by Sean Black
“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 phone 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 at 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’ve 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 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 was switched off. She could hear Mike and Brice get out and slam their doors.
They weren’t going to leave her in the back on her own, were they? It 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.
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” said Mike, hopping into the back of the truck, and pulling her to 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.
“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. He unscrewed the cap and held it up to her mouth. 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 mistake of trusting anyone. With the way she felt right now, she wasn’t sure she’d 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 another. Off to one side was what looked like a ranch house. In the far distance she could see some other buildings. Maybe barns, or something.
The first thing that stood out to Ruth was how orderly everything seemed. The surroundings might 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 the backpack her mom had filled. He dumped it 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 woman in her fifties, wearing the kind of white and red polka-dot dress you usually saw on little girls at church, started down the front steps toward them. Her hair was a limp, mousy brown, 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 toward 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.”
Mike jumped to it, scrabbling for his key and unlocking the cuffs. “Sorry, Miss Applewhite, she tried to escape when we stopped for gas.”
Gretchen stood 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. 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 their 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 her along with a pen.
Gretchen took the paper, initialed and signed it and handed it back to him. He folded it, jammed it back into his pocket and started toward 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.
The truck disappeared in a cloud of dust. The speed with which they’d taken off had set Ruth on edge.
She 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, she’d get to go home. At least,
that was what Ruth thought she’d meant.
“So, what?” asked Ruth. “A couple of months?”
“You’re how old?” Gretchen said.
“Fourteen,” said Ruth. “Fifteen in December.”
“Well, you’ll stay until you’re eighteen, or until we decide 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 she 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 habits. Dirty little secrets. Thought 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 they’ll be able to twist us round their little finger. Just like they do at home. Or flout 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 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 onto 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 at him. “I thought that the Scottsdale collection wasn’t until tomorrow.”
“It is. But that place weirds 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 relax 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 had thought looked like army barracks when she’d arrived were the dormitories where the students of Broken Ridge slept. As instructed, she left her bag outside to be collected and followed Gretchen up the steps of the ranch house.
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, she 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 hungry and exhausted. Not just physically, but mentally as well. She still hadn’t even begun to process what had happened. One second 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 which 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. That thought alone made her feel sick. 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 more than 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 a few 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 blond 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. “Come with me, Price.”
She scrambled to follow him as he kept the same fast pace toward the dormitories. As he walked, he didn’t look back.
One of the dormitory doors opened. A dumpy brunette woman appeared, wearing the same uniform as the guy showing Ruth around. She was followed by a long line of teenage girls. They all wore 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.
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’re told, when you’re told to do it, don’t give us any attitude, and don’t breach the rules, 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, heading 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 it.
“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, 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 whether she should answer him or not.
“Price?” he prompted.
“By not following my instruction to turn around immediately you have earned one penalty point. You are now at minus one. Not a great start. You obey staff at all times, not just when you feel like it.” He gave the word feel a sulky teenager/Valley girl pronunciation.
Her reflex was to object. She had just arrived. She had turned around, just not right that very second. It wasn’t like she had disobeyed. But she already knew better than to argue. He’d only give her another penalty point.
“Yes, sir,” she said, a hint of sarcasm creeping into her voice without her even thinking about it.
He let out a theatrical sigh. “That’s one more penalty for using that tone of voice with me. Good job. You are now at minus two points.”
What? This was bullshit. How could you punish someone for how they said something
? It wasn’t even as if she’d tried to sound like a smart-ass.
“Turn around, Price,” he said. He sounded pissed off, but she guessed that was okay. After all, he was staff. This was just like school, or dealing with her mom.
“Got any more to say?” he asked.
She looked down at the ground. “No, sir,” she said, trying to remove any intonation from her voice.
“Better,” he said, opening the door. “Follow me. Stay three steps behind me. If you aren’t able to accurately judge a three-step distance, then there are distance markings on the walls. Those are the arrows. They also indicate the one-way system that is employed in all our family houses. Walk against the flow at any time and you’ll also incur a penalty. Understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. She hadn’t realized until now how much effort it took to sound neutral. She and her friends all spoke in a way that sounded like they were making fun of each other, or that they thought the other person was an idiot. They didn’t mean anything by it—well, not most of the time anyway. It wasn’t even conscious.
The hallway stretched out ahead of them. It was freshly painted in white. Apart from some framed posters of sunsets with motivational quotes—Be the person you’re capable of being; Obedience is strength not weakness; Change yourself. Change others. Then change the world—the walls were spotlessly clean, apart from the arrows. They were black, pointed in the same direction, and were spaced four feet apart.
The doors they passed had been painted blue. They all had the same electronic keypads as the outside door but they didn’t have a separate lock that needed a key. At least, not so far as Ruth could see.
She was still in shock. But she also knew that if she wanted to get out of here she needed to pay attention to her surroundings. Without the staff noticing what she was doing. She didn’t plan on sticking around any longer than she had to.
They stopped at a door. Ruth had to skid to a halt to avoid breaking the three-step rule. The staff member turned his head toward her, his index finger hovering over the key pad. Keeping her face expressionless, she looked down at the immaculately clean concrete floor and turned around.