63 The Broom Closet

Mattheus Cordera stood there looking down at her for a moment and then he sighed.

"You are breathtaking. A courageous beautiful woman with a huge heart. In a different world, and a different reality, I would never have coerced you to come to me."

There was deep regret in his piercing green eyes

"It would have been a long slow pursuit until you came to me willingly. Alas. I don't have that kind of time."

Candi glared at him.

"You." She took a deep breath. "Can go to HELL."

He laughed.

"I'm afraid I've been there quite often. I can show you what it's like there. I'm sure you'd find it…enlightening."

Suddenly there was a lurch that nearly knocked him off his feet.

"Aaaaah!" Candi yelped. The sudden jerk nearly jousted her from the bed.

Mattheus' eyes grew wide with concern.

"Looks like something is happening. I will be back."

He turned and strode out of the room with haste.

Candi stared at his retreating back.

As soon as the doors slid shut behind him, she yanked off all the monitor cuffs and IV drip from her arms. She had to find a way out of this place.

Candi tried to swing her legs down from the bed only to find a metal band that had been placed on her right leg. She had been effectively chained in.

"Aaaarghhh!!!" She cried as she yanked on the metal chain trying to find a way to free herself.

"Stop!" The physician in charge of her care ran towards her. "You're going to hurt yourself. Wait!" He waved a hand as she became more distressed. "At least let me unlock the ankle bracelet."

Hearing that, Candi took a deep breath and calmed herself. Leonardo did say he would find someone to help her. Maybe it was this doctor.

He raised his finger and touched the band on her ankle.

CLICK!

"Down the hall to the right. There is a broom closet. Go hide in there." He looked away, as if he was telling her that he never saw her leave the bed.

She nodded with a grateful smile and took off.

At the doorway, she poked her head out and had to slip back in as a couple of people walked past.

Once the hall was clear, she ran to the right, looking feverishly for a door that would be marked as the closet but there were no markings on any doorway.

She had almost run out of hallway when she saw a small blue triangle on the right side of the last doorway.

This had to be it.

Candi pulled the doorway and peeked in. It was a broom closet of the most ordinary kind. It actually had mops in it.

She slipped in and closed the door, hoping against all hope that the doctor would not be punished for allowing her to escape.

Candi had barely settled into the corner when another lurch knocked her to the floor. The mops fell on top of her, along with something hard and heavy from the top shelf.

"Ow!!!" She gasped rubbing at the spot where a metal can of some kind of cleaner had clonked her on the head.

What the hell was happening outside? Was there an earthquake? She wasn't sure exactly where she was, but it seemed as if she was in some kind of a hospital ward.

She reached out and pushed the mops off her body, wedging herself further into the corner where they had been stashed. Her only hope right now was to wait until Leonardo could come for her.

Please, please come back for her.

There was no one else who knew she had exchanged places with Slate except for Leonardo. He had said he would return and rescue her. All her hopes were pinned on him at this moment.

She clasped her hands and prayed to everything holy that he hadn't forgotten about her.

A long long while later, there was a banging outside.

"CANDACE!!!" Someone was yelling out her name. In fact, many people were yelling out her name.

She tucked her body closer into the corner. Please don't let them open the closet door. Please don't let them see her in here.

"CANDACE!!! IT'S ME DANTE! WHERE ARE YOU, CANDACE!!!"

Her eyes widened.

Dante!!!

Dante had come for her!

Mewling and crying with relief, she reached out to open the door.

Before she could reach the knob, it had been yanked open.

"Candace???" A man with a shock of spiky blue hair gasped and reached out for her.

"Oh my God Candace!!!" He pulled her up and crushed her into his body. "Oh my Baby. I finally found you. You scared me so much!!!"

His body shook as he held her.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" He pulled back to look at her. "Oh God. You're bleeding. What have they done to you???"

Bleeding? Where was she bleeding?

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and began wiping her head. Candi tried to protest that it was just sweat since it was a bit warm inside the broom closet, but then she saw the handkerchief come back bloody.

"Who hurt you???" His eyes gleamed with a frightening intensity.

"No—nobody. Wait. It's. It was just a can."

But he was not even listening to her any longer. He pushed all the brooms and mops aside and scooped her up off the floor.

Running down the hall, he yelled for a doctor.

Within minutes, she was lying on a gurney, with several physicians checking the source of all the blood on her head.

"Her head has been hit with a blunt instrument."

"Who hurt you???" Dante asked again.

"A can."

"A what?" Dante's green eyes looked confused.

"There was an earthquake and a can fell on my head." She tried to gesture how it happened, but he was too distressed to see her hand gestures.

"Earthquake?"

She nodded.

"There was a lot of jerking and quaking. The first quake hit when Mattheus Cordera was in the medic room with me."

"Ma—Mattheus?" Dante gasped.

"Yes. The second one hit when I was in the broom closet and that was when a can of cleaner fell on my head."

Dante was half laughing and half crying.

"A can fell on your head in the broom closet." He reiterated with disbelief.

She nodded, wincing with the slight pain that it caused. She was starting to get a bit of a headache.

"There was a doctor who unshackled my ankle from the bed and told me to run for the closet and hide myself. I want to thank him."

"Oh." Dante's face fell. "I'm truly sorry Candace."

"What? What happened to him?"

"When we were finally able to board the ship, someone had…he had…"

"They killed him." Candi finished Dante's words with finality.

"They killed him because he helped me escape." Her eyes blurred as tears sprang forth. The poor man.

She turned towards him.

"You said you boarded a ship. How was there an earthquake on a ship?"

Dante shook his head.

"It wasn't an earthquake. You're not even on Earth or any planet to speak of. This is a Raptor military starship. We're in the middle of deep space, flying back to Erenveil."