The Warning

by Saul, Jonas

  “You have won a five minute reprieve. I’m being told that you were alone when you showed up here, but chatter on the scanner in the security radio room has possible police presence on their way. Don’t move. Just stay where you are or I’ll aim for your crotch to see how you take a bullet in there. Trust me, I’m a sadistic bastard.”

  At five feet, she knew she was close enough, but when he stopped speaking, Armond backed up to the door. He opened it and stepped into the hallway, the whole time keeping an eye on her. It gave her time to think. Maybe someone found the Nissan. It’s likely the cop she put in the trunk had called in to report the traffic stop/accident. Once he was let out of the trunk, they’d found Vivian’s note on the seat, leading them here. But would they come to ask around, looking for Sarah? Or would they come armed and ready to attack a compound? She guessed the former which meant she still needed to do this on her own.

  She turned around to the girls assembled by her. “It’s okay. This is almost over. You are all going home soon.”

  Footsteps coming up the hallway made her turn around. The guy who told her to leave the house and go to the basement was there. She couldn’t hear what they were saying. The guy nodded and stepped into the room.

  “Okay girls, everyone up. This is all over. I want everyone to leave with Armond here, except you Sarah.”

  The girls got up and started filing out; some were visibly crying now. The last girl at the door turned and said, “My name is Jennifer. I just wanted you to know. Thank you, Sarah.”

  “How sweet,” Armond said and pushed the girl out. “Sarah, my friend here is going to make you uncomfortable for five minutes or so until I return to kill you. Please enjoy his company.” Armond turned to his man. “Watch yourself with this one. She is a tough bitch.”

  “She’s beat up and has a broken wrist. I didn’t survive Desert Storm to be taken out by this piece of shit,” the guy said looking Sarah up and down.

  The door shut hard behind Armond as he stepped out, leaving the friend and Sarah alone.

  “How do you want to do this?” Sarah asked. “You wanna fuck first? Or should I kill you then fuck you?”

  “That’s some mouth you have for a pretty girl,” he said and with a quick movement, he stepped in and elbowed her in the face so hard she teetered back, smacked into the wall and slid down to the floor.

  Blackness formed around her eyes. She couldn’t pass out. If she passed out she knew it would be over. Sarah Roberts would never leave this room.

  With her eyes open, but fluttering with tears again, she looked at her left hand and smacked herself on the opposite side of where he hit her with his elbow. It stung but it didn’t wake her too much. Her body felt numb. A part of her wondered why she struggled.

  Let it go. Let it go.

  The guy was removing his jacket. He started to work on his shoulder holster next. “I understand your family knows Armond intimately.”

  Sarah wondered what that meant. In her foggy mind she couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. She could see he was removing his shirt now.

  “Did you know that the Mormons consummate their marriages to fourteen - and sixteen-year-olds up here in this room? I understand it was a room just like this where Armond took your sister almost twenty years ago. Did you know that it was Armond who raped and murdered Vivian?”

  A fire raged down inside her mind. Caverns alighted and the fight that was diminishing in the throbbing pain and the lightness of being started to fuel hatred so deep that no pain could subdue it. Sarah reached up to the back of her neck and pulled a small clump of hair out.

  “Hey, what’re you doing? That’s fucking gross, man. Isn’t that painful?” He stopped undressing to watch her.

  She felt alive again. Sarah felt a power and strength never known before. She grabbed another thatch and ripped it out. The pain felt sweet, delicious. She remembered a time when this pain was her comfort zone, when she needed it to get through the day. That was a long time ago. She’d healed since then, but right now, the exhilarating rush was becoming addictive. On her third pull, she saw the guys face distorted.

  “You are fucked,” he said.

  She leaned hard against the wall and started to push herself up. “I love this. Pulling my hair out takes me back to another time. It was a time when I killed people like you for what you’ve done. You don’t get a judge. You don’t get a jury. You get me.”

  “You’re actually nuts, aren’t you? You’re fucking crazy.”

  He started toward her. She reached back again, her head clear now, the dark buzzing around her vision gone. Under the pins that she’d placed carefully in her hair, she found the pepper spray bottle. With her thumb, she unclasped the safety. He was right in front of her now, his arm recoiling to start another assault.

  Sarah tore at the bottle, ripped it out and sprayed it from two feet away directly into his eyes and mouth while she screamed like a new escapee from the rubber room.

  He staggered back, away from her, clutching at his eyes, his breathing now coming in ragged pants. Sarah had closed her eyes to slits and held her breath after the scream. She was still too close to risk breathing. She ducked down, grabbed his gun out of the holster on the floor and aimed it at his crotch, then flipped the safety and fired.

  Blood shot out where his penis should be and down he went, screaming like a man should never scream.

  Sarah made a beeline for the door but before she got there, Armond opened it.

  He had a gun out and pointing at her from seven feet away.

  His weapon spat loud and clear.

  She didn’t get a chance to shoot as Armond’s bullet caught her on the left side of her chest, knocking her off balance and spinning her down to the floor.

  As she lost consciousness, an odd thought struck her.

  Where did all the blood on Armond’s face come from?

  Chapter 49

  Three weeks later…

  Sarah rolled her eyes, trying to open them. The pain kept her from moving. Her head ached. Everything felt tired, sore and pissed off.

  She tried again. Dim light entered her eyelids. A hospital room. Flowers to her right, flowers to her left. Dull hospital colors on the wall.

  She moved her head slowly, looking to see if she was alone. The pain shot up from somewhere in her chest.

  A man sat in a chair, reading a book. He looked like a cop.

  His head rose. Her eyes shut.

  Too much pain. She passed out.

  ***

  Noise in the room. People milling around. A man talking.

  “She woke up and looked at me. Then she closed her eyes again.”

  “How long ago did this happen?” Her mother.

  “About an hour ago.”

  “Okay everyone,” a different man. “I’m sure she’ll wake up again soon. Let’s try to keep our voices down and our hopes up. Amelia, your daughter is strong. She’s a fighter. I’m confident she’ll pull through. The operation was a success. Now we just have to wait.”

  “I know, I know, I just…”

  Sarah slept.

  ***

  Movement around her again.

  She opened her eyes. Too bright. The sun shone through the window across her body, warming her under the covers. The pain had subsided to something more bearable.

  The nurse caught her eye. They looked at each other. Then, with the professionalism expected of her, the nurse calmly walked around the bed, lifted a glass of water and applied the bendable straw to Sarah’s lips. Her throat felt ragged. The water cut at first, then soothed.

  She tried to speak when the straw pulled out, “Than…ks,” but failed as her throat’s fire wasn’t diminished yet.

  “Rest. Relax. I’ll get the doctor. Your mother has been with you since you got here. She’s in the cafeteria. I’ll go get her.”

  “How…” she tried. Then again, “How…long?”

  “How long have you been here?” The nurse asked for clarification.

&
nbsp; Sarah nodded slowly.

  “Almost a month. I’ll get the doctor. He’ll explain everything.

  Sarah nodded.

  Three minutes later her mother ran in.

  “Sarah, you’re awake. Oh baby, it’s so good to have you back.”

  Her mother hugged her arm, no doubt afraid to touch her anywhere else. She began sobbing, her tears running along Sarah’s forearm.

  “Don’t…cry, mom.”

  She let go and stood up, wiping her eyes. “Tell me, Sarah. Talk to me. What happened this time? Why did it all go wrong? You help people all the time, but nothing like this happens. Why didn’t Vivian help?”

  “Vivian did. She…saved us…all. Without…her, we would…all be dead.”

  “I don’t understand,” Amelia said, raising a hand to her mouth.

  She seems to be getting more emotional as she ages, Sarah thought. “I will…explain everything…when I come home.”

  A man in a white lab coat walked in.

  “Ahh, glad to see you’re awake. My name is Doctor Rosenberg. How are you feeling?” he asked as he passed Amelia and stepped closer.

  Sarah nodded softly and whispered, “Not good. I hate…being shot.”

  “You awake with a sense of humor. Good, I like that. It’s a good sign.”

  “Can I…go home now?”

  “Not yet. More bed rest for you, young lady. You’ve been through a lot. I don’t get many patients as strong as you,” the doctor spoke as he reached for a clipboard at the end of the bed.

  “I go home or I walk out of here. Your…choice.”

  He looked at her and smiled. “They told me you were a feisty one, but you won’t be able to walk out of here for at least a week. You’ve been shot numerous times. Lucky for you two of the bullet wounds only needed stitches. You were hit so hard in the face, it looks like multiple times, that you almost had your orbital bone around your eye broken. The bullet that did you in, entered your chest just left of your heart. It’s a miracle that it missed all bones and any major organs. All it did was lodge itself beside your heart. When you were brought in for surgery, we successfully removed it leaving no permanent damage in its wake. For the amount of trauma you’ve experienced, I’d say you’re lucky to be alive.”

  Sarah nodded. “I’m still…leaving.”

  The doctor smiled. “Tell me, do you get this strength from your mother or your father?”

  “My sister.”

  “Your sister? I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had a sister.”

  “She died…when I was a baby but we still chat once in a while,” Sarah said with a sly smile.

  The doctor, clearly unsettled now, stepped back and edged around her mother.

  “I’ll leave you two alone now,” he said after slipping the clipboard back on the end of her bed. Then he was gone.

  “Sarah, he’s been good to you. Why did you rustle his feathers?”

  “I want out of here. I hate…hospitals.”

  “I know. I’ll get your father and see when we can take you home.”

  Tiredness crept up on her. She didn’t want to sleep. She needed to know how it all turned out first. Was she a sitting duck, just waiting for Armond to walk in here and kill her? Why else would they have a police guard in her hospital room.

  “Tell me how I got…here. What happened?”

  “I can help with that,” a man said.

  Parkman walked into view.

  “I had a hell of a time trying to keep on your tail after you ran away from me at the hangar. I found your note in the motel waste basket and then your other note in the Nissan where you put the cop in the trunk. Sarah, you might want to try trusting me. One of these days you could get killed for real.”

  He stepped up closer. Sarah could almost smell his cologne. Sleep oozed over her, causing her eyes to flit. She forced them open, determined to sleep in peace with the knowledge that Armond, her sister’s killer, was dead.

  “Tell me…more.”

  There was a chair beside the bed. Parkman grabbed it, turned it backwards and straddled it. Her mother walked to the door, closed it and then stood at the foot of the bed.

  “When I got to the compound, the gates were broken so I drove right in, knowing you may be in trouble. I’d already called Jill Hanover. You might remember her from four years ago? She had an FBI team en-route. Within ten minutes of their security giving me the run around, the FBI showed up and we recognized Armond. The condensed story is he fired on us, we fired back.”

  “Is that…why I saw blood on his face?”

  “Yes, it must’ve been. But Sarah, you’re a hero. Did you know that he had a total of eighteen girls he was subjecting to horrible abuse? All of them were hospitalized and then released. Two of them were runaways. We’re still locating a home for them. I also wanted you to know that no formal charges are going to be filed against you. Andre, the Trooper you stuck in the trunk, said he would never have believed you if you told him about the kidnapped girls at the compound. For you to take his car, which for obvious reasons he wouldn’t have offered, and ram the gates to try to free them was very brave.”

  “Where is…Armond?”

  “Everyone was arrested at the compound. Even the Mormon leader, who is being brought up on a whole host of unrelated charges regarding how young some of his wives are.”

  Sleep forced its way through the door and almost put her down. She fought back. Sleep could be such an enemy.

  “Where is…Armond? You’re avoiding…”

  Parkman looked at Amelia. Then he turned and looked down at his shoes. “We don’t know.”

  She moved her left shoulder on purpose. The pain was sharp, but it woke her enough to glare at him.

  “What?” she asked, her teeth clenched, her head raised a little off the pillow.

  Parkman returned her stare. “When we got upstairs, he had disappeared. You were bleeding heavily from your chest wound. The FBI helicopter was still outside. Andre and I picked you up, raced downstairs and ordered the chopper to bring you here. When we re-joined the search I was informed that he had gotten away somehow. In the cavernous rooms on the top floor of the Mormon Temple there are hidden areas with crawl spaces behind the wall panels. We didn’t know about them until it was too late.”

  Sarah dropped her head back to the pillow. “So that’s…why I have…a cop in my room.”

  Parkman started talking again. She shut her eyes.

  The pain in her shoulder was ebbing.

  Sleep was merciful. Sleep became a friend now. She welcomed it. If only to turn the world off for a little more.

  Sarah dozed off, not waking again for fifteen hours.

  ***

  It was a warm sunny day in late August when her father wheeled her out of the hospital and into his car, to the doctor’s chagrin.

  Now a month later, in her old bedroom, her mother doting over her every wish, Sarah wrote furiously.

  Vivian gave her instructions. Together they plotted. The odds weren’t great. She was prepared to take her chances.

  But this time, she decided to not be so nice. What’s there to lose? She should be dead right now. Vivian says when she does pass away, they will be reunited. But it’s not something Sarah should be focusing on. She still has a lot of work to do here. There are a lot of people to save.

  Sarah whispered back to Vivian, “I have people to kill, too.”

  Then she called her father into her room to set the plan in motion.

  Within forty-eight hours she would be on Armond’s tail again. Human garbage shouldn’t be allowed to breathe the same air as the girls he has raped and murdered.

  This time, when they meet again, she was going to make sure the first thing she did was shoot him in the face, twice. Once for Vivian and once for her.

  As close as they could be, on earth and in heaven, Sarah and her sister were hunting.

  Armond was her prey.

  Chapter 50

  One month later…

  Parkman
knocked on their door a second time. He stepped back into the sun, letting its heat soak through his light satin shirt. Today was his second attempt at quitting the toothpicks. It was unsanitary, unattractive and uncool. Every once in a while he caught himself moving his tongue and trying to flip the pick to the other side of his lips, but nothing was there.