by The Behrg
Because this murder—this death—was on him.
He let his head fall back to the seat of the car. Joje would take him wherever he intended to, Blake only knew where that road wouldn’t lead: redemption.
Chapter Eight
Day Six
1
Sunlight leaked through the edges of boarded-up windows, scuttling beneath the wide gap at the bottom of the door. A flurry of moths and mosquitos bounced in the air, the occasional wanderer causing Adam to slap at his own face or arms. Bites covered his exposed flesh, the only really bothersome one at the corner of his lower lip like a pimple, causing his lip to hang slightly down.
If he could figure out how to twitch his left eye, he might really look like Joje.
With the light creeping into the otherwise dark storage shed, Adam could finally make out some of the objects he had lain against. Sealed wooden crates were stacked to the ceiling along the walls of the shed, covered in dust as thick as sand. The wing of a small airplane skewered through the boxes, its end terminating in dangling cables and bent jagged metal like a limb that had been torn free. Discarded seats from a car and other pieces of machinery and rusty antiques that looked almost petrified in their disuse lay in heaps, a large metal chain coiled on top, flakes of red rust shedding like a second skin. Cobwebs, broken light bulbs, and an abandoned water heater so full of holes it had clearly served its life sentence as target practice.
There wasn’t a lot he could use here, but he also had the feeling he wouldn’t need to. Joje was showing off to his father, strutting his feathers in a display that had little to do with Adam.
And if I’m wrong?
Footsteps approached from outside, the soft crunch against trodden dirt. Adam remained quiet, listening to a padlock disengage. Blinding light rushed in as the metal door flung wide. Adam’s eyes were accosted at the sudden change. When they had partially adjusted, he saw one of the men standing before him, the one with the thick beard.
“If you want breakfast, follow me.”
Adam fell in step behind the man. It was impossible not to notice their surroundings, but he tried his best not to look like he was noticing. The property was huge—Adam couldn’t see a fence or wall, and the abundance of trees and smell of juniper reminded him of their home in West Virginia. The ground was covered with dried leaves, needles, and bullet casings, as if they too fell from the surrounding trees.. The cabin they walked toward was certainly no luxury rent-by-the-week model and had the look of a house that held the stories of generations within its walls.
They passed a well covered with wooden planks and continued toward the cabin entrance, or exit, considering they were entering through the back. The smell of fried meat and potatoes brought moisture to Adam’s mouth.
“This way,” the guy with the beard said. He wore a beanie today with flaps that hung down around his ears, knotted cords dangling beneath. A flannel shirt and jeans that certainly could have stood on their own.
The kitchen was small and quaint, a gas stove, washtub sink, tiled dark blue counters with a swirly cream-colored pattern none of these men would have picked out. The grout between them was a dark encrusted black. Adam recognized the older lanky gentleman at the table as the one who had driven their arsenal on wheels, the one who had taken him at first. He was halfway through his plate, steam still rising from every forkful.
“That’s Gary,” the bearded man said pointing to the gray-haired man with the ponytail. “I’m Stu. The one you hit over the head is Milton.”
Adam thought better than to apologize. Hopefully, they would take his actions as a normal response to being kidnapped and instead harass Milton for letting a kid get the better of him.
He loaded a red plastic plate up with the stringy meat-and-potato concoction out of the pot on the stove. “So what’s the plan? How long will I be here?”
“I told you I like this kid,” Stu said.
Gary grunted. “We ain’t no babysitters, so stay outta the way.”
Adam nodded, sliding onto the bench across from Gary. “How well do you know Joje? Or George, I guess.”
Gary held his fork halfway to his mouth. “An’ don’ talk.”
Adam continued, feeling emboldened. “He’s putting you in a lot of jeopardy right now. It’s obvious you’re not kidnappers. So what, you sell illegal arms—not like people wouldn’t get them somewhere else—but why do this? You owe him a favor? Is it the money?”
Stu pulled up a tall stump to the table that had been carved into a seat, a grin spreading across his face. Gary shoved his plate back into the center of the table and stood. “Put him back in the shed when he’s done. I don’ need more bullshit.” After walking from the room, he came back to retrieve his plate and fork, carrying the food out with him. “An’ wipe that damn smirk off your face,” he shouted back.
Stu burst into laughter.
2
Blake took the stairs with a cautious limp, clinging to the railing with his left hand. His other hand was brought in close to his center, as if he expected an attack at any second and needed to protect it. It shook like a metronome on its fastest setting, the flesh wet and red, raw hamburger or chewed meat. How Jenna had managed the pain for so long was beyond him, though he was certainly looking forward to uncapping one of her pill bottles and swallowing them dry.
Joje stood at the bottom of the steps, and the comical idea of him tapping his toes sprang to mind. The dead-eye look on his face kept Blake from laughing.
They had to clamber over the blockade in the foyer to get to the front door. Blake looked up at the remaining end of chain still dangling from the ceiling. Crystal and glass cracked beneath their every step. They opened the front door just as the chimes rung a second time.
Jing Jong.
The sound of death.
It wasn’t the police as Blake had thought. Officer McClellan and his gangly partner were out doing what they did best—protecting the residents of Malibu from Looky Lous and purveyors of celebrity maps. Instead, it was a delivery guy. Two of them actually.
“Shouldn’t you have been here yesterday?” Joje asked. “Twenty-four hour delivery?”
“You want it or not,” one of the men said.
It took several minutes to clear a way through the front room, several more to come up with a story about the chandelier. Joje joked that they were doing a reproduction of The Phantom of the Opera.
They wheeled the ginormous screen encased in cardboard and plastic into the family room, the wheels catching on the groove from Drew’s sword in the hall. They were professional and courteous, accepting waters when asked, mounting the screen where the previous one had been and even configuring Blake’s electronics and remotes to the new TV. One of them had tattoos stretching down below his rolled-up sleeves all the way to his wrists. Had the sleeves not been rolled up, no one would ever know his body was covered in ink.
We all hide who we really are from each other, Blake thought.
As the one with tattoos showed Blake the functions on the new remote, his gum doing little to hide the bitter aroma of cigarettes from his breath, Blake noticed the scene being displayed. Channel Seven News on the bottom of the screen, an aerial shot taking up the wide expanse of eighty-five inches above it.
The picture was of the remnants of the warehouse they had destroyed last night.
Pieces of the building had spread in a quarter-mile radius; debris, concrete, and the charred remains of server-related equipment looked like the fallen corpses of a robot war. The scroll at the bottom of the screen read, “Two deaths reported in bombing of tech firm’s storage facility. Police citing a ‘deliberate act of terror.’”
The camera switched to a different location, outside the glass building of Symbio’s headquarters in Westlake Village, their logo brightly lit. JT walked from the parking lot to the front of the building, a swarm of media around him. He spoke rapidly into a microphone, distracted and in a hurry.
“Turn up the volume,” Blake said.
<
br /> The delivery tech raised the remote, and JT’s voice went from a whisper to a shout from the surround speakers in the family room. “. . . of the event is something we have no doubt. The launch of our OS is going to revolutionize the industry—obviously there are those who stand to lose from that. But if anything, this gives us the confidence we’re so far ahead of our competition they have to resort to terrorist-like attacks to try and derail us. The tragic part isn’t the loss of data and equipment, however, it’s the loss of innocent lives.”
The female reporter in the brown fashion-less suit jogging alongside JT pulled the microphone back. “Do you have anything to say to your attackers?”
JT stopped just before the door to the building, two security guards stepping from off camera to the door and holding it open for him. He pulled the small mirrored shades from his eyes, heavy bags displaying the long night he must have had. He looked right into the camera.
“We know who you are. And you’ll wish you could invent a time machine to make sure your parents never met when we’re through with you.”
JT’s face and the Symbio office disappeared, replaced with two news anchors behind a long desk. The anchors began explaining that Symbio’s lawyers had clarified JT’s statement, emphasizing it wasn’t intended as a threat but rather a business reaction to the legal ramifications of such sabotage. Despite JT’s statement, no suspects had yet to be arrested; the authorities were actively investigating several leads.
“Turn it off.”
The screen went close on one of the anchors, a male with hair so stiff it could have been thrown like a Frisbee, the space next to him displaying information on Symbio as he began to highlight the company’s profile. Then the television burst into a digital implosion ending with a blank black screen.
“Everything all right?” the tech asked.
Blake looked at the delivery guy as if seeing him for the first time.
“With the picture and color?” the tech added.
Blake signed paperwork awkwardly with his left hand and walked the two men back to the door. Jenna had oddly been absent from the couch, the revelation of the deaths Blake was responsible for yet to add to her already tainted view of him. She wasn’t in the living room, nor had she been upstairs, but Blake knew better than to ask when in company.
He went to tip the two men on their way out, then remembered he didn’t have a dollar to his name. He looked to Joje but found no help.
“I, uh, apologize,” Blake said. “Don’t have any cash on me.” He felt like a complete asshole as he closed the door softly behind them. He sunk down to the floor, head resting against the door’s frame.
Two deaths.
A deliberate act of terror.
The weight pressed down on him, a thumb squashing an ant, boot snapping a twig. When the cops finally caught up with him, there’d be no question where Blake would spend his retirement.
Checkmate.
He could almost hear the word spoken in Joje’s lisping voice.
“Where’s Jenna?” he asked.
“Who?”
“My wife,” Blake said.
“I’m sorry, I’m not sure who you’re talking about,” Joje said.
“Jenna!” Blake called for her as he got to his feet. “Where is she?”
“You must have hit your head one too many times, Bwake. Jenna’s my wife. You’re in my home. And I’m growing rather tired of your ‘visit.’”
“No. No, no, nooo! Tell me where she is!”
Joje stood at the lip of the step down into the living room, a white sea of carpet behind him. “I’m making sure she’s safe, something you failed to do. I’m not even sure I should bring Adam home, with all your recent failings. But there’s no need to concern yourself with my problems. Let’s concentrate on yours. Like what you’re going to do about the payment to your Internet whiz kid.”
“I don’t give a crap about him. I have done everything you’ve asked, given you everything you wanted. Now bring my family back!” Blake’s finger stabbed at the air as if he could puncture Joje with it.
Joje just peered back at him with derision. “I need to be going.”
“Are we getting Adam first or Jenna?” Blake asked.
“We? There is no more we. This whole pwoject? It’s failed. It’s over! What can I possibly learn from you? How to lose a job? Check. How to screw up a marriage? Check. How to be an absent father? Raise a kid who resents you? Check! I may be partly to blame—I did choose you as my mentor—but you have failed! You’ve dug your own grave with the golden spoon you were handed—thinking you earned this . . .” Joje shook his arms, indicating the house. “Deserved . . . any of this? In one week, Bwake—less than a week—you’ve been brought down to nothing! And I’d love to take credit for it, I really would, but I give credit where credit’s due. So congratulations!” He clapped, hands turned sideways. “We’ve been witness to the fall you’ve been building toward your entire life.”
White heat rumbled inside Blake; he was almost surprised it wasn’t shining from his fingertips. Joje could see the change in his face; he drew up, planting his feet on the wooden floor in front of the step down. They both knew where this was going; it was where Joje had guided Blake from the beginning, a channel allowing the water to think it flowed where it wished.
Joje’s tic pulled at the left side of his face. He didn’t bother trying to make it go away, not this time. “There you are, Bwakey. Welcome back.”
It felt good to be back.
Joje slipped the gun from behind his back but instead of pointing it at Blake he released the cartridge, stepping down onto the plush carpet. Walking backward, he set both pieces on the piano, in the run where sheet music would have been had anyone in the house known how to read sheet music. His eyes were wild.
“I won’t stop,” Blake said.
“I always hoped you wouldn’t.”
Blake screamed—a primitive cry so ancestral no words were needed for it to be understood. He lunged forward, a hurricane of fury. There was no premeditation, no plan, just an outpouring of indignation. Joje had been expecting Blake to take a swing, what he hadn’t expected was all of him.
Blake barreled into Joje with such force it drove him back, lifting him from his feet, his back colliding with the spine of the grand piano. The propped up lid fell, crashing down with an awful clack, piano strings vibrating with a low twang as Blake drove Joje harder into the polished surface. A tall lamp tilted and fell, Joje sliding, Blake following him down until he landed on top of him against the padded carpet.
Joje slammed his open palms against Blake’s ears. Specks of white light floated across Blake’s vision.
Blake drove his knee upward into Joje’s crotch, and a howl escaped from the diaphragm Blake rested atop.
Joje tried to flip himself beneath Blake, but the muscle memories of Blake’s wrestling days were kicking in. He pinned Joje back to the floor, swiping at the hands flying toward his face.
Instinct drove him. Ignoring the flaring in his burned hand, he brought his head down, forehead barreling into the bridge of Joje’s nose. Blood erupted, spouting up, almost drowning out the noise of crunching bones.
Joje cried out in pain. Blake scrambled off his opponent and crawled back on the floor. His hand reached up onto the piano bench, higher, striking a random key, a reverberating bong sounding in low E, searching, higher, fingers scraping against wood, searching, his side pressed into the bench, ribs aching, hand shaking, searching, searching . . .
And finding.
He scrambled to his feet, the click of the clip snapping into the butt of the gun, sounding as righteous as a church choir.
The freckled kid with orange hair was now glistening in blood. Streams streaked down the varied peaks and valleys of his face, speckling the carpet below. He was up on his elbows, blinking hard, his legs stretched out in front of him. A red-stained handprint was matted into the threaded carpet, yet still he smiled, his teeth covered in a slimy, bloody glaze.
“That was a good one, Bwake,” Joje said. “You got me.”
Both his hands came up, palms out, one a pink fleshy color, the other rippled in blood.
Blake walked forward, not nearly as confident with the gun in his left hand, yet at point-blank range he could have been holding it with his toes. He trained it on Joje’s chest. He had been waiting for this moment so long he was worried it wouldn’t live up to the anticipation.
A phone buzzed, vibrating in Joje’s pocket.
“Give it to me. Slowly,” Blake said.
With one hand Joje reached into the pocket of his jeans, drawing the cellphone out. Jenna’s phone.
“Pwabowee Dwew, checking in.” Blood sputtered from his mouth as he spoke.
He tossed it to Blake, who caught it with his burned hand, grimacing. He glanced at it for only half-second intervals. He couldn’t afford to take his eyes off Joje.
“You said you were done with that. Checking in.”
“I lied,” Joje said.
“I thought you never lie.”
“Guess I learned something from you after all.”
“Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to tell me where my son is and where Drew has taken my wife, then we are going to go get them. If anyone even tries to stop us I will put a bullet through your head—something I’ve learned from watching you.”
Joje was shaking his head. He wiped at his face with the back of his hand, smearing it across the carpet. “You need me more than I need you.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Then good luck finding your family.”
The phone began vibrating again, this time in Blake’s hand. He looked down at it, only for a second. A text message, same as before, but completely undecipherable: D2*D3VIRA.
“What does it mean?” Blake asked, holding the phone for Joje to see.
“They’ve arrived. If he doesn’t get the right text back, you won’t have to bother looking for your wife,” Joje said.
