Escapade

It took five more hours before Adam was well enough to stand up without feeling nauseous or dizzy.

By then, the sun was starting to sink into the sky so they decided to stay one more night at the temple. George had offered to take him home that night, but Adam managed to delay him until the next day.

He was sitting around chatting quietly with Blake when the nun appeared at the doorway. She gave a quiet knock and entered without waiting for acknowledgment.

"Mr. Stuart. The Head Nun would like to speak with you. Would you please follow me to see her?"

Adam stared at the nun and nodded. He had no idea what was going on around here but he would bet his Schecter six-string that the nuns could give him some info that even Blake didn't have.

He got up and followed the nun through the long dim hallway and past the large courtyard filled with statues.

Adam shivered as the chill of the evening air blew over him. It was on the cool side in this section of the temple but it shouldn't be that chilly.

The place was just weighted down with the heaviness of a negative polarity that could only be described as having too much yin energy.

As he passed the threshold and entered a large mostly barren room, the heaviness and the cold quickly shifted towards a warmer more inviting atmosphere.

It felt much more balanced in here and Adam stepped through the threshold. Immediately in front of him was the large bronze cast statue of a Buddha, seated in quiet meditation.

"I can't go in there Adam." He heard Blake call from the doorway.

Adam turned back to the entry.

Blake and Luis stood at the threshold with their hands pressed up against an invisible glass partition that separated the outside from the inside.

He nodded and turned back to the nun who was waiting for him.

"This way, Mr. Stuart." She indicated past another threshold where a beaded curtain separated the two areas.

Inside the second room there was a small divan where an old nun sat meditating.

"Nun Dai Tu Liem wants you to know that you are physically well and are able to return to your home."

Adam nodded gratefully. From what Blake had told him, for two days without pause, she had been instrumental in exorcising two demons from his body.

"Please tell her I said Thank you very much."

The nun gave a slight bow.

"You can tell her yourself. She can hear you."

Adam cleared his throat.

"Thank you for your help, Nun Dai Tu Liem. I appreciate it very much."

Su Dai Tu Liem said nothing. There was not even an acknowledgment.

Adam took a deep breath. He didn't know what else to say so he stood there silently for a moment.

He was about to ask the younger nun if there was anything more he could do when she turned to him.

"Nun Dai Tu Liem would like to ask for your help. One of the people who took you here is a woman named Jasmine Love."

"Jazzie." Adam took a deep breath. "I heard that she is missing."

The nun nodded.

"You know where she is?"

The nun nodded again.

Adam leaned forward with eagerness.

"Please, tell me where she is. I will go find her."

The nun stared at him with unfathomable dark eyes.

"You cannot go there. It is too dangerous."

She gave a small bow.

"Talk to your friends. You will need their help."

"My…friends?" Adam coughed.

"The ones standing outside the doorway looking in. The ones who told you that she was missing."

"You—you can see them?"

The nun nodded.

"When can we leave?"

"We leave now."

☯︎☯︎☯︎

The old prune-faced man was back again.

A young male dressed in army fatigues stood at the doorway as the old man walked through. She had heard someone call the young guy Randy, so at least she had a name that she could attach to a face.

Jasmine gave them a cool look and continued to paint her fingernails with a mustard color nail polish that matched the way she felt—like shit.

She blew on her fingertips and got up off the winged bamboo chair like some tropic queen and faced them without saying a word.

"Good evening, Jasmine."

The army guy sniffed and looked at her with disdain. He had made it quite clear to Bin Dat that if it was up to him, she would be six feet under by now. She shivered at the thought of the day when Bin Dat was not around to intervene on her behalf.

"It is time for your dinner." He clapped his hands and another youth came in through the panel, pushing a cart loaded with covered dishes.

"Please enjoy." He turned to leave.

After the fiasco of sloppy joes and tater tots, the old man no longer asked her what she wanted for dinner.

Twice now, he had brought whatever the chef made and left the cart full of food in her room. Whether she ate it or not, he did not care. Someone would come back and wheel the cart back out again within an hour.

They all left and closed the door, leaving her within to eat alone.

She had to get out of here, but how? There was no way to open the panel which was not wood but metal. And when Bin Dat came to feed her, he was always surrounded by armed guards, both outside the panel opening and her doorway.

She had caught glimpses of what lay beyond the metal panel and it did not look good.

There was a hallway that led to the right where a flight of stairs descended. To reach the stairs, she would need to bypass all the guards at the door. There were always four of them, all armed, all dangerous.

If somehow, she managed to evade those four thugs at her door, she could exit the place once she found the door.

Then, her real problems would rear its ugly head. The entire squadron of military looking thugs would surround her with guns and whatever else they possessed.

This was a well-established militia gang.

She was never going to get out of here alive.

Jasmine sighed and took her cup into the bathroom to get a cup of water from the tap. As she came back into the bedroom, she gasped and nearly spilled the cup.

Garbed in a long brown monk robe and standing in the middle of the room was someone she never would have expected to see anywhere near Anh Hai's compound.

It was Adam.

Behind him was a gaping hole where the metal panel used to be. It had simply vanished.

How the hell was he able to get in here past those thugs was not even the first question that came to her mind.

She was more concerned with how the hell Adam was able to recover so quickly from the mental and physical trauma of possession???

Jasmine never had the chance to ask him.

Adam put a finger to his lips and then made a motion for her to come closer.

Eyes wide with surprise, Jasmine nodded and did as she was told without thinking.

"Come with me and make no sound." Adam whispered. She nodded.

He led her through the opening in the panel and to the hallway where she saw a slumped Bin Dat on the floor along with two of the armed men.

Bin Dat's fall had loosened a cell phone from his grip, which Jasmine bent down to retrieve as she followed Adam.

There was the possibility of retrieving valuable information from the phone if she could get out of there unharmed.

Adam led her down a set of stairs to a small side door and then they were outside. They inched their way along the buildings, keeping close to the larger structures to avoid being exposed and in the open.

At the far end of the wall, Adam paused and whispered to Jasmine.

"We have to make a dash for the gates. We'll be exposed and in the open so run as fast as you can."

He stared into her eyes with seriousness.

"The gates are unlocked so when you reach it, just open the latch and run. Whatever you do, don't stop. I will be right behind you."

Nodding to signify her understanding, Jasmine gave a quick smile at Adam. He gave her a signal to run. Jasmine took a deep breath and ran pell mell for the gates.

It was a short sprint but someone spotted them.

There was a shout and figures began pouring out of the buildings all around them.

Without waiting to see if Adam was behind her, she ran to the gates and lifted the latch, slipping through without stopping.

She heard the clanging of the gates behind her and had only one thought in her mind as she zig-zagged her way through the woods to avoid being seen.

The gates had clanged shut too quickly for anyone else to have made it out through them behind her.