We last read Chapter 73, in which Sapphire Angel awakens after Conner rescues her from the depths of the pond. Before she can recover, Conner sets off to stop Wheldon’s sinister plan before it is too late. Still unsteady and in bad shape from the missile blast, she sets off after him, working her way up the steps to the tower. She reaches the room at the top of the tower, finding Xavier Wheldon and Jake Rockford. Mark Bishop is also there, holding a gun to the head of a Bud Tanner, who sits at a computer, near a man she doesn’t recognize. Conner is there, too, on the floor and his shirt soaked in blood.
Wheldon tells her she is too late, and Bud Tanner yells out that there is an abort button on the screen to stop the laser, before Bishop clubs him over the head with the butt of the handgun. Recognizing that she is in bad shape, Rockford, Wheldon, and Bishop attack her. She defeats Wheldon and Bishop, but she is too weak from the missile attack, and Rockford overwhelms her, battering her into submission, before wrapping his hands around her throat and pinning her to the wall. He starts to finish her off by choking her and cutting off her oxygen.
This is the second story, so if you want to start from the very beginning, you can jump over to book 1, and begin with the Prologue of Sapphire Angel, Superheroine. Or to start at the beginning of book 2 (this story), click over to the Prologue of Power Play.
Thanks for reading!
Sapphire Angel, helpless to break Rockford's grip and starting to lose consciousness, scanned the room as time crawled, like she was watching someone else's dream in slow motion. Her eyes first went to Rockford. His face was clenched in hatred and rage as he held her dangling before him, trying to squeeze the life out of her.
She moved her eyes and saw Wheldon, now behind and to the left of Rockford, near the door. His face carried a smug smile, as if seeing the costumed heroine's life slip away vindicated his evil plans.
Then she pivoted her eyes and spotted Senator Mark Bishop. He was watching her, too, with what almost looked to be a mix of glee and hunger in his eyes. He rubbed his hands together as if awaiting a favorite meal.
Then there was the stranger, sitting near the computer. His face was almost expressionless as he alternated his gaze between her and the computer screen. He looked confused, as if he were trying to square the legend of Sapphire Angel with the sight of the woman dangling helplessly in Rockford's grasp.
Her eyes traveled down to Tanner, unconscious on the floor. He wanted no part of Wheldon's plot, she now knew with certainty. He had tried to call out instructions on how to stop the laser, probably expecting his own death.
There was one last person. Conner. Her eyes found him across the room, past Wheldon. He hobbled past the door toward her, still clutching his shoulder, his face awash with despair at her plight. But Wheldon turned and leveled a handgun at him, taking aim. Conner would not be saving her.
As she looked at Conner, a feeling of emptiness came over her. Not an emptiness born of despair, but an emptiness born of lost possibilities and the unknown. Of not knowing what might have been between the two of them. Of not knowing what the future might hold for her. Of never knowing the answers to her secrets. Of never knowing her destiny.
That feeling, that she wouldn't live to find those answers, started as a small kernel of lament as she hung limp in Rockford's grasp. As the oxygen in her lungs dwindled, that kernel of lament transformed into nagging annoyance. As the room dimmed, the annoyance surged into determination, and her arms tensed at her side. And as the room drifted to black, her determination flared into blazing defiance, driving the pain from her mind.
Her eyes flashed open and her arms swung up. The force came from deep within her, from her need to see her future. To find the answers to her life. To her secrets. To her destiny. This man, holding and choking the life out of her, was the obstacle to those answers. She would not let him take it from her.
Her arms connected with the underside of his elbows. Rockford had been holding her with such force, and pushing her against the wall with such strength, that his elbows had been locked. Her blow was so powerful that his elbows bent upward, in a direction they weren't meant to go. A normal person would have released his hold before a body part contorted in an unnatural direction, but Rockford had been so focused on strangling the superheroine, that every ounce of his strength and leverage had been driving her into the wall. He couldn't release her.
His scream ripped through the tower as tendons and ligaments tore. His hands fell away from her throat as his arms flopped grotesquely down to his sides. She dropped to her feet, and then to her knees. With the fires of resistance still burning, she sprang from her knees, driving a shoulder into one of Rockford's knees. He howled again as his knee bent back, dislocated. She scrambled forward and seized him by the throat, rising and lifting him with one hand until she stared up at him, her eyes blazing. He would not take her future from her.
As she stared at him, a thought tugged at the edge of her consciousness. The laser. In a rush of panic, it all came back to her. Her own issues were secondary.
She flung Rockford, sending him clear across the room, past the laser, until he smashed into the opposite wall. Sapphire Angel lunged for the computer table as fast as her condition allowed. Bishop, who had been watching with wide eyes, stood in her path. She clubbed him aside with her arm, sending him flipping across the floor like a tumbleweed. She reached the table, blocking out her pain as she searched for the keyboard or mouse. The stranger sitting in the adjacent chair leapt from his feet and backed away, wanting no part of her.
"Sapphire Angel!" Wheldon's shout filled the tower. "Stop!"
She chanced a glance over her shoulder. Wheldon stood in the doorway, pointing a gun to Conner's head.
"Touch that computer and I blow his head off."
The only other sounds in the room were the hum of the laser, and Rockford's whimpering as he rolled in agony on the floor.
Sapphire Angel froze, looking at Wheldon and back at the computer. She saw a graphical "abort" button on the screen. Next to it was an on-screen camera view of a wall, with a hole in the middle of it growing larger. The containment building. A timer counted down below the image, with the words "Estimated time to breach" below the timer. The timer sat at 39 seconds and was counting down.
She looked back to Wheldon. He watched her from the corner of his eye, his focus on Conner.
"The way I see it," Wheldon began, "you have a choice. You have time to either save him, or stop the laser. Not both, especially in your current condition."
He was right. Her eyes darted between the computer and Conner. Could she resign him to death?
"Stop the laser!" Conner barked.
Still she hesitated. An impossible decision. Save Conner, someone she knew and cared for, or save many others.
And then Conner decided for her. He frowned, before stepping backward onto the landing outside the door. As Wheldon wheeled toward him, aiming to shoot, Conner flipped himself backward, over the railing.
"No!" Sapphire Angel screamed. She stumbled forward as Wheldon fired at Conner, and Conner fell from 75 feet up. Wheldon wheeled at her, his eyes wide, and fired again. The bullets fell harmlessly away. She reached him and drove a kick into his stomach. He toppled over as a gargle spilled from his mouth. She followed with a backhand, which spun him twice around and slammed him into the wall.
She choked back a sob. Conner was gone. But even through her pain, she remembered what she needed to do. She couldn't lose Conner and also have the laser kill everyone at the plant. She didn't wait to see if Wheldon stayed down, instead turning and teetering back toward the computer. Bishop had crawled his way back toward the table, so she lashed out with a foot, connecting with the side of his head. He moaned and toppled over.
Reaching the table, she found the mouse, moved the cursor over the "Abort" button, and clicked. She held her breath and saw the timer stop at 9 seconds. The laser made a final long hum and fell silent. She reached behind the computer, found the power cord, and yanked it free.
As she did, three gunshots roared behind her in rapid succession. She heard two grunts, and one clang of a bullet hitting the wall of the tower. She spun and spied Wheldon, on his knees, weapon in hand. He didn't point the gun at her, though, but to her side. At Bishop. A circle of blood grew on the senator's forehead, and he toppled over. Her eyes darted next to Rockford, who looked down at a bloody mess in the center of his chest, before collapsing.
She whirled back to Wheldon, disbelief on her face. And then she remembered. She recalled his promise to take the fall if anything went wrong. With Bishop and Rockford here, alive, that would have been impossible, because the two men had made no such promise. Wheldon had just ensured their silence.
Wheldon, wincing in pain, crawled backward on his haunches through the doorway. She ran to him, her anger blocking out her pain, and delivered another kick to his side, followed by a punch to his jaw. After one moan he stopped moving and landed with a clatter on the metal landing outside the doorway, where he lay still.
Her final step was to bind him with zip ties she pulled from her boot. She looked back inside, to the man who had been sitting near Tanner. As she approached him, he watched her with a pleading look in his eyes.
"I'm not part of this!" he insisted. "I was just here to keep an eye on what Tanner was doing with the computer. I don't even know what's going on. You have to believe me, Sapphire Angel!"
"What's your name?" Sapphire Angel asked with a wince, as the totality of her injuries started coming back to her.
"Andy... Andy Albright."
"Mr. Albright, you'll have to plead your innocence to the federal authorities when they get here," she told him. "Sit on the chair and put your wrists together behind your back."
Albright glanced at her, then the door, and then the chair. With a grimace, he sat at the chair and did as he was told. She secured his wrists to one another and to the frame of the chair, before securing his ankles to the chair.
When done she turned her attention to Tanner. She reached down, searching for a pulse, and breathing a sigh of relief when she found one. But he might need medical care. She had to get back to the lodge and learn whether Tristan had summoned help.
Sapphire Angel headed toward the door. Half way there, the weight of the ordeal hit her at once, and pain rolled over her like a tsunami. The battered heroine stumbled and collapsed to her knees. She remained on the floor and looked straight ahead, her eyes numb.
She had succeeded, but at what cost? Beth fought back tears as she thought of Conner. She wouldn't have made it this far without him. Their relationship had shown promise and now he was gone.
She dropped her hands to the floor in front of her and clenched her eyes closed. This was too much. Another loss. Another death. How much could she endure?
"A little help down here!"
Sapphire Angel's head jerked up at the sound of the voice coming from beyond the doorway. The voice sounded familiar. Conner? It wasn't possible. She had seen him go over the edge, and she hadn't been able to bear the thought of seeing his broken body on the ground below. She rushed to the railing, afraid of what she might see, and looked down.
At the loop of the circular stairway below the landing on which she stood, Conner clung to the railing with one hand. His body dangled over the ground far below. His face was clenched as he struggled to hang on.
"Don't let go!" Sapphire Angel yelled, as a mixture of dread and elation filled her thoughts. He was alive, and hanging from his good arm, but he could fall to his death at any moment.
"I don't plan to," Conner grunted, but she could see his grip loosening.
She grabbed the railing with one hand, vaulting over it but not letting go. As her body swung out from the railing and she started her descent, she gave a tug on the railing. This changed her direction, sending her swinging back toward the tower. She dropped through the air, landing on the stairwell just below the landing. A cry of pain escaped her lips as the force of the landing jarred her savaged muscles.
Those muscles would need to endure a bit more. She rushed to the railing, leaned over, and clamped a hand around Conner's wrist.
"I've got you," she said through gritted teeth.
"Are you sure you're up for this?" Conner asked through gritted teeth of his own. His shoulder had to be burning by now.
"I have to be," she said, before giving a cry and tugging with as much strength as she could muster. At full strength, Sapphire Angel would have been able to pull up Conner with ease even if he weighed five times his current weight. Instead, he felt like a dump truck attached to the end of her arm. She howled as she pulled him upward for what seemed like 10 minutes, but in reality was just a few seconds.
He reached the top of the railing, and as she gave one last tug, he tumbled over. The resistance gone, she fell backward, and he followed, landing on her in a heap on the stairs.
She forgot the pain in her arms as she looked up at his face, which was just a few inches away. She felt a tug of longing and wanted to reach up to kiss him. Conner studied her eyes and his heavy breathing matched hers. He held her gaze for a moment, hesitant, but pushed himself up to a seating position near her. He winced, grabbing at the bullet wound in his left shoulder.
"Why didn't you call for help sooner?" she asked.
"I didn't know who would come out on top up here. You were in bad shape when I left you. I didn't want to call out only to have Wheldon shoot me. At first I thought I could pull myself up."
She nodded, saying nothing. She was afraid if she said too much, emotion would overflow.
"Thank you," he said through a jaw clenched with pain. "Is it over?"
She pushed herself up and sat across from him, nodding.
"It's just tying up loose ends now," she replied, her throat catching. "Wheldon shot and killed Bishop and the bodyguard. I need to find Tanner's family. And you need a doctor right away."
Conner gave a wry grin. "I'll be fine. Just a shoulder. No vital organs."
Sapphire Angel gave him an uncertain look. "Maybe. But you need a doctor."
"It will hurt moving too fast, but I can make it back to the lodge. I'll get help. And there's someone else I need to check on back in that direction."
Sapphire Angel gave a nod but said nothing.
"You know," Conner said, "a few days ago I was no different than any other guy, and would have died to be this close to you. Don't get me wrong, it's still pretty freaking incredible... but there's someone now. And I need to go find her."
Sapphire Angel nodded. "I understand."
Conner climbed to his feet, reached out with his good hand, and helped her up, wincing as he did so. They looked deep into one another's eyes, standing inches apart.
"Until we meet again," he said with a nod, and plodded down the stairwell. Sapphire Angel watched him go, before turning in the other direction and rushing up the stairs as fast as her aching body allowed.
This is the second story, so if you want to start from the very beginning, you can jump over to book 1, and begin with the Prologue of Sapphire Angel, Superheroine. Or to start at the beginning of book 2 (this story), click over to the Prologue of Power Play.
Thanks for reading!
I appreciate any comments or email.
Okay! I'd say that was a great way to end that fight. Bishop's dead, Rockford's dead, WheIdon's near-dead, Conner's NOT dead (thank goodness; I IegitimateIy thought WheIdon shot him over the raiIing), and.....apparentIy his happiness is with Beth and not Sapphire AngeI....? At Ieast, that's what I gathered from those Iast few Iines.
Not so sure if she shouId teII the secret now......
But come on......I wanted to see Chief Biggins and MacGregor Lockheed get deaIt with, too.....Biggins in particuIar was quite sIimy.....there's stiII two chapters Ieft, so I guess I couId hope.....?