by Gary Sapp
and act too uncivilized to contribute to society.
Wilson slapped her once across her head and when her face took the brunt of an impact with the bars all of her resistance at last came to an end.
As the first tears ran down her face, Serena Tennyson looked past the bars, and in her mind’s eye she saw her father waiting for her at the end of a grueling marathon. I want you to remember how you feel right now, his voice resonated lovingly in her mind, when life throws you its most tormenting curve, when mankind is at its ugliest, I want you to think of how you overcame it all to achieve this triumph. I want you to always treasure this moment right here, right now; and never forget the Dragon’s call:
You will be fine.
You’ll be good.
You can still fly.
Serena heard a gunshot.
And then she heard the glass on the topside of the door where Officer Pam Greer has gone to smoke shattering.
Officer Joe Wilson stopped before he could finish entering her, before he could go where she had allowed no man to go before in her life. The woman was calling for them.
Dennison said, “Turn your ass around, Pam, and walk back out of here right now.”
Pam Greer held her nine millimeter out in front of her, her feet planted squarely on the tile, and didn’t move, not with eight shots still left in her gun.
“Back off of the prisoner right now,” She commanded them. “If both of you idiots want to live you’ll do as I say.”
Serena could hear the cavalry—dozens upon dozens of uniformed officers running towards this block. Wilson yells back at Greer that Serena deserves this and so much more. Dennison turns his own gun on Pam—a mistake in which she makes him pay with his life, when she fires two rounds into the skin just above his left eye before he completed his turn.
“Joe, don’t make me kill you too.” Pam said, tears streaking down her cheeks.
Officer Pam Greer:
She was a petite brown skinned black woman with big brown eyes, big lips and a stylish haircut who was holding a big nine millimeter handgun in her small hands.
Wilson knew that he wouldn’t be able to reach his gun that was trapped underneath Fred Dennison’s dead body—so he must have decided right then—that if he was going to die this morning that he would serve Serena her breakfast first.
He grabbed Serena by her head and decided to shove his manhood between her other lips instead—
And Officer Pam Greer dropped him where he once stood by shooting him in his head.
Serena never moved from her seated place on the tile, while she watched the room fill with uniformed officers. One of the senior voices called for Officer Greer to stand down, first in a commanding, then a more sympathetic tone. She lowered her weapon but did not holster it.
Instead, she unlocked the cell door, entered, and kicked both weapons away from the carcass that was once Officer Fred Dennison. She choked back further tears and placed two fingers on his neck and checks for a pulse. Serena notes that death has robbed Dennison of his hard look that he must have learned to master over the years.
Next, while the other officers stare in a stunned silence, Officer Pam Greer moves on to Officer Wilson, performs the same ritual on him and finally stood up at her full height, finally relaxing her grip on her gun enough for a comrade to lift it from her fingers with a pen.
Three more officers entered Serena’s cell and began to escort Greer out, as quickly as the woman who saved her, could manage.
“Officer Greer?” Serena called out to the other woman. Two plain clothed detectives began to attend to Serena’s needs and sat her on the cot. “Officer Greer?” She said when the petite, uniformed woman failed to answer her call the first time.
It took all of the strength and some time for the group of women to turn Greer so that the two women could see each other’s face.
“I should thank you.” Serena said.
Greer screamed.
When she had finished at last she said, “I’ve worked with both of those men for over five years. I know Joe’s brother. I’ve met Fred’s wife.” She began to sob uncontrollably. “And now I have to go home this morning and explain to them that I killed them…for you.” Pam’s head lowered in shame. “I killed these men because of you. So… don’t…thank…me.”
An hour after Officer Pam Greer was escorted out of her cell, Serena watched a half dozen detectives begin to mechanically examine the crime scene. Another group of three detectives took care of her needs. Serena was told by one, who knew his way around a buffet, that they would need a statement before the FBI arrived and took over the investigation. Her appearance in front of the Judge would be postponed for at least a day now, maybe two. She also was told that she had to refrain from showering until medical personnel could examine her.
Two hours later after she had made her statement, showered and changed, Serena lay on the tiled floor of a new cell with one window high above, and traded local law enforcement for a team of federal agents who were tasked at guarding her this time.
Serena shivered.
Behind her, rays of sunlight were glowing from the window. She wanted to warm herself…yet she remembered that once someone very dear to her saying that beams of sunlight radiating throughout small pockets of space, like in this room, were like the eyes of God piercing through. And that the guilty shied away from this light for fear of His judgment raining upon them.
If she didn’t believe it the human deity…then why was she so…hesitant…Perhaps he did exist after all?
She crawled backwards, lay in the trail of the light and let God’s judgment rain upon her.
Xavier
“So deep down, at least a part of you knew that Julian would do something like this all along?”
Warden Donald Bright’s blonde hair had darkened with sweat and his cheeks had reddened into a fine color of cinnamon. The entire search party: Xavier Prince, Warden Bright, Rose Dixon and two other uniformed were winded after a trek up to the sixth floor produced empty results. All five of Carter’s men had escaped with many of the inmates on that level when A Riot’s Last Gleaming started.
Xavier kept walking and didn’t provide a response. Warden Bright quickened his pace and circled in front of the smaller man and blocked his path. Prince drunkard eyes flashed him a look or irritation. We don’t have time for this. “Alright, Warden…so I guessed that he would.” Xavier cut his eyes at Rose Dixon who was hanging on every word exchanged between the two men.
Warden Bright caught his silent messaging. “Ah…Rose, take these two men and begin a search of the southwest block. When I studied the diagram of this place, I saw some isolated points over there that might provide a man some hiding spots.” He pointed a finger at her. “Tell no one any specifics of what you are searching for.”
After this search party had concluded their meeting with Julian, Warden Bright had gone alone to speak with representatives of both the Georgia State Police and the National Guard. They had agreed, at least for now, to abide by his wishes and provide tactical support and a perimeter defense and not allow any convict to leave the interior of the prison itself. Bright told Xavier that they were on a time frame of two or three hours, no more, to bring this matter to a head. The woman who led the Georgia State Patrol assemblage told him that there had been an incident at the courthouse in downtown Atlanta already during Serena Tennyson’s arraignment. She wouldn’t go into further details with him, but privately mentioned that state couldn’t tolerate any more screw-ups.
Rose Dixon hadn’t moved. “I won’t leave you alone with this man. I don’t trust him and either should you, Warden. For all we know, he may have been on this riot business with inmate Moore all along.”
Warden Bright squeezed her big hands with some affection and smiled at her, the woman’s own overreaction back in the library that nearly cost all of their lives forgiven. “I’ll be fine, Rose.” He said. “By splitting up, we will cover more ground this way. We need to find Carter’s men before Julian’s
Black Knights get their hands on them. We’ll be in a better position to bargain for the hostage’s lives if we do.”
Rose Dixon reluctantly agreed with a curt nod. After she and the two uniforms vacated the scene Xavier said, “Make no mistake here, Warden, the grievances on the front side of your list are all legitimate. Fain’s rule here was a reign in Hell.” Xavier stopped to rest and leaned his back against a nearby brick wall. “For the flip side of that paper, I suspected that the opportunity for Julian and his Black Knight’s to strike back at Carter’s associates would be too great to pass up once he figured I was safely off the premises.” He stood up straight again. “You said you want truth from me. Well, the truth is I didn’t know the specifics of this plan, or whether there was a plan at all, despite what your bodyguard thinks. I do know that Julian is carrying out his plan the way that I would, if I were in his place.”
“Fain, that freaking idiot,” Warden Bright spat on the floor. “How could he schedule this inspection, allow any unnecessary civilian passage through this place, especially the day of your scheduled release, knowing how volatile this situation had grown here.”
“Did you get a radio off of one those uniformed officers before we left?”
“Shit, I didn’t,” He peered down the hallway, whistled at two uniforms within a patrol group and commanded that someone fetch him a radio. A bucktoothed sergeant gave Xavier a hard stare, but