by A. R. Shaw
“Yes.”
“He told me Hyde was just a lackey. Only the supply man.”
“Sloane…”
“He said they’ll come for us once they find out what we did.”
“Sloane.”
“We can’t stay here. We have to leave. You all need to leave.”
“No!”
She stopped then and looked at him. He’d never yelled at her before.
“We’re not going to flee from this. We’re going to stay and fight, and we’re going after them.”
She looked from him to each of the others. It was the first time she’d seen the change in Kent. She hadn’t had time before. She was dealing with a damaged Wren and her own damage; she neglected to see his. It was there though. In his eyes. That hardness that comes with pain.
Not only there in Kent’s eyes. The same look was in all the others, too.
“Do you have a plan? You’re going to need a big effing plan,” Sloane said.
“Yes, but we need you. This is your realm,” he said.
Huh…she wasn’t sure what to make of this. Then suddenly her attention was brought to a deranged little old lady in the corner of the room who began something unexpected. She was laughing to herself.
“You’re all going to die,” the old woman said.
Sloane ignored her.
“Kent…the girls went to the site. We have to go.”
47
Wren
They scurried along through the woods between the town and the beach, staying out of sight. Not so much from danger but from having anyone stop them from their mission.
“It’s not much farther,” Mae said after Wren began to hesitate.
“Wait,” Wren said, “how do you know how far it is?”
Mae looked back at her sister. “I helped destroy the place.”
“You did? Does Mom know?”
She nodded her chin. Thin lips.
“Oh, I didn’t know.”
“You weren’t…awake yet. Your shoulder was still healing. Kent didn’t want to bring me, but I told him I’d follow him anyway.”
Wren took the lead then, brushing away a fern in the path. “You’re stubborn like that.”
“So are you.”
She could see it then. A clearing in the distance. Smoke rose from piles of debris. The entire building had disappeared. They leveled everything in sight.
“I don’t remember what it looked like before,” she whispered as they entered the clearing.
“That’s because you never saw it from the outside. Only the inside.”
Wren paused. “You’re right.”
Wren took a few more steps out into the clearing and then heard a sharp metallic sound. Looking behind her, she saw that Mae had pulled a knife out. She held it funny. Not like Wren did. She held it loosely fisted upward, clasped tighter between her thumb and first finger.
“Do you expect to protect me with that thing? What are you doing with that?”
“I learned something new…while you were…you know.”
“What?”
And without warning, Mae threw the knife, hard and jacked. The damn thing buzzed past her head and landed deep in a discarded wood beam ten yards in front of her.
“Mae! Crap, be careful with that thing.”
“You wanted to see.”
“Yeah, but you could have killed me.”
“That’s sort of the point. Do you want me to show you how?”
“No. I prefer the rifle Mom gave me. And…I have this,” she said, pulling out the fillet knife from her waistband. Showing the blade to her sister, though, was a bit embarrassing now. It wasn’t nearly as big or lethal as Mae’s weapon of choice.
“That’s Mom’s cooking knife.”
“Yeah, well…it’s mine now.”
Mae shrugged.
Wren took several more steps into the clearing. She was a little more comfortable. Her boots stepped over several blackened coals. “Hmm…” she said.
“What?”
Wren shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought…I thought coming here would resolve something. Seeing it all. You guys destroyed everything. It’s…just a place now.”
A few birds tweeted in the distance. A breeze carried the ocean scent and blew through her hair, lifting the tangled locks.
“That’s why we destroyed it, Wren. It’s now nothing, and never will be again.”
“Horrible things happened here,” Wren whispered. She rolled her injured shoulder, the residual pain reminding her of what took place. “I nearly died here.”
Mae stood silently at her side. “Come here…I’ll show you something,” Mae said, leading a way across the field.
Wren hesitated at first. She didn’t want to walk across the cursed ground.
“It’s all right. Follow me.”
A football field’s length away, they walked in silence. A few flashes of memory snapped before Wren’s eyes. Her pulse increased. Her breath did, too. “Wait, I don’t know…”
“It’s all right…we’re nearly there. See?” Mae pointed to a corner.
Where the clearing met the corner of the continuing forest, several inviting wild rhododendrons stood. In the spring, hues of pink and lavender would encourage explorers to seek the forest wonders within, like a fairy’s gateway. Before the gateway stood several wood crosses on either side.
She stopped suddenly. In a shaky voice she asked, “How many?” The markers seemed to go on forever.
Mae shook her head. “I don’t think we counted. Seventy-five? A hundred? It was a lot of work to bury them all.”
“Is he…buried here, too?”
Mae didn’t answer right away.
Wren wasn’t sure if her little sister knew the whole story.
“All the guards who died here, burned here. Their remains are scattered and buried with the rubble.”
More than a few tears spilled down Wren’s cheeks unchecked, creating flowing rivers. She nodded her head. “Is she here, too?”
“I think you mean Rose?” Mae said after a while.
That swishing sound flooded Wren’s mind. The sound of her whispered chantings. She was there again in a flash, that place beyond the door. In a whisper, Wren said, “She saved me, but she did something horrible in there.”
Mae stepped closer to her sister and clasped her hand gently with her own. She pointed with the other one to a grave in the center on a little raised hill. “She’s there,” Mae said. “She’s at peace now. She’s free.”
The distinct sound of a truck screeched to a halt in the gravel behind them then. Both girls turned to see their mother and Kent open and slam their doors them behind them.
“They’re he-re,” Mae said in a creepy voice.
Instantly, Wren’s nightmare door closed once again.
“You girls okay?” Kent asked.
“What are you doing here?” yelled Sloane.
“We…thought we’d take a walk…maybe go trick or treating, or…something,” Mae said.
“That’s very funny,” Kent said.
Wren realized her sister was protecting her, not only from outside forces but also from their mother. The sarcasm was a nice touch.
“We’re fine, Mom. I’m fine,” she said to her mother’s concerned look.
Sloane walked a few steps toward them, then suddenly stopped and looked around.
“You…haven’t been here either, have you?” Wren asked.
Sloane shook her head.
Kent stopped suddenly and looked to her mother. “You sure you want to be here?”
Sloane turned away from Kent and walked to Wren and hugged her.
“I’m all right, Mom. We…are all right,” she whispered into her mother’s side.
“Hey!” Kent suddenly yelled really loud, causing them to break apart.
Her mother shielded her automatically, blocking her view from what was happening. When Wren finally caught a glimpse around her mother, Kent ran like a madman back toward the open
cab of his truck. Someone’s bare legs stuck out. Were they trying to steal the truck?
“Get out of there. Hey!” Kent yelled and began pulling the person away. He wrestled with him for a while and then finally pulled him out and away from the vehicle.
Her mother had her Glock drawn and was trying to get a clear shot.
“Don’t shoot!” Kent finally called back. “Don’t shoot. He’s not a threat,” he yelled while still trying to wrangle the guy away from the truck.
“Is he trying to steal the truck?” Sloane said. They were all confused.
Kent didn’t pull his weapon, either. “No, he’s looking for food,” he said and pulled the man around.
Wren’s mother suddenly gasped when Kent held the man, dressed in a prison gown, upright. “It’s him.”
“Who? He looks like a wild man,” Mae yelled. “You know him?”
“I…I tried to get him to leave, to run…but he was too out of it.”
“Yeah well, he’s still out of it, but at least I caught him.”
The guy Kent caught dropped to his bare knees in the gravel. His dreadlocks covered his face. He struggled with Kent but was too weak to really make a good effort at escape.
“Why do you think he was looking for food in there?” Sloane said.
“I’ve been feeding him every day with food from home, but I didn’t make it today,” Kent said as he tried to pull the man back to a standing position.
“Let him go!” Wren yelled. Something in her chest was about to explode. She was suddenly horrified to see one human controlling another. “Take your hands off him!”
“I can’t, Wren,” Kent said, shaking his head at her. “I’ve been trying to coax him out of the woods for weeks now. He’ll die out there in the cold. I bring him food every day. Hell, I should have set a trap for him days ago. We have to bring him with us.”
“We can’t do that,” Sloane said.
“Cool, what’s his name?” Mae asked, totally ignoring the tension.
“Hell if I know,” Kent said.
“HellifIknow, perfect. I like it,” Mae said.
“Stop that. We can’t call him that. We can’t call him anything,” Sloane said.
Wren just stared at him while they all talked around her.
The man in dreadlocks lifted his head and noticed her, too. He gave up his efforts to struggle with Kent and seemed struck by Wren’s stare.
Kent looked at what the man stared at, followed his line of sight to Wren and pulled him around. “None of that,” she heard Kent say to him. He tied his wrists together with a piece of rope from the back of the truck loosely. “You’re coming with us. I’ll take this off when we get there. I don’t want you to hurt anyone or yourself. Do you understand?”
He didn’t acknowledge anything Kent said but simply complied.
Wren watched the suddenly docile man.
Kent let him to the back of the truck. “Can you get in?” Kent asked.
He lifted one leg over the side and Kent helped him the rest of the way, then covered him with a few blankets from the cab.
“Kent, I don’t know about this. What are we going to do with him? Is he safe around the girls?”
“We’ll keep an eye on him. It’s just temporary. I’ll find a place for him in a few days, after I make sure he’s holding down food sufficiently. Maybe he can stay at the coffee shop after we fix it up.”
“Wait, I don’t like this,” Sloane said again.
“You want him to die, don’t you?” Wren said, turning on her mother.
“No!” Sloane said. “No, Wren. I tried to save him myself…in there.”
“Everyone, get in the truck,” Kent said.
“But I want to walk back,” Mae said.
“Now!” Kent barked and without another word, they all hopped inside.
On the way back to the house, as Kent drove slowly, Wren kept an eye on the despondent man in the back through the window of the truck cab. He looked out at the coming sunset. The cold wind blew in his face.
She wasn’t sure what happened to him in there. But maybe she wasn’t the only one dealing with secret closed doors.
48
Sloane
Boyd nodded as they passed by in the pickup truck. Sloane watched as Boyd’s gaze lingered on the new addition in the back of the cab.
He would know, Sloan suddenly thought. He would know what happened to him.
He would know what form of torture the unresponsive man endured. Hell, he probably delivered the man to the torture room himself.
More questions for the former accomplice were in order.
Sloane shook her head to herself. With a side glance at Kent, she realized they’d disagree on a few things in life but this one…she wasn’t sure. It took all she had in her not to kill the guy. Had Mae not been there…she would have. She knew that about herself. What did that make her now?
Though Boyd was proving to be useful, she wasn’t inclined to show him remorse, for fuck’s sake.
“Everyone out,” Kent said after throwing the truck in park.
Sloane stayed in the truck as the girls departed in haste.
“Where are you going to put him?” she asked as the girls’ boots clomped on the stairs to the house.
“Sloane, I’ll contain him in the garage and give him food and water and blankets. I’ll monitor him for a few days to see how he handles solid food. Make sure he’s not a danger to us or himself and then I’ll find a place for him once I know he’s self-sufficient. Are you okay with that?”
She looked at the man in the truck bed. He was skin and bones. He held his head down between his knees now, with his hands tied loosely out in front of him. He could have made a run for it as soon as they stopped or jumped out of the back of the cab at any time along the way, but he made no effort to.
“He’s been through too much, Sloane. I think he just needs some care for a while to get him going again. Can we do that? Can we help someone else for a change? I know I didn’t ask you before. I’m asking you now. I don’t think he’s dangerous.”
She swallowed hard. “You’ve been keeping more than a few things from me lately, Kent. I had to find out about the extent of this mess from the moron down the road,” she seethed angrily and pointed.
“I didn’t know the extent of this either until an hour ago. I’m sorry. Look, I think we’re all going through some of the same things here. We’ve been in shock and we’re all recovering and coming out of it now, because we see the danger isn’t banished yet. There’s more to do.”
“That’s not good enough, Kent. You made the unilateral decision to trust that guy down the road. These are my girls. This is my family. I decide if we stay or if we go.”
The hurt in his eyes made her want to take back every word, every syllable she’d just said, but she couldn’t help it.
“This,” he said, breathing hard, barely able to utter the words, “is my family, too. If you don’t think that’s true…tell me right now.”
She’d hurt him. Deeply. She could see that now. “Kent, I love you. I just mean, you need to include me in any new discoveries, dangers, decisions, everything.” She reached for his hand.
He closed his around hers. “You were struggling, Sloane. No one could blame you for that. I’m always, only, trying to protect you and the girls.”
Wiping tears from her eyes, she said, “I understand that. But it’s going to take both of us to survive this world together. To protect them. Please don’t do that again. I need to know everything that affects us. All of it. No more protecting me by excluding me. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Silence passed between them as they sat there holding hands. Her breathing became less strained, more the normal rhythm.
“Is that old lady back there crazy?” Sloane asked quietly.
“Oh…hell, yes.”
49
Kent
“Come with me,” Kent said to the man.
His head bent down. He wasn’t sur
e if he was asleep or just withdrawn.
“Hey,” he urged. The man flinched and looked up. His body trembled with either fear or the cool breeze now coming in from the ocean. He wasn’t sure which.
“Let’s go this way. It’s warmer inside,” Kent said holding out his hand for the young man to grasp.
No movement. He acted as if he didn’t understand a word he said and he certainly didn’t trust him.
“It’s not far. Just right over this way. See?” Kent pointed to the mud door on the side of the garage. “It’s warmer in there. I’ll get you food and blankets.”
It was the first time Kent really got a good look at the man.
The guy turned to look at the door and then looked back at him blankly.
Something wasn’t right. It suddenly dawned on Kent. “Can you hear me? Hey? Can you hear anything I’m saying? Oh shit.”
Kent reached out for his arm again, this time staring into his eyes and mouthing carefully, “No one’s going to hurt you. You’re safe here.” Then he muttered to himself, “He probably doesn’t know what the hell I’m saying.”
He pulled the young man gently toward the end of the truck bed and supported him in walking into the garage entrance.
After lighting the lantern, he held out the man’s hands and removed the rope. The entire time, the young man watched the open doorway.
“I’ll leave it open for you. It’s up to you to close it.”
That’s when Sloane came in with a steaming bowl of rice and beans, a large bottle of clean water and an assortment of clothing under her arm. “I warmed this up for him. Do you think it’ll be all right on his stomach?”
“Going to have to be. Sloane, I don’t think he can hear us. He’s deaf. I don’t know what they did to him in there, but I don’t think he’d let me examine him right now. He’s been through too much already. I’ll have to wait a day or two.”
Sloane stared at the young man. “That would make sense. When I tried to get him to help me, he acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about. I thought he was just scared.”
Sloane held out the warm bowl full of food to him. The man reached for it, gently accepting the offering, but he didn’t begin to eat right away.