I’ll see this place burn. She pushed the drawer shut. Frustrated, she turned to the filing cabinet.
Opening the metal drawer, she began rifling through files and blank forms. Personally, she felt that any plans Marr might have kept would have been stored on a computer—perhaps one protected in a Faraday cage since the woman had known of the Council’s intent to set off the EMP. Sara shrugged, thinking of this possibility not for the first time; maybe someone somewhere else was looking for that more likely clue. Marr had been in a lot of different locations on Church business.
“Someone’s got their hand in the cookie jar,” a deep male voice said.
Giving a little scream of shock, Sara spun around. Theo Truesdale leaned in the doorway, shoulder resting against the jamb. He was a heavyset man. Faces from the photo album began flashing through her mind as she felt his gaze on her. She’d never been able to stand the man, and had made it a point not to be alone with him, which had been relatively easy for the most part. Until now. Her eyes followed his big hand as it dropped down to his crotch and squeezed.
“Oh, hi!” she smiled as wide as she could. “You startled me, Mr. Truesdale.”
He smiled. It was more of a smirk. Not for the first time, he told her, “Theo. Call me Theo, Sara.”
“Okay, Mr. … Theo.”
“Whatcha doin’?” Truesdale asked.
Stepping forward, he closed the door behind him. He didn’t slam it, but to Sara, when latch hit jamb, it sounded like a vault closing. She smiled even more expansively.
“I was getting … requisition forms,” she said.
“‘I was getting requisition forms’ what, Sara?”
Her smile hurt. “I was getting requisition forms, Theo?”
Truesdale, nodding, stepped closer. Sara forced herself not to shrink away. Some of those girls in the album had been crying. Some were so young. Barely teens.
“I, uh, knew you were in your Section Leader meetings and I didn’t want to bother you with something so trivial. The door was unlocked.”
Truesdale’s smile narrowed to a sleazy grin. He had her in body weight by a hundred pounds, but thankfully none of it was muscle. Up close, he smelled like Old Spice Body Wash and cigarettes.
“It was, was it?” he asked.
“Yes. I didn’t mean—”
“Shh,” he whispered. He reached out and tapped her nose with a thick, blunt finger. There was a half-moon sliver of grime beneath the nail. “Boop! Got your nose!” he laughed.
Sara forced herself to laugh along with him, her heart beating as if she were running a race. An icy shroud of a certain cold, implacable truth settled over her. Her story wouldn’t hold up under close inspection, she knew. If she didn’t radically change the energy of this engagement, she’d be under suspicion from here on out.
Some of those girls were crying.
She stepped toward him, her breasts inches from his chest, making the space intimate. He hadn’t brushed his teeth for a while.
“Is that all you want?” she asked. She made her expression serious. “You only want to get my nose?” She traced a finger on the flesh of his beefy forearm. “There are so many other, better, parts you could get.”
Truesdale blinked, momentarily taken aback by her forwardness. Then his lips skinned back off his teeth. The effect was similar to a dog showing its fangs. His right arm suddenly reached out and encircled Sara, and he yanked her toward him, crushing her body into his. Sara swallowed and looked up into his face. He had large pores.
“I’ve noticed you,” he said. “I’ve noticed that tight little body of yours growing up, and I’ve noticed how you’ve been hanging around a lot more lately.”
His crotch radiated heat between them.
“It’s just that you make me so … curious.” She choked on the words, hoping it sounded like passion. “Everyone looks up to you, does what you say. You always seem so in charge, even more so since the Event.”
His big hand slid down and cupped her ass, and squeezed. The motion pressed her hips a little harder into his and she felt the club of his erection between them. She flashed on Susan Hagar’s lipstick smear, intuitively understanding what that had meant. She closed her eyes and bit her lip to keep from crying out.
“It’s good for a young girl to come to an older man,” he said. His voice came out in a thick growl, like an animal warning something off its kill. “To help show her what she needs to do. Guide her; teach her.”
Not knowing what else to say, she murmured his name. “Theo.” Sara felt bile rising as his other hand roamed her body. Not able to bear looking at him any longer, she closed her eyes and turned her face up to him, her eyes closed.
Instead of the kiss she was dreading, something much worse came. Suddenly he spun her around and bent her over the desk, roughly pressing down on her back and pinning her in place. Her ass poked backwards, the pose highlighting for her how vulnerable she was. No one knew she was here. No one would care if they did.
“Kissing is for fagots,” Truesdale all but snarled. “You’re going to learn what lips are for.”
What does that even mean?
Coherent thought fled then, replaced by pure, animal terror. Sara could feel tears pressing at her tightly closed eyes.
He tugged at the button on her jeans, yanking hard as the zipper opened and then cupping his hand between her legs.
“Please, Theo,” she said. “I’m scared.” She was, too, but she vowed that he wouldn’t make her cry.
The big man leaned his bodyweight into her and bent down close to whisper in her ear. His belly and chest rested heavily on her narrow back and she fought to breathe.
“Oh, I like that,” Theo said. “It adds spice.” He ground into her. “But you have to show me you’re my girl. Are you my girl, Sara?”
“Y-y-y-ess.” Tears slid down her face.
Fighting to stay calm, she blinked them away. She wasn’t a victim; she was a secret agent.
His hands found her hips and yanked her jeans and panties down around her ankles in one rough motion. Instinctively, she tried to stand back up, but the palm of his hand struck her between her shoulder blades and shoved her back down onto the desk. She cried out and he grunted out a guttural pig sound.
A thick finger invaded her, and her nerve broke.
“Theo, please,” she begged.
“Don’t worry, Sara, you’re my girl now.” He laughed. “You said so yourself.”
Ripping through flesh, he entered her, taking her with all the clumsy, violent grace of a stallion on a mare, snorting through his nose in gasps. Sara bit her lip, but couldn’t help but cry out at times. When he reached forward and snatched her head back by her hair, she didn’t fight the tears anymore.
When he finally released his grip on her hair, Sara pressed her wet cheek to the desk and stared at an open bookshelf while Truesdale rutted behind her. Even at twenty, she’d never given thought to losing her virginity, but if she had, it wouldn’t have been with this pig. Anger welled inside of her as she waited for him to finish.
Then he took her picture.
Afterwards, Sara huddled on the floor next to the desk. Truesdale tucked himself away and opened a filing cabinet drawer she hadn’t had time to inspect before being discovered. He threw a pad of paper on the desk, and then removed a half empty bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon and a water glass.
He eyed Sara, pouring himself four fingers before returning the bottle. “I know damn well the door was locked, Sara.”
Sara looked up at him, her sight still blurry from her tears. “Theo, I—”
I am going to kill you. Bet on it, you sick fuck.
Truesdale waved her off with the hand holding the glass. It was an imperious, dismissive gesture.
“Sara, you’re my girl now. You don’t need to make up stories or sneak around if you want some extra chocolate or strawberries. Those in the Church who put in the work get the rewards. I’m a firm believer in earning your way.” He grinned. “And y
ou’ve earned your way.” He drank. “This time.”
“Now, get dressed and go before someone comes around asking for you and gets the wrong impression.”
She pulled on her clothes and hurriedly made for the office door. I can’t keep spying like this. Whatever information they need, there has to be a better way. Reaching the door, she turned the knob and opened it.
“Sara,” Truesdale said. His voice was quiet to the point of lethality.
She froze. If he tried to make her go back, make her do anything else, she was going to run. Run out the doors and into the vineyards, and then the woods.
“Don’t forgot the requisition forms.”
She turned back around, intent on grabbing the forms as part of her cover story and getting the fuck out of there as quickly as possible. Then she remembered.
She looked at Truesdale. “The camera,” she started.
The man chuckled. “Don’t you worry, Sara,” he grinned. “Strictly my eyes only.”
Her throat constricted in response to the syrupy smoothness of his tone, but she swallowed hard and pushed on.
“No,” she said. “I mean, how can you have a working camera? I thought everything like that was fried at the Event?”
Truesdale studied her. “Dr. Marr and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on everything,” he said after a pause. “She had her tricks.”
Heart beating faster, Sara took a chance. “Are there more things that are still good? Like, phones and laptops and stuff?”
“Sara,” Truesdale said. “You leave the details to the Church elders.”
“Yes, Theo.”
Quickly leaving the suffocating atmosphere of the church office, she made for her dorm area. She needed a shower and to burn her clothes.
5
The black 350 Chevy rolled down the street, fog lights lit up and illuminating huge swathes of ground as it cruised slowly past. Crouched behind a closed and shuttered Texaco station dumpster, Parker, Ava, and Finn watched it shark past them, their hands on the butts of their pistols.
“Good,” Finn said. “Let’s get our food and get gone.”
“We need to forget about the food in the orchard,” Ava said.
Parker was still considering the food. He saw in his mind the shaving kit of medicine he’d surreptitiously placed there, as well. “Let’s not be hasty,” he said after another moment. “I know there are patrols, but if we ditch the bikes, we could slip in.”
“The road in that direction is crawling with Council bastards. We’re outgunned even if we want to fight, which I don’t,” Finn admitted, coming around to Ava’s argument.
“Big surprise, there,” Ava muttered.
Finn looked away, apparently stung. “I’ve done plenty of fighting, Ava.”
Ava sighed and reached out, touching her friend’s hands. “I’m sorry, Finn. I’m just angry.”
“Anger is a secondary emotion,” Parker said. He stood and lifted his bike. “I learned that in a counseling program.” Actually, in Narcotics Anonymous, he silently corrected himself. “You feel something else first—frustration, fear, regret, and when that’s unresolved, it becomes anger. Anger turned inwards,” he added, “is depression.”
“Then Ava should never get depressed,” Finn said. “She lets it all out.”
Ava laughed and gave her a side hug. The girls picked up their bikes then, cinching their packs down tight on their backs. They’d taken an opportunity to outfit themselves with the holsters and carry rigs matching their handguns.
“Finn’s right,” Parker said, realizing suddenly that there was still beer on his breath. “We’re going to have to leave the food, make do with the MREs from the house cache.”
Finn nodded, but Ava turned away. Parker knew she was thinking about the events at the checkpoint, what she’d done to divert attention and how it had made her feel.
“Ava,” he said. “Ava, look at me.”
She didn’t turn.
“Ava,” he repeated. “I’m sorry, about everything.”
She turned on him, her jaw set like a boxer coming in for the clinch. “Are you? Are you sorry?” she asked. She wasn’t shouting and she wasn’t ranting; her words were cold and clipped, the control highlighting how upset she was. “What happened to you, Parker? You’re not even acting like yourself, at least not the self I met that night. You risked so much for me; Finn told me everything you guys faced to come find me. You were,” she paused, searching for the right word and then finding it, “… a hero. An actual hero. You weren’t reckless, but you were the one driving things, moving forward, pushing the fight. Since that night, it’s like you became a different person.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. Now you’re weak, indecisive, unsure. Weak, indecisive, unsure people who put off hard things with lame-ass excuses don’t do extraordinary things.”
“Ava,” Finn said.
“No,” Parker told her. “She has a right to speak.”
“Do you get that, Parker?” Ava asked. “Do you get that what we’re about to do is extraordinary? We’re basically pushing through Mordor here to rescue your daughter and bring the fight to the Council and, so far, all you’ve done has been to react to things, to let outside events push you along. You’re not in control and you’re sure as hell not acting like a hero anymore.”
“Then go,” Parker said. He kept his voice soft. “Go. Sara’s not your daughter. She’s not even your friend; she’s someone you saw in passing. You want to bring the fight to the Council? Then go do it; go get all Red Dawn on them to your heart’s content. I have to save my daughter and I’m going to do it the best way I see fit.” He turned to Finn. “You, too, Finn. What are you doing here? You have a family of your own and you’re no longer bound by a travel visa. Why aren’t you going to them?”
Finn turned her face away; she didn’t answer. Because you love, Ava, Parker answered for her in his mind. But he wouldn’t expose her.
Ava looked at him and he met her eyes, his gaze steady. Slowly, Ava unfolded her hands and began clapping her hands together quietly, her bike leaning against her hip.
“Fuck you,” Parker half-snarled.
“No,” Ava said. “Seriously, bravo. You’ve finally done something after six weeks of stalling. Of course, you’re still only responding to me, not actually initiating some kind of kick-ass plan. And it’s pretty easy to stand up to me, isn’t it? You’re acting like I’m the burden here, like you’d be better off without me, or Finn. I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up on current events, but that’s not the new you. Eli—who, by the way, behaved like a goddamn hero—was right. I should be leading.”
“Eli’s dead,” Parker said. He hated himself for saying it as soon as it came out, but there it was.
“Yeah,” Ava shot back. “And whose fault is that? Who didn’t want to tell their war vet best friend about the plan until it was too late? The ‘plan’ being to remain passive as the clock ticked down on us being discovered?”
Parker opened his mouth, but Ava cut him off.
“And also, by the fucking way, unlike you, I know what it’s like to be held prisoner by the Church. Maybe I don’t know Sara well, but I understand what’s she’s going through a whole hell of a lot better than you do. I’m not going to let someone like that suffer; I’m going to help them, and I’m goddamned sorry I let you talk me into waiting six weeks to do it. I’m going to follow the example of a pretty great man I once knew and do something, now. You can tag along if you want.” She got on her bike. “Try to keep up.”
Ava started pedaling away. Parker watched her go. After a moment, Finn mumbled an apology to him and began pedaling after Ava. Parker stood motionless for a long time, reflecting. He rubbed his tongue against his teeth and felt his taste buds react to the residue of beer.
He looked down at his injured hand. Why was he still wearing the bandages? Abruptly, he grew furious with the whole situation and began ripping the wrap off his hand. Wrapping it up into a tight ball, he threw it into the bushes
along the side of the road where no one would find it unless they were looking.
He glared at the new pink skin grown over his wound. As fast as his anger had come on, it burned itself out. He decided he needed something for the pain in his rib.
Up ahead, Ava and Finn were bicycling off into the darkness. Parker undid his pack and opened the bag of pills. Taking one, he shoved several more into his pockets for easy access, his hands shaking; then, packing them away, he followed Ava’s lead.
Parker pedaled fast. They’d turned off River Road onto Doolittle, heading for I-64 by the time he’d even begun to catch up to them, and were pretty far along when, riding in the rear, he heard a big diesel engine coming up the road behind them. Breathing heavily, he covered the hundred yards between him and the girls as headlights appeared in the darkness behind them.
Ava and Finn had stopped while Finn took a drink out of her water bottle.
“Truck!” he said. “Get off the road!”
They reacted instantly, hopping off their bikes and running for the side of the road. This was farm country and there was little wooded cover, so they hustled behind a patch of wild brambles that engulfed a section of fence. They lay on their bellies, watching the road with their bikes laid flat nearby. Within seconds, the heavy growl of a Humvee’s V8 diesel engine approached them.
Cruising at a sedate 30 mph, the turret rider swung a floodlight along both sides of the road as the vehicle passed. Seeing it, Parker realized this was no random highway security sweep. They were being hunted. He reached down and pulled the Ruger free. Finn drew her own handgun in response. Ava’s Glock was already out.
As the vehicle rolled closer, the floodlight swept the roadside. It passed over their bramble patch without slowing, and Parker felt his hopes rise only to see the searchlight then sweep back past them and rest on something lying by the side of the road. His heart slid into his belly when he heard the squeak of the vehicle’s reinforced anti-lock brakes.
Engine idling, a soldier opened the rear passenger door and got out. Another, sitting in the shotgun seat, unzipped his window and pushed the clear plastic flap down. Parker squinted against the intense glare from the searchlight.
Dead End (911 Book 2) Page 6