IMPOSTER - PART THIRTEEN

PREVIOUSLY

"I've been waiting a long time to make you pay for what you've done to Todd...and to us!" he said -- his hard, unforgiving eyes full of his plans for his revenge on the one woman who had stood in his way of completely dominating Todd. His hands reached up -- lowering the silk shirt down over his broad, bare shoulders -- and let it slide gradually down his arms and fall in a heap behind him.

*****************************************************************************************************

Tea's eyes, swollen and red from crying, peered at the man who would soon make her his next victim. That's right, you bastard! This is what it's all about, isn't it? It's about revenge on anyone who can get close to you. Somewhere inside this man was another man who had said he loved her -- where was he? What do I really mean to you, Todd? How far would you go to keep this maniac from violating me and even ending my life? I'm not going down without a fight -- not for any man!
Pete moved forward toward her and began unbuckling his belt. This will be your final curtain, Tea. First, I'll enjoy myself and then I'll rid all of us of you forever.
Tea moved back on the bed, trembling but determined to face her would-be assailant with courage.
"What are you afraid of, Pete?" she asked with a bravado she didn't feel but wanted to show him.
Pete yanked off his belt and began to tap the leather strap rhythmically against his leg -- his darkened eyes assessing every curve of her body. She thinks she's very clever! Psychoanalyze me all you want, baby! It won't stop me from doing what I'm going to do!
"You want an answer to that, Mrs. Manning?" he asked her contemptuously.
"Ye..yes. I do! I want to know the reason why you're doing this!" she said with her chin raised defiantly.
"Okay, Delgado. Of all the women I've known, I think you're the most entitled to know about me -- me, Pete -- the man you said you wanted to get to know, remember?" He wiped his mouth with a kind of relish with what he was going to say to her.
"I am the essence of Todd -- the real Todd. Todd never had anything at all normal about his life -- it was always a screwed-up mess. Even as a boy, he had nothing! Peter Manning made sure of that."
"What about Sam? I know he was a good influence in Todd's life." Tea asked as she blindly hoped that talking to the alter could somehow change the tide of what she was facing.
"Sammy boy. Yeah, well Sammy thought he was going to change him, too. All that big buddy coach stuff but he was so naive. You don't come in and put a little Band-aid on an open, gaping wound. He was laughable sometimes with his boyish enthusiasm. Made me want to puke!"
"So...you came along?"
"Came along? Baby, I was already there!" he said derisively. "But you want to know when I came out, don't you? Well, you can chalk that up to Peter Manning and one night with Todd."
"His sexual abuse?" Tea ventured with an overwhelming need to get to the core of what had happened to Todd. She watched his face carefully to detect any subtle change as he was talking.
Pete smiled with a hidden, mysterious knowledge of the past. "Todd's never really told anyone about that night. Oh, Sammy tried to worm it out of him, but I made sure that never happened." He began to pace back and forth in the room -- his eyes flickering with intensity as he seemed to relive that particular night of hell in Todd's life.
"He came home from work that day -- mad at the world as usual. Todd kept out of his way when he was like that, but this night was different. He had a visitor -- a girl who had been nice to him -- and that made Peter really hostile. He hated Todd for so many reasons, but on some level, I think he was jealous of him. Jealous of his youth and his athletic skills and now, Todd had a girl who liked him. Peter knew that Todd would be very powerful one day -- he knew -- and he wanted to squelch that. After he had embarrassed Todd and the girl had left, he wanted to make sure that Todd didn't ever think he was special again."
Tea felt a knife twisting in her gut as he talked. Pete's face altered into one of complete disdain for a person no longer living, but who was a ghost that haunted all of them. He continued talking in measured sentences -- describing more explicitly what had occurred. As she listened in horror at what he had endured, her face, already puffy from crying, once again was covered with fresh tears as each word cut into her heart.
"...then I broke free of Todd in one moment and had my hands around Peter's throat -- it was what I had been waiting for all those years -- to get to that sadistic bastard and silence him forever...but it didn't happen because Sammy boy had to butt in."
Pete stopped his pacing and looked at her as if he was just remembering a connection.
"And you stopped me, too, didn't you, Tea?" he snarled. "You just had to come into Todd's life and mouth off about him being full of goodness and all that sickening garbage! I used to laugh at your pathetic attempts to get him to change. You thought you were so special that Todd would want to turn himself inside out for you. But you didn't count on me, did you, honey?" As he said this, he crossed over to the side of the bed -- his belt clutched in his right hand and eased himself down next to her with a sinister grace. His eyes took in the shaking body and the tear-stained face of Todd's woman. It's going to be so much fun to hear you whimper and beg me for mercy, Delgado -- after all you've put us through -- especially me! You are the one person who could make me go away, and I won't have that! That's why you have to die.
Tea had known some times in her life which had been about surviving something awful, but she had never experienced anything like this. She wanted to scramble off the bed and run for the door and out of the cabin as far away as she could run. There was no weapon for her to use -- nothing but what she had inside of her -- the steely, toughened heart of a girl who had come out the other side of a desolate, lonely childhood. Suddenly she also knew that as much as she had sometimes wanted to deny her heritage, she had a strong pride in her family and her roots. She was Latino and nothing would ever change that. She had an identity -- she always had it -- but couldn't see beyond her need to fit in with another race. You will not dishonor me, Pete, as much as you may try. I know who I am, and I'm going to show you now.
"You're such a big man, aren't you, Pete? You have to intimidate women just to make yourself feel like you're a man! You're no man -- more like a little boy who never had a Mommy!"
Pete pushed her body down in a rage as her words struck a blow. "Don't you ever say a word about my mother!"
"Why? Can't handle it, Pete? Did I hit a nerve or something? I thought you were so powerful, but you're nothing but a bragging wimp!" I'm risking everything here, but I have nothing else to lose. I've got to push his buttons and take a chance that Todd is still here with me.
His eyes were glassy and vacant as she saw him raise his right arm up with the leather belt poised in the air to strike her across the face. A single word was screamed out by Tea into the eerie stillness with a sound that was high and deafening in his ears.
"Toooodddd!"
"Stop it, Pete!" another voice said with authority -- a voice coming from the same man who was about to mar her face for life. "You will not hurt her...you will not hurt her!"
In seconds, minute alterations took place across the visage of the face which had just moments before been the picture of evil. Tea watched as his face distorted into several different macabre shapes -- his features betraying an unseen struggle from within.
His hand lowered a couple of inches as the voice surged through again. "You' ll have to come through me first, Pete! You made a big mistake just now. You told her about that night. Your power is going now..."
The arm raised up in the air faltered and hesitated. Abruptly it lifted again in an attitude of punishment, and Tea saw the eyes of Pete riveted on her -- as if he was concentrating on something with all his might.
"No, Manning! I'm just as strong as always...I am! I'm going to mark this little beauty so that you'll never want to look at her again. You don't control me! You never did!" His complexion flushed into a bright red and he foamed at the mouth as he spewed out his words. "Come and get me, Manning! I'm waiting for you!"
Pete tensed his arm again to deliver the blow, but without warning, dropped his arm and doubled over in apparent pain -- his eyes narrowing with extreme effort. Tea stared as if hypnotized by what she was seeing and wanted to jump out of her skin when she heard him speak with the commanding voice from before. "Get out of here now, Tea! Go!!"
"Todd?" she questioned him but knew in her heart that it was him. She slid off the bed and ran toward the door -- her eyes looking back at the man hunched over in the bed -- his eyes shut tight and his face twisted into one of intense suffering.
"GO!!!!"
She turned her eyes away from him and headed out the door -- obeying the voice of her husband -- her real husband.
His command had been unmistakeable. She ran through the living room and grabbing her purse from a table, rushed to the front door. As she grasped the doorknob, she stood transfixed as the most bloodcurdling outcry shattered the quiet of the cabin. With her heart pounding as it never had before, she turned the knob and dashed out of the house.
Racing down the road through the thickness of the blue-black night, her imagination was running rampant with thoughts of Todd and Pete. Todd...Todd...you came out to help me! You're fighting him, aren't you? Oh, querido, I'm so afraid for you! He's so strong! He's had years of built-up anger and hatred to feed on and make him a force capable of erasing you from existence. What was it you said? About Pete telling me about that night with Peter Manning? Something about "losing his power?" Please, God...let him remember that I love him with my life and let him use that to help him annihilate Pete from his mind forever.
Her breathing was heavy and labored as she continued to pound the ground underneath her feet -- moving forward to distance herself from the madness behind her and to seek any kind of port in the storm. Through the sounds of her running, she picked up another sound -- at first faint -- but then increasing in volume -- heavy footsteps running behind her.
Between her gasps of breath, she listened with sheer terror to the voice approaching her on the road.
"Tea!....Tea, stop!!"

~ TO BE CONTINUED ~