by Sean Black
A lump formed in her throat. Tears welled in her eyes. She swiped them away with the back of her sleeve. She didn’t want to come across as some overly-emotional teenager. That would only make things worse. If they could get any worse.
“I just want to call my dad. That’s all. If I can speak to him, even just for a minute, then I’ll do whatever you ask me to.”
Trooper Leaf bit down on his lower lip. “That’s the thing. Your father, at least as far I’ve been told, doesn’t have custody. His visitation rights are limited to one weekend a month. Is that correct?”
Where was this going? Just because she only saw her dad once a month, she couldn’t call him?
“Yes, but. . .”
The trooper cut her off as another patrol car swung fast into the gas station and pulled up just behind them. “I can let you make a call to your mother. Perhaps she can get a message to your father.”
Ruth thought she would lose it. Start screaming. Or hit someone. Was everyone around her insane? Her mom was the one who’d arranged this in the first place. Her mom hated her dad. That was why she’d fought so hard to make sure they didn’t see each other. It was her mom’s payback for her father leaving.
“Don’t I have the right to make a phone call to whoever I want to?”
“If you’d been arrested. You haven’t been arrested.”
Ruth could sense a small irritation in the trooper’s voice as he said that.
“Then I’m free to go,” said Ruth.
“No, you’re a minor,” said the trooper. “And these two men here are fully insured escorts. Right now they’re in in loco parentis, at least until you all get where you’re going. You know what that means? In loco parentis?”
Ruth had listened to enough talk from her parents and her friends about court hearings and divorce court to know that it meant that right now Brice and Mike were her parents, at least as far as the law was concerned. What they said, went.
“But they kidnapped me! From my home.”
“Your mom was there, right?”
“Yes, but. . .”
“She asked them, no, she hired them, to take you to this facility.”
“But I don’t want to go,” Ruth protested. She sounded like a bratty teenager. She knew she did. But it was so unfair.
“I’m sorry. I don’t make the law. I just enforce it. And they’re not breaking any law.”
“Can’t I at least call my father? Please.”
The trooper sighed. She could tell that he was getting tired of the conversation. “That’s not my call.”
“But he’s my father.”
Trooper Leaf cleared his throat. “You can ask them. It’s not down to me who you can or can’t call. I’m sorry.”
He turned and walked over to the other cop who had just arrived. Brice and Mike flanked her on either side.
“Okay,” said Brice. “You’ve had your fun. Now we need to get going.”
The lump in her throat was as hard as a rock. She wanted to burst in tears. But she didn’t want to do it in front of them. She wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction.
With the two escorts either side of her, she walked all the way back to the truck. Brice opened the door and she climbed in. He unhooked the handcuffs from his belt.
“But I’m going to be riding in back. You can lock the door. I won’t be able to escape,” Ruth said to him.
“Maybe you should have thought about that. You think we haven’t had kids try to get away before?” he smirked.
With a widening smile, he snapped the cuffs around her wrists. They clicked into place. He led her into the back of the truck and helped her sit down.
“Want to know something funny?”
She didn’t. She had a feeling he was going to tell her anyway.
“We were going to let you keep the cuffs off, ride up front with us. All comfortable and everything.”
Ruth stared up at him. “Let me call my dad, please.”
“No can do,” said Brice. He clambered back into the front of the truck. The engine sputtered into life.
Now the tears came. Her sobs drowned out by the engine, Ruth Price closed her eyes and lay down on her side.
10
The delivery truck rumbled to a halt. The jolt woke Ruth. She sat up as best she could. It wasn’t an easy thing when you were lying on your side with your hands cuffed. Finally, after a struggle, she managed it. She sat with her back against the side panel. The engine switched off. She could hear Mike and Brice get out and slam their doors closed.
They weren’t going to leave her in the back on her own, were they? The back of the truck had been getting warmer over the past few hours. Now it was hot enough that she could feel a trickle of sweat running down her back and into the crack of her butt. Her mouth was dry, her lips cracked.
The back door of the truck was flung open. Blinded by the blazing sunlight that poured in, Ruth raised her cuffed hands to shield her eyes. She blinked, the light still hurting her eyes.
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” said Mike, hopping into the back of the truck, and pulling her up onto her feet. Brice joined him and together the two men helped her down out of the truck.
Apart from a scraggly line of barbed wire fence, there was nothing to see. Flat Western desert landscape stretched off in every direction, only interrupted by cactus and juniper trees. It looked like the kind of place that someone in a movie about the mafia would visit to bury a body. The thought flitted through her mind for a second.
“Can I have some water?” she croaked.
“Sure thing,” said Brice, disappearing back to the front of the truck and reappearing a few moments later with a bottle of water. He unscrewed the cap and held it up to her lips. She took a sip, running her tongue over her lips to moisten them. She titled her head back a fraction and took another drink. Then another.
“Better?” Brice asked.
Ruth nodded. “Yes, thanks.”
Since the incident with the cop back at the gas station, she had decided not to give them any more trouble. To do what they asked. Kiss their ass if she had to. She would get another chance to escape, she was sure of it. Until then it was best just to go along with what they wanted until someone let their guard down enough that she could make a run for it. This time she wouldn’t make the same mistake of trusting anyone. With the way she felt right now, she wasn’t sure she would ever trust anyone again.
“Where are we?” she asked the two escorts.
“This is it,” said Brice. “Broken Ridge Academy.”
Maybe this was their idea of a joke. She looked around, but all she could see was the same barren desert dotted with juniper, cactus and tumbleweed.
“Here,” he said, taking her elbow and guiding her to the front of the truck.
It was there in front of them. A series of long single-story buildings that looked like military barracks were set one behind the other. Off to one side was what looked like a ranch house. Off in far distance were some other buildings. Maybe barns, or something.
The first thing that stood out to Ruth was how orderly everything seemed. The surroundings may have been wilderness but everything Ruth was looking at was spick, span and freshly painted.
“I’ll go get your bag,” said Mike, opening the passenger door of the trunk, appearing a few seconds later with a bag her mom had presumably packed for her. He dumped the bag on the ground at Ruth’s feet.
“You want to go get the Wicked Witch of the West, or should I?” Mike asked his partner.
Ruth noticed Brice shoot him a ‘knock it off’ look. “No need,” said Brice. “Here she comes now.”
Ruth followed his gaze to the front porch of the ranch house where a frumpy looking woman in her fifties, who was wearing the kind of white and red polka dot dress you usually saw on little girls at church, started down the front steps towards them. Her hair was a limp, mousey brown and cut into a bob. Not a modern bob, but something you might have seen on a housewife from the 1950s.
>
“Good afternoon, Miss Applewhite,” said Brice. “This is Ruth Price.”
Gretchen Applewhite smoothed down the front of her dress as she walked towards them. She was smiling sweetly.
“Gentlemen, could you please remove those handcuffs from Ruth. You know how I feel about the use of restraints on our young people,” said Gretchen.
Mike jumped to it, scrambling for his cuff key and unlocking the cuffs. “Sorry, Miss Applewhite, she tried to escape when we stopped for gas.”
Gretchen stopped directly in front of Ruth. Ruth rubbed at her wrists, grateful that she was now free of the cuffs. “Thank you,” she said to Gretchen.
“You’re quite welcome, my dear. Now I’ll have someone come out in a moment and collect your bag, so you can leave it there for now. Now, gentlemen, I assume you’ll want me to sign the transfer papers. You can come into the house and we can do it there.”
Brice shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again. “Actually, we’re in kind of a hurry. We have a pick up in Scottsdale this evening. Overnight transport to a facility in Montana.”
Ruth assumed that this meant another kid like her was about to be taken from their home in Scottsdale and driven in the back of the truck all the way to Montana. She didn’t know who it was, or what there crime was, but she already felt sorry for them.
“As you wish,” said Gretchen.
Brice dug into his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. “If you can initial here and here, and sign at the bottom,” he said, handing off the paper to Gretchen along with a pen.
Gretchen took the paper, initialed and signed it and handed it back to Mike. He folded it back up, jammed it back into his pocket and started back towards the truck. Mike was already climbing into the cab. It was like they couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Standing next to Ruth, Gretchen watched them start the engine and turn the truck around with the same smile on her face and a slightly misty look in her eyes. Ruth thought it was more than a little creepy.
The truck disappeared in a cloud of dust. The speed with which they’d taken off had put Ruth on edge.
Ruth waited for Gretchen to move, or to say something. But she just stood there with that same creepy look on her face.
“So, how long do I have to stay here for?” Ruth asked her.
Gretchen turned her head. Her expression didn’t change. “That all depends on you, my dear.”
In other words if she behaved and and followed orders then she’d get to go him. At least that was what Ruth assumed Gretchen meant by that.
“So, what?” asked Ruth. “A couple of months?”
“You’re how old?” Gretchen said.
“Fourteen,” said Ruth. “Fifteen in December.”
“Well, as I said, you’ll stay until you’re eighteen, or until we decide that you can be a normal functioning young woman who doesn’t try to constantly test boundaries.”
“Eighteen?” Ruth blurted out. “You’re kidding me, right?”
The smile had begun to melt from Gretchen’s face. “Perhaps at your old school the students were allowed to speak to adults like that.” The smile was gone. “This isn’t your old school, young lady. We demand respect.”
“I just asked a question.”
Gretchen reached out, grabbed Ruth’s hand and quickly bent it back at the wrist. Pain surged up her arm. It was so sudden, and so violent, that Ruth froze with shock.
For someone who looked so frail, Gretchen Applewhite was surprisingly strong.
“We’ve had hundreds of young women like you at Broken Ridge over the years. Smart mouths. Grubby little habits. Dirty little secrets. Think they knew better than everyone else. No respect for their elders.” Gretchen’s face was so close to Ruth’s that she could smell her breath.
“They all come in here thinking that they’ll be able to twist us round their little finger. Just like they do at home. Or flaunt the rules. Just like they do at school. Well, allow me to tell you something for nothing, they are quickly disabused of either of those notions.”
She was still bending back Ruth’s wrist, almost to breaking point. Ruth wanted to lash out with her free hand. But she didn’t. Something told her that fighting back would only bring something far worse.
“I’m sorry. I really am,” Ruth pleaded.
Gretchen let go of her hand and took a step back. “Oh, you will be sorry, young lady. I promise you that.”
11
As they turned back on to the highway, Brice eased off the gas pedal. He’d been driving like a bat out of hell since they’d left Broken Ridge.
In the passenger seat, Mike looked over at him. “I thought that the Scottsdale collection wasn’t until tomorrow.”
“It is. But that place creeps me out. Quicker we could get out of there, the better.”
Mike laughed. “Yeah. Me too. I almost feel sorry dropping kids off at that dump. That Gretchen lady. Something ain’t right there.”
“You should have met her old man, dude.”
“Weird?”
“Weird doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
Brice rolled his head, trying to work some of the kinks out of his neck from all the hours behind the wheel. “Hey, if you don’t want to do the time then don’t do the crime.”
12
The buildings that Ruth thought looked like army barracks when she’d arrived, were the dormitories where the students of Broken Ridge slept. As instructed, Ruth left her bag outside to be collected and followed Gretchen up the steps of the ranch house. Gretchen told her that this was out of bounds to the students at all times.
Ruth nodded, scared to speak in case whatever she said upset Gretchen. On the front porch, Gretchen told Ruth to wait. She disappeared inside the ranch house, closing the door behind her.
Ruth was alone. There was no one else to be seen.
For a second, Ruth thought about making a break for it. She could head back down the track that the truck had driven up. Maybe she could make it to a road and hitch a lift.
The problem was that she was tired, hungry and exhausted. Not just physically, but mentally as well. She still hadn’t even begun to process what had happened. This morning she’d been in her bed at home and now she was in the middle of the desert at a place run by some crazy woman. She didn’t even know for sure what state she was in, never mind what town they were near. She had no money. No phone. And right this second, no hope.
All she could think about was that she might have to stay here for over three years. The thought alone made her feel sick to her stomach. It couldn’t be true, could it? You couldn’t be kept somewhere against your wishes for years.
Her dad wouldn’t let that happen anyway. Even if she couldn’t contact him, he’d realize something was up when she wasn’t home at their next visit. That was a few weeks away, but right now a few weeks felt a lot more manageable than over three years.
If she had to, she could deal with this place for a few weeks until her dad came and got her out. Keep out of Gretchen’s way. Maybe try to make some friends with the other kids. She wasn’t the most popular girl at school, but she had friends.
She could get by. She could make this work. You could make pretty much anything work for two weeks.
The door of the ranch house opened. A man stepped out. He was about six feet tall with the build of a football player. He had short blonde hair and blue eyes. Ruth guessed he was in his early thirties, or maybe a little older. He was dressed in khakis and a blue polo shirt with Broken Ridge Academy in small gold lettering on the front.
He didn’t look at her. He strode straight past and down the stairs. At the bottom, he stopped and turned round.
“Come with me, Price.”
She scrambled to follow him as he kept the same fast pace towards the dormitories. As he walked, he didn’t look back.
One of the dormitory doors opened. A dumpy looking brunette lady appeared wearing the same uniform as the guy showing Ruth around. She was followed by a long lin
e of teenage girls. They all wore white, puffy white blouses, and flip flops. They were spaced out, with a few feet between each of them. They stared straight ahead. Didn’t talk. They looked like robots too.
The man Ruth was following stopped and watched them pass. When they were gone, he started talking.
“All of our students live together as families. Males and females are segregated. You may not speak to a male student unless explicitly granted permission. If you do so without having permission, you will suffer a penalty and lose your current level. Levels, penalties and what we expect of you will be explained in more detail later on. But, in language that your typical slacker teenager can understand, it’s a little like a video game. You start at level one, the lowest of the low. No privileges. If you do what you are told, when you are told to do it, don’t give us any attitude, and don’t breach the rules then you can gain points. Gain sufficient points and you move up a level.”
He turned to look at her as the final student in the line turned a corner and disappeared. “Life here at Broken Ridge is as hard or as easy as a student chooses to make it.”
Ruth’s head was spinning as he set off again, headed for the building the line of students had just left. They reached a door. He pulled out a bunch of keys, sorted through them, found the one he was looking for, and unlocked the door.
“Turn around,” he said.
It took a second for Ruth to react. Her head was spinning from all the talk of levels and families and penalties.
“I said turn around, Price.”
She did as she’d been told, turning around so that her back was to the door and she couldn’t see the code that was being punched in. She heard four or five beeps and then the sound of a bolt sliding back.
“You remember what I said about doing what we say when we say it?”
She wasn’t sure of whether she should answer him or not.