by Lara Swann
“Ken?” I ask, the word taking a bit of time to work around my swollen-feeling mouth. Turns out, talking hurts too. But not much more than not talking, so I ignore it. “What’re you…doin-here?”
If it wasn’t for, well…everything about him…I’d think he might be here to threaten me some more. To warn me about something, as he just said.
“If I had to guess…I think they’re trying to clean up the mess they’ve made…and we happen to be a couple of loose ends.”
It’s not until he says it that I notice he’s in the same position as me - his hands bound between his legs, and from this angle, I can see it’s to a metal bar that runs along under the bench he’s sat on. We’re sat on. The same bench, along two opposite sides of…the van.
The van.
It comes back to me, and then I groan again. I have to suppress the urge to throw my head backwards. I’m not entirely sure it would survive the impact, and the nausea is still rolling around inside me. I can taste the sour stink of vomit, too and…ugh. A glance down shows it’s all over my top.
Lovely.
“I’m sorry.” Ken says again, shaking his head as he looks at me. “I never wanted you to be involved in this. I tried to warn you. Why didn’t you listen? Did I not make it obvious enough? I didn’t know how much you knew…I was trying to be subtle…”
I struggle to breathe slowly and evenly as irritation flares through me.
“Because…people have a right to know…what’s going on in their town.” I get out, before looking at him. “I was right, wasn’t I? About it all?”
When he doesn’t answer, I continue, grim determination flashing through me. If I’ve come this far, I’m at least going to get the answers I deserve.
“All those infrastructure projects…they never really existed, did they?” I push on. “They were just a cover so you could funnel money to…to…whoever these guys are. All of those taxes…those voluntary taxes…”
For a moment, I don’t think he’s going to answer me at all, and I want to rage that I can’t reach forward and grab him by the crumpled shirt he’s wearing. Except the idea of moving at all makes my stomach turn horribly at the moment, so it’s probably a good thing these cables around my wrists aren’t going to give me the chance.
I wait in silence for a few minutes, before he finally gives a small nod.
“Yes.” He admits, his voice weary and resigned. “You were right.”
I close my eyes as brief satisfaction washes through me, the strength of that feeling of validation surprising me. After so long…so much…
All this.
I glance down at myself again, feeling every part of the painful, awkward state I’m in.
“How could you?” I ask quietly, with less ire than I was expecting to feel. After his admission…finally hearing I was right…and maybe just that everything hurts…I suddenly feel exhausted. Like whatever was sustaining me to this point has slipped away now that it’s got what it wanted. “How could you do that to our town? Lie to and cheat your friends, family, the people that you were supposed to be supporting…all those years…”
The enormity of it takes my breath away. Just how long this has been going on for - and the depth of the betrayal.
He sighs from where he’s sat opposite me, his head tilting back against the wall of the van. “It’s a long history. You don’t want to hear my whole life story.”
“I’ve come this far to get it - if I’m going to die at the end of this anyway, don’t you think I deserve to know?” I counter, then look around at the empty interior of the van. “It’s not like we’re doing anything else right now.”
He follows my gaze around, shaking his head slightly in dejection. “Curious to the end, hm?”
That sends a flicker of anger through me. “It’s not some morbid curiosity. I want to know how you sleep at night, what on earth made you do this - and for so long. I want to understand. I still…I still struggle to imagine it…to believe it of you. I’ve got too many memories, too many false images and feelings in my head that feel more real than the truth right now…”
I trail off, giving up on the idea that he’s going to explain anything to me and not quite wanting him to see how much the whole thing has gotten to me - how much it’s hurt me. It’s my town. It’s my history too.
When he finally speaks, I’ve almost slipped back into the lull the moving vehicle creates in time with my throbbing head, and my eyes open again in surprise.
“I come from Klamath Falls.” He says, his voice taking on that resigned tone again. It’s still feels so strange to hear that from someone who has always been vibrant and impressive, but…right now, it seems to be the only thing he can offer. “I used to run a store there - a fairly unsuccessful one - that I was desperate to keep going. It was my father’s…but, well, I guess none of that matters. I was too young to see that it was a doomed endeavor. I was sure that if I just worked hard enough I could turn it around…and in the meantime, I let myself fall further and further into debt. Until the only people who would lend me money…were not the sorts of people anyone in their right mind would accept it from. Thugs who call themselves businessmen and dress as such, but when it comes down to it…they’re no better than the street gangs running around there.”
He sucks in a deep breath and I stare, fascinated. It’s enough that even the pain fades into the background. I’ve never heard any of this.
“I took the loan - and things spiraled from there. When time came to pay, I couldn’t - and at first I took their offered deals, sure that I could come up with something - but I never did. Nothing worked. By the time I finally realized I was in too deep and I’d never be able to find the money, they were getting threatening. Scary. I’d heard stories. I didn’t know what the hell to do. So I did the only thing I could think of - I ran.” His gaze rises to mine and even now, I can feel the echo of the fear there. Goose pimples rise across my flesh, before he seems to sink back into himself with a shake of his head. “I found Ashton - a tiny, out of the way town that was barely even on the map - the perfect spot to hide. To start again. To become someone else. And for a while, it worked - years - long enough that I thought I was safe. I met Margaret, fell in love, started a family…”
Grief and pain flash across his expression, the first real emotions I’ve seen from him, and my heart catches in my throat.
“If I’d known they were ever going to catch up to me, I don’t think I would have done that.” He says, and I can see the moisture glinting in his eyes. “At least, I hope I wouldn’t. To drag anyone else into that mess…but Margaret…she was stunning…always has been. I don’t know. I think about it all too often.”
He shakes his head again, as if trying to throw off the thought, and my stomach churns with something more than just my nausea as I watch.
“Anyway.” He says, his voice turning brisk. “Obviously, eventually they caught up with me. These aren’t the kind of people to let something like that go. But at that time, I was already considering running for Mayor and - well - I’m surprised they didn’t kill me outright after running for all that time, but I guess they saw the potential of a position like that. They helped me win—”
“Wait.” I interrupt. “You won because of them? That’s how you were elected?!”
I can’t believe it. That election had always felt so important for Ashton - people were so pleased with the choice they’d made and the direction the town was heading in.
“Yeah.” He has the grace to look uncomfortable, at least. “They gave me financial support and lined up some investors and business for the town for me to claim I’d brought in.”
“After all that…they gave you more money?”
“I was surprised too.” He says, then shrugs. “Anyway, once I was elected, I came up with another one of my crazy ideas of how I could pay off the debt. I almost wish now that I hadn’t. It was the only one that ever worked - but it worked too well. They saw too much potential in it. I did it twice, over
a few years, and that raised enough to pay off the debt I owed—”
“We were paying off your debt?!” I repeat, stunned. I mean, he’d already pretty much said as much, but the reality of it…blows my mind. Every vote we had to improve the town…it was actually to pay his debt.
He grimaces, looking away. “Yes. At first, anyway. I thought that would be the end of it—but then they started talking about interest, how much I’d accrued over all those years I’d disappeared for…and it was impossible. It was a while until I realized that however much I gave them, they’d still expect me to keep running that scam. It became a system, a well-oiled machine between us, how it all worked. I kept waiting for the vote to fail - for everyone to have had enough and decide not to vote to raise the funds - to give me a way out. To be able to say to them ‘look, it’s not working anymore’. I don’t know what they would have done then, but it seemed like the only way to stop it.”
The only way.
Yeah. Sure. More like, the only way that would have let him keep the life he’d built up under lies and pretenses. I try not to feel as bitter as that sounds, but sitting where I am now and finally hearing what he’s done to the town over all these years…it’s hard not to.
“But that never happened.” He continues. “When I finally realized that maybe it wasn’t going to happen, I couldn’t deal with it anymore. It wasn’t right - I’d known that from the start - and I couldn’t keep doing it. I refused. I told them I’d more than paid my debt and I was done with it all. They tried to threaten me with exposing the whole thing - with the likelihood of jail time for fraud - but I just didn’t care anymore. It was too much. I couldn’t do it anymore. So then…well…then they took Margaret.”
He takes a shuddering breath and it’s painful enough that I can almost feel it in my chest. My own eyes squeezed closed, but I have to ask. I have to know.
“What happened with Margaret?” I say quietly. “What really happened?”
“They took her.” He says, in a bereft, desolate voice. “What do you think happened? You’ve seen how she is now. They…they beat her…in front of me…I couldn’t do anything. I…I was made to watch. It destroyed her. Us. Our family. They told us if we said anything, if we did anything, they’d come back for Emily too…my Emily…my little girl…I couldn’t…I couldn’t…”
He sucks in a sharp breath, pulling himself painfully back under control and shaking his head, in a way that makes me think he’s used to doing that - that this is something he thinks about often enough that he has to.
“After that, I didn’t try to argue much anymore. I went back to doing what they wanted. What else could I do?”
The pure defeat in his voice strikes deep inside me, but the reaction it wrenches out isn’t just pity - though I feel that too - it’s anger, too.
“What else could you do?” I grind out. “You could have gone to the cops, admitted what had happened - offered to turn on these guys and gotten Margaret and Emily into witness protection, into some form of safety. Instead of living in fear like Margaret has been. If you’d ended this thing, they wouldn’t have been living with that shadow over their heads—it would be done—you could have—”
I groan as the force of my frustration makes the words come too quickly - too fast - and my quick gasps of breath make my chest feel like someone is stabbing it.
I might feel a little sympathy for what he’s been through and the positions he’s been forced into - as well as being able to say it, to acknowledge and admit that what he’s done has been so totally wrong, not even trying to defend that - but admitting it isn’t enough to make it okay. It doesn’t change that he’s made some fucked up decisions and hurt a lot of people, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forgive him for it.
It’s painful to think of Margaret at home, of what she’s going through, all alone because she knows if she reaches out to anyone…everyone might get hurt.
And he caused that.
He doesn’t respond to my tirade, instead looking off dully into the distance somewhere to the side of me. I jerk forward to try to get his attention and make my point again, but all that does is make my head swim and dizziness assail me.
I slump back, my eyes squeezing closed as I try to stop the world from spinning. “Fuck…everything hurts…”
“You look like you got hit by a truck.” He offers, and I wince, the image of that coming up behind me making my whole body shudder—wait—
“How’d’you know about that?” I ask, frowning slightly as I force my eyes back open to look at him. Some of my words are slurring a little now too, and that can’t be a good sign, but if we’re driving to our inevitable doom then I guess maybe it doesn’t matter so much.
He grimaces. “They seem to like telling me things, sometimes.”
I blink slowly, as the words pull me out of the murky depths of the past that I’d let myself get sucked down into. That’s been all I’ve focused on this whole time, but right now…fuck…maybe I have more important things to think about.
“Like what?” I ask. “Do you know where we’re going?”
He shakes his head.
“Ugh, okay. Well, you’ve been awake for all of this, right? How long have we been driving? Where did they snatch you from? Do you know what time it is?”
He frowns at me. “Why?”
“So that we can try and work out where me might be - where they might be taking us - in case we manage to find a way to tell someone - to call the cops - or get away—”
“Have you seen the state you’re in, Kelsey?” He asks me, his eyes sad. “Somehow, I don’t think we’re going to be getting out of this.”
“That’s not a reason not to try.” I say, frustrated.
C’mon - these are our lives at stake, idiot! You really want to spend your last moments grimly accepting your fate? What good is that?
I’m about to say all that, but one look at him stops me as I realize it’s no good. He’s already given up. He’s been here for too long, too many times, and he doesn’t have anything left.
God damn it. Couldn’t I have a more useful abductee companion?
I stop bothering with him and start thinking of what I could do - anything - but I don’t get very far. The best idea I have is trying to bang on the side of the van, see if anyone might notice us - but the way my head feels right now, I think if I actually succeeded, I’d be unconscious in moments. I’m barely holding onto awareness as it is, and every bump in the road makes things swirl around me again. Why can’t these damned guys drive a bit better, at the very least?
“Kelsey…”
I look up at Ken’s voice just as the van takes an unexpected corner, throwing me back against the side of the van with my head snapping up against it. Everything spins again and I try to hold on, to hear what Ken wanted to say, but blackness is already dancing across my vision, my body slumping forward as it takes me.
* * *
“Recognize this place, hmm?”
The ugly voice comes to me from what feels like very far away, but its mocking tone isn’t aimed in my direction.
I struggle to force myself back out of the darkness, knowing there’s something important going on and I need to be awake for it but fighting with the disconcerting, swimming feeling inside me.
A quiet reply filters through to me, but I can’t properly make it out and I drift in and out of whatever they’re saying as I slowly come back to consciousness again. It takes me several attempts to open my eyes and when I finally do, the world is still fuzzy, with double-images dancing before me.
I cough - and then whimper as my chest feels like it’s breaking open at the violent gesture - leaning forward to try to get some of the horrible, sour muck out of my mouth. Only, leaning forward doesn’t work very well. Everything in my chest seizes up at the attempt and I let out a cry, closing my eyes all over again.
Maybe I don’t want to be conscious after all.
“Ahh…” The voice penetrates again and I reluctantl
y force myself to look up, trying to get back into some semblance of being able to manage the pain. I was dealing with it before, what the hell has changed—
Oh.
It takes me a few moments to realize I’m not in the van anymore - at least without the rumbling, bumping motion, my head isn’t spinning quite so badly - and instead I’m resting against a pillar of some kind. A beam? I don’t know, I can’t bring myself to look around and check.
Resting might be the wrong word. I’m tied to it, with straps around my chest that make even the small, shallow breaths I’m trying painful and difficult to manage. There is something really wrong with my chest. It has to be broken ribs or something like that, but I didn’t think they could possibly be so…painful. Aren’t broken ribs kind of common? How do people deal with that?
They’re probably not strapped to pillars.
My hands are secured behind the pillar as well, pushing my shoulders back and chest out and making the pressure even worse. My legs are free, at least, but what the hell am I going to do with them from this position?
I blink quickly as the guy moves toward me, panic starting to flutter through me. Somehow, when I was just tied up in the van with Ken, it was easier not to think about what was happening. Now, though…
“I see sleeping beauty finally awakens.” He says, with a coarse look up and down my body. I try not to let myself shudder. I don’t want him to see it, and I don’t really want to move right now. “Though…beauty might be going a little too far. You look a little too rank for my tastes right now…and I tell you, they’ve never been high.”
I’m fucking sure they haven’t.
I think bitterly, but I keep it to myself.
“You’re the ones that ran into me with a fucking truck.” I mutter instead. “Hardly my fault.”
“Oh, you have spirit.” He chuckles, folding his arms and leering at me through a gap-toothed smile. “Probably should’ve guessed that, with what I hear you’ve been up to.”
“What are you doing with me? Why am I here?” I ask, probably belatedly, but my mind isn’t working very well right now.
