Kid

by Korry Smith

  The media frenzy outside was unexpected. A crowd of reporters with their flashbulbs and cameras had camped outside the federal building. They mobbed the SUV as soon as Garrett pulled out into the street.

  Sticking out their microphones, they yelled questions at me.

  "Why did you do it?"

  "Are you guilty?"

  "Do you want to be called Bonnie?"

  "How long have you been planning to extort money from your boyfriend's father?"

  "How does it feel to be the world's most wanted teenager?"

  Their faces pressed up against the tinted windows, eager to get a peek at me. I stared back, forgetting them all within the next second.

  Garrett cursed and honked, weaving in and out of the congestion of bodies until he was clear of the madness. After the shouts faded in the distance, it got quiet, like really fucking quiet.

  No talking. No radio. No sound. No nothing.

  Skip ahead to the airport, my life nothing but a dull blur now, they dragged me out and loaded me on to the small plane and seated me next to Garrett. My hands cuffed and rested on my lap, he buckled me in and ordered a drink: Scotch on the rocks.

  "It's a rough gig," he joked.

  The flight attendant, aware of my illegal status, smiled at Garrett but kept her distance from me. I would have laughed a week ago, an older woman, with at least fifty pounds on me, terrified of a teenage girl.

  I’m unarmed and shackled to my seat. Fucking harmless.

  She was an idiot.

  Closing my eyes, I leaned my head back and blocked out the rest of the flight.

  It didn't matter.

  Nothing did.

  We landed in Phoenix on schedule. It was midday and the sun high in the sky. It was typical Arizona weather, fucking hot, and the beads of sweat rolled down my forehead and neck. Garrett bitched, excessively, and asked me how I could stand the heat.

  I said nothing, per usual, and he didn't push it.

  Rushed through the airport and shoved into another Government SUV, they carted me off to the Maricopa Courthouse in downtown Phoenix for my arraignment.

  The windows weren’t tinted, and Garrett bitched some more.

  It was a hundred degrees in June, and that was fifteen below normal. If I had the will to care, I would have rolled my fucking eyes and called him a pussy.

  I gazed out the window and towards Camelback Mountain, feeling alien around such familiarity.

  At one time, this place was my home, but now?

  It was set to be my prison.

  More chaos and reporters were standing outside the doors of the courthouse when we arrived, waiting for me to give them a statement. They wanted to be the first ones to get the scoop. I said nothing and gave them nothing but a gaze void of any emotion or empathy.

  Garrett served as a part-time bodyguard, ushering me through the uproar and inside where it was safe. Another officer was waiting for me, and Garrett passed over the reign. There was sympathy in his worn eyes as he said his goodbyes. He knew what my prospects were in a place like this, and it wasn't a fucking fairytale ending.

  But what did he care? I was no longer his problem. I was Officer Joe Arden's responsibility and burden now.

  And this fucking asshole was a piece of work.

  Arden was young and arrogant, and talked with an annoying snort, chuckling, and making crass jokes at my expense. The taunts about my life in prison, and chemical compounds of lethal injection, that may or may not circulate through my veins, were enough to hate the man, and I did. It was the inappropriate placement of his hands and promises of his visitations to my cell that had put him at the top of my list of people I was going to kill.

  I had to wonder what it was about me that attracted these predators.

  Around five that afternoon, I was standing in front of the judge, where he read off the charges I was facing, my rights to an attorney or a public defender, and my plea.

  "Not guilty," I said, even though we all knew I was.

  The judge set my bail, ironically, at two million dollars, and they were moving me to the Durango jail until my preliminary hearing next Thursday.

  "You won't last a day in the general population, Perez. They'll eat you alive," Arden said with a snort, dragging me to a waiting room and throwing me in with twenty other women.

  It was small, compacted, and we were all squished together like a can of sardines. It was cost effective for the state. We were all going to the same place, and the bus hadn't arrived yet.

  I sat there with my head down, picking at my cuticles. They were sore and bleeding. It was a persuasive habit, easing my mind into a focused and concentrated pain.

  "You're famous," a woman said, nudging me with her elbow.

  I glanced up and saw that twenty pairs of eyes were on me. They pointed to the television hanging in the corner. Channel 3 was on, and they had plastered my face all over their valley crime segment. It was an old chapter in my book, but before I had a chance to look away, Alex's beautiful face with those intense and penetrating blue eyes flashed across the screen.

  The backlash of the assault was instant.

  There were collective gasps and girly sighs in the room as they fawned over what was mine. The ache of missing him was vicious and incapacitating. It dismantled the walls of indifference I'd spent all day building up.

  Fuuuuuuck!

  When will the feeling of losing him fade away and go numb?

  A week?

  A month?

  Years?!

  Clenching my jaw, I tried forcing my grief deep down into the darkness of my soul, where it fucking belonged. It was resistant. I couldn't exorcise the hurt out of me like a demon, or push it aside and ignore it, but what if I could transfer it into something more tangible?

  Anger and violence seemed like an eloquent solution.

  I stood up from the bench and turned to the woman on my right. She was flapping her fucking mouth about Alex, they all were, but she was the loudest and most obnoxious. With no thought behind the consequences, I just attacked. Throwing my body on top of hers and on to the floor, I pinned her chest down with my knees and started punching her face, repeatedly.

  The room erupted, and the women went crazy, cheering and goading me on. I was addicted to the way it distracted my brain from thinking of him, and his lips, and how he kissed me, so tender and so sincere.

  I would throw away my freedom for that fucking mouth.

  He was creeping in again, and this made me more pissed off. I cursed and screamed at the woman, squeezing my eyes shut and hitting her harder. The painful sting in my fists fueled me. If it took killing this bitch for me to have one blissful second without thinking about him or how I'll never know his touch for the rest of my pathetic life, then so be it.

  The fury was blinding and inescapable.

  Arden and several officers rushed into the room a second too late and pulled me off her. I was kicking and fighting against them, swearing at her. She was lying on her side, barely breathing, nothing but a mess of blood and gargling moans. I took immense gratification in the destruction I've created upon her fucking face. What did I care if they added another assault charge to my list of offenses?

  Why worry yourself about it? You're already in trouble.

  They moved me into a secluded office with Arden standing as my guard. He was the last person I wanted to be alone with, but I had no choice. This horrible existence was how my life was going to be from now on, forever tossed into the snake's pit.

  Stretching my fingers out and wiggling them around, a sharp and piercing pain shot up my wrist. I sucked in a breath. It hurt, and my knuckles were beat-up, bloodied and swollen, but I didn’t break any bones.

  I'm such a fucking idiot for bare-knuckling that asshole's face.

  Yeah, I know, Alex.

  Me too.

  It was twilight when I finally stepped on to the correctional bus. My eyes searched for that woman who had fallen victim to my wrath, but she wasn't there. I heard whi
spers around me that I’d broken her nose and dislocated her jaw. They had to transfer her to the emergency room. The brutality coming from a girl my size, all doe-eyed and innocent, made the other women take pause.

  They weren't going to fuck with me.

  Arden sat me towards the front of the bus to keep a watchful eye on me. It was absurd how often he would get up from his seat and make sure I was staying well behaved.

  Again, I’m unarmed and shackled to the fucking seat, hardly a threat to anyone.

  As the bus filled up with petty lawbreakers, I sat back and studied my surroundings. It was automatic, a self-preservation skill Alex had instilled in me.

  There were two guards on the bus with pistols, which included Arden, and one shot-gun above the driver's head. It wasn't much, but enough to subdue thirty handcuffed and defenseless convicts. These trips from the courthouse to the Durango jail were the bare minimum in security measures. It was mostly surface streets and a few back roads, and fifteen minutes in total driving time. There was no need, nor did they have the money to make this an armor bus with extra men and weaponry.

  Not that I was in the position to make a break for it, but it wasn't an impossible feat.

  I shifted my bored gaze out the dirty window as the bus pulled forward onto the street with jerky and abrupt movements.

  In every person we passed on the way to Durango, I saw Alex. I would pick out specific resembling features and torture myself with them. One guy had the same disheveled and black colored hair, quickening my pulse to an insane rate. Another guy, heavily tattooed with his arms covered in sleeves, made me think of all those times I laid beneath Alex, tracing the ink on his chest with my fingertips.

  I fucking love you…

  Closing my eyes to stop the tears, I focused my attention on Arden's annoying voice as he talked with the other guard and bus driver. They were complaining about their shitty pay and the ugly women that this job brought them. It was disgusting, and after that, I decided it was better to cry and consume myself with memories of Alex.

  I was in the middle of reliving the night we met when the call came through the wire.

  "Hey, shut up, asshole, and turn that up!" The guard’s voice was urgent and sudden, interrupting my fantasy.

  Dispatch reported that the Mexican cartel, less than ten miles away, ambushed a correctional bus carrying the men. They wounded two officers, and one was dead. All detainees accounted for, but one. The suspects fled the scene and headed southbound on the ten. There were no detailed descriptions of the vehicles or license plates.

  "You think we should turn back?" The driver eased his foot slowly off the gas pedal.

  "What the fuck for?" Arden replied, arrogant as ever.

  "That was the five-oh-five bus..." the driver trailed off.

  "Yeah, and..."

  "Ryan was on that bus," the other guard spoke up.

  My head snapped up, and I locked eyes with Arden.

  He knew.

  I'll come for you

  "Relax." Arden snorted. “Even if it was Ryan who got away, he's not going to risk getting caught just to come back for her."

  You severely underestimate me.

  The driver gazed back at me in the mirror, and I could see he took little comfort in Arden's words, but he listened anyway, increasing his speed back up to forty-five.

  The hope that died this morning was brought back and revived. The pull that connected me to him was dominant again and I could feel his breath on me.

  He’s close.

  Bright headlights appeared suddenly and flooded the rear of the bus, illuminating the entire cab. The roar of multiple engines rumbled and shook the seats. I looked out the window and saw several cars coming up on the side and speeding ahead to cut the driver off.

  My heart hammered against my chest.

  He's here.

  I leaned forward and gripped the seat in front of me, bracing myself for what was to come. The lady over to my left was staring at me with her eyebrow raised in an unspoken question.

  "You might want to hold on to something.” I was unable to hide my giddiness and wide smile. "It's about to get real bumpy."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The cars hit their brakes to slow the bus down and make way for a lifted truck. It sped up from the rear, coming in fast and hard on the left, ramming us in the side. The sound of metal crushing and grinding against metal was loud and reverberated throughout the cab. The driver swerved away from the assault on instinct.

  The sharp turn threw me across the seat and into the path of the window, my head slamming into the glass. Bouncing back with a raging ache in my temple, I was flung towards the center aisle when the driver jerked the bus to the right, overcorrecting himself.

  The only thing keeping me in place was the handcuffs, securing my ankles and wrists to the chain bolted to the floor. Pushing myself up by my forearms and elbows, I sat back up and planted my feet on the seat in front of me. My arms tucked between my legs, I clutched the corner edges of the bench and dug my fingers into the stiff leather. I was bound and determined to see this shit through.

  "What the fuck are you doing, Dave?" Arden asked. "Go around them!"

  "I'm trying!" He glanced out his side window. "But this asshole won't stop ramming me!"

  The guy in the truck was relentless in his pursuit to drive us off the road, engine revving to a dangerous level. The 4x4 collided with the bus, repeatedly, each blow more forceful than the last. Dave was losing control of the steering wheel and the situation.

  Bum-bum, bum-bum, bum-bum, bum-bum.

  My heart was thundering a thousand beats per minute. I was breathing fast, at a non-stop pace, the air filling my lungs with the thrill of the unfolding madness. The anticipation was building inside of me, on the verge of combustion.

  Every tense second only meant that I was that much closer to seeing him.

  "Try going that way," the nameless guard said, pointing to a visible gap in the road, and one that I couldn't see from my obscured vantage point.

  "I don't have a clear path to get by, and they're blocking every single lane. If I go…" Dave was interrupted by a gunshot that rang out in the air. "Jesus, they're shooting at us now?!"

  Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop!

  Six to twenty shots, I fucking lost count, fired off in rapid succession. It riddled the windshield with holes. Everyone ducked down in the seats, and I covered my head, praying that a stray bullet didn't find its way to me. The guard standing in the aisle between Dave and Arden wasn't so lucky.

  "Fuck…" He spun around and stood there in a daze with a hand on his chest. "I'm hit."

  "What?" Arden's head snapped up with wide and disbelieving eyes. "Are you sure?"

  "Yeah," he said, the blood gushing out between his fingers and saturating his uniform. "I'm pretty-fucking-sure."

  Stumbling back, the guard collapsed into the nearest seat. A convict occupied it, and she sprang into action, adding pressure with both of her hands to the gaping wound, but there was nothing she could do for him. I watched the color drain from his face and onto the floor. In three minutes, two full pumps of a failing heart, this man will be dead.

  "God damn it!" Arden rubbed the back of his neck, eyes shifting with indecision from his fallen comrade to the shit storm in front of him.

  "I think it's time to pull over, Joe." Dave eased up on the gas and turned the wheel to the right.

  Arden wasn't going to win, we all knew it, but he wasn't going to back down without a fight.

  "No! Keep driving!" He whipped out his pistol and cocked it. "Fuck that asshole. He's not getting her." Leaning over Dave, he pulled the lever to the bus door, and it swung open. He fought against the incoming wind, descending the steps, and reaching out for the side rail. He hung his body halfway outside the bus, raising his arm and firing his gun off into the darkness, using the red tail lights as his guide.

  Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.

  There was no gunfire in return for the two magazines h
e unloaded into the night, and that surprised me.

  Why did they stop shooting?

  Fear overtook me as my mind imagined where Arden's bullets may or may not have found its mark.

  What if he hit Alex?

  I roared with a thick and guttural scream, desperate and angered, pulling at the handcuffs with the metal tearing into my skin. Hatred for this man fueled my efforts. I vowed to break free and show him how much I wanted him dead.

  "Damn it!" Arden said, out of bullets and out of fucking luck, ducked back inside. "Is the shotgun loaded?" he asked Dave, going straight for it.

  "Yeah, but the shells are in the—"

  POP!

  A single shot, prominent and deafening, echoed and chilled me to the bone. The truck sped off, and the glass on the driver's side window shattered and sprayed with blood. Dave convulsed for a fraction of a second before going limp and slumping over the steering wheel.

  The bus veered to the right, and everyone went flying in their seats, like dolls, into the center aisle. It happened so fast and without warning that it took Arden a moment to understand that Dave was dead from a shotgun blast to the head. By the time he did realize it, he couldn't regain control of the bus, and it was already two seconds too late.

  The path of the bus, already predestined, flew off the road at fifty miles an hour and careened head-on into a shallow ditch.

  It played out in my mind like a movie.

  I closed my eyes and held on tight.

  This shit is going to hurt!

  The impact of the crash launched my body forward, but the chains brought me back and slammed my head hard against the seat. The air jotted and knocked out of me, and I hunched over, pulling myself together. I tried to breathe, painful with each inhale and excruciating with each exhale. My skull was throbbing. My vision blurred. I reached up and touched my forehead, inspecting for blood.

  Nothing, it was dry, but that didn't mean shit. I knew what the consequences of a concussion were, internal bleeding, and yaddi yaddi yadda. It was a rough landing, and I survived. That was all that mattered for now.

  A dust cloud surrounded the bus with a brown haze, and the convicts were moaning and groaning in pain, calling out for help that wouldn't come. I shifted in my seat and tried to prop myself up to look around and take stock of the injured or dead, but everything went black. I was weak and every move, even the slightest, fucking hurt. I gave up and closed my eyes, falling back in my seat to wait.