinking it would make her love you but she still didn’t.  She hated you even more.  So you cursed us.  You possess her every time Cain, but you know it’s not real.  You feel it in your heart and that’s what kills you.  Because you know that no matter how many times you slip that ring on her finger, if it were up to her, she would reject you.  And she would choose the person she really loves.  Me!”

            Janus roared with rage and began striking.  He landed blow after blow after blow.  Ariadne saw Achilles begin to move but Antenor already has his weapon out and pointed at him, forcing him to stop.  Seth cried out, trying to get Antenor to drop his weapon, but he wouldn’t.  He started yelling at Seth.  Then Seth’s weapon was out, pointed at Antenor.

            Through-out it all Janus just kept hitting Paris.  Blood was coating the butt of the pistol.  He was going to kill Paris at this rate.

            Just like he had killed her mother.

            No, he did that because her mother wasn’t strong enough to get her to him.  He did it because he loved her.  Loved her completely.

            “Janus, please, stop.”

            She wasn’t sure why she said anything.  Maybe just because she couldn’t stand to see Janus kill someone.  That wasn’t necessary.  He had her.  Did Paris really have to die too?

            “You have me, you don’t need to kill him.”

            Janus crossed the room in two strides and struck her across the jaw with the pistol.

            She fell.  She hit the floor.  Her mouth was agape and her eyes were wide.  Achilles began to move towards her but Antenor was yelling again for him to stop.  Everything was fuzzy and the sound seemed to be drowning out of the room.

            Ariadne reached up and wiped her hand across her cheek.  It came away with blood.  But it wasn’t her blood.  It was Paris’.

            “Don’t ever speak to me like that.”

            Janus’ voice came through to her crystal clear.  She turned and looked at him.  She didn’t see Janus though.  She saw a monster.

            He loves me, she told herself as he turned and walked back over to Paris.  He does it because he loves me.

            But then another voice struggle into her mind.  Another voice whispered to her.

            Does he really love you?  He had you kill yourself as Dido rather than leave you for Paris to try and steal from him.

            He loves me.  He loves me.  I love him.

            No, you don’t.  You love Paris.  You love that goofy smile that lights up a room and you love the way his hair falls across his face.  You love looking at him and you love it when he looks at you because you know when his eyes are on you they see you, the real you, and nothing more.  You love him because he asks for nothing and he gives everything.  Love is something you give, not take, and Paris gives all your love to you.  And you want to give all your love back to him, the ring just makes you forget how.

            Janus loves me.  Janus loves me.  I love Janus.  I LOVE JANUS.

            No, Ariadne.  You don’t.

“Make one false move there and I’ll blow your brains out.”

            Officer Antenor continues to point his pistol at Achilles.  Seth, seems uncertain what to do, but still has his gun pointed at his partner and not at Achilles.  That was a good sign.

            “Put it down Han.”

            “You know what, I am sick and tired of this bullshit!” Antenor roars.  He pivots and shoots Seth in the leg.  Seth cries out in agony and falls to the ground. This distracts Janus from Paris, who is now down and not moving.  But only for a moment.

            Achilles takes a few more steps towards Ariadne, who is down on the ground, looking at her hand with the blood on it.  Achilles doesn’t understand what is going on.  All this talk of Cain and a curse and past lives is nonsense to him.  What he does know is that the moment that Janus slipped that ring onto Ariadne’s finger she became someone else.  She stopped being the woman he had chased.  She became someone who was owned.

            “I said stop moving!” Antenor roared.

            Achilles could feel the gun back on him and he stopped.  He was looking down at Ariadne now.  She looked up at him and held his gaze for a moment.

            “Don’t be owned,” Achilles said to her.  He didn’t know what else to say.

            His words seemed to reach Ariadne because a lot of things happened very fast.  First, her eyes solidified into the gaze he had met beneath New Carthage, the gaze that belonged to a woman who belonged to no one.  Then, she lifted her hands and she pulled the ring off of her finger.

            In that moment, Achilles ducked and pivoted, drawing his pistol from its shoulder holster as he did.  Antenor fired, the bullet cutting through the air where Achilles head had been a moment earlier.

            Achilles aimed and fired in one swift movement.  Antenor was rocked off his feet by the force of the bullet hitting him square in the chest.  He hit the floor and did not move.

            “What are you doing!!”

            Janus’ eyes were nearly red with bloodlust as he turned on Achilles.  He raised his pistol and Achilles realized that he wouldn’t be able to avoid the bullet.

            But, in what must have been an incredible feat of strength, Paris hurled himself off the ground and tackled Janus.  The pistol shot went wide, firing over Achilles head.

            Then, without warning, the pistol was gone from his hand.  Ariadne had it.  She flipped it in her hand so she was holding it by the still smoking barrel and slammed the butt of it down on the ring, which she had placed on the floor.

            “NO!!”

            Janus screamed pierced the air as the butt of the pistol hit the ring.  There was a loud crack, like thunder booming in the entrance hall, and the ring shattered, bits of metal flying across the floor.

            Achilles and Ariadne were now moving together, racing towards Janus.  Paris’ body was on top of him, limp, holding Janus down with nothing  but the weight of his body.

            Janus shoved Paris off, trying to get his gun hand around.  But Achilles slammed his foot down, shattering Janus’ hand and causing him to drop the gun.  He roared in pain as Ariadne leapt over him.  His other hand was splayed out on the floor, at a right angle to his body.

            Without hesitation she slammed the pistol home, striking the butt of the pistol against the ring on his finger.

            With another unnaturally loud crack, the ring shattered.  Janus whipped his hand to his chest, crying out in rage and sorrow.  He gaped at the finger, now broken, that had once had the ring on it.

            “No!  No, no, nonononononononono!”

            Janus crawled across the floor, desperately trying to grab the pieces of the ring that had scattered across the ground.  He held bits of them together, trying to put the ring back together.

            “Try some super glue,” Ariadne said, a cold, hard edge to her voice letting Achilles know that the woman he had seen was back.  “Maybe that’ll fix it.”

Committed Chapter 24

The Mercedes pulled into the parking lot of the Menelaus Mansion and Ariadne gazed out the window at it.  It rose up almost like a medieval castle, a full four stories high.  The gates swung open before them on electrical hinges and the Mercedes cruised down the cobblestone driveway as if entering into another world.

            The driveway was flanked by green hedges, narrowing Ariadne’s view to that of the incoming house.  The incoming prison.

            The Mercedes rolled up so that it was directly in front of the entrance and Achilles climbed out.  Ariadne waited for him to come around, her heart beating faster.

            He opened the door and gently pulled her out by her arm.  He held her just above her elbow as he walked her up to the front entrance.  He didn’t pull her along though.  They walked together.

            Once through the doors Ariadne barely took in the lavish entrance hall.  It was like her brain was incapable of registering what she was seeing.  The neurons wouldn’t fire, the impressions wouldn’t take hold.  Instead, she stood there, trying not to shake, waiting to hear his voice.

            Finally, he appeared at the top of the right stairwell that rolled down to the floor like the tongue from some mythological beast.

            “You’ve given me quite a scare, my love.”

            Janus Menelaus strode down the stairs with the speed of someone who has all the time in the universe.  He did not rush to her.  He did not need to.  She was in his domain and she had lost all avenues of escape.

            Achilles released her arm and took a step to the side.

            Ariadne met Janus’ gaze and held it as she approached him.  She felt revulsion roll over her body.  He stepped right up to her and caressed the side of her face, cupping it in his dry hands.  She hated him.

            “Why have you been so difficult about this?” Janus whispered to her.  “Your father must have explained it all to you, must have made you see.  But you took so long to come to me.  Even before, how did you not feel it?  How did the love you hold for me not swarm over you and draw you too me?  Like a moth to flame.”

            “You really need to work on your analogies,” Ariadne wanted to say.  But she didn’t.  Instead, she remained silent.  There was nothing more that needed to be said.

            “Of course, soon you’ll remember everything.  Soon you’ll remember all our lives together.  The countless love stories we’ve told.  Soon you’ll remember them and we’ll write a new one together.”

            Janus moved his hand so that it was behind her head now, just below her pony-tail.  She wanted to strike him.  She wanted to pull back.  She wanted to scream and kick and roar with rage at the countless past lives that this monster had robbed from her in his deluded belief that he loved her and she loved him.

            Instead, she summoned all the self-control she could, and let Janus pull her to him.  He kissed her with a passion that sent waves of nausea up and down Ariadne’s spine.  She hated it, because Janus would probably see those as the tingles of ecstacy running through her.  In fact, he pulled her closer, kissing her deeper and only increasing the disgust that Ariadne felt.

            “Oh God,” Janus breathed, finally breaking away but holding his forehead against hers.  “My love, I have missed you so much.  It has torn my heart apart knowing that you were being kept from me by that monster Paris Montague.  I thought I’d gotten rid of him but…he has proved a resilient cockroach.”

            Ariadne found her silence almost broken by her fierce need to defend Paris.  The nobility of Paris sacrifices for her filled her with a righteous anger at this man who had destroyed his life in his quest to possess her.

            Paris, who truly loved her.  Janus could never hope to understand love the way that Paris understood it, the way Paris expressed it in his every word, gesture, and touch towards her.

            Just thinking about him, and that moment beneath the city that was hunting them relentlessly, made Ariadne almost begin to cry.

            “Shhhh,” Janus hushed her, placing a finger against her lips.  “It’s all going to be okay.  I promise.”

            Suddenly, the ring was in his hand.

            Ariadne felt a cold fear run through her body.  Her heart seemed to shrivel in her chest and press back against her spine.  She felt as if every organ in her body was fighting to get as far away from that ring as was possible.  But that’s exactly what she couldn’t do.

            Janus lifted her hand.  Ariadne refused to tremble.  She held her muscles stiff, demanded a control over them that years of athleticism had given her.  She watched as Janus knelt before her, as though he were performing some sick, demented proposal, and lifted the wedding band like ring to her finger.

            “Ariadne…” he breathed her name like he was whispering the sacred name of a goddess.  Ariadne refused to close her eyes.  Instead, she looked at the mark on the wedding band, the same mark that was on Janus’.  The mark that looked like the shattered glass on a windshield where a baseball had struck it.

            The Mark of Cain.

            Then, with no more delays, with no more stalling, with no more grand escape attempts, Ariadne watched as Janus slipped the ring onto her finger.

            And Ariadne felt herself die.

 The rush was unlike anything she’d experienced before.  Names flew past her like chariots in a Coliseum race.  Psyche, Daphne, Ariadne, Dido, Helen, Juliet, countless names that Ariadne knew from history and countless more that had not been recorded in the annals.  Thousands of lives all rushed at her.  Too much to process all at once.  Only one thing came through loud and clear, as definitively true as anything she had ever thought or known or believed.

            She opened her eyes and looked into the face of Janus Menelaus.  More names raced by, names from history.  Apollo, Cain, Aeneas, Dionysus.

            She felt her heart fill up as though it were preparing to burst out of her chest.  She gazed into Janus eyes and she felt tears flow freely down her face.  She reached out trembling hands and cupped his face in both of them, slowly pulling him upwards until he was standing, looking at her expectantly.

            “Janus…”

            “Yes?” he said.  Ariadne couldn’t believe she had ever once thought that his voice could be anything but magnificent and wonderful and a blessing upon her ears.

            “I love you.”

            Janus began to weep, taking her hands off of his face and holding them tightly in his.  She felt the words she had said with every fibre of her being.  It was so wonderful.  The lights in the entrance hall of the Menelaus Mansion seemed to be surrounded by a fuzzy haze, as though she was intoxicated, but she knew herself to be thinking more clearly than she had ever thought in this life.

            She hated the transition period.  Always the first thing that she felt, after her immense love for Janus resurfaced, was the guilt.  It poured on her like molten lava.  It hit her now with the same force it always did.  Thousands of repetitions of the experience could never quite prepare her for it.

            “Oh, Janus, my love.  Oh I am so sorry.  Will you ever forgive me?  Will you forgive me, I wasn’t me.  I wasn’t in my right mind.”

            Janus hushed her, cradling her face in his hands.  “All is forgiven my love.  You came back to me, of your own free will.  What greater sign can there be that, even in the confused state you always find yourself in at the beginning of each new life, you love me truly deep down?  You came to me yourself.”

            Ariadne nodded.  Janus pulled her in and they kissed passionately.  She felt her whole body succumbing to the taste of his lips.  She poured herself into him.  She was his.  She would give everything that she was to him in every moment of the rest of this life to appease him for the terrible things she had said, done, and thought up until now.

            “Oh, but you don’t understand,” Ariadne wept.  “You don’t understand the plan.  Oh, it was horrid.  I cannot forgive myself for ever having even thought of it.”

            “What was the plan, my dear?” Janus asked.  “It’s all right, my love.  There’s nothing you can tell me that I cannot forgive, in time.”

            Ariadne felt her lower lip trembling.  She was scared.  Not of Janus, he loved her too much.  Not matter what he did she never had to fear him.  He had ensured that they would be together, in love, for ever and throughout eternity.  He had shown her countless ages of man that she would never have seen without him.  He was her soul, her life blood, the reason for her being.  Nothing he did to her matter because in the end he was always there, and he always loved her.

            “I made a plan…I was going to come here and…I was going to get the rings and smash them!  I thought that was the way to end the Curse!  Oh God, I was going to try and break us apart forever!  I was going to make it so that we could never remember and find each other in the next life!  I was going to make it so I could never remember who I truly am!”

            Ariadne felt o her knees, still clutching Janus’ hands, and wept.  He said nothing.  Finally, after a time, he pulled her back up and looked into her eyes.

            “What about Paris?”

            His grip was so tight on her wrists that it stung.  But it was okay.  His voice was harsh.  But it was okay.  His eye bore into her, flames of anger licking out from his pupils.  But it was okay.

            Because he loved her.  And she loved him.

Committed Chapter 23

Still concerned that she’d do more harm than good if she tried to set Paris’ broken arm, the two of them managed to construct a make-shift sling out of her sweater so that Paris’ arm remained relatively immobile and elevated.

            Paris hated the plan.  He thought it was stupid, reckless, completely insane, and quite possibly the dumbest idea he’d heard in his entire life.  But he also agreed that in some stupid, crazy, reckless way it was probably the best chance that they had.  They couldn’t keep running forever, dodging the cops and ditching cars for the rest of their lives.  Paris only had so many extremities left and he really couldn’t afford to start injuring them too.

            Ariadne guided them deeper into the sewers, using her mental map of the streets above to get them through most of the downtown area until they came to the spot she wanted.  They found a man-hole cover and, with a little effort, managed to get Paris up and through it.

            They came out in an alley-way just across the street from the Queen Victoria Hospital.  They were now several blocks from where they’d crashed the car and, Ariadne suspected, with enough exposure to the stale air beneath the city to cause people to give them more looks than she would have liked at that point.

            She was right about the looks.

            They crossed the street and went through the automatic glass doors into the main lobby of the hospital.  Ariadne was helping Paris along, his arm cradled by the make-shift swing as well as his other, slightly better, arm.

            The woman behind the reception desk took one look at the two of them and paged a doctor.  Instantly, as if they’d been waiting for them to arrive, a couple of nurses descended and started examining them.

            Ariadne was surprised when the nurses began to make as big a deal about her own injuries as they did about Paris.  Apprently, she had a nasty cut just below her hairline, though she couldn’t really say that she felt it.  The nurse who was attending to her, a woman with a pleasant voice and hair the colour of sawdust, told her it was probably a result of the adrenaline.

            It took about five minutes of examining, including the arrival of the physician who would be attending Paris, before anyone asked them their names.

            Ariadne gave them both her name and Paris’, including last name, without any hesitation.  She was impressed when the staff only showed minor recognition.  However, she also noticed that the woman behind the reception counter was already on the phone.

            Everything was going according to plan.

            The doctor guided the two of them down the hall to one of the examination rooms.  They then placed Ariadne in one room and started taking Paris off towards another one.

            “You’re going to help him right?” Ariadne asked the doctor.

            He was a kind looking man with salt-and-pepper hair as well as a jaw-line that was as sharp as a razor blade.  He had beady blue eyes that were not unkind as they fell upon Ariadne.

            “We need to take a serious look at this arm.  There could be some internal bleeding and we don’t know how broken up the bone is in there.  So, yes, we will help him.  I promise.”

            “The police will be coming for him,” Ariadne said, holding the doctor’s gaze.

            He didn’t blink as he said, “And they can have him just as soon as I make sure he’s okay.”

            “Thank you,” Ariadne nodded.

            The doctor nodded, a brief look of curiosity passing across his face, before he turned and started walking with Paris down the hall.  Paris glanced over his shoulder and held Ariadne’s gaze until the nurse closed the door.

            Suddenly, Ariadne felt a heavy weight fall on her shoulders and realized she had missed what might have been her last chance to talk to him when she could still tell him…

            The nurse ushered Ariadne over to the hospital room’s bed and sat her down before she began examining the cut on her forehead.

            “It’s going to be all right, hun,” the nurse assured her.  “We’re going to get you patched up and then you’ll be able to go home to the people who love and miss you.”

            “The police are coming to arrest the one person who really loves me,” Ariadne told her.  She felt her heart ache again.  She wished it would shut up, but at the same time she loved the hurt.  She hoped it wouldn’t go away.

            The nurse said that the cut didn’t look as bad as it could have been and probably wouldn’t need stitches.  However, the skin had been scraped off over a considerable area.  She applied a gauze bandage to the wound and then proceeded to check the rest of Ariadne’s body.  She applied pressure to several points on Ariadne’s body, using two fingers with each press and asking her over and over if she felt anything.

            In each case, Ariadne answered in the negative.  The only thing she felt was the nurses’ fingers.  She seemed to find this astonishing and Ariadne had no doubt that the staff was fully aware of their recent high speed wipe-out.  No doubt they were notified of the potential for incoming injured the moment the chase began.

            “How long until the police arrive?” Ariadne finally asked as the nurse seemed to be running out of things to do.

            “I’m not sure, hun,” the nurse answered.

            “Soon, I hope.”

            The nurse smiled at that.  “Yes, I suspect they’ll be here soon.”

            Ariadne nodded.  She was feeling the window of opportunity to back out of her hair-brained plan getting smaller and smaller any second.

            Then, she felt it close entirely.

            There was a knock at the door.  As if in a trance, Ariadne watched the nurse walk over to the door and open it.  Standing on the other side were Officer Seth and Antenor.  Janus’ rent-a-police.  Antenor took one look at Ariadne and his face split with one of the most sinister smiles Ariadne had ever seen.  Next to him, she thought she saw a flicker of disappointment in Officer Seth’s face.  Had he thought she couldn’t possibly be giving herself up so easily?  She felt a small pang of satisfaction knowing that she had given the police much higher expectations for her ability to escape.

            Well, she thought to herself, Paris and I did escape from a skyscraper by shooting out the window on the top floor, riding a window-cleaner’s platform down a few levels, before shooting our way back in.  Not bad for a seventeen year old who has barely had anything to eat or drink all day.

            As though thinking it made it so, Ariadne was suddenly overwhelmed by the need to sleep, eat, and quench her thirst.  But she knew that she would get none of those things now if she asked for them.

            “Where’s Montague?” Antenor asked the nurse.

            “The boy?” she asked.

            “Yes, the boy,” Antenor drawled.  The nurse seemed instantly put off by his tone of voice and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

            “Doctor Sheppard took him to surgery to get his injuries checked.”

            “We’ll want to arrest him,” Officer Seth said.  He seemed determined not to look at Ariadne while Antenor seemed incapable of stopping.

            “You can arrest him after the doctor takes a look at his injuries.”
            Officer Antenor was clearly not happy about that and for the first time took his gaze off of Ariadne to stare at the nurse.  He was about to say something when Officer Seth put out his hand to hold him back.

            What looked like a natural move for Seth, no doubt a product of their months or years together as partners on the beat, didn’t seem to make Antenor any happier.  He reached up and gripped Seth by the wrist, forcing his arm down and holding it at his side.  Seth glanced at him with surprise but Antenor starred him down until he glanced back at the nurse.

            “As soon as the doctor’s done with him…”

            “I’m sure he’ll let you drag him off,” the nurse replied curtly.  “Is there anyone here to take the girl back to her family?”

            “Yeah, he’s right outside here,” Antenor said, gesturing over her shoulder.  “Family friend.”

            The man who had chased Ariadne through the streets in the Mercedes, who had chased her and Paris down into the sewers, stepped into view.  Ariadne met his gaze and found she could read nothing in his eyes.

            He stepped into the room and walked right up to Ariadne as if they’d known each other their whole lives.

            “Hello Ariadne,” he said.  “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.  My name is Achilles.”

            He offered Ariadne his hand.  This threw Ariadne off-guard and she found herself shaking his hand before she knew what she was doing.  Several thoughts were racing through her head now as she gazed at this stocky man who’d no doubt been hired by Janus to hunt her down.

            “Achilles?” she said, not quite believing what she was hearing.

            “Yes,” he nodded, smiling slightly as though he had expected her reaction.

            For a brief moment, Ariadne wondered if Janus had summoned this man out of the depths of history, if he had reincarnated the Achilles of antiquity to hunt her down and return her to him.  Somehow, she thought it unlikely, but the coincidence was almost too much to accept.

            “Shall we go?” he asked.

            The fact that he posed it as a question seemed to annoy Officer Antenor, who fidgeted in the doorway.  Everyone ignored him.

            “Yes,” Ariadne nodded.  “I suspect he’s tired of waiting for me.”

            Achilles frowned but nodded slowly.  “Yes.  I suppose he is.”

            “Thank you,” Ariadne said to the nurse as she stepped off of the bed and followed Achilles into the hall.

            “Not a problem, hun,” the nurse said, but there was obvious confusion on her face.

            Ariadne gave her a little smile, but she was really not sure what else to do.

            She followed Achilles down the hall of the hospital and into the lobby.  She realized he was making no attempt to secure her or guide her or stop her from running away.  Maybe he wanted her to run so that he could have the pleasure of catching her.

            Or maybe he felt the way she had felt after her father had told her the truth.  Maybe he felt like there was nowhere left for her to run.

            A few people glanced at them and whispered as Achilles led her through the lobby.  Ariadne ignored them and didn’t look at them.  She followed Achilles through the glass doors to the Mercedes which was parked in the ambulance lane in front of the hospital.

            He stood, with his back to her, about to open the passenger’s side door for her.

            “You could have easily run while I wasn’t looking,” Achilles said, his voice low and clear in the fading afternoon light.  “You could easily do it now.  I could give chase, but you’re younger and stronger.  You could easily escape me.”

            Ariadne stood behind him, waiting.  She wasn’t sure what was happening.  Was he saying that if she tried to run he’d let her go?

            “Why?” Achilles asked.  “Why aren’t you still fighting?”

            His question seemed genuine, which Ariadne hadn’t expected.  She considered for a moment what she should say.

            Finally, she whispered: “I can’t run forever.”

            Achilles turned around completely to face her now.

            “Why not?” he asked.

            The two of them starred at each other for quite a while.  It was probably only a few seconds but to Ariadne it felt like an age.  Finally, Achilles seemed to find something in her eyes that surprised him.  His eyes widened and he tilted his head to the side.

            “I see.”

            Ariadne wasn’t sure if he did, but when he opened the passenger’s side door for her she climbed into the car and let him close it on her without a fight.