Ashes (16 page)

“Wait, I wasn't serious. You really are insane.”

“Take me there, please.”

“They're backed by the feds or somebody high up. You show up at night, they're gonna pump you full o' lead. Use your head, stupid.”

“Then we'll go tomorrow.”

“Look, Casper, you keep talking crazy and I'm bailin'. I mean it. I'll take off down this long, creepy,
really,
really dark and foggy road, and I'll split. Kyro out.”

Inflection wandered into Joel's throat. “You actually sounded serious for a second.”

Kyro sighed and, trembling, stepped out of the car and darted into oncoming traffic. High beams flashed, and a horn startled them both.

“Get back in the car, Kyro, before you get yourself killed. I need your help on this. I need to find my daughter.”

“You need to find your mind, 'cause you lost it. That place you want to go to is hell itself, for sure. We don't even know if she's alive.”

“I have to believe you're wrong.”

After waiting a long moment, Joel started to drive, hoping the boy would stop him. He was right. “You're sick, man. Real sick, you know that?”

“Yeah,” Joel shrugged. “C'mon, I'll pay you to help me.”

 
“Thought you said you was almost broke.”

“Almost. After you, I will be. Get in.”

“Four hundred, large.”

“Fine.”

Kyro swore under his breath. “Could I have hustled you for more?”

“I don't know. We live in the real world. No reverse button. Now get in the car.”

“Plus you spot me for food and lodging.”

Joel tapped his fingers on the wheel. “Once a hustler…. Done. Get in, for crying out loud, before that driver comes back to finish you off.”

Kyro moved around the car and stepped inside. “This is suicide. Man, this is suicide,” he kept saying.

Once the car door slammed shut, Joel hit the gas and headed south. “We'll wait until morning, but I don't want any tricks. You bring me right to the devil's doorstep.”

“It ain't gonna be pretty. Do you even got a plan?”

“Still workin' on it.”

“Yeah, definitely suicide. You done lost your mind.”

The fog started to dissipate. Joel flipped open his cell phone.
 

“Who are you callin'?” Kyro asked.

“Put your seatbelt on, and please, keep your mouth shut.”

21

 

REDD SLICED THROUGH THE silky black skin of a chocolate mousse cake. As she lifted the frosted piece to her lips, she begged for peace.

“Want another cup of java?” the waitress asked.

Redd nodded. Her phone was vibrating when the waitress, one of the gaudy-makeup-and-a-nose-ring types, drew closer to pour fresh coffee into her mug. Redd checked the phone but didn't pick it up.
   

She knew she was wavering a bit, too much probably at a time like this. It was paramount to stay with the course, to stay dedicated. She couldn't slip and let her emotions get involved in all of this mess, and it was clear that was exactly what was beginning to happen.

She had shouldered the risk of accepting this case, and she knew what the end result would be. She knew it would come eventually, no matter how many times she sent the reality to the back of her mind, hoping it wouldn't find its way back.
 

 
“Just do your job,” she mouthed, almost silent.

“You look like something deep is on your mind.” The waitress nosed right in.

Redd's lips broke, and she flashed a smile. “It's this case I'm working on.” Why did she say that? She was more than familiar with what always came next, and she hated aimless dialogues. “But it's just a case.”

“Oh, really? You a cop or something?”

“Or something.”
 

“I always wanted to be a detective. Finding bad guys and putting the right people behind bars just seemed like something right up my alley.”

“You crave war?” Redd said, almost like her words were in search of a target. “Because this job, my line of work—it's a war. There is no clear conscience, no sense of perfect justice,
no
certainty of winning the fight. I gave up on my thirst a long time ago. It just never seems to let go.”

The waitress was taken aback. She hadn't expected that kind of answer from what she surmised was no more than innocent chitchat.

“So what held
you
back?” Redd asked, hastily deflecting the attention from
herself
.

“More like who,” the waitress returned, putting down the coffee pot.

Way to go, Redd. You caught the big fish.

“My ex. We were in love.
Until I smartened up.
I can't exactly blame him, though. The loser gave me something pretty special.” The waitress pulled out a wallet-sized photograph of a small boy with a face that seemed to reach right out of the picture. His soft features brought back kind memories from her childhood. “His name's Timothy. Tiny Tim, I call him. He hates that, though. And that's why I love it.”

“He'll come around,” Redd said, staring at the picture. “He's beautiful.”

“Gee, thanks. Say, are you okay, miss?” the waitress asked. “You look lost in there, almost like you've seen a ghost.”

“Yeah, sure. I'm fine.
Your son, he just rem….
Take good care of him.”

“My name is Paulina,” the waitress said, returning the photograph to her front pocket. “Hope you don't think I'm weird. I carry his face around with me everywhere I go. It's like he's a part of me, you know?”

“Can't argue with that, now, can I? You love him. I understand. He's pretty lucky to have someone like you looking out for him.”

“You think?”

Redd nodded again then took a sip of her coffee.

“Well, like I said, that jerk gave me something pretty special.”

“I don't mean to impose, but what happened?”
Careful, Redd. Don't let your emotions take you over. Don't second-guess it.

“Tim's daddy was all about Tim's daddy. When he wanted something, the creep just took it, plain and simple. Took me. Took my heart. Then he started taking other things. First it started out small—my mom's necklace, my father's watch. But once the darkness has you, it doesn't like to letcha go so easy.”

The hairs on Redd's neck stood up.

“He liked taking things, thought it was his right. Ended up breaking into people's houses while they were asleep and knocking off cheap stores. Guess he liked the thrill of it. One day, a detective—like you—came into the picture. Took him away. Guess he'd gotten careless living two lives, you know. He murdered two young boys, said it was an accident. But they all say that, don't they?”

Redd connected to what she was hearing. It bothered her. She could see that Paulina still missed
him,
a little crushed that life had dealt her such an unfair hand.

“Maybe he's gone for the better,” Redd tried. Those words were easy coming out, but once they escaped, they just hovered there with the silence, waiting for her to realize it wasn't that easy to let someone go. She knew that whether a person was good or evil, they became a part of you.

 
“I suppose you're right,” Paulina muttered. “Suppose it's for the best. Tim's good and fine without him.”

“And you?”

“I'll be okay, I guess. I loved him too much. Wish things coulda been different. I wish he wasn't taken away. But when you do something that hurts other people, there's really no other option. People like you are out there to help us. People like you, you're just doing your job, can't be blamed for that.”

“No, certainly not,” she slowly answered.

It didn't take long for Redd to leave the counter and get lost in the night. She felt the cold wrap itself around her effortlessly. “Can't be blamed,” she repeated, but it didn't sink in. It wasn't right, and it didn't take a brain surgeon to see that.

But it'd been so long; she'd gone so deep. She hated the shell she had become, a tomb of what had once held her soul.

Escape it all before you get too deep. Before it goes any further.

Paulina's story sang through her mind.
Block it.
She had to block it. It was too hard to think about him. It was too hard to remember, especially amidst all of this. She had to make the terrible memories die.

Her phone vibrated again. Different number.

Redd picked up.

* * *

There was a need for her now; she could sense it in Joel's voice. The way he called her, practically begging her to come out to Massachusetts to meet with him. He sounded so desperate, but not in the way Aimee was used to hearing him sound, not the form his tones were taking lately.

This time, his desperation was well warranted and revived. The more she thought of it, the more she felt it was similar to the desperate, lovely technique he had employed when they were dating. Aimee once relished the opportunity to be with him, to be cradled in a manner obviously foreign to her own father. With Joel, it was always simple. Yet strangely, over time, it became complicated. Now it was like they were two rogue planets spinning out of control.

Joel refused to elaborate on anything over the phone. It was too important to get lost on some digital signal, he'd said. All she knew was that he finally had uncovered some useful, concrete news about their daughter, and that was enough to carry her out of the lake house and onto the road to meet him. Like a relentless moth to the flame, though, her mind wanted more specifics. And she'd get them soon.

Aimee checked the clock, which was right beside the monitor displaying her total bill for the trip. Taxis. She hated them. Always had. Her young driver was ever quiet during the first half of the ride, and it bugged her. What Aimee disliked most about traveling with strangers, particularly taxis,
was
that she had such little control over the path she'd be taking. The driver chose the routes and, if it got quiet enough, left her with too much room to think. Thinking led to feeling, which led to regrets, which became real and living things that eventually ate her up inside. Too much time to think always seemed to rip open the floodgates of the past, and she was already drowning.

But were all of these superstitions real or just her ailing mind searching for a lifeline? As she pondered the road her life had been on since summer, Aimee was overtaken by an unfathomable turbulence telling her that maybe she'd taken the wrong way. But these backseat notions, did they have any validity? Dear God, maybe all of it—Carlos, the fights, threatening Joel with papers—maybe all of it was her fear trying to find a mask to hide behind. In hindsight, maybe her daughter had the right idea.

She held her phone tightly in grip, wondering if she could talk to him again, like lovers do. Talk to him as if their worlds were still in true orbit. Talk to him like she'd already apologized and time had forgiven them both. For a brief spell, she thought if only he'd said the right thing or if she'd loved him harder these last few years, they wouldn't be two rogue planets. They'd be set right. They'd be strong, on purpose.

Aimee brought her knees into her chest and sat cradled against the window. She didn't care that the driver exchanged several stares with her. She was a little girl, waiting for Daddy to come home. Waiting and waiting to tell him how sorry she was that he'd gotten angry with her for doing the wrong thing.

But her youth eventually ran dry of the words. The sorry, it stopped coming. Replaced with malice and bitterness. They were the fuel that kept her war with her husband burning. She shouldn't say sorry, not to Joel. Her father taught her that much. No matter how deeply she meant it, wanted it, needed it, she couldn't say it.

It was past midnight and the fog was getting thick. Uncertainty was like a looming darkness all around her. Transparency, like a shallow light she could not escape. How she wanted things to be different. Watching film after film of their life's work together made Aimee rethink it all. Why did she do it? Why did she toy with this game and risk the future ruin of her family?

Oh, it can't all be my fault
, she reasoned.
Wherever I have failed, Joel did too
. She had her father to thank for these arrows in her ready quiver. Still, the justifications she spent on herself didn't make it right, didn't reach the root of her pain.

Aimee was now transfixed by the luminescent shine of the clock, how its numbers took new shape every sixty seconds. It wasn't as if she'd never seen a clock before, but this time she was wishing to see the numbers in reverse.

22

 

THE DOOR PUSHED OPEN with a hiss, and faint light cut into the black. Emery was curled up on her back, tossing prayers into the darkness. Ones she believed would never be answered.

“Arson?” she gasped.
 

The figure moved closer. “Emery, you awake?”

She leaned up, wiped her eyes. Had it finally happened? Had Arson finally come to save her? She reached out to touch his skin. Cold breath shot out from his mouth. She got even closer. She hugged him. It felt like Arson. It had to be him.

“Yes. I'm awake now. Now that you're here.”

But as the boy pulled away, she realized her mind was mistaken. She was wrong. This savior, this frail shell of a person, however much it resembled the boy she loved, wasn't Arson.

“Good,” he whispered quickly. “We need to move. Now.”

She recognized the voice. It was the voice that belonged to the secret shadow. The one she'd missed. She had been wondering where he had gone.
 

“What are you doing?”

“I'm getting you out. Right now. We're both getting out.”

“How?”

“Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open at all times. Do exactly as I say if you want to get out of here alive. You've stayed in this hell long enough.” He hugged her tightly then let her go.

Emery got a clear glimpse of his face just then. A young stare carved out of pale-white skin, a hard and bruised surface. Black circles lined the bottoms of each eye.
Cheek-bones
protruded out a bit, and his lips seemed thin enough to miss if she weren't looking closely. Short spikes of facial hair flashed out in certain spots of his lower chin, and it seemed a razor had gotten to his scalp before a comb. The boy was bald.
 
 
 

“Stay close to me as we move.” The boy stuck out his hand and looked at her with young eyes, the kind she figured
were
made of heartbreak and loss, the dark color of uncertainty.

She waited. “Where are we going? Who
are
you?”

He grunted. “My name is Adam. Now, do you want to stay here or come with me?”

She doubted a moment. She didn't have a clue
who
he was, where he came from, or where he wanted to take her. How had he found her, anyway? What in the world did he want with her?

Emery slowly nodded, still shaky. She'd made up her mind. “Go with you.”
“Okay. Grab my hand. I'll protect you from them.”

Emery reached out, and he snatched her palm, tugging her closer to himself. His pulse beat inside his grip. He clutched her hand tighter as he peered around the lit corner, searching for faces and warm bodies.

When she stuck her head out of the doorway, she saw two massive guards lying face down on the tile. One guy's leg was twisted and his neck was purple. No movement. The other one was pressed up against the wall in a strange position. Both were unconscious. Disassembled gun pieces lay on the floor beside them. But she noticed Adam had a gun nudging up against her. One of theirs, she imagined.

“What's that for?” she asked.

“Don't worry about that. I might need it. For now.”

“Don't worry,” she mumbled. “
Right
.”

The cameras twitched back and forth, so Adam kept his hand pressed up against her chest. “Wait. Be very careful,” he said quietly. “Wait for them to rotate again.”

She was still, quite uncomfortable with his hand groping her like some excitable jock. But she didn't say anything. So far, he wanted to help her, and that she was cool with. Emery swung the loose strands of hair away from her eyes and waited until the cameras looked away.

“Run. Now!”

Adam held a black stick in one hand and dragged her along with his other. As she raced with Adam down the hallway, she couldn't help but wonder how such a thin kid was able to take down two guards nearly double his size—guards who had guns and death sticks.

“Where are we, Adam?”

“I told you before,” he snapped. “They call this place the Sanctuary. It's where God and his false prophets gather.”

False prophets. The Sanctuary. This all sounded crazy.
 

“Gather for what?”

“Haven't they studied you? Taken you in for sessions?”

 

Emery searched her memories. It was all still hazy. Part of her felt drugged; the rest of her was scared.

“They're getting better,”
Adam
said, unable to wait for her answer. A curse tore out of his mouth. “You probably don't remember anything.” He lifted up her shirt and stared at her skin.

She fought him. “Hands off!”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Well, don't grope me like that.”

“I was hardly groping.”

The cuts were gone.

“It worked faster on you here,” he noticed, “but not your face.”

“What are you talking about?”

He hesitated for a moment, looking at her mutilated skin. From where she was standing, it seemed like he wasn't all that terrified of it. The look in his eyes was almost like compassion or sympathy. “Why couldn't my blood heal your face?” he wondered.

“Wait, what? Your blood?”

“Later,” he returned, not bothering with an explanation. “We can't stay still.”

Emery trailed closely behind him. He stunk. But maybe that was her own stink rushing to her nose to be reviled. She was sweating enough.

Adam had dirt and blood encrusted underneath his nails. The back of his head had scars that she could see but couldn't focus on. The world around them was getting darker. It was quiet. Way too quiet.

“How did you do that?”

“What?” he shot back.

“Take out those guys back there. What are you, part cyborg?”

“Not even close. I'm just a little different. You'll get it eventually.”

“Oh, really?” she said snidely.

“I have to get you free from this place, before—Shh! Don't move.”

They waited. And waited.
Until an opportunity to continue presented itself.

Then, after a moment of running, it was back to the walls. They came to a stop at the end of one of the hallways.
White walls with black lines running together.
She was sure this place was a maze. One of those rooms inside of another room, none of which really had an exit. This all felt like a nightmare, one that this puny, bald hero was attempting to save her from. Nevertheless, if looks could kill, he'd collect a trophy. Adam held that big black stick like he knew how to use it. She imagined him bashing somebody's brains in like some juvenile maniac with a bad attitude.

Emery held her breath when she heard footsteps, warring with the panic begging to let out a scream. A shadow reached forth from an open door somewhere around their left corner. Adam's back hugged the wall. He counted silently.

One
, his mouth moved.

Two
…

The footsteps drew closer. He gripped her hand tighter, and Emery eyed him while he grinded his teeth. She didn't like whatever was coming. Whatever sick plan he was conjuring couldn't have a happy ending.

“You're hurting me,” she whispered. “Easy on the death grip.”

He didn't seem to hear her. But in point-five seconds, he suddenly let her go and swung his right wrist up so fast she wondered if it was all taking place in slow motion. The sound of a man's nose snapping to pieces inside an ugly mug crashed against her eardrums. Emery covered her mouth in awe.

The man used his leg to swoop underneath Adam's feet and trip him. But Adam unleashed an ungodly assault on the man's entire body while on the floor. White-knuckled, he dragged a bloody fist through the man's side, cracking a rib or two. With his forehead, he drove pure violence into his new victim. Blood splashed inside the tile grooves.

She couldn't tell if the man was a guard or some doctor or scientist, and it didn't really matter. She feared for his life.

Adam dropped his fist into the man's throat and then dug the back of that death stick into the ribs. She swore she heard more cracking sounds. A spike of panic climbed up her spine.

“Stop! You're going to kill him. He can't hurt us.”

“Not anymore,” Adam replied, wiping loose spit from his mouth. “I trusted you. I thought you were my friends.”

She stepped over the man, now gasping for air. “You'll never make it out,” he said, struggling to breathe through missing teeth. “H-h-how did you get down here?”

 
Adam eyed him from where he stood, circling the body like some kind of lion. “I need something from you.”

Emery listened to the smacking sound of Adam's bare feet against the tile. She was shivering. But it didn't bother him.

 
“A-Adam, you don't have to do this.” The frail whimpers resumed. “Don't run.”

The man's head tilted back. Emery could see the look on his face. She was full of fear for him, for the life that hung between sanity and violence, the will of this strange boy who could kill if he needed to. She knew she should feel something—anger, hatred—and she did. But maybe this was going too far.
 

“Don't worry. I won't cut you open like you did to us. But by the time they find you, I'll be long gone. Look at me.”

Adam pulled out a device from his pocket. It was the size of a mini voice recorder. She'd never seen something like this before. A lip protruded from the top of it, one that had a scanner. The only thing she could compare it to was a supermarket bar code scanner. But she didn't have the slightest idea what to call the device.

The man tried hard to redirect his eyes.

“Now, now, let's not be feisty. There is another way.”

Emery watched the man's lip
quiver.Adam
proceeded to bash the stuttering fool's face in with the black stick now spotted with blood.
 
He dropped the weapon and forced open the man's right eye until he heard a beeping sound. The scan was complete.

“Whoa,” Emery said. She couldn't feel her hands, and her feet ached. “What do you need his eye scan for?”

The cameras had circled around. No time for an answer.

“Adam!” she screamed.

“They're watching now. Let's dance.”

Just then the lights flashed. Flickers of red and yellow ran along the walls and the glass. Light beamed and vanished, beamed and vanished. A loud alarm blasted down the hall. Adam turned to her. Then they started running, into the maze.
 
 

“You're insane, you know that?” Emery chimed, forgetting she practically clung to him. The cry of the alarm was the sound of chaos, a deep boom, like something wicked was trailing closely behind and gaining. “Do you know how to get out?”

“I've memorized a way.” Adam took wide steps onward past a set of double doors. In order to avoid coming footsteps, he dragged her into the bathroom. There was a closet in
there
where they hid for a few minutes, until they heard their pursuers being pulled away by distance.

“It's so cozy,” she murmured. “By the way, you can stop staring at me.”
 

“I'm not.”

“Whatever.” She realized he hadn't been staring. But it seemed easier to think of him as some kid who
thought
she was a freak than coming to the realization that she might actually be one.

The closet was crowded. Claustrophobic. His cold breath seemed to come out wet but dried on her skin. His heart beat against his ribs, and she could feel it tickle her chest.
 

“I think it's okay now,” Adam concluded, stepping out of the dark. His eyes pierced the still air. “C'mon.”

With panic racing through her, Emery traced his footsteps, holding tightly to Adam's waist, where the stick he held dug into her side a bit. But she dealt with it. No way she was letting go.

They entered what seemed like the end of the maze. A snake-like hall lay before them, white rooms set inside the walls. A nickel-plated elevator stood like a centurion at the end of it all. They drew carefully closer, Adam focused on taking the lead,
despite
the obvious apprehension Emery could see staining his eyes. It was like with each step, his eyes grew older, a deep, mysterious blue, outlined by his pale, leathery flesh and crimson cheeks.

What if they took another step and some line was tripped? A line that would send tiny spikes into their bodies? Or a net that shot up from the floor to steal them back to their secret dungeon?

Immediately her mind birthed images of her cold. She couldn't move, could barely talk. Voices like a distorted, gut-spinning swarm.
Mirages looming over her face.
A thick haze drifting above it all.