Set You Free

by Jeff Ross

  TEN

  MONDAY

  It’s always difficult to pay attention to Mr. King’s history lessons, but this morning it feels absolutely mission impossible. Almost everyone has a cell in his or her hands and is slightly hunched over, reading from the screen, while Mr. King endlessly writes things on the board.

  I’m staring out the window to where kids are running track and throwing balls on the football field. For a brief moment it almost feels like a normal day.

  Mr. King talks about a declaration that isn’t the Independence one. I have no idea what this class is even about.

  I turn around to find JJ Carter staring at me. By the angle of his body, it seems as though he may have been in this position since he arrived. His face doesn’t change as I look at him. I have often felt invisible to JJ. So much so that now, when he finally sees me, it’s as if he doesn’t know how to pretend I exist. I’m still nothing but a thing in the world, but now I’m a thing he has to deal with.

  I turn back around and do my best to pay attention to Mr. King. Honestly, though, it’s been too long gone. I swear I’ll pay more attention when he gets into whatever is next in this course. Soon enough, class ends. No one speaks to me as I gather up my books. I do get a lot of looks. Sideways looks, full-on stares, quick glances that settle and then scoot around the room.

  The hallway is filled with people changing classes, opening and closing lockers and yelling ridiculous things at one another. A trail of whispers has been following me since I entered the school. A hush pulses out before me as I move through the hallway.

  “There she is,” JJ Carter says. I hadn’t noticed him standing there in a pack of his friends, but soon he is beside me. “Where’s your brother at?” he demands.

  He’s got himself all puffed up. I’m not sure how he managed to make the basketball team—he’s slightly shorter than I am. “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Bullshit. How can you not know?” JJ says.

  “I haven’t seen him in a couple of days.”

  “How’s that possible? Don’t you, like, live in the same house?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “So where is he?” JJ moves forward, and one of his friends, Ralph “Mac” Mackenzie, leans into him a bit.

  “Dude, relax. She says she doesn’t know, so she doesn’t know. Let it drop.” Mac’s always been kind to me. Before he made the basketball team, he was like me: a tall, lanky outsider. Now he’s a star point guard, and people look up to him in a different way.

  “She has to know.” JJ turns to me. “He’d better not’ve hurt Ben.” His eyes are on fire, and his breath is awful. He’s made a little gun of his fingers and is pointing it at me.

  “Tom has nothing to do with it,” I say.

  “What makes you so sure? What was that creep doing outside my house? Huh?” A disgusted look overtakes his face. “If you were a dude, I’d beat the information out of you right here, right now.”

  “Guy,” Mac says. “You have to chill out.”

  “I don’t have to do anything,” JJ says, pushing Mac aside. “I swear to God, if he’s done anything to my brother, I’ll kill him. Let him know that the next time you don’t talk to him.”

  Mac watches him go, then looks at me. “He’s freaked out that his brother is missing,” he says.

  People are staring at us, but I don’t care. “I don’t know anything,” I say to Mac, as if it will make any difference.

  He shrugs. “If I were you, I’d keep my head down for a while.”

  And then he’s gone, sucked into the river of kids moving through the hall. And I’m left standing here alone.

  I spend the rest of the day wishing I were anywhere else.

  As I near my house after school, I notice a circle of journalists outside. I turn quickly down the side street that runs behind my house, pulling my sweatshirt’s hood up as I go. I feel like some kind of criminal. There’s a car idling at the back of my property. Unfortunately, thanks to the neighbors’ fences, there’s no other way into my yard.

  Keeping my head down, I walk straight at the car. As I’m about to cut into the hole in the hedge, the door opens.

  “Lauren.” Detective Evans swings out of the car, pulling her sunglasses on as she comes toward me.

  “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “I was hoping that maybe you’ve heard from your brother.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Suspicious, isn’t it?”

  I stop and look at myself in her glasses. “No, it isn’t.”

  “Does he often stay away from home for days on end?” she asks.

  “Maybe he does,” I say. “But why would he show up here right now when it seems as though everyone thinks he’s abducted Benny?”

  “Possibly to let us know he had nothing to do with Benjamin’s disappearance.”

  “And you’d just believe him?”

  “We’d simply like to ask him some questions,” she says.

  I swing my backpack off and set it on the ground. “He’s not here. I don’t know where he is. He hasn’t contacted me. Now, can you leave us alone?” She doesn’t respond, so I go on. “And could you get those reporters away from the front of our house?”

  “The journalists are on public property. Nothing I can do about them,” she says as she gets back in the cruiser. “This would all be easier if Tom contacted us.”

  I pick my pack up and cut through the hole in the hedge. When I look back, Detective Evans is still sitting there.

  My mother is in front of the television.

  “Did they bother you?” she asks.

  “The journalists?”

  “Yes.”

  “I came in the back.” I decide not to tell her about Detective Evans. “What about you?”

  “I came home from work early, just in case.”

  “Just in case Tom was here?”

  “Yes, but of course he isn’t. I think they’ve been out there all day. They’ve even bothered Joanne.”

  Joanne is our elderly widowed neighbor. “What did they do?”

  “Asked questions about us. About Tom.” My mother shakes her head and holds her temples. “This is all so awful.”

  “I know, Mom,” I say, sitting down beside her. We’re not a really huggy family, so this is about as consoling as it’s going to get.

  I lean against her.

  “When is it going to end?” she says.

  “When Benny comes home,” I say.

  “Or Tom comes back,” she says. “Where is he, Lauren? Where could he have gone?”

  I put an arm over her shoulder and pull her to me. “It’ll be okay,” I promise. As if I can see into the future. As if I know anything at all.

  ELEVEN

  The screen bangs against the wall as I drop it to the ground. A breeze pushes through the empty space. I climb out the window and onto the lawn. This time I slide the window closed behind me, checking to make certain it didn’t somehow lock. I pass beneath the tree house and go directly to the hedge. I’ve decided on a black hoodie, jeans and thin sandals. I try not to think of anything as I walk. The chilly night air washes over me. Whenever a thought rushes to the front of my mind, I visualize exhaling it in a long single breath. It works for a time, but soon enough there are too many thoughts elbowing one another for space, and the minute I expel them they rush back into the lineup.

  About Ben and my brother.

  About Erin and how she must be feeling.

  I’m five blocks from home when I sense a
car behind me. It could have been there for a while—I’ve been so deep in thought, I might not have noticed. It’s a block away, moving slowly.

  It has to be Detective Evans again. Following me, hoping I’ll lead her to Tom. It bothers me how crafty she thinks she is. Also, how single-minded she is about Tom’s guilt. I get angry as I think of all the other things she could be doing with her time. But I guess she’s already made up her mind. Tom is guilty.

  Period.

  I stop at the edge of the park on Helpern. I wait a second, gauging whether the car’s driver is watching me. I quickly dart into the park, dashing across the grass and sand toward the woods and down to the ravine.

  The little forts have been torn down, leaving nothing but clumps of sticks and dirty blankets that have been tossed in the creek. I find myself beside the massive oak with the climbing boards leading to the lowest branches. I grab a board and pull myself up. It only takes a few seconds to get to the first crotch of the tree. I hold on tightly and wait.

  My breathing slows, and I can feel the shot of adrenaline seeping through my neck and shoulders.

  A minute later, a figure appears on the cusp of the rise. From the distance, I can’t tell who it is. I am trying my best not to move, but the way I am crouching is uncomfortable, and I can feel my thighs cramping.

  The figure moves toward me, then stops, and suddenly there are voices.

  “Yes, Detective Evans here. Go ahead.” Her voice crosses the distance with ease. A cloud shifts, and in the bright moonlight I can see Detective Evans holding a walkie-talkie near her ear. “Affirmative,” she says. She turns and starts back up the rise. “Yes, send an officer to my location.” She stops, looks back, then goes on.

  When I figure she’s gone, I climb down. The ground is uneven beneath my sandals. I look up the hill to find a pair of flashlight beams illuminating the trees on the edge of the ravine.

  You could have stayed at home, I tell myself as I run across a plank that straddles the creek. I scramble up the bank as the flashlights light up the creek. I slide in behind a tree and then, for some reason, take off running on the other side of the ravine.

  My sandals slip from my feet, and I’m about to stop to retrieve them when someone calls out, “Lauren Saunders, is that you? Can you come here for a moment, please?” and I decide to leave my sandals and keep running.

  It’s stupid. I feel like an idiot, clambering in the dark for no reason. There would be too much explaining to do. Honestly, I’m tired of saying the same thing over and over again.

  I don’t realize where I am for a moment. A car drives past with a deep, thudding bass rattling its windows. The clouds part again, and I see the West Tower to my right, know the East is just in the distance over my shoulder, and figure out exactly where I am.

  I never come here. Anyone who doesn’t live here avoids this area. It’s called Maple Grove and was supposed to be an “ideal community.” Somewhere in the process the builders changed their minds and threw up a bunch of two- and three-story co-op places with a scattering of row houses, then disappeared. A few years later someone else came along and erected the two largest towers in the city on either side of the community, making it feel like something dark and evil from Middle Earth.

  The whole area is rental units. There were supposed to be gardens in the center of each block, but all that grows in this area is weeds.

  Speaking of which, weed is also the number-one export from Maple Grove. One industrious seller packaged his baggies with a Maple Grove sticker left over from when the towers were first built. They say, Maple Grove, high above the ordinary.

  I cross my arms over my chest, tuck my head into the collar of my hoodie and start walking.

  I’ve made it two blocks when a police car crosses the street ahead of me and slows. Without thinking, I turn onto a walkway that runs between two of the housing units and take off down the path, dodging garbage cans and abandoned tricycles.

  “What were you doing?” I say out loud. My thigh muscles are twitching from the run. At any moment I could step on something sharp and slice a foot open, but I’m too scared to care. I turn in the direction I think will get me back out toward a main road and then slow to a walk.

  As I’m passing a doorway, a group of guys comes barreling out, laughing and punching one another. I walk faster but not so fast as to seem intimidated.

  “Hey, who that?” one of them says.

  I keep walking, my breath coming in little gulps.

  “Yo, that a girl or a dude? Hey, you a girl or a dude?”

  I don’t look back.

  “Ain’t answering,” someone else says in a high, nasal voice.

  “You know who that is?”

  “No, man. Let’s find out.”

  I’m almost to the street when they catch me.

  One of the guys gets an arm around me just as I’m gaining some speed.

  “It’s a girl. What you doin’ here, girl?” He’s older than I am, mid-twenties maybe. He has a wispy mustache and crooked teeth. He turns me around so I’m facing the other two guys. One of them is tall and, I’d say were the situation different, handsome. The other guy is large in that way people are once they’ve given up on all physical fitness.

  “You like her?” the guy holding me says. He’s swaying and shifting but still holding me tightly. The stink of alcohol and pot wafts off them.

  “Who, me?” the fat guy says.

  The guy holding me laughs, and something wet hits my neck. “Yeah, whatcha think?”

  I finally gather up enough courage to struggle, twisting in his grip. “Let go of me.”

  I’m about to scream when the guy holding me throws a hand over my mouth and drags me back against the side of the building. I try to bite his hand, but he shifts and I get nothing but air. He’s holding my chin so I can’t move my jaw at all. “We were about to go out and get you laid,” he says to the fat guy. “This is like a gift from the gods or something. What do you think?”

  “She don’t wanna be with me,” the fat guy says. He’s got a tall can of beer in his hand. He takes a long drink before wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Does she?”

  “I don’t think we’re askin’.” The guy laughs again.

  The fat guy screws his face up. “I ain’t so sure about that. Weren’t we just gonna go find Connie? Your old man says—”

  “Sure, sure, but you want to go where my old man’s already been?”

  “No, it’s…” the fat guy says. “This ain’t right.”

  “It’d be free.” The guy laughs again, then belches into my ear.

  I try to get my leg up behind me to kick him in the groin, but he shifts to the side, still laughing like it’s all some awesome game. Without even looking at him, I can tell he’s glassy-eyed drunk. The kind of intoxicated people get where a strange belief takes over them that nothing they do will ever have any consequences. I’ve been there; I understand the feeling.

  Which scares me all the more.

  The handsome guy hasn’t said a word. He’s taken a cigarette out and is looking at the street. I try to kick again, and the guy holding me wraps a leg around mine and holds me tightly with his free hand.

  “Man, I don’t think so,” the fat guy says.

  The handsome guy suddenly walks away.

  “Where you goin’, Jones?”

  “I don’t want anything to do with this. Pretend it never happened.”

  “Whatever, man. I’m only fooling around.” He moves his face so I can see him. “What do you think of my friend Artie here? You think he’s hot?” The guy forces my head up and down. �
�See, Artie, she thinks you’re hot. Like Leonardo DiCaprio, right?” My head is forced up and down again. The fat guy smiles as if he’s buying into this, and I can picture him on top of me. Can see it all from beginning to end. And while I’m picturing this, while I’m waiting for this nightmare to kick into high gear, the guy holding me lets go, and a moment later he’s spun around, holding his hand.

  “What the hell?” he says. There’s blood gushing from a cut on his palm and wrist.

  “Start walking,” a new voice says from behind me.

  “Whoa, buddy, what the hell?” the fat guy says. He takes a step forward, and I feel the guy behind me dart out. A moment later the fat guy is cradling his hand. Drips of blood stain the concrete beneath us.

  “You gotta move, Lauren.” I look up, half expecting it to be Tom, even though the voice is much deeper than my brother’s.

  “Who are you?” I say.

  “Grady,” he says. He turns around and walks backward.

  “Dude,” the guy who was holding me says, “I am going to kill you.”

  “I will cut you faster than you can blink!” Grady says. The guy takes a step forward, and Grady flashes the knife at him.

  “I’m a friend of Tom’s,” Grady says. His voice quivers.

  “There’s two of us, dude,” the first guy says.

  “I’m really bleeding,” the fat one says. He’s holding his hand, and there’s blood dripping on the ground all around him.

  “We’re going to run now,” Grady says. He gives me a little shove.

  “Don, I gotta get someone to look at this,” I hear the big guy say, and with that they move from the light and back into the building.

  When we get to the sidewalk, where the streetlights shine more brightly, I take a closer look at Grady. He’s tall, around six feet, and thin. He’s wearing a tie, a white dress shirt and jeans. His hair is flicked up at the front and trimmed on the sides.

  He steps away from me once we’re out in the open. “My car is up here.” He looks back at the building. “Those guys are pissed. I really don’t think we should hang out here for long.”