He remembered the little girl’s pale features. Although, he reasoned that Emily came by her complexion naturally while the little girl’s ghostly pallor was only temporary, caused by her heart drawing the blood away from her face.
Set her free, Francis. Pull the trigger.
His father would cut him if he refused, which was better than the burnings. He remembered raising the gun.
At the time, he didn’t think that she would actually die. His father had played the same game before with another girl, a little blonde girl wearing a blindfold. In that instance, his father had cut him until he succumbed to the man’s will. But when he pulled the trigger, the girl didn’t die. The gun had been empty. His father had ended the game and claimed to have released the girl a few counties over.
He remembered thinking that the same thing would happen with the pale child.
In this case, Ackerman Sr. didn’t have to persuade the boy with force. He didn’t hesitate. He aimed the gun at her bandaged head.
Looking back, he wondered why his father had taken the time to bandage a wound when the girl was about to die. He never could understand his father’s way of thinking.
He remembered the shot like an explosion in the small space—the ringing in his ears, the girl falling, the blood. He remembered his father crying and the feeling that he had done something wrong. He had done as he was told, but no matter what he did, his father never seemed pleased. The pain never stopped.
Frank Sr. had hugged the dead girl and sobbed, repeating, “I had to know. I had to know for sure.” When the father turned to his son, he gave the boy a look of disdain and said, “You’re a monster.”
Ackerman remembered the tears flowing down his face as his father left the room, leaving him alone with the dead girl.
The memory seemed so real. He could almost still feel the warm liquid running down his cheeks. He reached up and realized that the tears weren’t a memory. He pulled off the goggles and wiped them away.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the light of a flashlight and a man moving down the hall toward him. He replaced the goggles and looked back at Emily Morgan as she cowered within the empty tool cabinet. The doors were open. A stack of uninstalled slide-out shelf units sat next to the industrial cabinet. A white mark on top showed where the price sticker had recently been peeled away.
He swung the cabinet doors shut on Morgan’s trembling form. Moving to one end, he pushed the cabinet down the hall in the direction of the approaching light. As his legs pumped into a full sprint, the container gained momentum.
As he drew near to the trooper, he aimed the cabinet at the man and released his grip. The container rocketed forward on its own momentum. It slammed into the dumbfounded cop.
Following behind the cabinet, he launched himself upon his stunned opponent. He stripped away the trooper’s pistol and pummeled his face. The man fell backward and lost his grip on the flashlight.
As the trooper crawled away, Ackerman retrieved the gun and flashlight from the ground.
The trooper reached one of the rooms and pulled himself up. The man opened the door and stumbled inside.
Ackerman wondered what protection the man hoped to find there. Watching in the pale green glow, he followed the cop into the room. He removed the goggles, lit the flashlight, and placed it on the floor. A dim glow filled the empty space.
The trooper crawled into a corner of the room like an injured animal hobbling away to die. Upon reaching the corner, he turned to face his pursuer and whimpered in short ragged breaths.
Ackerman placed the shotgun and the man’s pistol on the floor and produced a knife from a sheath at his side. He twisted the blade, but the meager light wasn’t adequate to illuminate the steel.
He moved toward the trooper. The man shook as if having a seizure. He noticed a pool of liquid spreading out from beneath the man. The trooper had pissed himself.
A wave of exhilaration washed over Ackerman. He imagined this was the way that eagles felt. He soared upon the winds of fear. “What’s your name?” he said.
“Travis.” The man stuttered as he spoke.
“Well, Travis, today’s your lucky day. You’re going to live beyond this evening. I need you to go back to your cop friends. Tell them that I have Emily Morgan and that I’m holding her hostage. Tell them that I loaded a car with cans of gasoline and stashed them away before we played our little game here. I’m going to douse this whole floor, and if any of them come into this building, I’ll kill her and burn the place to the ground. I don’t know if the sprinklers and fire systems are even completed, but I disabled them and shut off the water just to be sure. Tell the world what you’ve seen here, Travis. Make them believe. I’m waiting for a friend to arrive. If he’s not here within twenty-four hours, I’ll turn myself in without a fight. Everyone lives. Everyone goes home happy. But if anyone challenges me, we all die. Now go.”
Travis scurried to his feet, stumbling over himself and slipping in the pool of urine.
As he moved past, Ackerman slammed him into the wall and pressed the knife against the artery in the trooper’s neck.
“Please, no.”
“Shhhh…” In a whisper, Ackerman said, “Travis, I want you to remember that, from this day forth, the only reason you are alive is because I allowed you to live. I’m your god now. I own you. I have given you the gift of life, and at any time, I may decide to reclaim that gift and take back what is mine. Just remember to cherish every second that you have, and realize that one day you may close your eyes and when you open them…I’ll be there.”
He shoved Travis toward the door, and the trooper darted away like a house pet with a wolf at its heels.
Marcus had no trouble finding Ackerman. He just followed the sound of sirens and flashing lights.
He pulled Alexai’s car into a parking lot a block from the scene. He looked over at the glove box. He had tried to ignore the weapon that he had used to murder the Sheriff, but he had to face it now.
He retrieved the gun and ejected the magazine. He stared down at it for a moment. Then, he reclined back against the headrest and released a long breath. He thought of the path that had brought him to this point. He tossed the useless weapon onto the floorboard of the passenger side. There were no life-ending projectiles in the magazine. He needed information and another weapon.
A cool breeze struck him as he exited the vehicle. Pandemonium reigned at the scene. Cop cars and other emergency vehicles surrounded the building. The police had placed barricades at a safe a distance, and a multitude of onlookers gawked up at the glass and brick structure. He scanned the faces and saw a mixture of morbid curiosity and genuine excitement.
We’re so fascinated by what we fear.
He glanced at the other buildings of the hospital. He could tell that the facility had been recently built. The architecture struck him as modern and yet somehow reminiscent of the nineteen fifties. Red brick and pillars of glass composed the buildings’ faces. The building that had been surrounded shared the same look but was unfinished. The landscaping was nonexistent, and a walkway of plywood served as the sidewalk leading up to the new construction.
He watched the scene for a few moments and tried to calculate his next move. Then, he noticed one of the officers step around the barricade and move in the direction of a nearby parking lot. The lot was a maze of empty vehicles, many of them marked and unmarked squad cars.
He moved toward the parking lot and flitted among the maze. Keeping low and trying to remain unseen, he approached the officer. The man fumbled in his pocket, and a marked police SUV chirped as its alarm disengaged and the locks released.
As the man reached for the handle, Marcus slammed into the officer’s back. The cop went for his gun but found the holster empty.
“Don’t move, and keep quiet. No one will be able to hear over all this noise anyway.”
“You’re making a big mistake here, pal.” The middle-aged cop’s voice was deep and confident.
“You’re probably right. What can I say? I have a self-destructive personality.”
He spun the officer around and stepped back to a safe distance with the gun trained on his opponent. “I need information. What’s the situation here?”
“Some whacko’s got a hostage.”
“Specifics.”
The man remained silent, defiant.
“Listen, let’s not make this any more difficult than it needs to be. I just need specific tactical information.”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because he’s my responsibility, and I’m going in there after him.”
The officer’s expression changed. “So you’re the one he was talking about…”
“What does that mean?”
“He sent us a message. Said he was waiting for a friend to arrive. Said if this friend wasn’t here in twenty-four hours, then he’d turn himself in.”
“That won’t happen. He’ll kill the hostage and as many cops as he can before you take him down. I won’t let it come to that. This is between him and me. Now give me the information I need.”
The man rolled his tongue against the back of his teeth. “Suspect’s name is Francis Ackerman, but you already know that. The hostage is Emily Morgan. He’s on the fifth floor, last we knew. He claimed that he’s gonna douse the place with gasoline. We’re holdin’ back while we wait on some hotshot FBI negotiator and tactician on his way down from Denver.”
“Have you drawn up any entry plans yet?”
The man shook his head. “Not my area, buddy. That’s all I know.”
“Thank you. Now turn around.”
The man complied. He moved forward, retrieved the officer’s cuffs, and placed them around the man’s wrists. Then, he grabbed the flashlight from the cop’s belt.
“Think this through. What are you gonna—”
He slammed the butt of the pistol into the back of the man’s skull, and the cop fell to the pavement. He retrieved the keys from the unconscious cop’s pocket and stepped into the SUV. The steering wheel felt worn down against palms. He could relate. He gazed toward the building and calculated the path of least resistance.
Moment of truth.
The SUV growled to life. He threw it into gear and sped from the parking lot.
He laid on the horn as he approached the barricades. The onlookers and cops scurried out of his way as he plowed through the barriers and sped toward a line of cruisers.
The SUV jerked as he slammed into the rear of one cruiser, sending it spinning. The big vehicle roared over the unfinished landscaping and across the wooden walkway.
He braced himself for impact.
The front entrance of the new structure was a giant pillar of glass that rose up the entire height of the building. He didn’t slow as the vehicle broke through the transparent spire and rumbled into the building’s interior.
Glass poured down like icy raindrops with teeth.
Once inside, he slammed on the brakes and cut the wheel. The SUV spun sideways through the spacious lobby and came to rest as it smashed into the newly constructed front desk.
He stumbled from the vehicle, heard the sound of approaching footsteps outside, and made his way into the belly of the beast.
Emily Morgan twisted her wrists within the cuffs and tried to find a comfortable position on the floor. The smell of gasoline wafting from down the hall made her feel nauseas. Her head throbbed, and the world still rolled. A moment ago, they had heard a crash. Ackerman hadn’t seemed surprised by the sound. Without a word, he had moved her farther down the hall near the back stairwell of the building.
“I feel sorry for you,” she said.
He chuckled. “Oh you do? Why is that?”
“And I forgive you.”
His expression fell. “I don’t need your forgiveness or your pity. Don’t try to get in my head. You wouldn’t like what you find there.”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t. It has to be hard. It’s been difficult for me over the past few days carrying around the pain of one night. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for a little boy living in a constant nightmare.”
He didn’t respond, but his nostrils flared with each deep inhalation.
When she looked at him, she tried to see beyond the man who had stolen her husband to the scared little boy inside. She had to release her hatred and move past it. His unshed tears glistened in the pale luminescence of the flashlight’s beam. “You don’t have to do this. You could—”
“You don’t know anything about me. You’re right. You can’t imagine what it was like to live in my father’s house. But that doesn’t matter. My father’s actions might have been the fuel, but the flame was there from the beginning. I don’t blame him. This is who I am. I’m not human. I’m a monster. I could never be like you. I could never be normal. Have the white picket fence, two-point-five kids, and a mortgage. It doesn’t matter what I want, or if I wish that things were different. You can’t change the past, and when the darkness is in your soul, you can never tear it out. I can’t just be washed clean and rehabilitated. There is no cure for what I have. This is who I’m meant to be. My destiny.”
She was quiet for a moment. “When I was eleven, there was a little boy who used to tease me every day. He’d walk behind me and call me pale-face or slant eye or gook and much worse. One day, he pushed me down, and when I stood back up, I had a rock in my hand. I hit him as hard as I could. He fell, and I thought that I had killed him. It ended up being nothing but a bump on the head, but for a moment, I wasn’t afraid or sorry for what I had done. I was glad. I was exhilarated. For a split second, I hoped that he was dead. It made me feel…powerful. The darkness is in us all. You just never learned how to contain it. Instead, your father forced you to embrace it.”
He was still for a moment. Then, he smiled at her, but the expression seemed different somehow. She wondered if this was the only time in his life that he had ever truly smiled both on the inside and the outside.
“I’m glad that your husband beat me and saved you. It was a good feeling. It got me thinking about things. Got me thinking that maybe things really do happen for a reason. And maybe we all have a part to play. Maybe your purpose hadn’t been fulfilled, so you couldn’t die there that night? Your survival doesn’t prove anything, of course, but it still made me wonder.”