The Law Of Three argi-4

by M. R. Sellars

  Constance tried to assuage my obvious fear. “It’s going to be okay.” She gave me a slight smile then looked over to Ben. “We can take my car. Where’s your coat, Storm?”

  “On the couch.” He gave a nod back toward the living room. “Thanks.”

  “No problem,” she answered as she stepped around him. “Just don’t get used to it.”

  “Jeez, Mandalay, now you sound like my wife,” he jibed over his shoulder.

  Her voice filtered back to us. “I knew I really liked Allison for some reason.”

  Ben swiveled his head back and focused on me. He stared at me in silence for a moment then jutted his chin toward me in a quick gesture as he brought his hand up to gingerly smooth back his hair.

  “You seein’ somethin’?” he asked quietly. “One of those visions?”

  “No. Just feeling some stuff right now.”

  He gave me a questioning look. “So can’t you do some hocus-pocus or something?”

  “I wish I could.”

  “What about tossin’ some salt around?” he asked. “I’ve seen you two do that. Ain’t that some kind of protection thing?”

  “Yes it is,” I replied. “But trust me, this apartment has already been salted enough to give an elephant high blood pressure.”

  “So there’s nothing you can do?”

  “Stay grounded,” I replied. “That’s about it, I guess.”

  “Well do that then,” he instructed. “So does this have anything to do with all that floppin’ around you were doin’ earlier?”

  “I don’t know, Ben.” I reached up and began massaging my scalp again. “Maybe. I still have no idea what that is all about. All I can say is that something about this just feels wrong. It’s almost like it’s a big puzzle, but there’s a crucial piece missing that would bring it all together and let you see what the picture is. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Well, I don’t know about a puzzle, white man,” he echoed. “It seems pretty straightforward to me.”

  I shook my head. “No. There’s something hinky about all of this.”

  “Hinky how?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know.”

  “You ain’t helping me here, Row.”

  “That’s pretty much the theme of the day, isn’t it?” I retorted. “I’m sorry. This is all just going pretty fast, you know?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “I know.”

  I started to glance at my watch out of reflex and realized that I hadn’t put it back on after my shower since it had been shattered. I turned and looked over my shoulder at the automatic coffeemaker. The digital display shimmered a five into a six as I watched, displaying the time as 8:36.

  “Is it really that late?” I asked aloud.

  “Uh-huh,” Ben grunted. “Long day, huh? You get much sleep earlier?”

  “I got a few hours, I guess, but they weren’t exactly quality.”

  “Yeah, I figured as much. So, maybe all this is just the exhaustion and stress.” He offered the second half of his observation with a shrug.

  “Maybe,” I verbally agreed, although in my head, I doubted it. Then I gave him a serious stare. “Listen, I need to ask you a favor.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Felicity,” I said. “I need to know she’s going to be taken care of.”

  “You’ll both be safe, white man,” he reiterated. “We already told ya’ that.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” I replied. “I mean if something goes wrong.”

  “You ain’t talkin about what I think…” He let his voice trail off as he furrowed his brow.

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “If something happens to me, I need you to promise me that you’ll take care of Felicity.”

  “Nothing is gonna happen to you, Rowan.” He informed me with absolute conviction in his voice while thrusting his splayed hand at me for effect. “They’re just gonna interview you.”

  “But just in case.”

  “Don’t be sayin’ this shit, Row,” he demanded. “Because if you’re not gonna stick to the plan, you ain’t goin’. Hear me?”

  “Just promise me.”

  “Awww, Jeez, Rowan,” he said. “Tell me you’re going to play by the rules here.”

  “Please, Ben?” I appealed. “I need you to do this.”

  “Okay, yeah,” he returned. “You know we would anyway. You two are family to Allison and me. But, I’m tellin’ you that nothing is gonna happen, and if you try to do something stupid, I’ll cuff you to the bumper of a patrol car; AFTER I kick your ass. Got me?”

  “Yes, Ben, I understand.”

  “I’m not kidding, Row.”

  “Yeah. Me either.”

  *****

  “Maybe I’m wrong here, but shouldn’t we have some lights flashing and sirens blaring?” I asked.

  We had just pulled out of the parking lot of the apartment complex and onto the main drag with Constance behind the wheel and Ben riding shotgun. Felicity and I were parked in the back seat of the sedan, with me positioned behind Mandalay since Ben’s seat was pushed back as far as it would go. My petite wife had even shifted more toward center in order to have any legroom at all.

  We were belted in, and I had been fully expecting a mad dash through the city as soon as we began moving. Instead, Mandalay accelerated smoothly into traffic and joined the ebb and flow with less urgency than would be attributed to a trip to the local shopping mall.

  “No big hurry,” she said over her shoulder. “We’ll be there in fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “What do you mean no big hurry?” I repeated the comment back to her, certain that I had misunderstood. “Did I miss something here?”

  “It’s all part of the ‘game’, Rowan,” she explained. “The longer they drag this out, the better position they will be in to negotiate.”

  “Porter isn’t playing by their rule book,” I insisted, trying to keep my emotions from assuming control and forcing me to escalate as they had done before. “I think they might want to consider a different strategy.”

  “They know what they’re doin’, white man,” Ben offered with a diagonal glance back at me. “It’s their job.”

  I sat back in the seat and grumbled. “I’m telling you that they are wrong. This isn’t the same.”

  “I know it’s hard,” Constance spoke again. “But you really need to relax, Rowan. Hostage scenarios don’t typically resolve in a matter of minutes. You are usually looking at several hours. Sometimes even days.”

  “Not this one.”

  “If the situation changes, someone will contact us,” Ben told me. “Unless that happens, there’s no reason for a Code Three response. So just sit back and enjoy the ride. You’re gonna be wishin’ for a little solitude once they start grilling you. Trust me.”

  I crossed my arms and shut my mouth. I appeared to be locked into a no-win situation with everyone this evening, so I decided not to press any harder. It would only serve to get me riled up.

  I hadn’t heard a peep out of Felicity, so I looked over at her and saw that she was fidgeting with the memory card on a professional-series digital camera. She never went anywhere without at least some type of photographic device at her disposal even if it was just the high-end point-and-shoot she always kept in her purse.

  I continued to watch as she stared intently at the display on the back of the piece of equipment while expertly stabbing at the controls with her thumbs.

  She had once told me that looking at the world from behind a lens made her feel safe. She could remain detached while still seeing everything. Sometimes, by becoming one with that intensity of focus, she would transition beyond the frame. The camera would become a microscope for her third eye, bringing into view things unseen in the physical realm.

  As she switched the camera off and stuffed it back into her equipment bag, I made a mental note to stay out of the way if I noticed her looking through it anytime in the near future.

  *****

  Fifteen minutes int
o the trip, we were moving along in what passed for the center lane of the highway. We had actually been making good time considering the icy condition of the roads and obscured dividing lines. Fortunately, traffic had been light due to the weather and time of night.

  That bit of luck seemed to be expended, however. Up ahead of us, brake lights were suddenly beginning to announce themselves in dusky pairs, and the congestion was rapidly increasing.

  I was pressed back into the seat, my face tilted upward and my eyes inspecting the dark headliner for lack of anything better to do. I felt the vehicle beginning to slow and canted my head forward.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Sshhh,” Mandalay admonished as she reached over and turned up the volume on the radio.

  “…And we have a report of a multi-vehicle accident with injuries on eastbound Interstate Forty-Four at Jefferson,” an announcer’s voice issued from the speakers. “All lanes are shut down, so you might want to avoid that area for the time being. Also, there are reports of black ice on…”

  “Friggin’ wonderful,” Ben proclaimed. “Guess we better go ahead and exit pretty quick, or we’ll get caught up in that mess.”

  “That would probably be best,” Constance agreed. “If we take the next exit, we could cut over and take Market down to Memorial.”

  “Yeah, sounds like a plan,” he replied.

  Mandalay’s cell phone had begun to sing its tune as Ben was answering her. She reached for it as she glanced over her shoulder to make a quick visual check before changing lanes. She canted the wheel and eased the sedan over to the right and then flipped the device open and put it against her ear.

  “This is Mandalay,” she said.

  The swath of bright headlights that suddenly illuminated the cabin of the vehicle seemed horribly out of place to me. I squinted to block them out. I was still trying to wrap my brain around why such intense light was coming at me from the driver’s side of the car when the world as we knew it fell apart.

  CHAPTER 31:

  The mournful shriek of metal against metal filled my ears directly behind the explosive crunch of the other car slamming into ours. I was tossed hard to the side, my arms flailing in front of me as I reached for something to hold on to but found only handfuls of air.

  I heard Felicity screaming on my right as the inertia was transferred to the rear end of our vehicle, causing it to whip wildly around on an off-centered axis. The safety belt bit into my shoulder and constricted around my waist as I strained against it.

  “Holy shit!” Ben’s voice boomed from the front seat.

  I caught a quick glimpse of Mandalay expertly throwing hand over hand to veer the sedan into the direction of the skid in an attempt to bring it back under control.

  I threw my right arm up and across the seatback, stretching it behind Felicity as we continued to pitch to the right. Out of reflex, I hugged her tight and pulled my forearm up around her head just as the other vehicle made a three-quarter spin to clip us once again with its rear end.

  The additional force of the second hit propelled us again to the right, threading me straight out of my safety harness as my wife and I hammered into the passenger side door. My reflex had come just in time as my forearm took the brunt of the strike instead of Felicity’s head.

  A third crash sounded immediately on the heels of the second, and I felt the car lift upward on its side as sheet metal folded and groaned in protest.

  Over the din, I heard Constance scream, “Goddammit!”

  I knew it couldn’t be good if she was using expletives. I threw my other arm over my wife, covering her face as Mandalay’s unsecured cell phone flew over the back of the seat and ricocheted from my forehead. The tires were slipping across the icy pavement, making the vehicle jump and jerk as their surfaces would randomly achieve some modicum of traction, only to lose it in almost the same instant. I was expecting to roll at any moment and braced myself as best I could.

  The unmistakable sound of glass shattering ripped through the air, but I couldn’t identify where it was coming from. I stayed low in the seat and held tight to Felicity as the sedan thudded back down onto all four wheels, jolting us hard when it bounced.

  Momentum carried us along, and I could feel that we were still languidly spinning. As we came upon the halfway point, we found ourselves sliding backward down the highway, headlamps from now oncoming vehicles casting harsh shadows within the cabin.

  A new crash sounded in the near distance, and I pushed my head up to peer out the window just in time to see a newly involved vehicle fishtail into the passenger side of our car then bounce away into another.

  We were thrown to the other side of the car, and my hip impacted heavily against the door handle. Felicity’s body crushed against mine, and the air forced its way out of my lungs in a guttural huff.

  The insane screech of metal on metal continued to underscore every other noise as horns blared into the cold night. I felt another thud, lighter this time, but still enough to propel me back into the seat and toss me upward. My arm was ripped away from Felicity, and her body followed mine as we both returned to sitting positions.

  We were still skidding backward, and I looked forward to see blue halogen headlights filling the windshield. Before I could catch my breath, yet another vehicle joined the insanity by marrying itself with great purpose to the front end of ours. I snapped backward amid the deafening crunch, watching with detached interest as the interior filled with a hazy fog, and the windshield was instantly obscured by the deploying airbags.

  *****

  I didn’t black out. At least I don’t think I did. Still, I couldn’t begin to tell you how much time passed or what actually transpired between this moment in time and my last clear recollection, which was the white fabric of the airbags filling my field of vision.

  The shrill cacophony of a car horn was insinuating itself into the mix of other sounds, effectively pushing everything else into the background.

  I opened my eyes and saw that I was pitched forward, almost doubled over, and now staring at the floorboard. I put my hand against the back of the seat in front of me and pushed, levering myself into an upright position. I could feel someone moving next to me and turned to find Felicity pushing herself up as well. I could tell by the way she was moving that she was completely disoriented.

  She began reaching toward the passenger side of the vehicle as she cried out for me, “Rowan!”

  I slipped my hand over to her, and she jerked toward me the moment I touched her leg. She quickly shifted direction and grabbed for me, struggling against the center passenger lap belt that still encircled her waist. Her lower lip was bleeding, and there was a gash over her right eye, but she seemed to be coherent and moving okay.

  “Are you all right?” I shouted over the din of the vehicle’s horn.

  “Aye, yes, I’m okay,” she cried. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I reassured her.

  “Felicity! Rowan!” Ben’s voice cut through the noise.

  I looked up to see him reaching across the back of the seat. His nose was bloodied, and he seemed to be favoring his right hand. Looking past him, I could see a spidery, circular shatter point on the windshield that looked like it would just about fit his large fist.

  “Ben!”

  “Are you two okay?” he screamed.

  “Yeah, I think so. You?” I shouted back.

  “I think my fuckin’ hand is broke,” he returned. “Mandalay’s unconscious. I think she’s hurt bad.”

  “Oh Gods!” Felicity exclaimed as she continued to struggle with the lap belt. “Is she breathing okay?!”

  “Yeah, I think so!” he yelled.

  “Don’t move her,” Felicity called back to him.

  “I know, Felicity, I know!” he returned. “Can you two get out?!”

  “I don’t know,” I yelled back at him.

  I sent my hands in search of the latch on my own safety harness and managed to thrust
my knuckles into it hard enough to make it pop free. Taking hold of the door handle, I pulled it up and pushed. The door gave outward slightly, but other than that, it didn’t really budge.

  Looking out the window, I could see that the side of the vehicle was caved inward at the center structural pylon. I looked over at Felicity. “Honey, can you move over a bit!”

  I was shouting to be heard over the blaring horn, but mid-sentence, there was a dull pop as a shower of sparks exploded from the front of the car. The lights flickered and went black. The horn warbled sickeningly then faded to silence. The last half of my sentence resounded through the cabin, breaking the new found calm.

  Felicity shifted as far as she could to the opposite side of the vehicle, and I scooted with her. Twisting in the seat, I drew my legs up and lay back with my head almost in her lap. I pushed my right hand against the back of the front seat and then levered my left elbow into the other for support. Pistoning my legs with everything I had, I kicked hard against the door. It bounced outward a few inches and then sprung back against me.

  I could hear the pained groan of metal from the front of the vehicle, and the ambient noise of the exterior burst inward along with a healthy blast of cold air. I kicked outward again, and the rear door creaked as it pushed open a few inches farther and remained there this time.

  I sucked in a deep breath of chilly air and tensed all my muscles as I continued levering pressure against the mangled door. As I groaned, I looked up through the window and saw Ben with his shoulder wedged into the scant opening as he joined me in muscling it wider.

  The sheet metal complained loudly, and the hinge popped out audible complaints as the door started to move. I closed my eyes and forced out a guttural scream as I sent everything I had into my legs and pushed. The sound started slowly, creaking through a low pitch, rising along the way until it burst forth as a loud crunch. My legs pistoned outward against nothingness as the door popped past the sticking point and flung open.