by N. M. Brown
“Well you stop fluffing that damn pillow!” Echo snapped and snatched the cushion from his hands, stuffing it down the side of her and out of his reach.
McQueen hid his smile. “Glad to see you are awake in there.” On the edge of the couch, he gave her his full attention. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Up close, he could see the red welts had deepened in colour and her bruises had spread. There was still blood drying across her body and McQueen didn’t dare offer any creature-comforts yet, but sat so close he could smell the copper tang. A blood vessel had popped in her left eye making it look wickedly painful and was only emphasised by the black streaks of mascara down her cheeks while her mouth was covered in a red gore.
“There is nothing to talk about.” She said, and McQueen hadn’t expected any other answer.
Taking a breath, he pushed down all his inner catholic teachings to insist, and allowed himself to move on. She didn’t want help; he wasn’t going to ask twice. “I want all the information you have on Wapping Woods.” He ordered.
She had yet to show any interest in the file at her feet, but he knew she couldn’t hold back when it came to lording her knowledge over his head. He just needed to get the ball rolling. Reaching for a file McQueen was ready for anything but jumped when a sudden hand came sailing out of nowhere, slamming onto his, stopping him in his tracks.
“Now, now Queenie. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Looking over, McQueen dared not show any fear on his face as Echo watched him. Sitting back, he kept his spine straight.
“What?” He tried to ask in a firm voice, but instead his voice cracked, and he found the need to swallow.
“Well,” Echo sat back as well, and McQueen was amazed how sharply her demeanour had changed. She was confident; her arms draped across the arms of the couch rather than before, around her stomach. Nevertheless, he still saw more: the hunch in her shoulders, her face twitched as she caught a wound, yet none of that stopped her glared through narrowed eyes. “Last time we spoke you kicked me out of your apartment. The time before that, you dumped your wife on me and we both know how well that went. And little over three weeks ago you just about called me a crazy, Stockholm-bitch and proceed to wish me the best in life because you doubted my hold on reality.”
McQueen reluctantly looked away. He remembered. He remembered leaving the hospital and having a normal coffee and conversation with Sage, pretending everything was normal. He’d promptly gone to church, as normal and prayed on his knees for hours - that wasn't normal. He ran everything through his head, every declaration made in that basement that twisted in his mind: seven demonic guardians were the seven sins of Hell. He’d never felt so bewildered over something so … farfetched.
“Your point?” He asked.
“My question, dear Queenie, is what's changed?” Echo watched him and there was a kink in her lips; a challenge.
“Nothing.” But McQueen cringed internally as he reminded himself denial would get him nowhere. “Nothing-… exactly.” He corrected. Licking his lips, he frowned, trying to think of a way to say the next part. “I… struggled with what was said; what you and Sydney were saying… I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to. You think you live with the Seven Deadly Sins?” There was a question in his words, but he already knew the answer. She did believe and no matter what the truth was, he had to tread lightly. “I can’t-… I couldn’t accept that.”
“And now?” Echo accused, watch him intently.
“I don’t… I was raised not to judge so, I won’t” Nodding his head, McQueen felt solid in his decision. “You can believe what you want. I don’t think your family are demons, but beliefs are each our own; not everyone believes in God the same way, so why should I treat you any differently. God is only allowed to judge us, so it’s none of my business to say what is right and what’s wrong.”
As McQueen spoke, he felt the ‘rightness’ in his words and the profound sense of ease that relaxed his shoulders. He wouldn’t accept demons as a living entitys, just as he would never accept that God suddenly walk among them, but Echo was allowed her own views, just like the guy who preached ‘God would destroy the Earth on Thursday.’
After a split second of silence, Echo snorted and winced as her injuries flared, but that didn’t stop her from mocking him with effortless disdain. “Hell’s furry balls Queenie. If I knew you’d go all righteous and moral high ground on me, I wouldn’t have asked.” Scooting forward, Echo snatched a file from the table. “You're so predictable, although I can hardly be surprised. You would still hold on to your halo like a teddy bear as the devil himself licked your precious, hairy underside.”
McQueen chocked, the abrupt need to clear his throat sudden, but he also breathed a sigh of relief. Forward footsteps, that’s all he needed to take. “Right, thank you… I think.”
“Ah shut it.” Echo grumbled looking closer at the photograph she’d plucked from the file. “What an ugly looking gremlin.” She whispered to herself. “And this one…” She held up the next photo, “Why would anyone want these things?”
“You mean… children?” McQueen asked, not sure why he was surprised.
“Yer. Life sucking leeches covered in sticky goo and no sense of self preservation. If you ask me; they go missing, all the better for culling the gene pool of stupidity.”
McQueen opened his mouth, outraged but instead ground his teeth. Arguing what was wrong with every word of that sentence would take all day and he really would rather pass it off as a pessimistic outlook, rather than believing Echo condoned kidnapping. “Let’s just ignore your sense of right and wrong and focus. Will you help me with this case or not?”
Echo shrugged. “Why would you need my help, Great Detective?”
Taking his queue, McQueen pulled out the smaller version of his map and laid it out on the table. “You saw this, and you told me to stay away from Wapping Woods. All these children have gone missing have a connection to this park.” He looked back to Echo hoping she was paying attention, but instead he saw her flinch. She tried to hide it with a shoulder roll, but McQueen didn’t believe it. “What do you know about Warping Woods?”
Flicking her eyes slowly across the map, Echo fringed disinterest. “Nothing much.” And after a heartbeat to long, McQueen realised she wasn’t going to expand on that.
“I don’t believe you.” McQueen ground out, annoyed at her reluctance.
“Well it wouldn’t be the first time would it, Queenie.” Echo gave him a narrowed glare. “Why are you dragging me into this anyway? Last time you had my help, it didn’t work out well for you. Or me.”
McQueen’s eyes trailed over Echo’s wounds; the blood on her hands had started to flake and her face had swollen dramatically. “That might be so, but you have information I need and these kids deserve justice. Already we have four dead, another missing and we-,”
“You have four dead? Four dead what?” Echo interrupted.
McQueen paused, his mind flying through every reason Echo would ask that question before coming up empty. “Dead children, Echo.” He said hesitantly. “We’ve discovered four of these missing children, each taken at a young age and found dead as teenagers. They were unidentifiable, bea-,”
“Beaten beyond recognition.” Echo finished. Suddenly she had Wendell’s file in her hands and flicked through. “You found… Dixie in their system?” She asked, reading Cassi’s report before pulling a frown.
“Yes, it’s a narcotic drug handed out in sweet form. We think whoever takes these children do it to-,”
“Entice them into their ranks and pull them away from their families.” Echo finished again. “Never heard it called Dixie before.”
“So, you have heard of it?” McQueen asked, catching Echo in her lie.
Paused in what she was reading, Echo scowled over the rim of the file. “I’ve heard of a similar substance that produces a similar outcome but there is nothing to prove one and two are the same, or that I can help in your case.”
&n
bsp; If McQueen didn’t know of her tenacious attitude and likelihood of allowing criminals off scot-free, he might have thought Echo a lawyer. “Fine. But you know more that you’re telling. Why does that fact we’ve found murdered children bother you?”
“It doesn’t bother me.” Echo answered, but McQueen’s annoyance must have shown because with an eye roll and an exasperated sigh, she sat back, regarding him with her own withered stare. “Dead children don’t bother me. Fact of life: dead kids around the world don’t get a tear shed for them.” Echo’s voice was hard and cold, so much so it gave McQueen the chills. “But these kids… they should have disappeared. Vanished without a trace, that's what i fond interesting.”
“They did.” McQueen pulled a file out, this one belonging to Charlie Tootles. “This case was open for six months before it was deemed cold. The kid disappeared and no one found anything.”
“But you did. You found the body, right?” McQueen nodded and slowly closed the file as Echo continued. “You found the body of one of you missing kids, you found four in fact.” Again, McQueen nodded. “Do you have any idea how unusual that is?”
McQueen had done a unit on kidnappings while training to be a Detective, and there had been a smaller unit on child cases. “Nationwide the percentage of children found can vary, depending on police response time, the-,”
“Fuck nationwide.” Echo snapped. “Here, in Rippling? Do you know how unusual it is to find dead children here in Rippling? Dead pre-teens beaten to death?”
McQueen had no answer. He’d been so focused on finding these missing kids, find out what happened to them, he hadn’t investigated those who had been found. “No.” He admitted.
“Zero.”
“Excuse me?” He gasped.
“No children who’ve gone missing before have ever been found, dead or alive. The fact you’ve found some means someone’s slipping…” Echo trailed off, an idea coming to mind before shaking it loose. Looking to McQueen, there was a spark of triumph in her eyes, as they always did every time she succeeded to throw him off his tracks. “I’d get you to check but seeing as Adin and I got that number from your very own police station, it would be a waste of time.”
“You and Adin… Why were you and Adin looking into missing children?”
And just like that, Echo shut down. Her face lost all light and the spark in her eyes died like a snuffed-out star. “We weren’t.”
“Echo…?” McQueen stressed, trying to catch the coat tails of whatever progress he’d been making. “You know something. I get the feeling you don’t want to talk about it; fine. But help me - help me find these kids and where they’re being kept. Some of these kids only went missing a year ago, they could still be alive somewhere. Johnny Bell-,”
McQueen picked up the correct file and showed it to Echo, but she didn’t even flinch to take it.
“Johnny went missing less the forty-eight hours ago. We could get him home, get them all home.” He implored but Echo had no sensitive side, and as she’d already told him she felt kidnapping was a case of survival of the fittest.
The clock ticking above the television and the slow, low gurgle of traffic passed by below. He watched as Echo ignored him, her mind and emotion switched off as she looked at her empty tea mug. He knew this wasn’t going to be easy. When she’d helped with his last case, it had been for her own gain. Now there was little staked in her favour. McQueen had to make it important to her… somehow.
Taking a breath, he tried to put himself in Echo shoes. “You and your brother looked into this why? How do you know so much about this? Why won’t you tell me: bad memories, the horror of it all? Does it still scare you?” McQueen should have known poking at her ego would do the trick.
“I’m not scared!” She snapped, facing him with a fist full of rage. “I’m not scared of anything or anyone! Adin and I investigated those missing kids because we had to infiltrate the group, we had to be ‘kidnaped.’ Go undercover.”
McQueen gapped. “You got in? You got into this group and saw all the missing kids?” This was fantastic news. He couldn’t have dreamed up this kind of miracle. “When Echo, when did you go? Where did you go? If we mobilise, when can get S.W.A.T involved and take this all down t-,”
“I don’t know any of that.” Echo scoffed at him, unimpressed with his fanatical excitement.
“But you just said-,”
“I said Adin and I went there, kidnapped.” She stressed. “We were kids at the time, I was barely eight. I don’t remember anything.”
“But you were there, you must remember something – even subconsciously…”
“No.”
The room turned silent as McQueen watched Echo. She was shaking, her whole body fuelled by something: trepidation, anger, annoyance – a mix of all three. Soothing his eagerness, McQueen took a metal step back. If Echo wanted to say she didn’t remember anything, she could hold those secrets close, but for Wendell’s sake, for Johnny’s sake, he couldn’t let this go.
“Echo, just-…. Tell me what you can. Tell me what will help me find them.” He ordered.
What caused her to open her mouth, McQueen didn’t know, but Echo did answer his plea and from that moment onwards, he wished she hadn’t. “Forget the kid.”
“What?”
“Forget. The. Kid.” Scooting forward on her chair, she shifted through the files quickly. “Forget this, John-whatever who’s gone missing. Forget all the missing kids.”
“What are you-,”
“You can’t find them. You can’t get them back.” She said simply. Flipping each file open, she ripped off all the photographs and shuffled through them. “Dead… Dead... Been dead a good ten years… Oh, this one could be alive… but I doubt it.” Throwing each image over her shoulder, McQueen watched as the spun through the air, falling, twisting until the crash to the floor, face down.
“Stop it Echo.” He implored, but she kept going, flinging the images like they meant nothing. “I said stop!” He snapped, snatching the last few images from her hands.
Whether it was the loudness of his voice, or his sudden movement, Echo stood bolt upright, her skin such a sudden shade of pale, McQueen could see her veins. She was moving away from him before she could even stop herself and guilt pooled in his hallow stomach. “Echo-… I… I’m so sorry.” McQueen stammered out.
“Don’t fucking apologise.” Echo said with a slow, deadly voice. “Don’t fucking pity me.”
“Okay.” McQueen whispered, holding up two hands in surrender.
He’d never seen Echo skittish. Whatever had happened… he couldn’t understand it. She was so scared; traumatised by violence that had knock her defensive nature right off its feet and yet she wouldn’t talk about it. She was blocking it off, building her walls as high as she could and acting like it never happened. He felt it down to his bones, the unrelenting need to make her talk so he could help… But he’d been down that road and it wasn’t pleasant.
Sighing at the pictures of the children they’d lost, and with a cold hand clenched around his heart, McQueen looked at Echo, keeping his face as neutral as he could. “Okay, Echo. Tell me: why do you think they’re dead?”
Echo, as far as McQueen could tell, had stopped breathing. She stood perfectly still, her arms hanging by her sides and her eyes closed, staying like that for what seemed like forever, before blinking out of it. In a sudden rush her body untensed, her shoulders dipped and she was her old self.
“As soon as the children hit puberty, they are useless.” Sitting back on the couch, Echo lounged and didn’t removed her gaze from McQueen for a second. “To hit puberty, they have the fight of their life every day and if they don’t, they die.”