The Captive

by Fiona King Foster

  “Brooke.” Milo put the twigs down. “Can you even hear yourself?”

  “How many times do I have to say it? Let’s go. Now.”

  “Stop,” Milo said, gentler now. “You’re not making sense.”

  “What’s wrong with Mom?” Brooke heard Sal ask inside the shelter.

  “Listen,” Milo said. Brooke felt his hands on her shoulders. He turned her toward him, and for a moment, the panic beating in her temples slowed. “Something’s happened. You’re not yourself. You’re not well. If you were thinking clearly, you’d see it. We couldn’t catch Lorne even if we wanted to. He’s on a horse.”

  “He won’t be for long,” Brooke said.

  “There’s nothing we can do,” Milo said. “The deputy knows what he’s doing. If he needed our help, he would have asked for it. You need to eat, and you need to rest.”

  “No,” Brooke said, breaking away from him.

  Then, with a gust of wind blowing down from the treetops, it began to pour. Brooke cursed. They couldn’t travel in this. They’d have to wait. At least the weather might slow Lorne down too. He would know of places to take cover. Or he might take Cawley back to Buffalo Cross. Straight to Delia.

  “We did our best,” Milo said. “We can go home.” He ducked under the cover of the spruces, where the ground was almost dry, and attempted to prepare a fire, stacking now-damp birch bark and small twigs for tinder and overlaying that with a tent of larger sticks.

  “No fire,” Brooke said, kicking the pile apart. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “What the hell, Brooke?” Milo shouted. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “First break in the rain, we’re going,” she said, turning to the shelter. “No fire.”

  She lifted the front sheet of the blind and crawled inside. The girls stared at her silently.

  Brooke reached into her pack for the tin mug that was the closest thing they had to a bowl and handed it to Holly with the two socks Milo had filled in Buffalo Cross. “Hurry and eat so we can turn the light off.”

  “Dad?” Holly called out. “Mom is telling us to eat raw eggs.”

  Milo pulled the plastic aside and crawled into the shelter. “I can’t get the fire started. Sorry. Everything’s too wet now.”

  “We’re going home, right?” Sal asked.

  “We can’t go anywhere tonight,” Milo said. “It’s pouring. We’ll have to leave in the morning.”

  “You’re just going to do what she wants,” Holly said bitterly. “You always do.”

  “That’s not true,” Milo said. “We’re all on the same team, you guys. Tell them, Brooke.”

  Brooke took the cup back from Holly and cracked an egg into it.

  “Mom?” Sal ventured. “I thought it was over.”

  “No,” Brooke said, lifting the cup to her mouth and shuddering involuntarily as she swallowed the cold, viscous egg. “It’s never over.”

  9

  Things with the Cawleys came to a head the summer Brooke was eighteen. She had been working alongside Anita for more than a year, and in that time, Delia had intensified her attacks. Finally, one of their dealers—an old friend of Anita’s named Vicky—was found dead, run over outside her house.

  “Was it an accident?” Robin asked.

  “Of course it wasn’t an accident,” Edmund said darkly. “Wake the fuck up, marshmallow.”

  Anita painted Vicky’s name up on the drive shed, alongside the ten resistance fighters who’d been martyred during secession. Brooke felt a conflicting mix of guilt and pride seeing Vicky up there among the names she had grown up venerating. Vicky had taught Brooke to shallow dive at the lake when she was a kid.

  Competition between the Hollands and the Cawleys had turned Shaw County’s already bad chalk problem into an epidemic. A dozen teens in town had overdosed during the winter, and the community’s goodwill toward Brooke’s family was gone. The Hollands had new friends—people Edmund wouldn’t have stooped to know, once—while others with whom they’d been close for years dropped away. Pauline had tried to join a local playgroup with her and Callum’s infant son, Aaron, only to be frosted out by the other mothers, and the hardware store would no longer buy salvage from fifteen-year-old Robin, even though he had no more to do with the chalk trade than Pauline did.

  Robin’s sideline in cottage memorabilia was still strong, though, and he’d mostly managed to avoid his parents’ interest. There had been one bad moment when Edmund got wind that Robin was corresponding with a boy who had left for the city after a disagreement with his parents. Edmund ranted furiously about the kind of miserable rat who would abandon home and family for a life like that.

  Brooke wished Robin would stick up for his friend, whom she knew as a smart and creative boy who had been bullied mercilessly at home. Edmund seemed to have grown more oppressive of late. Brooke was certain that, in the past, his judgments had been harsh but fair, based on merit, not just loyalty. But whatever she thought of Edmund’s diatribe, she knew better than to disagree with him. Robin knew better too, of course. That was why he sat so quietly, shoulders hunched, waiting for it to be over.

  Callum had managed to scale up their operation to supply major chalk networks in the city. This success gave the Hollands a substantial edge over the Cawleys, and rumors began circulating around town that some kind of retaliation was planned. At the peak of summer, Edmund asked Brooke and Anita to provide extra security for a delivery to the soap factory.

  It was a humid evening, the roadsides singing with chorus frogs. Edmund and Callum rolled up to the factory gate in Edmund’s truck, with Brooke and Anita behind them in the hatchback. Brooke had her window down, a rifle across her lap. She was calm, suspended in the state of vague detachment that she occupied more and more lately.

  When the gate didn’t open for Edmund’s horn, Brooke raised her walkie-talkie to ask if he wanted her to go find someone. Before she was able to speak, there was a soft pop and Edmund’s windshield shattered. Anita pulled her down against the console between the seats. The walkie-talkie gave a short burst of static and then cut out.

  Brooke felt adrenaline rush into her blood. She stared at the vinyl console, her heart pounding painfully in her chest, pulse ticking at her wrists, her temples. She noticed absently that the frogs were still singing.

  Another pop, and the hatchback listed as its front passenger tire deflated.

  The shots were coming from Brooke’s side of the car. She tried to remember what she’d seen out her window. Storage units, an old parking lot. She thought back to the moments before the first shot, but her eyes had been on the gate ahead of them, not to the side.

  “This way.” Anita opened the driver’s door and slithered out, pulling her handgun from under the seat. Brooke followed, staying as low as she could. They crawled to Edmund’s truck behind the cover of the vehicles.

  Another pop, and another of Anita’s tires went flat. The factory gate remained closed.

  Brooke could see Edmund, still in the driver’s seat of his truck, shooting through the shattered windshield. Anita let down the tailgate and climbed into the truck bed, scrambling ahead to the cab, where she raised herself and began shooting over the roof. She was aiming for one of the storage units; she must have seen something.

  Brooke crept forward and opened Edmund’s door.

  “Get in,” he said, dropping to the ground outside to let Brooke up into the cab.

  Brooke climbed into the footwell, and it was then she noticed that Callum was slumped in his seat against the side door, his T-shirt dark with blood; he was trying to lift his gun, wincing with every movement. A shot thudded into the side of the truck. Brooke shimmied closer to help Callum, expecting her father to get in after her, but instead, he slammed the door from outside, shouting, “Drive!”

  Brooke crouched low in front of the steering wheel, thinking her father was planning to ride in the back of the truck with Anita. She heard the drone of a motor. She peeked over the dash and saw the factory gate opening.


  “Daddy?” Brooke cried.

  “I can hold them for a minute,” he called. “Go!”

  A Jeep was coming through the gate now, and Brooke saw men in fatigues alongside it, advancing with guns raised: members of the volunteer militia from Shaw Station.

  It was an ambush, Brooke realized. They’d been trapped.

  Brooke felt for the keys in the ignition, trying to stay calm, trying not to look at Callum, who was groaning, no longer trying to raise his gun.

  Edmund stepped into the road, aiming his semiautomatic at the volunteers coming through the gate.

  “Daddy, get in!” Brooke called.

  “Go!” Edmund shouted. “Get them out of here!”

  Brooke hesitated. She didn’t want to leave him there, but Callum’s color was fading, sweat beading on his pale, waxy face.

  “Go!” Edmund bellowed.

  Brooke hauled the steering wheel to the side and floored the gas pedal, spinning into a turn that toppled Anita in the truck bed. In the rearview mirror, she saw her father in front of the gate with his gun in the air, swarmed by volunteers. She realized she was shaking.

  ONE OF THEIR FIRST-TIER DEALERS, Jay, brought word to the house that Edmund was being held at the Shaw Station courthouse. A cousin who worked in the building told Jay the town was charging the Hollands for the so-called attack on the soap factory. The factory owner had been tipped off that the Hollands were turning on him and timing an assault with their next delivery, so he’d made a deal with the town council for protection. The volunteer militia had been waiting inside the gate when the Hollands arrived. As soon as they heard shots outside, they moved.

  The factory owner realized his mistake as soon as he saw the Hollands’ shot-up vehicles; the tip about the planned attack had been a setup, traced with little difficulty to the Cawleys. He refused to stand witness, terrified of reprisal from the Hollands, and even the volunteers who’d arrested Edmund washed their hands of it once they understood what had happened. If it was a war between families, they said, let them fight it out themselves. They had better reasons than that to make themselves targets. But the town had Edmund, and they were under considerable pressure to do something about the growing toll of the chalk trade, so they held him.

  Anita wanted to go after the Cawleys right away. She was livid: the perfidy of the soap factory owner, the gutless volunteers—who had taken Edmund only by outnumbering him twenty to one—the cowardly, sanctimonious town council. And, above all, the shooter perched behind a storage unit, who’d vanished as soon as the factory gate opened.

  “It was Delia,” Anita spat. “I saw her.”

  “He needs the hospital,” Robin spoke up. Callum was burning with fever on the bed in his old room. The wound was near his armpit; the bullet had missed his lung and was stuck in his ribs, a visible lump under the skin. He was semiconscious, breathless with pain.

  “They’ll kill him,” Emily said, shaking her head.

  Brooke didn’t know whether she meant the Cawleys would kill Callum or the hospital would. Anything seemed possible. The county had turned against them.

  “I’m going after her,” Anita said again.

  “No,” Emily said, her voice flinty. “You’re going to work. Daddy’s not here to run the lab, so you have to. We can’t stop. That’s what they want. They think we’re vulnerable. They think they’ve got an opening.”

  “Please, Mama,” Robin begged. “Callum needs a doctor.”

  “Jay will find someone,” Emily said with a wave. “And get Pauline and Aaron out here. They ought to be with him.”

  Brooke was the only one at the house when Jay returned later with another of his cousins, this one a nurse. He’d paid her to come; she was clearly unhappy to be there. She was no older than Callum, but she’d trained at the hospital. She brought sterilized tools, still in their plastic sleeves.

  The nurse lifted Callum’s T-shirt up, prying it gently where clotted blood had glued the fabric to his skin. Callum whimpered through gritted teeth. She sprayed some kind of anesthetic into the hole in Callum’s chest and injected him with a syringe of oxy. The wound was badly swollen, and the nurse had to dig her way in with the forceps to extract the bullet. Callum’s body bucked, and he uttered a high, thin scream like a baby’s.

  “You have to hold him,” the nurse said to Brooke.

  Brooke held her brother against the bed with all her strength, but he outweighed her by half, and every time the nurse probed in after the bullet, he thrashed out of Brooke’s grasp, causing the nurse to pull the forceps back out again.

  “Just do it,” Brooke said. “The longer you take, the more pain he’s in.”

  “I can’t. He’s moving too much. I could puncture something. There’s an artery right there. He should be under proper anesthetic. This isn’t right. You have to take him to the hospital.”

  “Fuck,” Brooke said. “You hold him, then.”

  “What?” The young woman backed away.

  “I’ll fucking do it. Just hold him still.”

  The young woman held up her hands in refusal, shaking her head.

  “Callum,” Brooke said, holding her brother’s face in her hands, staring into his eyes. “You have to stay still. I’m going to help you, but you have to stay still. Just pretend I’m Daddy, okay? I’m Daddy and I will kick your ass if you move. Understand?” She pulled a leather sandal off the floor and stuck it in her brother’s mouth. He bit down, nodding.

  Brooke took the forceps from the nurse’s limp fingers.

  “You can’t just—” the girl objected.

  “Where’s the artery?” Brooke asked.

  Wide-eyed, the nurse leaned forward and traced a line against Callum’s armpit.

  Brooke closed her eyes and summoned the calm place: cool humidity, a misty forest. All that lay in front of her was a series of actions. She would perform them carefully and well. She pictured her way through to the end. She opened her eyes, calm, held Callum’s shoulder firmly with her left hand, and guided the forceps into the mess of dark blood and glistening red flesh. Callum squirmed but Brooke did not withdraw, instead moving with him until he was still enough for her to continue. His cheeks blew round and he screamed into the leather.

  Brooke narrowed her vision to Callum’s skin, the line the nurse had traced, the hump of the bullet pushing against his ribs. She was up to her knuckles. She felt metal touch metal. She had to grip the bullet between the tiny rubber pads at the tip of the forceps. She tried once, twice, and then she had the bullet. Squeezing tight, she pulled. It didn’t move. It was caught against the bone. Callum’s scream soared high and spit foamed from the corners of his mouth.

  “Daddy!” Brooke shouted in his face. He stilled, holding her eye.

  She gripped again and pulled. The bullet moved. She held it steady and withdrew the forceps. There it was, a chunk of bloody steel the size of a child’s fingertip.

  Callum let the spit-soaked sandal fall from his mouth. He was crying, moaning, twisting in pain.

  “Clean him up,” Brooke said to the nurse.

  Then she slammed out of the room, overwhelmed with a fury so sudden and strong it tasted like iron in her mouth. How had this happened? Callum should never have had to bite a shoe in his childhood bedroom while his little sister pulled a bullet from his chest. Her calm had left her, but it was a relief to finally feel what she was supposed to: misery, injury, and blinding, incandescent rage.

  She found Anita in the lab, scowling behind safety glasses as she tried to follow Edmund’s complex recipe.

  “Where’s Delia?” Brooke asked, laying her rifle on the counter.

  “Sister,” Anita grinned. “Fucking bring it.”

  THEY PARKED NEAR Delia’s house after dark and crept in through the backyard. Anita climbed frog-legged onto the back porch and Brooke followed, keeping her head below the level of the bay window. Someone was talking inside. Together, they rose up just enough to look in.

  Delia was at the sink in a fr
illy apron, fair hair tucked behind her ears, her forearms slick with suds. Even washing dishes, Brooke thought, she was imposing. She had a wind-up radio playing on the counter next to her. She shook her head in irritation at something and reached for the radio. The plastic switch slipped under her soapy fingers and Delia had to wipe her hand on her jeans to try again. The talking voice stopped.

  Brooke and Anita dropped back down.

  “Can’t get in through here,” Anita whispered. The window was caged by bars that had been anchored in poured concrete bases.

  Brooke crept on her knees to examine the back door. It was locked, top and bottom, with in-facing plates that she couldn’t dismantle quietly. Even from inside, those locks wouldn’t be quick to undo.

  Anita pointed her gun at the doorknob and lifted an eyebrow. Brooke shook her head. The whole door was steel, even the frame. No way to shoot through.

  “Hang on,” Brooke whispered.

  She dropped down into the yard and crept around the side of the house. The cellar door had been covered with a corrugated iron sheet that also locked from inside. The front door was the same as the one in back: steel, with a steel frame, in-facing lock plates. The whole house had been reinforced like a safe room. Brooke picked up the black gleam of cameras under the eaves and shrank back the way she’d come.

  “This place is a fortress,” she whispered when she got back to Anita.

  Her sister was bent over the edge of the porch, shaking something against its wooden lattice base. Brooke smelled the tang of lighter fluid and realized what she was doing. Anita shook more fluid across the siding, around the door.

  “Anita, wait.” Brooke held out a hand, her resolve faltering. It was the barred window, the reinforced door. Delia would burn alive before this house let her out.

  “You want to do it?” Anita held out an old cardboard book of matches.

  Brooke took the matches from her sister. Edmund would do it. He would expect her to do it. She pictured Callum contorted with pain. Delia would come after them again. She wouldn’t stop coming.