The Rise of Rachel Price T-Girl Pt. 43

If mood in the Thornbury Hotel was somber. The atmosphere in the penthouse was more charged than a thunderstorm in Georgia.

"I want more people on this case," Levant demanded of the local head of police over the phone.

"You have everyone we can spare, Governor," the head of police responded.

Levant spun around, "I don't want everyone you can spare. I want everyone you can, fuck. I mean I want every fucking one. Every single person out there looking for her. I want uniforms out there searching every second of every minute." Levant shouted into the phone. "She's mine, she belongs to me. I want her back."

The negotiator and the agents in the room averted their gazes and tried not to react to his intense outbursts. It was akin to babysitting a tornado. The Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell had moved in rapidly but stuck irritatingly to their no-concessions policy.

Watching this, the head negotiator had the gravest of feelings; he was certain that Levant would not adhere to the playbook he had laid out. The worst thing Levant could do was start shouting threats down the line. If he did, fingers and toes would start arriving by mail. If he was fortunate, they would belong to Rachel.

Levant, his private special crisis advisor, and the FBI now operated within three rings of the main phone in the penthouse of the Thornbury. There had been a significant amount of debate over paying the demands. The official policy was to pay nothing.

"Do you.. Do you.. Do you understand the rules aren't made to apply to people like me? Like her? They are for little people. I am Douglas Fucking Levant! The money is standing by I'm going to get her back then I'm going to fuck those shits up."

"Sir" the agent began, "thats not current..."

"I don't fucking CARE! She's mine. I want her I want my child back! I don't care what it takes!"

Disgusted Levant walked out of the living room where the team was waiting and entered his private study. He wandered over to the hidden bar and poured himself a glass of his favorite whiskey. He hadn't slept in days, and the strain had carved its self deeply on his face. The acid in his scarlet eyes stopped him from closing them.

The door to the room closed behind him, followed by a click as the heavy panic room door shut.

"Hello, Douglas," Rachel's voice said from behind him.

Douglas turned around to find Denver standing there, dressed in a Thornbury staff uniform. Rachel's hair was concealed under a wig, which itself was covered by a Thornbury cap. Denver had added a small goatee and, without the familiar makeup, looked quite like his old self again. Behind him was the open doorway to Levant's secret panic room, and beyond that, access to the private elevator.

In his hand, Denver held a gun with a silencer on the end.

"Rachel, you're alive!" Levant exclaimed, his face turning confused. "What's with the cocking... gun? I meant, gun?"

Levant's occasional glitches were slowly worsening. The kidnapping and lack of sleep had made things nearly impossible. He hadn't taken his medication in days.

"Put the glass down," Denver said in his original voice. "I think it's more like 'Denver, you're alive' at this point."

Douglas lifted his hands. "You escaped?" Douglas asked, framing it more as a question.

"Never that fast on the uptake, were you? I faked the kidnapping. I must admit, I enjoyed beating up Peter more than I thought. Was it you or him who came up with the idea of feeding me Viagra to make me think I was enjoying sex more as Rachel than I was as Denver? Doesn't matter; it's what you wanted," Rachel said.

"What are you doing?" Douglas asked.

"I want my documents. I should kill you," Rachel replied. "It's revenge. To be honest, it's more self-preservation. That, and I'm protecting America, possibly the world. You've struggled as Governor. The economy is tanking; people are suffering due to your zealotry. Oh yeah, I know it's not your zealotry--it's your sponsors zealotry'. They evicted all the people from my old project, you know that? Probably not. So, given Volk's little toy, we both know that the separation of California from the U.S. is in the bag, don't we? Or perhaps you're going to use this to run for president. Don't think I haven't seen you grabbing new sponsors for your next big move."

"I would be a great president, the best," Douglas said.

Rachel shrugged it was freeing that she didn't have to appease Levant. She could say what she liked, and the tiny censor in her had took a break. "There's self-belief, and then there's self-delusion. You would be a terrible president. They would vote you out immediately, except you've broken that system. I don't care. All I want are my documents, my passport, then Beth and I are gone. You're going to open the safe, get the money out, give me it and Denver's stuff, and then I'm gone." Rachel pointed to the green picture over the safe.

"Then what are you going to go on the run," Levant said, turning his back. "With your whore girlfriend? I'll find you if it takes to the end of time. Do you think you can escape me? Think again. "

"I'm the one holding the gun," Rachel reminded him, waving it towards the safe, "Passport, please."

"Look, we can negotiate something, I'm certain," Levant suggested, sliding the picture aside to reveal the safe. He began to deftly turn the dial. "You can't kill me; I'm the one who created you," he added, his face deliberately averted.

"The question worth sixty-four thousand dollars is this," Rachel posited, "can you truly shape someone's identity, even with endless resources at your disposal?"

"You consented. You wanted this transformation. If anyone is responsible for Rachel's existence, it's you," Douglas argued.

Rachel shifted her stance subtly. "It's curious how repeating a lie often enough can bestow upon it a veneer of truth. That's the enigma we're unraveling today. Open the safe, Douglas."

Levant resumed his task, his mind already racing with contingency plans for a world where Rachel no longer existed. A funeral could serve as a strategic smokescreen for releasing more unfavourable news. The wave of compassion generated could be used to protect him while he tried to rescue the economic mess.

Levant finished typing in the code and opened the safe door, pausing before he spoke again. "Listen, I could never bring myself to harm you. My love for you is all-consuming," Douglas confessed. "When you were kidnapped, I felt as though my world was collapsing. Even now, faced with your gun and your threats, I believe everything could be sorted if you'd just lower the gun. Such is the depth of my love for you."

Rachel was unsure; she noticed how Levant hadn't ask if Beth was Okay.

"But you do all the loving, and I do all the changing. Put the stuff in this bag " Rachel said, throwing a shopping bag over and not moving her attention from Douglas, "That's not how it's supposed to work. That's why I have to do this. You see, fundamentally, I never loved you, and I never could. I might have tolerated a loveless marriage for the sake of Beth and the twins, but after you found out about Samantha, I was relieved that I took the bullet, not her. Living a life without love is something I'm unwilling to settle for. So maybe you did make a woman out of me".

"You won't kill me; you can't," Levant said, looking deeply into the safe, reaching in an getting the stacks of money out, "I know deep down, there's a tiny pearl of feeling for me. If you wanted me dead, I would be already."

"You've changed, Douglas," Rachel observed. "You're not the man I started dating. You haven't been the same since the heart attack."

"I guess this is goodbye," Levant said, his back to Rachel. "Why could you never learn to obey me? Well, I have our daughters, and I can wait. I'm good at waiting."

Levant reached into the safe and fast as a wip pulled out a gun. "If I can't have you, no one else can," he declared, spinning around to aim at Denver. There was a click, but nothing more. Levant looked down, puzzled.

"I worked out the combination a long time ago," Rachel said. "I needed to know where your priorities lay."

"Fuck" Levant muttered.

In one last act, Levant lunged forward, attempting to wrestle the gun from Rachel's hands. Denver pulled the trigger. He didn't intend to kill Levant; he wanted to hurt him, that much was certain. A shot to the groin would have been ironic, but what video games don't prepare you for is the kickback a silencer adds.

Douglas looked up, his eyes wide with disbelief and fear. A dark red stain began to blossom on his shirt, expanding rapidly across the fabric like a malevolent rose in full bloom. The crimson hue clashed starkly against the crisp whiteness of his shirt, signaling the grim reality of his situation.

"You can't kill me," Levant gasped as he spoke, some blood came out of his mouth. His face lost all color, he was drowning in his own blood. This wasn't the kind of shot you could survive they both new it.

Rachel stood in the dim light, his eyes locked onto Levant's. "I don't think Rachel would, or could, ever kill you," she said, her voice tinged with an emotion that was not quite anger, not quite sadness. "But today, I'm Denver. This is for everything you ever did--and would have done."

Knowing Levant would die a slow, agonizing death, Rachel made a quick decision. The gun in her hand trembled ever so slightly before she steadied it and fired again.

This might mean prison, but it secured the lives of Samantha, Beth, Hunter, Her mother, the lost Beths, and even herself. Prison would be worth it, it wasn't a contest.

As if on cue, the door handle rattled, jolting like an electric shock. FBI agents outside began to bellow commands. Rachel's fingers danced over a hidden panel, activating the panic room's high-security protocol; the steel door would withstand an army of heavily armed kidnappers for days, maybe even weeks. He glanced at Levant's lifeless form and dropped a note beside him--a carefully crafted decoy meant to suggest betrayal by a drug cartel, a red herring to keep the FBI chasing ghosts. Then Denver, almost like a specter himself, slipped into the hidden escape elevator.

Inside the cloistered space, she hit the elevator's emergency button. The elevator pod hummed with electric energy, lurching downwards so quickly it left her stomach feeling queasy. She heard the latches click in place, and then the elevator grounded to an abrupt, teeth-gritting stop at the bottom. She stepped out into a dimly lit corridor, exiting through a nondescript metal door labeled 'Cleaner's Cupboard.'

Emerging into the alley behind the building, Rachel sensed the nocturnal life around her--the scuttling of rats, the distant wail of sirens. As she pushed through the creaky back doors, he saw a lone figure standing in the shadows, a burning cigarette illuminating the contours of her face.

"Denver?" the voice came, soft but unmistakable--it was Charlie.

Charlie could identify Denver. The disguise was good, enough to fool most people. Rachel knew her life was in Charlie's hands. Charlie wasn't stupid, it didn't take her more than a breath to figure out what Denver had done and what she was carrying.

Rachel turned, her eyes meeting Charlie's in the dim light. A heavy pause filled the air, and they both weighed their next words carefully. "I'm sorry I got you involved in all of this," Charlie finally said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "What happened?"

Rachel shrugged, her silhouette framed by the distant city lights. "You once told me that what destroys relationships in the long term are secrets. Levant and I had the biggest secret in California: I didn't, couldn't love him."

Rachel took a deep breath, feeling an odd sense of urgency but compelled to say something she had long considered.

"You know. I think your mom didn't die a failure. She just measured success differently. She touched the lives of so many kids, she had a bright, loving daughter, and knew the depth of human love. She was a 'somebody' she was your mother. And maybe she understood life better than either of us. You're going to do what you have to do. I have to go now. This is Goodbye, Charlie," Rachel said, her voice tinged with finality.

"Goodbye, Denver," Charlie replied, the ember of her cigarette glowing faintly as she took another drag.

Rachel turned the corner and vanished, melting into the labyrinthine streets of the city to catch one of the five Ubers she had strategically ordered. Denver was never seen in California again.

Inside the Uber, Rachel sat in contemplative silence. Her thoughts ricocheted like a pinball, bouncing from one life-altering decision to another. She looked out the window at the passing scenery, the city lights blurring into streaks as the car sped away, carrying her into an uncertain future.

Levant had spoken ominously about raising Beth if Rachel rejected her. Denver knew that IVF often resulted in multiple embryos, potentially more Beths were out there with foster parents. Levant, patient as any developer expecting long-term payback, would win them over one by one. To break this horrific cycle, Rachel knew there was only one solution she could take. Although she didn't want to, it had become painfully clear: communication had failed.

Rachel felt slightly numb from the experience. She didn't feel racked with guilt; instead, she felt relief. Douglas was gone, and she could finally move on to just being Rachel. She could finally be with the person she loved the most.

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Author's Note:

There will be a one-week break until the final epilog chapter is released. I'm curious to hear how you think Rachel's story will end. I'll present a few pairings for you to vote on.

Votes from anonymous users will be counted with some degree of skepticism. If you prefer anonymity, you can contact me directly. I don't promise to follow the popular vote, but if it's clear I've misjudged the mood, then I have a chance to make amends. The options are:

- Rachel and Samantha

- Rachel and Hunter

- Rachel alone with Beth

- Rachel and Peter

- Rachel and Charlie

Rachel and someone else of your choosing (please specify who, they should have existed previously in the plot, but anything goes)

Douglas will not be resurrected.

While I'm here. This book has received Hot status for every chapter and you have my ever grateful thanks.

Next week, we'll find out why the book is called "The Rise of Rachel Price."