Chapter 4 : The Fight

*Alex*

No limos tonight, I thought as I stepped into the private express elevator which led from my penthouse apartment down to my secured below-ground garage. The mirrored walls of the elevator reflected my dark garments. I wasn’t exactly dressed in combat fatigues, but the clothing was sturdy, outdoorsy, and yet fashionable not to turn too many heads.

I didn’t want to look overly conspicuous if someone spotted me sneaking into the sorority house while it was empty. Tonight, discretion truly would be the better part of valor.

The only problem was most of my modes of transport stood out. I couldn’t take my flashy sports cars or my pristine fully tricked-out luxury vehicles.

I talked to my maintenance man, who let me borrow his utility van. Just the thing for my purposes, as it would hold all of my equipment.

A person or persons unknown was out to hurt me by using my daughter. No way would I allow that to happen. Not on my watch…. literally. If I couldn’t be physically guarding my daughter and her friends twenty-four hours a day, then at least I would be privy to everything that happened.

I packed my duffel bags into the back of the van, then shut the bay doors and climbed behind the wheel. It was about a two hour drive to campus, but traffic held me up. I started getting worried when it grew later and later.

It was almost midnight when I finally pulled up into the hairpin drive. The campus was dead quiet. I kept to the shadows as I made my way to the front door. I used my master key to get the front door open and stepped inside. My eyes darted about, searching for good places to set my cameras.

I decided to focus my camera placement on potential entrances and exits of the sorority house. This meant all doors and windows, for certain. I also wanted to keep track of high-traffic areas, bottlenecks through which an intruder would have to pass.

I strenuously avoided putting cameras anywhere that would capture the girls themselves, except in common areas. The bedroom cameras were aimed only at the window, and only at an angle where they could capture anyone coming in or exiting.

I was on the third bedroom window when something thumped and creaked in the kitchen. I froze, my heart thudding a mile a minute in my chest. I remembered my training and focused on keeping my breathing slow and steady.

My heart rate decreased somewhat. I crept toward the hallway, wondering if I should have brought a weapon. When I reached the doorway, I didn’t go out. Instead, I leaned side to side, peering down as much of the hallway as I could without leaving the relative safety of the room.

Hunkering down low, I moved out into the hallway and then carefully walked toe to heel to reduce the sound of my footsteps. When I reached the top of the stairwell, I crouched down and peered into the kitchen below. The lights were on, as they had been before. I couldn’t see the full kitchen space, but it looked pretty much the same as it had before.

I crept down the steps, keeping my eyes and ears open. A prickly feeling on the back of my neck told me I was in trouble, and that I was not alone in the house. Yet I neither saw nor heard anything amiss.

I made it to the first floor and explored the kitchen. Nothing seemed out of sorts, yet, I had a strange feeling someone had been through recently. I searched all of the corners of the room, then moved to the door leading out to the backyard.

It was unlocked. My heart rate increased again when I saw that someone had bypassed the motion sensors. Someone with a high degree of skill to defeat a Crossfire motion sensor, which has numerous fail-safes to prevent just that thing.

I was going to take the thing with me, and plop it down on the desk of my R and D department and ask them how the fuck this happened. Only I had to handle one thing at a time. Mainly, there was at least one other person in the house with me, and that person or persons’ had the skills and gumption to bypass a highly sophisticated security system.

No doubt I would be dealing with professionals.

They thought they were here to take my daughter. Instead, they’d have to deal with her daddy.

I grabbed for a kitchen knife, but then remembered that they lacked cross-guards. This increased the likelihood I would slice my own hand tenfold. I dug around in a drawer and came up with a rubber mallet. It would have to do.

Wielding the mallet, I moved back into the hallway. No longer was I hunting. I was searching. My prey was here, and now I just had to find it.

I kept my cool as best I could while I searched the house. By the time I reached the third floor, I began to worry that the infiltrator had already fled. Perhaps he heard me coming and ran out the back door before I made it to the kitchen.

I didn’t exactly relax, but I had begun to suspect my quarry had escaped. I decided I would still search the rest of the house, though, just to be safe, then install the rest of my cameras. The door to the next room stood partly open. I saw a poster of a grinning Charles Manson on the wall and knew it had to be Chloe’s.

I pushed the door fully open and stepped inside. Chloe lived a tidy life, with her room neatly organized. She only had one window, and a bathroom to herself, a rarity in the sorority house, but she was a senior.

I stepped over to her desk, where a photo of herself and Sylvia rested. I ran my finger across Chloe’s face, the glass cool to the touch.

“Why can’t I get you off my mind, Chloe? Or maybe I just don’t want to get you off my mind?”

I set the picture down carefully. As I did so, I caught a glimpse of movement over my shoulder in the vanity mirror.

I threw myself to the side as the knife slashed through the air, thunking meatily into the wooden vanity top. I brought my arm up to shoulder height, elbow bent, then snapped my hand out in a chop.

The heel of my hand caught the masked man in the eye. He stumbled back, leaving his knife impaled in Chloe’s vanity. The man recovered quickly, putting his hands up into a guard position. His left eye watered terribly squinting through the holes in his mask. He wore all black as well. The plastic zip ties on his waist made me shudder. Had he intended to use those awful things on my daughter?

Anger surged through me. When he tried to get past me and reach his lost knife, I struck out with a short jab, colliding with his jaw. I followed it up with a right hook, but he got his arm up and partially blocked the shot.

We seized each other, grappling for dominance. I was bigger and stronger, but he had a lower center of gravity and was plenty strong himself. We rolled across the wall, knocking books and figurines to the floor. I stepped on something, and it crunched. I got even madder that this thug had made me break one of Chloe’s things.

He again tried for the knife. I planted my hip against his upper thigh and twisted my body hard. He flipped through the air and crashed onto the floor. I tried to follow up, but I slipped on the damn rubber mallet I’d dropped during his initial assault.

The intruder got to his feet. He gave up on trying for the knife and tried to run out the door instead.

“Oh no you don’t, motherfucker.”

I gave chase, pumping my legs hard to keep up with him. He reached the staircase and tried to get fancy, leaping over the steps to the first landing. The intruder hit hard, stumbling on his landing and slamming into the wall. He hadn’t fully recovered when I made it to the landing and drove into him. I got a pretty good shot on his chin, and he went boneless for a second.

His limp body tangled up with my limbs as we both fell down the last ten steps to the ground floor. Pain erupted all over my body. I would be covered with bruises, but nothing seemed broken.

The intruder had likewise gotten lucky, scrambling to his feet without any broken limbs. He made for the knife block. I grabbed a stool and threw it at his legs. Man and stool went down in a tumbled heap. I dove upon him, pushing the stool down with my weight and trapping his legs. He tried to roll over, but I had him pinned. His arms flailed about, grabbing at the cabinet handles and making them open, and slam shut.

I leaned harder on the stool. The way his legs were tangled up it wouldn’t take a lot more to break one of them. I liked the idea of breaking his leg. He wouldn’t be able to run away, and he deserved to hurt for wanting to take my daughter.

The intruder’s desperation paid off. He stuck his hand into the open sink cabinet and came back with a bottle of apple cider vinegar. He tried to hit me with it but only succeeded in smashing the cap off. Only this sent a spray of amber fluid right into my eyes. I screamed as it seared my eyes. I had no choice but to stand up and wipe my face.

My vision cleared somewhat, and a blurry image of the intruder appeared on my left. He was trying to run out the back door. I grabbed him in a full nelson lock and pulled him away as his legs flailed.

The sound of girls’ voices reached the kitchen. With horror, I realized that Sylvia, Chloe, and the sisters were back. I wanted to keep them in the dark about the danger—it was the best way to protect them.

I spotted the door leading to the basement next to the fridge. With a grunt, I spun us around and then shoved him down the stairs, following a split second behind.