by Nicole Fox
I took a step back as a sunken, yellowed face emerged from the shadows like the villain of a child's scary story, the sallow muscle and fat hanging from his bones. “Lydia? My girl? You're back from your trip?”
Pops was barely a man, nothing like I remembered. Before, he'd been strong and sure of himself, with thick arms and a barrel chest, a long mane of hair hanging to his shoulders. Now his hair was long gone, his shoulders thin and wracked with a weak cough, his eyes glassy and barely focused. He wore a yellowing wife-beater, and the sour smell of death and body odor mixed with the cigar smoke that hung around him.
“From your trip?” he asked again, his voice weak and tinny.
“Jesus,” I said as I tentatively stepped forward, my nose wrinkling at the smell. “What the fuck happened to you?”
“You came back from New York, dear!” he said, stepping closer to me, that smell of long overdue death just growing stronger. “Oh, dear, it's so good to see you! Your mother will be so happy to hear you're home. Tessa's been talking about you nonstop for days now, weeks even, wondering when you'd return.”
I glanced at Uncle Tyson in the darkness. “Mother?” I asked uncertainly. “What does he fucking mean?”
Tyson smiled sadly and shrugged. “He's, well . . . his memory ain't what it used to be.”
“Pops?” I asked as I took a shaky step closer. “I haven't been on vacation. I was hiding from you, don't you remember?”
“Hiding?” he asked, laughing and shaking his head, then coughing wetly. “You haven't been hiding! You and I haven't played anything like that since you were a little girl. You're practically a woman now, Lydia.”
Had he really lost it? Or was all this some stupid act on his part to put me off my game? Or, did he really not remember? I felt my face harden, my teeth gritting together, my jaw muscles clenching. “Mom’s not around anymore,” I growled. “You killed her-”
Beside me, Uncle Tyson tried to step in, to interrupt me, but I kept going.
“You beat her to death!”
He staggered back into the shadows, a look of confusion on his face as he shook his head. “No, no, no, no. I didn't do that. Why would you say that about your old man? Why would you lie about me like that?”
There was movement behind him, I realized. Before I could do anything, two men rose up out of the shadows, from behind desks and came up to flank my father. Both were massive, built almost as big as Kort, and they walked with a confident, deadly ease.
“You're with them,” he said, the last word almost a hiss. “Aren't you, girl? You're with the men trying to get at me!”
Now it was my turn to be confused. “What?” I asked as I shook my head and took a step back. “No, I just want you to admit what you did, that's all. You can't act like it didn't happen!”
“The only thing I did,” the old man roared unexpectedly, flecks of foam flying from his lips as he seemed to bite at the words like a mad dog, “was spoiling you too damned much by sparing the rod! Pork Chop, get hold of her!”
“Yes sir, Mr. Banks.” One of the security guards darted forward through the shadows and snatched my arm, pulled me close.
I struggled away from him, fighting to get my nails at his face, to put a finger in his eye. Pork Chop was too strong, though, and he twisted my arm up behind my back as he jerked his face away from my grasping hand. “Stop struggling,” he growled in my ear, “or you'll find out what a dislocated shoulder feels like.”
I struggled again, then grunted as pain shot through my arm and shoulder.
“I said stop,” he said, twisting my arm higher. Beside us, Uncle Tyson was trying to talk some sense into him, but I could tell he wasn't having much luck.
I whimpered softly, knowing I wasn't going to win this fight.
“You're gonna learn some respect, Lydia,” he roared. “And you're gonna stay in there till you do, you hear me?”
“Now, Joey, come on,” Uncle Tyson tried to soothe, his voice sounding hurt at the way I was being treated, “I think you might be taking this a mite far.”
The old man whirled on Uncle Tyson. “Who in the fuck do you think you are to tell me what's good or bad for me? Or my daughter? You wanna go in the cage with her, you ungrateful piece of shit?”
The cage? What the fuck? I'd been on the run for five years, I reminded myself. No contact with friends, no contact with family. Shitty jobs, shitty people, shitty men. And more than a few who'd try to come and collect me. I knew I could stand up to whatever my deranged pops could throw my way.
I struggled against Pork Chop again, but he just yanked my arm higher, producing a whine of pain from me. I swallowed hard, realizing that my adopted uncle might be my only way out of this, especially with the way I'd had to ditch Kort down on the floor of the Warehouse. “Tyson!” I said, a pained edge to my voice. “Uncle Tyson, it's okay. I'll take my punishment like a good daughter. Alright?”
Uncle Tyson looked at me and shook his head, a look of resignation on his shadowed face. “Fine. I'll take her down there myself.”
I sighed. Pops looked him over with a distrusting eye. “You take Pork Chop with you, though, Tyson. You always been soft on her.”
“Come on, then,” Tyson said, grabbing my other arm and turning me and Pork Chop around to follow him. “Let's get on to the cages.”
We left the foul smelling manager's office. I glanced at Tyson's face, trying to catch some glimpse of his intent, of whether or not he'd help me, but his face was just as unreadable in the light as it had been in the dark. Together, the two men marched me down the stairs and through the Warehouse. When one worker stopped to glance over at me, to look me up and down with his knowing eyes, Uncle Tyson barked at him to get back to work.
Almost frantically, I looked around for some sign of Kort, hoped beyond hope that he would come to my rescue like some knight in darkly shining armor. But, he wasn't anywhere to be found. Maybe he was at his new job, somewhere else within this monstrosity? I had no idea.
The farther we walked through the building, the less men we saw. We disappeared down a side hallway that had a short set of stairs branching off it. “Where are you taking me?” I asked as we began to descend into the basement. “What's down here?”
“The cages,” Pork Chop said without any feeling in his voice.
“Yeah,” Uncle Tyson said with a sigh, “Joey wants you down here in the cages, so it's the cages it's gotta be, baby girl.”
The temperature didn't change, but the feel of the air seemed to change as we descended the stairs. It became thicker, damper. Off in the distance, I could hear water dripping. Uncle Tyson, still in the lead, opened a sturdy metal door and took us into some kind of access tunnels. Water-stained concrete walls surrounded us on all sides, and a smell of mildew crept into my nose as our footfalls echoed down the underground passages.
We walked a short distance in the tunnels, following a set of pipes till we reached a heavy metal door virtually identical to the one we'd just passed through. He threw open the door and paused as he pulled the string on a single, bare bulb that hung from the ceiling by a long wire. Along the right side was a door that led to, I guessed, more and more cages. The smell of human sweat and waste was heavy here, the acrid smell making my stomach churn.
Along the wall across from us stood a row of cages, maybe half a dozen, all about four feet tall by four feet wide, and six feet deep. A bucket sat in the back corner of each one. Dog kennels, from the looks of them, but reinforced. Heavy locks hung on the latches of each one.
His hand was on his gun as he turned, and I held my breath, hoping he'd do the right thing and turn on the hired dog holding me. But, he didn't. Instead, he just looked me right in the eye, a grim, forced smile on his lips. “Sorry, baby girl,” he mumbled. “But, the boss's word is law here. You know that.”
I returned the resigned smile. “I know,” I said. “Pops has always been an asshole.”
He nodded, but said the exact opposite. “Now, you know he's just doing this
outta some misguided love.”
Pops had always been fucked in the head. He'd never spoiled me, or my mother. Towards the end, things had gotten even worse, too. I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. I know.”
Tyson sighed and stepped past me, grabbed a ring of small keys from the wall, then went over to the cage on the far left. He unlocked the padlock and opened it up, the door creaking as it swung open.
I glanced at the cracked pen padlock hanging from the door. I figured I could spring it open in just a few minutes, if I was left unattended.
My uncle saw my eyes, though, and just shook his head with a sigh. “Pork Chop, get those bobby pins out of her hair. She's got her pop's magic fingers when it comes to that kind of shit.”
I slumped as Pork Chop just began to pull the remaining pins from my hair. There went that chance.
“Sorry, baby girl,” Tyson said as he stepped aside. “But this is the way it's gotta be for now.”
Pork Chop wrenched my shoulder up as he guided me towards the cage's opening, forcing me into an awkward, bent over position. He released my arm finally as he shoved me forward into the metal enclosure, then my uncle shut the door and locked it back in place. I was numb, except for the fire in my belly. Now, more than ever, I wanted him dead. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it, but I was going to do it. I had to play it safe while I was in here. I had to keep my true emotions to myself.
Tyson squatted down in front of the cage and leaned forward, his fingers grasping through the metal bars. “This'll blow over,” he whispered. “Don't worry, baby girl. It'll be like nothing happened. You'll see.”
I just shook my head. “I know, uncle. I just hope it does soon. I don't want to spend the rest of my life pissing in a bucket.”
He made a pained face and looked away, then stood and patted the cage's front gate. Then he and Pork Chop turned and left. At least they left the light on.
Well, that hadn't worked. I just hoped Kort would find me. But then, why would he? I’d just abandoned him. I just shook my head and settled back against the cage's wall, my knees pulled up to my chest, my arms wrapped around them and tried to rock myself into some sense of security.
Miracles weren't real. And miracles never happened.
Chapter Sixteen
Kort
I'd watched as the security guy and Lydia's uncle marched her through the Warehouse. I'd even slipped away and followed them as they disappeared down the stairs and into the basement levels. I had to slip off back to work, though. Theodore seemed like a real hard ass, especially after I told him I'd been sent as a special worker. He demanded absolute respect for his authority, with no slacking, and no talking out of line. I guess, with what I was handling, that was expected. You didn't want men you couldn't trust to unload bales of cocaine and weed or huge bags of methamphetamine.
My eyes stayed open for Lydia, to see if she'd reappear around the Warehouse, but I didn't have any luck all afternoon. It wasn't until that night, when I heard she'd been sent down to some cages down in the basement. Cages they used for some less frequent kind of cargo.
“No shit?” I asked as the guy next to me as I sat around in the meeting area outside the big bunkhouse that was next to the compound. A lot of the guys, not having any real families to go home to at the end of the workday, just stayed there as part of their payment. It was just easier for them to live in the dorms, especially with the commute being so far from any other place to live.
His name was Riley, and he looked like a mean son of a bitch. Scraggly beard, bad jail house tattoos of the number 1488 on his knuckles. I figured he had a lightning bolt or two somewhere on his body. He seemed the type.
“No shit,” Riley replied, taking a hit off his beer.
Rage welled up inside me, but I kept it tamped down. What kind of man would do that to his daughter? What kind of daddy would lock his own flesh and blood up in a cage? This man was even more sick and twisted than I thought he had been. Still, undirected anger wouldn't make getting closer to him any easier.
“You were the one who brought her in, right?” he asked, pulling a pack of smokes out and offering me one.
I waved it off at first, but changed my mind. I took the smoke from him, leaned in and let him light it. I took a long, soothing drag, the first one I'd had since I was a punk teenager. The nicotine immediately began to smooth out my nerves, helped me to get a sense of myself.
That raw anger stayed with me, though, like a ball of fire in my belly. Not only was he doing it to his daughter, he was doing it to a woman I cared about. I needed to find a way to get her out, and a way to get to Joey. Maybe, though, I could pump the guys here for information. They'd been around long enough, knew the way this place worked.
“Yeah,” I said, ashing my smoke. “That was me.”
Riley waggled his eyebrows and got a dirty grin on his face. “Guys say she's a looker. Like, big city ten.”
I shook my head, my eyes narrowed as I looked out over the bayou. “Yeah. She sure is something, alright.”
We lapsed into a little silence that last a long moment. After a while I spoke up again. “What's with this Banks guy, anyways?”
“Joey Banks?” the guy asked, shaking his head. “Dunno, he just stays up in that office all the time. Word is, he don't even come down, even at night. Reckon I seen the guy once, and that's it.”
I ashed my smoke again. “Even at night? He some kinda recluse or something?”
The man shook his head again. “He's something, alright. Big kingpin, but don't make any difference to me. Been in and out of state so many times, I can't get a job to save my life.”
After that I steered the conversation over to sports and the like, not wanting to sound like I was just pumping him for information. I didn't want to come off as an informant or something. A couple beers later, and a friendly shot of bourbon from the bottle a couple of the guys showed up with, and I was heading into my little dorm room. I laid down in the Spartan accommodations and stared at the moldy ceiling.
I waited till the sun tracked down the western sky, and the crickets and frogs came out to make their night music. I slipped out of the bunkhouse and back into the Warehouse, which was pretty easy. There wasn't much security inside the fence, just on the outer perimeter. I backtracked to where I'd seen Tyson and the other man take Lydia, then slipped down the concrete stairs, into the basement.
With the cool, damp air enfolding me, I slipped through the metal door and into the hallways below the Warehouse, my head cocked to the side. I thought I heard something. Soft crying, like desperately contained sobs, drifted down the hallway from my left. I followed the sounds to a solid metal door, opened it up. Cages in front of me a door to the right. And, of course, Lydia.
The crying stopped abruptly, replaced by sniffles. “Tyson?” Lydia asked.
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered.
“Kort?” she asked.
Shit. What had I dragged her into when I brought her back here? This was my fault, all my fault. I carefully shut the door and crossed over to her in the cage, squatting down next to her. “Lydia, are you okay?” I whispered.
“No I'm not fucking okay,” she replied, sniffling again as she crawled over to me, put her hands on the gate. “My pops locked me up in a fucking cage. Why would you think I'm okay?”
I reached down to the gate, grasped it with my fingers over hers. “What the hell did you do?”
She snorted as she grabbed at my fingers. “I didn't give him the respect he thought he was due.”
“Well, can't you just do that? We need you close to him to make this plan work.”
“Fuck him,” she said, wiping the back of her hand across an eye, trying to dry the tears from it. “I thought about trying to make this work when we came in, but I can't do it, Kort. Not after what he's done. Not after this,” she growled.
“I know-”
“He locked me in a fucking cage,” she nearly hissed, cutting me off. “A cage, Kort. I've pissed twice in a fucking can sinc
e I've been in here.”
I just didn't understand. I shook my head. “What did you do? And what did he do to make you-?”
“Shut up,” she hissed quietly, cutting me off, not answering my questions. “Listen. You hear that?”
Footsteps. I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Go,” she said. “They find you here, we're both fucked. Take the side door.”
“Where's it go?”
“Away?” she hissed. “I don't fucking know.”
The footsteps came closer, clearly coming towards us down the outside tunnel. I got up and walked quickly, quietly for the door that was off the side. I thanked God it was unlocked as I pulled it open and slipped within the darkness, closing it behind me just as the door I'd previously entered through swung open.