The Orphan (33 page)

Chad was in the corner of the gymnasium, where they had dumped him. He knew that the car wreck and the plastic loop around his throat had knocked him unconscious for at least thirty minutes, maybe more. If the younger woman hadn’t cut it off to spare him, or keep him going until they had no more use for him, he would be dead by now. For the past hour or so he had been awake, listening, trying to think of a way out. The others didn’t know he was back, alert, and he intended to keep it that way until he could use the element of surprise to some kind of advantage.

When he’d come around, he was in the back of his own car, the woman driving, Raya unconscious in the front seat. He had been too disoriented to react. At first he’d done nothing more than listen. Slowly he’d opened his eyes, just wide enough see up through the side window as they turned from Linden onto 19th Street. He wasn’t sure it was 19th until they started to climb the hill heading north. He’d reached for his phone, but his reach went only about two inches before his wrists caught inside another of the plastic ties.

He had played dead (or at least passed out) as they parked and dragged his limp body from the Saab, across the parking lot, into what he gradually realized was Crest View Elementary School. Chad had gone to Douglas when he was younger, but he knew Crest View. Why they were taking him and Raya here, not to mention who they were, what they were planning – none of it made any sense to him. But he knew it had something to do with Darren, and Adam, the boy that had come to mess up their lives somehow. He’d heard them asking about him.

Where is he? What’s taking Adam so long? Are you sure Adam wasn’t home when you stopped to leave the note?
 

The connections were there, but Chad couldn’t afford to focus on the larger scheme right now. The point was, he and Raya had been kidnapped by some very deranged people. Two elderly sickos and what he was starting to realize might be their daughter, who was about to explode with insanity and violence. Chad had seen the woman’s face in the backseat, right before they crashed, and it was like something out of a carnival. She had long black hair and a face of melted wax, and when she sat up to throw the collar on him, her hair had fallen off. A wig, part of some disguise, and there was no mystery to why they needed one.

The old man was like her, scarred bald, both of them quiet, following the daughter’s orders. She made them hold him and Raya while she kicked in the front window and unlocked the door. She led them down the main hall, turned right into another hall, past classrooms and walls lined with art projects and paintings, the library, and finally into the gym.

Why wasn’t the alarm ringing? Or was it the silent kind? Chad could only hope so, but after another twenty minutes had passed with no sirens coming to the rescue, he had to conclude that the woman had either found a way to disable the alarm or there simply wasn’t one.

Thinking he was less important and not much of a threat, they dumped him in the corner, on a hard tumbling mat that smelled like rubber sneaker soles. They had dragged Raya to the thicker mat on the other side of a pommel horse. Chad knew Raya’s head was injured but he didn’t know how bad. She must have hit it on the steering wheel when they collided with the tree. On the way in he’d caught a glimpse of blood on her face. She had been in and out of consciousness, until the woman came in with the cups of water and started to splash her, kick her, shout at her.

Now he could hear Raya crying, and Chad wanted nothing more in the world than to get up, break free of the ties around his wrists, and attack them with his fists and feet. Elderly or young, male or female, it did not matter. A line had been crossed and he imagined beating the shit out of all three of them. Poking out their eyes. Breaking their necks. It wasn’t just about Raya. The whole family was under some kind of attack. The stuff with the kid Adam, Darren’s psychological problems, even the Kavanaugh murders. Chad knew it was all connected somehow.

These people were the weak ones, just like Darren had said. They were dangerous, yes, but they were weak and giving in to their animal nature. The Lynwoods were good people who had worked hard and made a family and the offense here was against the sacred values Darren had spoken about.

Chad wanted to give in to killing them, and if that was a weakness, so be it.

But he had to be smart. Find the right moment.

Were the old ones watching him now? Or only watching Raya? The lights were off and the gym had only a few windows. The people were hardly more than shadows to him, and so he must be to them. But if they saw him moving…

To hell with it. He couldn’t wait all night for help to arrive.

He had to try.

Chad bent his knees and flexed his shoulders, pushing his hands down under his butt. So close, but he couldn’t get his wrists under his ass and legs. If he could get his legs through the hoop of his arms, hands in front of him, he might be able to use them to hold a weapon. Swing a baseball bat, if he could find one. It was an elementary school gym. There had to be some kind of equipment in here.

The woman raged some more and Raya shrieked again. Chad could see her squirming on the other side of the gym as the woman leaned down to her and… what? Bit her? Whispered to her? Something vicious.

Chad repressed a growl and once again tried to separate his wrists from the cord. The hard plastic cut into his skin again but he ignored it. The bleeding had started a little while ago. His skin burned. There was just a little wiggle room and he began to shift his wrists against one another, back and forth, until his wrists turned wet again. More blood. Good. Make it slippery. If he bled enough, maybe his hands would slide through.

He flexed his wrists outward, then back and forth, outward, back and forth, and the cutting sensation slipped a little ways up the backs of his hands, the plastic wire grinding against the bones there, digging in, peeling his skin up like a slice of cheese. The pain turned into a searing fire as his skin tore again, blood wetting the back of his pants now, and he ground his teeth to keep from yelling. He was breathing hard from the exertion. If he wasn’t careful they would hear him. Check on him. Shut him down.

He relaxed, concentrating on getting his breathing under control, but the pain did not relent. His wrists were screaming at him, his hands covered in blood. He couldn’t wait too long or else he would injure himself too severely or lose too much blood to do any good.

Don’t be stupid. Wait for help. You can’t risk her life trying to be a hero.

But if there was a way to get free, without them knowing…

If you want to be good
, he remembered Darren saying to him the morning of the last day of school,
and I’m not talking about being rich or successful, but good at something, and good to the people you love, then the single most important thing to do is resist your own weaknesses. We all have them. Some of us work at rising above them, others don’t. And that’s all I want you kids to remember, okay? Before you cut a corner, or do something that seems too good to be true, take a second. Stop. Think. Is this the right thing to do, or just the easy thing to do? Because, son, those two things are almost never the same thing.

It was that simple, Chad realized. He had a choice now. The easy thing or the hard thing. The right thing or the wrong thing. And it wasn’t a difficult choice, not at all. It was the easiest choice he had ever made, and probably would be for quite some time.

He would be strong.

The pain would go away, eventually. Someday.

Raya would be for ever.

Chad took three deep breaths, then held all the air he could. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, and then he used every muscle from his chest to his shoulders, down through his arms. Slowly but steadily, he pulled his wrists apart and one hand over the other, sliding them in his blood, visualizing the skin, his own skin, coming away in a long peel. One over the back of his left hand, the other along the side of right thumb. His jaw locked tight, the pain turned electric in his arms, sending white flares through his brain. He pulled and pushed, and pulled harder.

I am stronger than plastic. I am stronger than them.

My skin is soft but my bones are stronger than —

Crack
.

Chad froze, the pain blowing all the way up his arms, into his spine, pushing against his eyes. Bones in his hand, at least two of them, had just snapped like pencils.

The plastic cord jumped to his knuckles and he sucked in deep lungfuls of air. He felt the floor spinning beneath him. He was going to pass out, would have if not for the pain. The pain was like nothing he could have imagined. His hands felt simultaneously as though they were being skinned alive and smashed in a vice.

He pulled again, hard and fast, and the cord fell off.

His hands were free.

He almost screamed with joy and relief, but he forced the scream back down inside himself and trembled, quivering with excited fury. His throat was still sore from where the cord had been and he almost coughed.

Slowly, Chad brought his hands around into his lap. They were shaking violently. He glanced at them for a moment before balling them into the front of his shirt. Within seconds his shirt filled with blood.

He was glad, so very glad, that it was dark in the gym.

He tilted his head back and looked across the floor.

The woman shouted something more at Raya and then stood. Chad froze, certain she had noticed his movements, heard him squirming. Maybe even smelled his blood.

The old man laughed like a dying coyote and moved with an excitement Chad had not seen him capable of until now. He was going for Raya, bending over her, pulling on her, throwing her shoes aside. He was taking off her clothes, dragging her pants down, and Chad saw Raya’s feet up in the air.

Chad started to rise.

‘Stop,’ the woman said. ‘Be quiet!’

Chad froze. Everyone froze. Once again he was sure they had noticed him, but that wasn’t it. Something else caught their attention.

‘He’s here,’ she said.

The three of them turned to face the double doors leading to the hall. Their backs were turned to him.

In the corner of the gym, Chad stood up.

Sheila shoved the .38 into the waistband at the back of her pants. The mace canister was in her right front pocket. The first knife she kept in her left hand, tucked into the cuff of her black sweater. The second, her daddy’s straight-edge used for backup, was in the ankle of her black hiking boot. She had six zip-ties in each back pocket, each one looped but loosely so, open to receive his limbs, his neck. Taped across her stomach was a line of six double-sided razor blades, in case the struggle came down to matters of intimacy.

There hadn’t been much time to prepare the symbols, things had moved too quickly. But once she had him secured there would be plenty of time to properly set up the ceremony. She was sweating with excitement. She had never felt so alive, or ready.

‘You two stay with her,’ she said over her shoulder, one hand on the double doors. ‘Stay behind the doors unless you hear me yelling for you. But it won’t come to that. He’s soft now. He always was. He won’t risk her life.’

Disappointed, Ethan attempted one last lunge at the girl, but Miriam pulled him off and slapped the back of his head. He relented, but stayed close to the girl. Miriam moved between them and the doors, ready to enforce a second line of defense. Sheila knew they were tensed, ready for the reunion, but maybe a little scared. She would have to forgive them that. They were old. When she was finished securing Adam, she would finish them quickly, mercifully.

Sheila peered through the windows of the double doors, up the dark hallway. He would be here any moment, at the intersection where the main hallway split left and right. Would he sense which way to go? She hoped so. She wanted to see his face when she stepped out and presented herself. But if his back was turned, if he went the wrong way, she could use that too. She would hog-tie him and sever his hamstrings, just enough to take the fight out of him. The rest she would savor all night, perhaps for days.

She looked down. On the hallway floor, six paces in front of the doors, was the symbol she drawn for him, the only one she had time for.

His Saturn.

Three feet across and close to six feet high, stroked out in shoe polish.

To let him know she wasn’t afraid of him. To remind him of the curse he had been blessed with since birth. Of the way she had drawn on him when he was tied up in the closet, their parents out late, with no one to hear him crying while she had her fun.

He was hers now. He belonged to her. He always had, but when he saw what she had become, what she had done for him, there would be no doubt.

A hundred feet away, down the hall, a shadow moved. He appeared, encased in darkness, but a body his own, there was no doubt. He was standing sideways to her at the intersection. He had not chosen yet. He walked a few steps and looked both ways.

Could he see all the way down here? To her darkened face in the window?

Probably not.

Sheila smiled. Her skin burned with longing. Heat inside her jeans, strength in her arms, it was all so deliciously powerful.

He turned toward her, watching, unmoving for a moment. Then he chose, walking toward her. He wasn’t trying to hide, walking alongside the walls or ducking down as he passed the first classroom window. He wasn’t running in a panic.

He was walking.

Sheila opened the door and stepped into the hall.