by Naomi West
I struggled against Bunk 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 Asa down on the floor of the Fortress. “Anderson!” I said, a pained edge to my voice. “Uncle Anderson, it's okay. I'll take my punishment like a good daughter. Alright?”
Uncle Anderson 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 Bunk with you, though, Anderson. You always been soft on her.”
“Come on, then,” Anderson said, grabbing my other arm and turning me and Bunk around to follow him. “Let's get on to the cages.”
We left the foul-smelling manager's office. I glanced at Anderson'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 Fortress. When one worker stopped to glance over at me, to look me up and down with his knowing eyes, Uncle Anderson barked at him to get back to work.
Almost frantically, I looked around for some sign of Asa, 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,” Bunk said without any feeling in his voice.
“Yeah,” Uncle Anderson said with a sigh, “Dalton 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 Anderson, 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.”
Anderson 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. “Bunk, 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 Bunk just began to pull the remaining pins from my hair. There went that chance.
“Sorry, baby girl,” Anderson said as he stepped aside. “But this is the way it's gotta be for now.”
Bunk 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.
Anderson 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 Bunk turned and left. At least they left the light on.
Well, that hadn't worked. I just hoped Asa 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
Asa
I'd watched as the security guy and Lauren's uncle marched her through the Fortress. 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. Randall 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 Lauren, to see if she'd reappear around the Fortress, 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 Snake, 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,” Snake 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 w
oman I cared about. I needed to find a way to get her out, and a way to get to Dalton. 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.”
Snake 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 Saylor guy, anyways?”
“Dalton Saylor?” 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 Fortress, which was pretty easy. There wasn't much security inside the fence, just on the outer perimeter. I backtracked to where I'd seen Anderson and the other man take Lauren, 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 Fortress, 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, Lauren.
The crying stopped abruptly, replaced by sniffles. “Anderson?” Lauren asked.
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered.
“Asa?” 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. “Lauren, 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, Asa. 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, Asa. I've pissed twice in a fucking can since 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.
“Dinner time,” said a man's grating voice. “Brought some water, too.”
“Thanks,” Lauren said, her voice much louder than it needed to be. She was giving me cover to slip away.
I carefully shut the door behind me till the latch clicked, holding my breath as I pulled my cell phone out and turned on the flashlight feature, shining it around the room. Cages, at least twenty like the one Lauren was imprisoned in, lined the left wall, all thankfully empty. There, in the wall on the right, was another sturdy metal door, identical to the ones I'd already come through. It would lead me, I figured, out to the tunnel I'd entered when I'd first descended the stairs. I could just backtrack my way as fast as possible and avoid the guards.
I made my way carefully across the room, but clearly not carefully enough, kicking a stray can, sending it clattering across the floor.
“The fuck?” the guard in Lauren's prison room asked. “You fucking hear that?”
“An opossum, I think,” Lauren said on the other side of the door. “Been hearing creepy noises like that all day. Or this place is haunted or some shit.”
I picked up the pace and moved to the exit, this time more carefully than before, as footsteps sounded behind me in the cage room.
The guard laughed as he came closer. “Haunted my ass. Keep that hoodoo bullshit to yourself around here. Most of these fuckers are so backwoods they'd probably believe you.”
I put my hand on the knob and turned the latch just as I heard the guard begin to twist the door knob on his side. My breath caught in my throat. I was fucked if he caught me down here. I was either going to have to kill him, or make him disappear some other way. And, if I had to do that, how was I going to get into Dalton Saylor's management box? I needed Lauren safe and sound and unsuspected, or else I didn't have a chance. I was screwed every which way from Sunday, and I knew it.
“Wait,” Lauren said suddenly, her voice quivering a little in fear. “Maybe it really is ghosts? I heard Marie Laveau was buried on this stretch of land. And, I mean, look at this place. How many people has my father killed?”
The knob stopped turning. “You serious? Or you just fucking with me?”
I pulled my door open while he was distracted and slipped out into the tunnel, closing it gently behind me.
“See?” I heard the guard ask Lauren. “No fucking ghosts. Probably a rat or something, like you said.”
I carefully made my way down the dimly lit corridor, nearly tiptoeing as I crept past the door and headed back to the stairwell.
“Here,” the guard said, his words more muffled the farther I made it, “eat up.”
Just like before, I carefully made my way through the door to the stairs and headed up the stairs, less careful now about being heard. I got back into the Fortress proper and then headed out to the bunkhouse. As I went, I tried to get that vision of Lauren out of my head, but I couldn't. I mean, I'd seen some shit in my time. Corpses, even one or two I'd made myself, disfigurements, examples we'd had to make of people. But torturing your own flesh and blood? And what had happened between them for her to hate him so much in return? Other than the obvious, of course.
I got back into the bunkhouse, was greeted briefly by the same guys as earlier, the ones I'd shared some beers and whiskey with.
“Hey Asa,” Snake said, pushing out the chair beside him with the toe of his boot, “have a seat man, grab another beer.”
I almost turned them down, at first, but quickly reminded myself that I had to act natural. And turning down beer in this line of work sure as Hell wasn't natural. “Yeah,” I said, taking the offered seat and accepting the beer that was pressed into my hand, “sure thing.”
I drank another few beers with the guys, until things starte
d to get late and everyone had to turn in. My eyelids were starting to get heavy, too, from the long day on the road, and the work in the warehouse. Still, I couldn't get Lauren from my mind, even with the help from the beer. The vision of her crowded into that dog cage, the hurt look on her face at the betrayal by her father. What little bit of heart I still had ached for her like nothing I'd ever felt.
“You was asking me about the boss earlier, right?” Snake asked after a while, like he was trying to fill in the empty spaces of the conversation as he leaned down to the ice chest between us and grabbed another beer. He was pretty drunk already, I could tell, and he was looking for an excuse to keep me around so he at least had a drinking buddy.
“Yeah, sure, I guess.”