Far Too Young To Die: An Astraea Renata Novel

by Wayne, Douglas

  “What makes you think he is here?” the officer asked while holding his index finger over his mouth.

  “Oh,” I said in my best, innocent sounding voice, “I slipped a tracking chip into his phone. The GPS thingie pointed right here.” The two officers gave each other an amused glance. But instead of letting one of them bury my excuse, I kept going. “He has a thing about locking up his women. Just a few days ago he slapped a shock collar on my neck and locked me in a cage to rot. If a friend hadn’t come to save me, I’d probably still be inside.”

  “Doesn’t sound like the kind of man you need in your life. Perhaps you should use this as a sign and go your own way.”

  “Oh I am, Officer. I just wanted to warn the poor gal he’s messin’ around with now.”

  “I’m sure she can handle herself,” he said, grabbing me gently under my arm before leading me towards his police car.

  “Aren’t you even going to look into it? He’s probably inside right now waiting for you to leave.”

  “Ma’am, I assure you, your boyfriend doesn’t live in that house.”

  I stopped and shot him a questioning look. “How do you know for sure? Do you know the man who lives there?”

  “In fact, I do.”

  “Then go talk to him,” I said in a panic. “You’ll see I’m telling you the truth.”

  Even through my feeble attempts to yank free, he continued leading me to his car, where he opened the door and sat me down inside. Once seated, I opted not to create any more of a scene than was necessary since I didn’t want to add resisting arrest to the list.

  The officer shut my door, walked around the car, and got in his seat. Before he put the keys into the ignition, he turned and stared into my eyes. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I know you weren’t at that house looking for your ex-boyfriend or his new fling. To be fair, if you had said that to me in front of any other house, I would’ve at least knocked on the door to talk to the owner. In your case, you just so happened to choose the one house in the world I can guarantee anything like that isn’t happening in.”

  “How?” I huffed.

  “That’s my house.”

  Game.

  Set.

  Match.

  - 24 -

  The drive to the police station was long, which did nothing to calm my nerves in the least. In fact, the longer I sat in the back seat of that police car, the more I wanted to slam my head against the steel barrier between me and the cop in the front seat for being so stupid.

  What were the odds that the house I looked into belonged to a cop? Not just any cop, mind you. The cop who just so happened to be the first on the scene. Before tonight, I would have told you I was more likely to win the lottery six times in a row than for that to happen.

  Now, I know that would’ve been wrong.

  Once at the station, he led me through a set of double doors back to a room with three metal folding chairs. He sat me down in the one closest to a large metal desk, uncuffed my hands long enough to reattach them to a metal clip on the desk and walked to the door. He turned before leaving the room and said, “Officer Patrica Stanton will be in here shortly to book you.”

  I nodded, but otherwise kept my mouth shut. After all, what was I supposed to say to him that would make any of this any better? “I’m sorry I was peeking into your office and one of your bedrooms. If you let me go, I promise I’ll never do it again.” While he might accept my apology, I was sure he still intended to make sure I got punished to the full extent of the law, if for no other reason than to dissuade anyone else from thinking about doing the same thing.

  Thankfully, Officer Stanton didn’t make me wait for long before walking into the room. She was a short woman, barely taller than five feet, and looked like she maybe weighed about a hundred pounds with all of her gear. That is, if all of her gear was soaking wet and she was carrying a pair of ten pound dumbbells.

  She had short black hair that didn’t even touch her shoulders, sapphire eyes, and a tiny nose that almost looked unnatural against her otherwise flawless face. When she walked in, she had a smirk on her face which let me know she already knew the full story. Why wouldn’t she have? Something told me every cop a hundred miles outside Atlanta would know about the story by the end of the week.

  She took a seat at the metal desk and pulled out a stack of paperwork from a drawer on the other side along with a manila file folder. After asking me for my ID, she wrote my name in print on the tab then pushed it off to the side.

  “Officer Ward asked me to give you one more chance to tell us what you were really doing at his house tonight. I think he is wasting his time, but I’m going to extend the offer anyway,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “And do yourself a favor, drop the stalking the boyfriend story now before you end up in even more trouble.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath while considering what I’d tell her this time. The truth was, I didn’t really have a good reason to be there. Not one they would listen to anyway. Anything I said would only lead to me being punished even more than I already would be.

  None of the cops had read me my Miranda rights, so technically, anything I said at this point couldn’t be used against me, but I knew better than that. Proving they had, or hadn’t, would be a beast in and of itself. One I didn’t dare try to fight.

  But even though my gut told me to keep my mouth shut, I couldn’t help but feeling like I’d be damning the woman to die if I did. The odds of me getting out of here anytime tonight are so close to zero I had to at least consider getting them involved. It was just so damn hard knowing it would get me in a lot more trouble than I was already in.

  Then I remembered the tracking chip and how Jace had set it to ping the signal three hundred feet east of its actual location. All the scouting I’d done was for nothing. Not once did I even consider I was searching the wrong house the whole time.

  A vision of the house across the street immediately came to mind. It looked just like Officer Ward’s, but out front there were four cars instead of just two. Not only that, nearly every light in the house was on, telling me someone was there. Or at least, they didn’t care how high their electric bill would be at the end of the month.

  The woman I’d slipped the collar to was in that house. She had to be.

  It would be a few hours, at the least, before I could even get out of here when the bar finally shut down. That was, of course, saying they even offered me a chance to bail myself out tonight. As tempting as it would be to wait for that, if I did I would guarantee Greg got involved, and after the other night when he saved me and Aiden from the party, he wouldn’t be in any condition to use his already limited powers. I might be a complete badass when the situation calls for it, but I couldn’t guarantee my safety, let alone the safety of someone else.

  No. My best play was to give the cops the goods and let them deal with my mess. I just had to hope Officer Stanton here was sympathetic to her fellow women and was willing to do what it takes to save one in distress.

  “I was looking for a woman,” I said, then described her the best I could from memory, which wasn’t much considering I didn’t have time to study her face. I went into detail about the collar and how it came to be in my possession, how I had it modified, and even how I slipped it in the trash hoping to catch the jerks myself. That got me one of those ‘what did you think was going to happen’ speeches similar to the ones I’d been giving myself since they’d taken the woman.

  Once I’d finished my story, Officer Stanton sat there for a moment taking it all in. When she leaned forward and placed her chin in her hands, I was sure she was really thinking about checking it out. My confidence in her all but ended a few seconds later when she burst into a fit of laughter so loud I was sure they could hear it in L.A.

  “I think you should’ve stuck to the other story. At least that one is believable.” She shook her head and went back to filling out the paperwork packet in front of her.

&
nbsp; “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Don’t take this personally, honey, but everyone tells us that. Without solid proof, I’m afraid we are going to have to book you on charges of attempted burglary.”

  “Then check into it.”

  “Where exactly should we stat looking for this mystery woman? Officer Ward’s house?,” she said giving me a nasty glare.

  “No,” I said. “The house across the street.”

  “Let me guess, when she isn’t there you’ll have us check another house on the street. Even if we wanted to, which we don’t, we couldn’t legally search any of those houses without a warrant. And we can’t get one of those without solid proof. The story of someone caught sneaking into the house across the street isn’t proof.”

  I opened my mouth to shoot back a response, but thought better of it. She wouldn’t believe anything I said.

  That much was clear.

  My best hope was that she would book me quickly then set my bail so I could call Greg to get me out of this place. But I didn’t expect it. This time of night they might just wait until morning to make a move. I’d seen enough cop shows to know they could hold me for almost a day without filing charges. I had reason to believe they’d hold off on filing anything until Officer Ward made a full sweep on his house to make sure nothing was missing. I didn’t blame them for that, I just wished they would do what they were going to do sooner rather than later. I had enough money stashed away to afford whatever amount they set for bail, so it was more a matter of them processing me.

  That and calling Greg to bring said money to get me out.

  Once Officer Stanton got finished with the paperwork, she took a picture of me, printed it out, and put it in the file. She then unlocked the handcuff attached to her desk and reattached it to my other wrist. In the front, thankfully, not that I was planning an elaborate escape or anything.

  She led me to a steel door where she hit a button on the wall which sounded off a buzz when she did.

  “Yes?” a voice said through a speaker just below the button.

  “Prisoner Astraea Renata, being taken to a cell for the night.”

  There was a moment of silence followed by another buzz. Then the steel door clicked open a few inches. Stanton opened the door and motioned me to go through, then followed behind me after shutting the door.

  Unlike the jail cells I’d seen in the movies, these were more like little personal bedrooms. I’d half expected to see a room full of iron bars with a few dozen hardened, or heavily drunk, people waiting behind them for their chance to beg for freedom once again.

  Believe me when I say I was glad this was nothing like that. Sure, it would be a long, quiet night, but it beat having to deal with other people.

  Especially now when I really wanted to be alone.

  She opened the door to the second room on the left and led me inside. The cell was maybe ten by ten with a steel combination toilet and sink along the back wall. To the right was a small metal cot with something I imagined was meant to be a mattress but looked more like a few blankets sewn together for some padding. If the horrible bedding wasn’t enough, I was also delighted to learn I wouldn’t have a pillow to sleep on either.

  I didn’t exactly expect the Marriot, but I figured it would’ve been better than that. But, whatever. I wasn’t going to be in here long and I sure wasn’t going to sleep on the bed unless I had to. Call it what you want, but my mind could easily come up with three dozen different things someone could do to the bed to sabotage it for later.

  Once I was inside, Stanton removed my cuffs. I rubbed my wrists, which helped take the soreness of wearing them out.

  “How long am I going to be in here?” I asked before she could leave.

  “A few hours, at least.”

  “A few hours? I don’t have a few hours,” I said, freaking out. “You aren’t going to set bail or anything?”

  She shook her head. “Not until morning.”

  “Why so long?”

  “Rules,” she said. “If you break them, you deal with the consequences. Next time you might want to think before you act.”

  So should you, I said to myself.

  “What about my phone call?”

  “In the morning,” she said, then shut the door.

  My face reddened in anger and I contemplated kicking the shit out of the lame excuse of a mattress to relieve my anger, but decided it might not be in my best interests if I wanted to get out of here sooner rather than later. Instead, I sat on the ground in the corner of the room and curled up into a ball with my arms wrapped around my legs and my head resting on my knees. Then I cried.

  - 25 -

  Throughout the night I sat in the corner and watched the reinforced glass window of my cell door. Every thirty minutes a head would pop into view and glance around. After a few seconds, seemingly content I was still in one piece, the head would disappear only to return thirty minutes later. I’m not sure who drew that crappy job, but I didn’t envy them one bit.

  Between these checks I passed the time either crying, yelling at myself, or considering banging my head against the concrete wall. As you can imagine, none of these were really productive in the end. A few minutes before I expected the head to appear, I would stop, not wanting whoever it was to catch me in a tirade. As uncomfortable as I already was, I wasn’t about to bring on any more punishment.

  After the fourth appearance of the peeping head, I was about to break into another self-wallowing rant when I got an idea. Whoever was in charge of the prison apparently set processes in place to ensure the safety of the officers and the prisoners. Over the years, I’ve read more than enough reports about prisoners that hung, or killed themselves while in their cells. I imagined this prison had seen a few more of those cases than they wanted, which explained the patrols.

  I wiped the tears from my eyes and did the best I could to clean the running makeup from my face while I waited for the next patrol. What I was going to do would be a long shot, but I figured they hadn’t seen what I was capable of. So, unless the peeping head came early, I would be ready to make my move.

  A few minutes before I expected the head to appear, I drew in my power and weaved a veil around my body, bending the light to make me look invisible. I moved from my spot in the corner and stood a few feet away from the door and waited.

  On cue the head popped through the window and looked around. This time, instead of scanning back and forth and moving on, his head smashed into the glass, seemingly to get a better look. I heard what sounded like keys fumbling into a lock followed shortly after by the door opening.

  A male officer stepped inside the room and looked around, he had a puzzled expression as if he was trying to figure out where I could be hiding. I carefully stepped around him as he stepped towards the flimsy mattress and flipped it over. I had to stifle a laugh on my way out into the hall to keep from tipping him off.

  Passing the door I noticed the officer’s keys still in the lock. What a stroke of luck, I told myself. I still needed a lot more to make it out of here without being caught, but it was already off to a good start.

  I grabbed the side of the door and pulled it shut behind me. It made a slight creak as it closed, just loud enough that the officer lunged to the door, only to miss it when I jerked the door harder, locking him inside. His face peered up through the window slit and I heard him banging on the door. Unless there was a second officer making the rounds, this one was going to be in for a long night.

  I pulled the keys out of the door and held them tight in my hand. While my veil hid my body and anything I held, it wasn’t capable of stopping any noises I made. One faint jingle of the keys might be the difference between freedom and capture. And after the stroke of luck it took to get them, I wasn’t about to screw that up.

  I crept back to the door to the booking room carefully, though as fast as I dared, which ended up being just a hair faster than most people can walk while watching their cell phones. Once I was at the
door, however, I stood there for a moment while I decided on my next move.

  Alongside the door there wasn’t a trigger or button like there was on the other side. I checked the wall to either side of me and found them empty, except for the light switch to my right. With my breath held, I reached in and tested the door handle carefully. I wasn’t trying to open it as much as to see if it could. The door handle was at a forty-five degree angle when the door clicked open and moved outward.

  Shit. If anyone was watching the door on a security camera, they could have the hall swarming with police officers in a matter of minutes. I might’ve been invisible, but that would only do me so much good when they pushed through the hall looking for the prisoner trying to escape.

  The thought of turning around and heading back to my cell flashed through my mind, and for a moment I actually considered it. It wasn’t too late for me to turn back. Sure, there was the matter of the officer currently locked in my room, but I could easily slip back inside while he tried to make sense of what happened and stay invisible until he left. By the time he got another officer to come in and check on the room, I’d be sitting there in my corner, head between my legs, like I’d been all night up to this point.

  As much as I wanted to make the safe play, I couldn’t. An innocent woman and Aiden were out there somewhere and they needed my help. If the cops would listen, I was more than willing to let them handle it from here, but they seemed more interested in laughing at my expense than doing any real work.

  Perhaps if I’d brought a dozen donuts they might’ve change their mind.

  No. I was the only one who could get them out of this mess. And believe it or not, it was worth risking years of jail time to do. I just had to hope my lawyer was good enough to get me out of the majority of the time.

  I took in a breath and pushed through the door then shut it quickly behind me. The door clicked louder than I was expecting, but except for increasing my heartbeat, nothing else happened. And beyond that, I didn’t wait around long enough to see if something did. I walked through the hallway back towards booking but stopped before the steel door that lead to it and waited. While I’d been fairly lucky to get this far without being noticed, walking through that door was about as good as announcing my presence. Doors, after all, don’t open themselves.