Chapter 9 - The Siege at Oak Creek
"Mom! Get up!" I screamed, bursting into my mother's bedroom. "Get Sofia! Now!"
My mother sat up in bed, confused and pale. "Mariana? What's going on?!"
"He's outside!" I yelled, pulling Sofia out of her small bed in the adjoining room. Sofia began to cry, confused and frightened by the sudden terror in my voice. "The phone! Call 911!"
My mother snatched her home landline receiver off the nightstand, pressing it to her ear. She looked at me with wide, horrified eyes. "There's no dial tone! The line is dead!"
Click.
Suddenly, every light in the house went dark. The hum of the refrigerator, the ceiling fans, the digital clock on the stove—everything died instantly.
He had cut the main power line at the exterior breaker box.
The house descended into absolute, suffocating darkness, illuminated only by the periodic flashes of lightning from the storm outside.
"In the hallway closet!" I whispered aggressively, dragging my mother and clutching Sofia tightly against my chest. "Go to the back closet behind the laundry room! Lock the door and don't make a sound!"
"Mariana, what about you?!" my mother wept, holding Sofia's head against her shoulder.
"I have my phone! I'm calling Miller!" I shoved them into the narrow closet, pulling the heavy wooden door shut and sliding the manual bolt lock into place.
I dropped to my knees in the dark hallway, dialing 911 on my cell phone screen.
No Service.
The storm had knocked out the local tower, or he was using a signal jammer he had bought with his industrial supplies.
CRASH.
The sound of shattering glass echoed from the back kitchen door.
My heart pounded against my ribs like an trapped animal. He was inside the house.
I heard the slow, heavy crunch of footsteps stepping over broken glass on the kitchen linoleum. Then, the rhythmic, wet sound of a mop bucket being set down on the floor.
"Mariana..." his voice floated down the dark corridor, calm, serene, terrifyingly familiar. "You know how much I dislike a mess. You left the front porch lights on. You left the dishes in the sink."
I slid along the hallway floor, my hand reaching into the dark until my fingers brushed against the handle of an old brass floor lamp sitting on the hallway table. I unscrewed the heavy marble base from the rod, clutching the thick stone disc in my right hand.
"I brought something for us," Diego’s voice moved closer, stepping into the dining room. "The lawyers are very good, Mariana. They signed the bail bond paperwork at midnight. The judge granted conditional release pending the suppression hearing. Isn't the legal system wonderful?"
He was out on bail. The anonymous trust fund had posted his multi-million dollar bond before the state could file secondary federal charges.
"I came for my daughter," his footsteps reached the carpet of the hallway. "And I came to clean up the last loose end."
A flash of lightning lit up the corridor for a fraction of a second.
He was standing ten feet away from me at the end of the hallway. He was wearing his dark rain jacket, holding an industrial stainless steel cable saw in his gloved hands—the kind used by arborists and butchers.
"You said I was a coward, Mariana," he murmured softly in the dark, taking a slow step forward. "You said she would forget my face."
I held my breath, pulling my legs under me in the pitch-black shadows near the floor.
I knew his compulsions. I knew how his mind worked better than anyone on earth. He was a man of absolute order. He couldn't advance down a corridor without checking his flanks. He couldn't stand asymmetry.
He stepped past the doorway of the guest room, pausing to look inside to ensure no one was waiting behind him.
That split second was all I had.
I launched myself off the floor with every ounce of strength in my body, screaming a raw, guttural cry of pure motherly rage.
I swung the heavy marble lamp base through the dark with all my weight.
CRACK.
The solid stone slammed directly into the side of his skull.
Diego let out a wet grunt, staggering sideways, slamming his shoulder into the drywall. The cable saw dropped from his hands, clattering against the floorboards.
He didn't fall. He shook his head, blood pouring from a gash above his ear, his dark eyes fixing on me in the dark like a wounded predator. He reached out with two hands, his fingers locking around my throat.
I was slammed back against the wall, the air exploding from my lungs. His grip was like iron, squeezing my windpipe, lifting my feet off the floor.
"You... shouldn't... have done that..." he wheezed, his face inches from mine, smelling of rain, copper, and bleach.
My vision began to spot with black dots. My lungs screamed for oxygen. My hands beat uselessly against his arms.
Sofia, my brain screamed through the fading light. Sofia.
I stopped hitting his arms. I raised my hand, my fingers searching his face in the dark until I found his left eye.
I drove my thumb into his eye socket with everything I had left.
Diego let out a blood-curdling shriek of agony, releasing his grip on my throat as he fell to his knees, clutching his face, blood streaming between his fingers.
I hit the floor, coughing violently, gasping for air.
I didn't run away. I grabbed the heavy cable saw from the floor, wrapped the steel handles around my hands, and looped the braided wire directly over his neck from behind.
I pulled back with all my weight, pressing my knee into the center of his spine.
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Diego thrashed wildly, his legs kicking against the floorboards, his hands clawing at his throat, trying to get his fingers under the steel wire.
"This is my house!" I roared into his ear, tears and sweat streaming down my face as I pulled the wire tighter. "These are my children! You don't get to touch them! You don't get to clean this!"
