The severely outdated Carpenter Hall smelled of mildew and bleach, the two competing for dominance. As the man in black locked the doors and started away from the building, the other twenty-four women began their trek back to their respective rooms. No one spoke and only their lonely footsteps could be heard as they disappeared one by one along the first-floor hallway.
Taking Ethan’s mother by the hand, Carly moved with her to the far side of the reception desk as Shannon and Cora retrieved four stackable chairs. Sliding them into a half circle, the women gathered in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows facing back toward the gymnasium.
Carly spoke first. She slid in close beside Ethan’s mother and attempted to appear confident, although she wasn’t sure whether she was doing it more for herself or for Helen. “I know Ethan. He’s the reason why the three of us are still here. He’ll bring back Thomas. We just have to stay strong for them.”
Looking away, Helen had too many questions. Her husband, her daughter, and her son. She only wanted them here with her. She prayed that she’d wake up, that this would all be a bad dream. That they would be there in the living room, talking and laughing as they’d done so many times before. But every time she closed her eyes and looked at the memories of days gone by, she could feel them slipping further away.
Watching the older woman fight to keep her composure, Carly slid in close. “Helen, I’m sorry, I can’t imagine what—”
Slowly looking from Shannon to Cora and finally pausing at Carly, Helen’s expression changed yet again. She put both hands up over her mouth as the tears came rushing back. “Oh my God, Carly.”
She knew what Helen had just remembered. There was only one thing that it could be. Everything else that was relevant had already been discussed. And although it was something Carly wanted to forget, she also knew it may be the only thing that would help Ethan’s mother redirect her anguish. Even though it had been nearly a week, verbalizing the events of that day were still almost impossible.
Carly blinked as a tear of her own rolled down her face. “He’s gone, Helen. David was taken from us the very first day. He saved Ethan and he also saved me.”
Beginning to shake, Helen lurched forward and began to sob. Her cries echoed through the first floor and brought those overcome with curiosity out of their individual rooms. She fought to control herself; however, the boy she’d known for the last thirty years, the same man she’d called her
second son
, was now gone.
Carly moved from her chair and knelt beside the grieving woman. Also beginning to lose herself to the sorrow, Carly pulled Helen in close and offered her shoulder. They cried together as several of the other women moved out of their rooms and into the reception area.
. . .
Standing and moving to the door, Cora looked out across the greenbelt. The world beyond their locked door appeared peaceful, serene. She let her hand slide down over her left hip and pushed her thumb into the tender skin around the injury from seven days before. Still painful, although nothing like it had been, she pulled her shirt down and tucked it into her jeans.
Placing her lips only an inch from the glass that now reflected her own image, Cora breathed out slowly, allowing the upper half of the twelve-inch pane to gloss over in a translucent haze. Pulling back, she ran her finger through the fading condensation and traced her name through what remained.
Staring back as the image relented, Cora also quietly voiced her thoughts only to herself.
Cora, you will get through this. Be strong. Be the person they need. It’s not over, not tonight
.
Turning away from the door, Shannon approached. She was moving with a purpose and motioning back toward the doors. She whispered, “Cora, look.”
The two women stood at the door and looked back to the walkway that led from the parking lot to the gym. Three silhouetted figures stepped quickly from the concrete path out onto the damp grass. Beginning to run, they moved out into the long strands of silvery moonlight that reached over the tops of the west facing buildings.
Shannon turned to Cora. “It’s her.”
“Why are they coming back?”
Josie, now less than twenty seconds from the entrance to Carpenter Hall, was flanked by the two men in black. They carried their weapons out in front, although they seemed to be focused somewhere beyond the two-story brick building. Shannon followed the path of their eyes. However, her attention was quickly drawn back to the woman they ran beside as the trio started up the front steps.
“Cora, go get Carly and Ethan’s mother. Tell them Josie’s coming. Tell them to be ready to go.”
Stepping back, Shannon stood five feet from the door, although directly in the path of traffic, should anyone come through.
And they did. The first man to reach the entrance slung his rifle over his shoulder, unlocked the door, pulled it open, and stepped aside.
Josie came through first, the black and stainless steel Smith and Wesson nine millimeter hung from her right hand. Although she had covered nearly two hundred yards in less than sixty seconds, she didn’t appear fatigued. She wasn’t breathing hard and the only emotion present appeared to be anger.
Helen’s tormented outburst had brought all but three of the women from their rooms. Most now stood in the reception area staring inquisitively back at the woman who’d brought most of them here.
Scanning their faces, Josie first paused on Shannon. “Are you sure that is where you want to be standing? I’m not here for you, but I can certainly make an exception.”
Shannon didn’t blink, and although she conceded at least five inches and more than forty pounds to the woman with the close-cropped hair, she also didn’t move.
“We don’t want any trouble; we just want to—”
“Shut up… just shut up. You and your friends have already turned out to be more trouble than you’re worth.” Leaning in close, Josie lowered her voice. “Now please step aside or I will put a bullet into your head.”
Shannon took a step back. The look on her face was just enough of a response that Josie felt the need to clarify.
Again addressing the entire room, Josie said, “As a rule, we do not harm any of the people that we are trying to help, but we also won’t allow any dissention. There is a certain level of decorum that is expected from every single person who enters this place. Because without the ability to appreciate and respect what it is we’re doing here, what will we become?”
More confused than scared, Shannon stepped aside. She continued to watch the woman at the center of the room as the man at the door stepped outside and looked past the Admissions building to the tree line at the edge of the property.
“Miss Josie, we’re still blind.”
Only slightly turning, she nodded and then returned her focus to the women. Her eyes moved from one to the next, never staying with any one face for more than a few seconds. She smiled when she reached the woman with hair so white it almost looked clear. “Joanne, good to see you.”
Joanne looked away.
Continuing, Josie came to Carly. “Step aside, sweetheart. I would like to speak to Mrs. Runner.”
Carly didn’t move.
“Suit yourself, but before we dig into this any further, I want you to know that I’m giving you the chance to stay out of this.” Josie paused and simply stared back into Carly’s eyes. “You still like where it is that you’re standing?”
Carly looked away, but still held tight to Helen’s hand.
“Okay then, here it is.” She spoke directly to Helen. “Your son has taken it upon himself to go off campus. Now I have to utilize my resources to go get him and bring him back. Resources I don’t have, resources that should be here, behind these gates protecting all of you. So essentially, he’s endangering not only himself, not just me and my men, but also each and every one of you, and that’s just not right.”
Stepping away from Carly, Helen spoke for the first time. “I’m not sure what you want me to do, I only just came here—”
“Oh, you have the wrong impression of why it is that I came down here. It wasn’t to ask you for help or to beg you to tell me where he went, that we already know. I only came here to ask whether or not you had the chance to say goodbye to your little boy.”
He’d estimated it to be a bit more than a mile, although with a good deal of the terrain wet and at an incline, it felt much further. Rounding the last turn while still attempting to stay under the far reaching shadows, Ethan slowed under a tall spruce, placed his hands on his thighs, and looked up at Ben.
“Kid, are you even human?”
“You have to be kidding, that was what a quarter mile, maybe a half?”
Ethan shook his head and took in a few deep breaths, going over in his mind the likely scenarios should they run across Maddox and his men. He only saw one possible resolution, and although he would do anything to bring his father back, he had yet to draw his weapon on another human. He didn’t like what he was picturing he’d have to do.
“Stay on my right hip,” Ethan said. “If I move, you move. And not one second before.”
His upper arm parallel to the ground and the tip of his forefinger touching the outside edge of his right eyebrow, Ben looked Ethan in the eyes. Then tilting his palm slightly inward, Ben saluted his friend. “Yes sir.”
“Ben, I’m serious. Once we get inside here, we both need to be on our toes. No screwing around, you got it?”
Ben nodded. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m just nervous, it’s what I do to cope.”
“I get it, I’m nervous too. Something about this just doesn’t feel right. You feeling it?”
Ben paused and then looked back toward the massive iron gates that were stuck in the open position, “Yeah, but to be fair, I’ve felt like that since last week.”
“You ready for this? Can’t be sure what we’re gonna run into.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Ethan wasn’t sure about what was to come, although he didn’t have a choice. The kid did, and yet he still chose to come. But why? It seemed to him that Ben had been trying to prove something ever since they’d met. Was it the massive amounts of underutilized testosterone coursing through the kid’s body or was he simply trying to gain Ethan’s respect? At present, there wasn’t time for an in-depth analysis; the deconstruction of his young friend would have to wait.
“Let’s go. Two streets up, fourth house on the right.”
They moved quickly across the open asphalt to the opposite side of the street. Ethan led the way through the first yard on the left and down the driveway to the recreation vehicle that sat on blocks. He peered around the rear of the massive vehicle and then motioned for Ben to follow.
They made quick work of the next six houses and ducked under a low-hanging spruce at the corner of his parents’ street. The dark-colored muscle car sat quietly less than fifty feet away. “The home on the left with the blue pickup in the driveway, follow me there and stay low.”
Ethan held a pistol in each hand as he ran the short distance to the lengthy driveway. Rounding the pickup truck, he waited for Ben to fall in behind and motioned toward the house across the street. “That’s it.”
Voices—one frantic and shouting—the other calm and even. They could be heard coming from the interior of his parents’ home. “I doesn’t matter. Once we get back we’ll take care of it. No one, including her, will ever know.”
Obviously Maddox, his tone and his pacing said he was in control of whatever was happening in this neighborhood. The second voice nearly pleading, echoed against the open garage and spilled out into the street.
“You gonna take responsibility for this? You gonna tell those people what happened here? Because I’m sure as hell not. There’s no reason for it. No one is going to believe you.”
Ben moved shoulder to shoulder with Ethan. Positioned near the front of the truck and looking out past the passenger headlight, they could see through the garage of his parents’ home and into the laundry room.
“That first one was Maddox, right?”
“Think so.”
“The other one?”
“Don’t know, maybe Chuck. Maybe someone else, don’t really care though.”
“We gonna wait to see if your dad’s in there, or—”
“No, I’m going in.”
Ben readied his weapon. “Okay.”
“But you’re not.”
“What?”
“I want you out here in case this doesn’t go the way I’m hoping. They won’t know you’re here, so even if I get tangled up, we might still have a chance to walk away from this.”
“Where do you want me?”
“Right here is perfect. Do not move.”
“Okay.”
Maddox’s voice again shot through the garage. “I’ll do it myself.” A long moment of silence and then it came again. “If you don’t want to join them, you’ll need to step out of my way.”
The next voice that came through held less conviction. The actual words were much less significant than the way they were spoken. The tone was beaten down, barely inaudible. It was torment being strangled by a healthy dose of anger. But before it was through, Ethan knew exactly who was speaking.
“You don’t want to do this. We’ll help you. We both will.”
He’d spoken to the man at least three times a week for his entire life. Not once had he heard this level of pained desperation in his father. Not even after his accident, when he lay in that hospital bed waiting to die. Not ever. This was different. His father, somewhere inside the home less than fifty feet away, was being kept against his will by the gargantuan man known only as Maddox.
Ethan had a new plan and it only partially involved saving his father.
“Alright,” he said, “stay hidden, I’ll be back.”
Moving out from behind the truck, Ethan quickly crossed the street and slipped into the driveway behind his father’s SUV. The voices from inside the house were now gone, although sliding up to the driver’s door and peering over the hood, he could see the outline of a male figure just inside the darkened home.
Glancing back across the street one last time, he nodded to Ben and then stepped out away from the SUV. Darting to the left side of the garage, Ethan pushed himself into the corner and again studied the doorway leading into the laundry room.
Three silhouetted figures approached the doorway, their faces hidden under the darkened interior of the home. The first stepped down into the garage, was pushed from behind, and dropped to the concrete like a wet bag of sand. Looking up and attempting to right himself, the man now on his hands and knees appeared to be his father’s next door neighbor, Arvin Plummer.
Ethan had only met the man a few times, and only in passing. He seemed nice enough and according to his mother, the man who was ten years older than his father had been a private investigator until he retired nearly twenty years before.
Forcing himself to stay in the shadows. Ethan gripped tight to the pistols as the second and third figures also stepped out into the garage. Same drill—the man at the back pushed the second man to the ground before turning his attention to Mr. Plummer.
His eyes darting between the three men, Ethan quickly recognized the giant standing over the other two as Maddox.
“You should have told me the truth, but now your time is up.” Maddox raised his right hand, a glint of moonlight striking the object he held, just as it detonated three feet from Arvin Plummer’s head.
The sound sent shockwaves through the garage’s interior and out into the street—felt as though the ground shook beneath him. The explosion lit the spacious three car garage, revealing all three men.
Maddox stood staring down at the man he’d destroyed, the lifeless and nearly headless Arvin Plummer. A thick river of blood pooled around the eight-inch exit wound where the older gentleman’s nose and mouth would have been.
Ethan placed the back of his hand over his mouth and tried to stop from dry heaving. His knees shuddered and a chill tore up through the base of his spine as he looked toward the third man in disbelief.
His father—hands out in front, knees pulled up under—was scrambling to get to his feet. Up to one knee and turning his head, his eyes fell on Ethan for a brief second before turning to face the six-foot five-inch Maddox
Had he seen Ethan? Did he know he was there and was just trying to protect him, pretending not to notice? Or was his father simply acting on instinct?
His father’s words came out through tears for his fallen friend. “Go ahead, someone like you could never comprehend what it means to—”
Ethan stepped out and raised both pistols. He was now less than twenty feet from both his father and the giant man standing over him. His voice shook with anger as he took another step forward and addressed Maddox. “I’m going to kill you either way, but if you let him go, I won’t drag it out.”
Thomas Runner turned away from the man standing over him. Looking up, his face now bloodied and bruised, was nearly unrecognizable to Ethan. His voice was just as beaten. “Son?”
One weapon aimed at Maddox and the other covering the door, Ethan nodded. “Dad, I’m going to get you out of here.”
Shaking his head, Maddox maintained eye contact with Ethan, but moved the barrel of his weapon just slightly to the left—against the forehead of Thomas Runner. “No, you’re not.”