“We did,” Amber said.
“Sorry that I didn’t come get you. I set up men along the way to watch, but I had things to sort out. Boy, I’m exhausted. I’m relieved that you are alright.”
What was once a shirt was now a nasty mess of holes and stains, hanging from one of his shoulders like a discarded old towel. Rodents had chewed small holes in it, leaving much of him exposed to the elements.
When he changed his shirt in the other room, I wondered if the shirt helped him to blend in and perhaps was not his usual choice in clothing. His black t-shirt was much like the one they had given me and it was likely it came from inside his closet.
“So, this, Meryk, is the young lady everyone is talking about,” Ruby said to introduce me.
“Whoa, aren’t you a young-looking thing.”
“Meryk,” Ruby said, giving him a stern look.
“No, I just mean, she looks too young to be going through all of this. You look like you’re in your teen years, for Pete’s sake.”
Amber shouted, “It’s the purple hair!”
He looked at Ruby. “What?” he moaned. “I mean no offense. I expected someone older.”
“I’m 26 years old.”
“Well, you don’t look it.”
“Why don’t you start your warm hello over, Mr. Smooth,” Ruby said.
“Right. Sorry. It’s nice to have you here. I’m Meryk.” He rolled up his sleeve. An old tattoo of a small swallow was almost hidden on the right side of his neck which likely left an intriguing memory of his former lover. Or perhaps one for Ruby.
“Thank you, Meryk. It’s nice to meet you, too.” I was dying to ask about Jaxson, but remained calm and quiet.
He waved and drew in a deep breath. He washed his hands for a long while, humming and scrubbing. Eventually, he turned to sit down.
“Tough day?” Ruby asked, as she eased the bandana off her head and stuffed the corner into her pocket. She put her hand on his shoulder and massaged. Meryk hung his head.
“It’s a lot of information coming at me. I am just glad that we found you.”
“So, what’s the word on the streets?” Ruby asked.
“So—”
Ruby took the kettle and filled it with water. She placed it on the stove to heat. She leaned on the counter to listen to Meryk.
He began to speak but then I could tell that he was choosing his words carefully.
“I won’t tell anyone what you tell me,” I promised. “If that’s what you are afraid of.”
“Oh, dear, it’s not you I’m afraid of. I am always careful with what I tell others. I know there are spies…but not inside my network.”
“Spies?”
“Ways that they record voices—”
“The electronic little bugs…” I surmised.
“You’ve seen them?”
“Yes. They were in the walls in the prison.”
His eyes met Ruby’s and both looked back at me. Meryk added, “You saw them in the prison?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.” He was surprised. “I’ve only heard that they likely exist, but never had proof of them.” He leaned in. “What were they doing?”
“I don’t know. But they would scurry out of the crevices and stare at me…”
“Eww!” Amber said.
“Stare at you?”
“Watching me. I know they weren’t bugs. They had lights.”
“Lights.” Meryk repeated the word, mulling it around in his mind. He smiled at me. “Huh.”
I glanced at the family and then back to Meryk. “Lights changed from red to green. They were watching me.”
“The guards were watching you. The bugs were watching you.”
“Some of my people had mentioned them…All of this time, I scrape along, listening to rumours, and sometimes, just sometimes…” He banged his fist on the table with a grin. “I find out the truth. Hot damn!”
“Maybe you should ask Saige those questions; she has the inside scoop.” Ruby smiled.
“Daddy, who was controlling them?”
“Wouldn’t I like to know. Who is spying? The Paragon? The facility? The lab? Who?”
“Can the bugs find us here, Daddy?”
“I don’t know. Man, I hope not.”
“In the facility, I think they seemed to watch me to see my reaction to things happening in the jail.”
“Man, you come with a lot of knowledge,” Meryk said, his eyes studying mine.
“Not much…just what I saw while locked up. That’s not much information. What information is coming to you about me from your network?” I asked, sheepishly.
At the shrill whistle of the kettle, Ruby made us each a tea.
“There’s not a lot about you being said to the guards yet. It’s coming in pieces. Mr. Parr has been having a lot of meetings behind closed doors. All my informant has said is that the man who was in charge of you—”
“Officer Chase,” I offered.
“Yeah, well, he’s in a huge amount of trouble since your disappearance. He is desperate to find you. He has become very mentally unstable. Ups and downs. Very explosive.” He shuddered. “He’s going crazy in there.”
I hoped that Jaxson was acting…but a part of me worried that he had accepted the red pills again. I dropped my head and stroked my eyebrow, trying to feign a lack of care for the guard who was in charge of me. I cleared my throat and clutched at the bottom of my shirt, readjusting it.
Meryk shoved a piece of bread into his mouth. Before swallowing it, he shoved it into his cheek with his tongue, and mumbled, “He’s natural-born that one, with a keen eye to get prisoners to talk…A heart of stone and fire in his soul. He’s cold and very persistent. Never lost at the game. Ever. Edgefield Correction was eager to keep that guy.”
I guess torture was the game to which I was a player. I didn’t lose though; I convinced him that he needed to let me go. I convinced him to stop taking the pills. I did that. Maybe I was the natural one.
I sipped at my tea.
“Mr. Parr is frantic! It’s going to be life and death for Parr to find you. He was put in that position to oversee the facility and within weeks, the most important inmate escaped. He will do anything to get you back.” Meryk sipped at his tea.
“The Paragon was coming to get me.”
“Sure, they were. You are very much wanted. I’m sure they also have people searching for that girl who swapped her life with yours. The two of you are the most wanted individuals of my time.”
Meryk jumped up, almost spilling his tea, as the screen door squeaked and quick steps approached. He glanced at us, and whispered urgently, “Saige, hide!”
He put his finger to his lips to shush us and swallowed. Ruby closed the closet door to conceal me inside.
A knock at the door. I looked through the cracks of the closet door to watch as a woman rushed in. She pulled at her curly black hair and her olive skin glistened with sweat. This woman was in a panic.
“Margaret, what’s the matter?” Ruby rushed towards her to block her view of the closet.
Was Margaret one of his people?
“Rumours,” she breathed, moving into Ruby’s personal space. Her voice was steady and low pitched; she was determined to convey the details of her story. “They are saying that they are closing in on the target. A dangerous and desperate woman who killed a person. She’s escaped the prison! You need to stay inside, Amber. She could be anywhere!” She pressed her lips together.
“What have they said about her?” Meryk asked, trying to portray his worry and eagerness to learn this news. He raised his chin to expose his neck.
Exuding calm and focus, she explained, with narrow eyes, “She’s ruthless and vicious. Mean. Horrible woman who has done disastrous things.” She looked from Meryk to Ruby and waited for them to respond.
“That’s terrifying,” Amber said, and pretended to be scared, too. “Mom, what should we do?”
“Oh, dear, I am sorry. I should have asked to
talk in private. Forgive me.”
“We are an awful long way from the prison. We will be safe here. We don’t plan to go into town anytime soon,” Ruby reassured her.
“Oh, it’s just that…” she leaned and whispered, “she has a virus. A very contagious, lethal virus. You don’t want to be anywhere near her. They are even handing out masks!”
“Masks? Well, we will have to make some of those…you know, just in case,” Ruby said.
“Well, and you are very good at sewing. Make one for each of you.”
“Thanks for the news,” Meryk told her.
“You are welcome.” She wiped her sweaty hands on her floral dress. The hem was ripped. She took a deep breath. “I just know you don’t want your Amber traveling about in the streets or behind your house in the forest...not with the disease lingering on surfaces out there. Maybe don’t go walking the paths until they catch her.” She noticed Sky-Guy. “Oh, you have a cat inside?”
Oh, no, I hadn’t grabbed the cat!
“It’s my cat,” Amber said.
“Oh, my. You own a pet cat?”
“Yes, I know. It’s strange. I am a very quirky person, I’ve been told.” Amber grinned at her.
“You sure are! We just have barn cats to control the mouse population.” She laughed full-heartedly. “They certainly don’t come inside.”
Meryk crossed his arms. “We will keep an eye open for a woman…what did you say she looks like?” Then he smiled and said, “We can’t just be afraid of every woman we see just in case she is dangerous.”
“Well…I don’t know much about what she looks like. I bet she looks real mean.”
“Well, we will keep our eyes open for a real mean woman. Got it.” Amber crossed her arms like her dad.
Margaret gave her a grin. “You are funny. Meryk, I like this young lady that you’ve raised!” She put her arm around Amber and shook her.
When Margaret let herself out, Amber opened the closet door. She gave me a stern look. “You never told us you were contagious!” She made a spooky ghostly coo. I nudged her as she laughed.
“Is Margaret one of your people, Meryk?”
The family laughed. Amber said, “No! She’s just one of the neighbours! Nosy neighbour! Nothing gets by her.”
“Oh. But I thought you were hiding here…I thought that this wasn’t your normal home.”
“It’s where we spend most of our time. We have a few around, but this one is our favourite place to stay.” Amber grinned at her dad, proudly.
“We have quite a few places that are shared by the group for meetings or for lodging. When I am working with the network, I don’t go home. We have, strategically, planned our meetings never to fall on the same day or time. We don’t go to the same places after we meet. There is no pattern. We have neighbours in all of our homes and we try to mingle with all of them. We need alibis and it allows us to be known as sensible, regular neighbours, following the rules. My group has one building for stashes of food and supplies to share amongst all the safehouses and homes we keep. I scoop supplies to bring to the safehouses as needed.”
“So, you move all the time, like this?”
“No. No, of course, not. This is something we have planned and been prepared for but we have not needed such secrecy or precaution before. We live here permanently…and have places to go when necessary. It’s what has to happen for now…it won’t be forever. We will stay in lock down until it’s safe again. This will pass. Expect it to get worse before it gets better.”
“I see. Margaret doesn’t know any of it.”
“Nope. I always look for the gossipers or the know-it-all people in the neighbourhoods and use them to gather intel without their knowing it.” Meryk winked at me.
Amber shouted, “And now we know you are contagious. It’s great news!”
“Nice,” I said to her. To Meryk, I said, “You have people all over?”
“Nah, just a few so far but I am trying to recruit carefully. I have to be careful who I trust. To whom I release information. I have someone at Edgefield Correction and I have a fantastic computer guy. I keep most of the information, right up here,” he said, pointing to his head. “It’s a lot but I don’t discuss everything in one big meeting and I don’t tell everyone in the group. It’s just better this way.”
“Right. Agreed.”
“Okay. Now that’s explained. Maybe you can explain to me what the cat is doing here.”
Later in the evening, with the family still awake and whispering in the kitchen, I lay on the makeshift bed in the corner of the living room. I, finally, felt truly safe. For the first time. Images of Jaxson were on my mind when I fell asleep to the whispers.
A dream starts with a woman asking me a question while I sit strapped to a black plastic chair. I am dressed in a crisp white linen nightgown. Calming music is played. A breeze whistles at the window.
A question is asked, "What do you fear the most?"
I answer, immediately, but my voice is slow and monotone, almost dream-like and drowsy. It isn’t stressful. It is just a release of information that makes me feel better. Secrets unleashed. “The thought of being exposed… naked, whipped and stoned. The fear of forgetting who I am.”
“Amnesia frightens you?”
My thoughts drift to the lashings and my naked body. A shower while exposed in front of a man. Whipped. Pills forcing me to forget. Those who make others hurt me.
I can hear another girl in the next chair. The same question is asked of her. She is also dressed in a nightgown. White linen draped over the chair. “Drowning. Unexpected and frequent changes in routine. Not knowing what will come next.”
“Yes,” I tell them. “Me too. I don’t like vicious people who are angry one moment, and then calm the next. They are unnerving.”
“What else can you tell me, Saige?” A nurse leans in with a clipboard. I recognize her from the prison. Her face is kind, her eyes soft.
“June Bugs. Their legs are as clingy as staticky pantyhose that sticks to your pant leg. They are disgusting.”
“I’m going to show you pictures now and examine your brain’s patterns upon seeing them. I want you to tell me how you feel about each one. Understand?”
An image of Officer Chase.
I wake and lay wondering if it was a dream or distant memories. I turned over and tried to get more sleep, but my eyes were wide while I thought about what the dream meant. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. June Bugs.
Chapter Twenty-Two
That morning, Meryk had sent me with his daughter to collect some potatoes, turnip and carrots from the root cellar for a vegetable soup.
“Dad calls it vegetable soup. More like root soup.”
“Sounds amazing, though.”
“It is. But you kind of get tired of root vegetables when you have so much.”
We carried an empty basket into the meadow. Sky-Guy played with a butterfly and Amber giggled at him. “He’s not that cute, but he certainly acts cute.”
“Oh, I think with a bath he would have nice, sleek fur. Thanks for getting the burrs cut out of his fur for me.”
“Oh, you are welcome. He was mad at me. I wouldn’t be giving him a bath anytime soon. He will rip you apart with his claws.”
“I think so, too. But he sure could use one,” I said.
We both looked at the cat. Amber laughed. “Why? He will just get dirty again,” she said, as we watched him roll around in the dry dirt.
“That’s true. Look at him. He’s like a bird having a dust bath in an evaporated puddle.”
“Yes. Hey, tonight, I will open the barn for the cat. He loves sleeping in there. At least it’s dry,” Amber offered.
“Barn?”
“Well, big shack. I call it the barn.” She giggled. “It has hay.”
“I wonder if he would ever become a true house cat.”
“Oh, I doubt it. He’s feral. Even if he feels safe, he will likely still prefer the outdoors.”
“But h
e can be friendly…kind of.”
“No, he likely will never like to be house bound, but he sure does like you.”
“He does?”
“He’s protective of you. He’s ever so watchful. Following you. Keeping an eye on you.”
“Hey, where are we going, anyway? Didn’t your dad say to go to the root cellar?”
“Yeah, it’s over here. I’ll show you.”
Going back to our conversation about Sky-Guy’s protective nature, I said, “I was the first one to ever feed him in his entire life, I’d bet.”
“That’s likely true. He lived in those tunnels for years, eating mice, probably.”
“The barn will suit him well. He will catch mice there, too.”
“And the hay is softer than the tunnel floors,” she said.
“Did I ever mention that he had a bed underground?”
“A bed?” Her eyes widened.
“Yeah, an old decrepit mattress on the ground. Must have been a homeless person’s bed at some point. He lived there.”
“I’m surprised that he doesn’t go back.”
“He couldn’t go back. There’s a small lake and junkyard in the way,” I laughed.
“True. Cats hate water. I can leave some food down for him so he doesn’t have to eat live mice. If you want.”
“I have already left some on the porch,” I grinned.
“Water?”
“Of course.”
I lifted my chin to let the sunshine hit the surface of my face.
We came to a hill and she climbed up and slid over the other side. “See?”
“See what?” I asked, as I followed her over. “Oh.”
A root cellar had been dug into the hill, shored up with field stones and timber with a door centred. The door would keep varmints and other humans out, Amber said, with a laugh. When she unlocked the door’s padlock with the key, she opened the door. The floor was crushed gravel. Wooden shelves held crates and baskets of potatoes, turnips, cabbage and carrots. She took a few and put them in the basket that I carried.
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