Conviction (Wated Series Book 2)

by Lance, Amanda

  I had spent a sleepless night worrying, tossing in my blankets and reliving the destruction. If Charlie had been that reckless, I didn’t want to imagine what he might have done if he knew Adam was still on-campus. Or did he know Adam was still around? Oh God, could he really have thought that I would betray him like that?

  I suddenly couldn’t think, couldn’t remember if I had ever mentioned whether or not Adam and I e-mail regularly. What would Charlie think when he saw our correspondence? Would he know they were innocent, or would he, like always, assume the worst? I knew he was all ready jealous, but not telling him about e-mailing Adam might suggest untrustworthiness anyway, and if Charlie had been looking through my things for indicators of my imaginary infidelity then it probably would take much.

  I thought I had made it clear I only cared about Adam as a friend. Still, all my convincing wouldn’t do any good if Charlie thought I lied to him and Adam was still in town for me…No, I decided. No, that didn’t make any sense. Charlie was the only one for me and he knew that. Besides, I didn’t even know Adam was still in town, how would Charlie?

  The images popped up on the TVs in the library. One by one, they came on each of the flat screens, gradually taking over as each station interrupted their broadcast with the bulletin. The only TV that didn’t seem to give in was the sports channel, though that never caught my attention to begin with.

  I saw it out of the corner of my eye, at first seeing, but not really seeing classmates who were nudging each other, then pointing in my direction. My mind was with Charlie in every possible capacity, wondering, hoping, and worrying. I was actually so enamored that I scarcely acknowledged people gathering around the larger television behind the librarian’s desk, the sets of eyes on me, one pair after the other, and the flash from camera phones.

  Staring out the window, I watched the sun play peek-a-boo with the clouds. If Charlie wasn’t okay, I didn’t know what I’d do.

  Then he was there. Not in the flesh, but still, in image at the very least. I focused on the reflection at the window panel, and sure enough, more than one television screen showed his picture, his mug shot, to be more specific. Old and sterilized in black and white, I had seen it before, though I hardly saw it as the Charlie I knew. And then it was everywhere, like every pair of eyes was everywhere, watching me as I stood up. Their owners parted, making a path for me as I went from one TV to the next, my brain refusing to process what I was seeing. The anchors on the news were talking about Charlie, using words like ‘counterfeiting’ and ‘murder,’ phrases like ‘arms trafficking,’ and ‘ties to terrorism.’ And every now and then, there was my name and the term ‘suspected kidnapping.’

  I think I must have asked for the volume to be raised because one of the TAs I recognized stared at me and stood on a stool to hit the volume button. I saw my picture on the screen; one of my family taken after Mom’s diagnosis, zoomed in on my profile. But then the anchorman came back on, he was yelling into his headset and the cameraman at the same time. Other news people were talking around him, though their own camera people struggled to focus.

  “It’s difficult to know exactly what took place, Cindy. Right now, all we can confirm is that Charles Hays has, in fact, been captured, I’ll repeat that, Cindy, Charles Hays has been captured alive by authorities here in Newark, New Jersey—”

  Cindy talked to the anchorman, the anchorman talked to Cindy, and somewhere in between someone tried to talk to me, except that I couldn’t hear them as I swam in that denial Charlie once teased me about. This was some kind of mistake, an inconceivable misunderstanding that I’d laugh about years from now, with Charlie when we were in bed, wrapped up in one another. If I closed my eyes and imaged it hard enough, I could make this all untrue, I could make it unreal.

  “—our viewers at home may remember Charles Hays as the primary suspect from last summer’s Battes kidnapping, where he is seen here just moments before the honor student’s disappearance.”

  Everything started to come in and out, almost like that noise a computer makes when it overheats. Yet even as it was happening, I thought it was almost funny that I was self-aware of my reaction. I tried to think of the name, searched my mental database, but got distracted trying to think of whether or not Psych 101 was one of the textbooks Charlie had destroyed.

  “Local police have taken custody and we have confirmation that they will be brings Hays here for questioning.”

  Noises went off in my head, when the camera panned out to show off Northern State Prison, a facility that I recognized only because Adam had mentioned it once. The realization that they weren’t even bothering to book him in a county jail boggled me, making little painful bursts go off just behind my ears. I heard the words repeatedly; they were taking him away, locking him up and throwing away the key. My body didn’t know how to understand the concept, and compensated by alternating it with sounds.

  Instead of hearing the news there were deafening explosions.

  “…when approached, did not resist arrest.”

  Walls crumbled.

  “And I believe—yes, Cindy, it looks like they are bringing him in right now. I understand that last cruiser in line there—ah, yes, we can see the suspect from here—”

  Bombs dropped.

  With police officers on each side of him, hands cuffed behind his back and lights flashing from greedy cameras, there was no way to argue mistaken identity. Charlie’s profile couldn’t be mistaken. I recognized the lines of his neck tattoo, the scar above his eyebrow, and though the camera lights dulled them, his kaleidoscope eyes. Other than that, it was difficult to tell whether or not the cops were trying to keep the reporters at bay or if they were clearing space for them. My mind registered that words were shouted but little else. I only had eyes for Charlie.

  “What’s going on down there, Chet?”

  “Well, as you can see, Hays is completely unresponsive to the situation around him. It’s as though he’s indifferent to his own arrest. Frankly, Cindy, his behavior is downright chilling.”

  The background noise in my own head became so intense I covered my ears. I couldn’t look away as they pushed him through the crowd, arms and legs shackled separately, while armed officers remained diligent behind him and at the prison gates.

  “I believe apathetic behavior is typical of sociopaths, Chet.”

  Then he was gone, barred behind a steel door and there was nothing left but replays of the scene and more speculation. In those few seconds, however, all I kept seeing was his face and hearing the popping in my head. His expression was as blank as the anchors had described. Once I had seen something similar in him, once when he had lied and tried to make me believe he didn’t love me. But this was entirely different, this person they walked through the prison walls only wore the features and body of my Charlie, everything else was different. As if his soul had never even been there at all.

  “Truly horrifying, Cindy.”

  I don’t remember the shallow breathing or the dizziness. Moreover, I can’t recall exactly when I became deaf to the sounds of the room or how everything melted away. All I really remember is the screaming, the silent screaming that vibrated in my head and made me see colors. I sent a message to my brain to make the scream vocal, but it didn’t come.

  I was trapped in my own post-apocalyptic world.

  I was later told that my hyperventilating scared those around me to hear it. The librarian, who thought I was having an asthma attack, called emergency services. Then there was a nurse at the medical station asking me questions, wanting to know what I had taken, wanting to know what I was allergic to. How had I gotten there? What was my name? Did I suffer from any chronic conditions? The distances between point A and B were lost to me; instead the moments flickered with reminiscent things that didn’t make sense: someone putting a paper bag in my hand, a blood pressure cuff on my arm, a nurse looking at my wrists for a medical ID bracelet.

  “I’ll call her roommate, she might know…”

 
Inside, I kept screaming. I was shouting these incoherent words that didn’t even make sense to me, but I couldn’t get them out, couldn’t set them free.

  “We should call an ambulance,” someone said.

  Then the screaming stopped and there was nothing.

  Melinda came, said something about my neurotic nature, making the nurse smile.

  “There’s at least one or two this time of the year.”

  Knocks came from outside the exam room and maybe Melinda made a joke about campus rent-a-cops when she opened it…quiet whispers were exchanged for a long time.

  The smiles went away after that.

  Shock is a funny thing. For those first few hours with the phone calls and questions, I was outside of myself, letting everyone talk about me as though I wasn’t there. Normally, that would have annoyed me; the academic advisor I’d never met making arrangements for me to take my finals at home, not to mention the associate dean and head of security huddled in the corner talking about college publicity. Except, the shock wraps you up in a warm cocoon and keeps you at a pleasant distance from everyone and everything, so that while your body is there, the rest of you just sort of floats on.

  “Addie, what do you want to do?”

  I stared out at the hedges from the window. Could Charlie see shrubbery where he was? Did he even have a window?

  “Addie?”

  “Huh?”

  “What do you want to do?” Melinda insistently tried to drag me back down to Earth.

  “About what?”

  “About what’s going on? There’s already a bunch of reporters on campus and it’s probably going to get worse.”

  I turned back to the hedges.

  “Your Dad wants to come and get you. Is that—”

  “No.”

  “No to your Dad?”

  “No to leaving.”

  Without realizing it entirely, I meant what I said. I suspected that why Charlie turned himself in had something to do with him taking my phones and laptop. If I could figure out why he did that, then maybe I would know what to do about it. And though I was supposed to go home in a two weeks anyway, I didn’t have the patience to tolerate Dad just then. Plus, what about the others? Though Elise and the guys had cleared out of the house, there was the slight possibility they might come back, or that they might try to get in touch with me before I left for New Jersey. I only had a few days, but they might have been enough to figure out what in the hell was going on.

  Until then, I wouldn’t allow myself to think of Charlie caged up like an animal. He had just been with me less than a week ago and we would be together soon. I had to continue to believe that for the sake of my own sanity. There was simply nothing else to it.

  I continued to go to class, weighed down by police escorts and the stares of classmates. If nothing else, however, Othello opened successfully, and Melinda was relieved that the role would act as her final for the majority of her classes. Admittedly, I struggled to even live through her happiness. Sounds and motions went past me, over me, through me, and I was oblivious to it all, trapped in the wake of the awful plague I had brought upon myself. I studied, ate only enough to prevent stomach pains, and continued to call the numbers I had. Feeling helpless, I even enlisted Cora’s help and asked her to call the prison, but they told her information about that ‘particular inmate’ was unavailable and hung up. Originally, I had just been glad she didn’t seem to tell anyone about my inquiry, but with each passing day, I became even more despaired at the prospect, feeling a new blackness inching along my insides. It started out as a speck, and I often imagined it like a parasite, a dark little thing, that may not have been entirely noticeable to anyone on the outside but was growing, growing, growing…

  I imagined the little, black parasite as it morphed with my muscles, transcending with my movements until it was with everything I did and said, closing out my vocal cords until I forgot the sound of my own voice. The black parasite had whitewashed away all feeling of both subpar human enjoyment and disgust. By the time the black parasite had made its way into my bones, I was no longer a complete person.

  Suspect Confesses Murder, Kidnapping

  (US NIGHTLY)—California

  This past Tuesday, police in Newark, New Jersey received an anonymous phone call about a possible fugitive sighting. Upon investigating the drinking establishing, Continental, police were confronted by Charles Hays, parolee offender, and main suspect in the murder of Spenser Hanson and the kidnapping of Adeline Battes.

  Hays did not resist arrest and sources within Northern State Prison claim that he has confessed to the homicide of Hanson as well as the Battes kidnapping. When interrogated further, Hays admitted to being involved in several shipments of arms trafficking, though refused to give the names of his associates.

  At this time he is being held without bail and no trial date has been set.

  “You need to stop reading that garbage.”

  Melinda tried to take the newspaper away but I held it to me like a prized possession. Every day there was some new piece of information about him; psychologists speculating and lawyers analyzing. Like everything else the media produced, it was junk, but sometimes they would include facts about his life and it helped me get through the day. I could picture him in a juvenile detention center in Alabama, and seeing his early adolescent mug shot only made it easier.

  “Serious, Addie, I get that you don’t want to talk about this, and that’s fine. It’s your business. I won’t butt in where I’m not wanted. But if you aren’t going to talk about it, then you need to do something, you need to be proactive. Don’t let this creep get the better of you.”

  I pulled a blanket over my head. It was the weekend before finals, so at least staring eyes left me alone long enough to bury themselves in textbooks. And though it was only two in the afternoon, I was back in my pajamas. I knew I wouldn’t get back up until I was required to do so the next morning.

  “I’m serious, Addie. If you don’t get up, then I’m calling student services. I’ll—” she stopped her ramblings, and I heard her begin tapping her thumb against the dresser knob. I could almost see her sly smirk under the safe dark of the blanket. “I’ll call Agent Harpsten.”

  “You don’t hate me that much.” I was calm, not angry, not serene, just nothing. Not unlike the nothingness that had taken me not once, but twice in those first days I knew Charlie.

  Was I on the verge of death now, too? Or was I already dead? Stuck in one of those in between places because heaven and hell didn’t want me?

  “It would be for your own good.” She was smug in the same way she often was when returning from a date. I could hear the pre-victory in her voice, and I knew she was right. But Adam reminded me of Charlie’s eagerness to be locked up. At least to me that’s what it had seemed like. I had spent the last week trying to figure out what was going through his head, trying to picture what could possess him to do that to me, to us. Why would he do that? I had already decided the papers were wrong about him refusing a lawyer, Charlie would never do that. He wouldn’t.

  And the thing of it was, was that Adam just represented a lock that kept Charlie away from me.

  I sighed, tossed the blanket from me. “What do you want?”

  Melinda jumped and down joyfully. I couldn’t help but think of Polo and winced.

  “I want you to go out. Come to the show tonight. There are only three more before we close.”

  In theory this didn’t seem too horrible. It would require getting dressed, brushing teeth, hair, etcetera…still, the idea of any interaction had the potential to make the black parasite go dormant, and I couldn’t have that. Instead, I wanted to recede; tuck myself away until Addie Battes became nothing more than a memory, my name nothing more than déjà vu on the lips of others.

  “I’d rather not.” I sat up, brushed the hair from my face. It stuck to my neck with tears and grime.

  “Yes,” she declared. “Not an option. Let’s go.”

  She m
oved to shove me from the bed, but I stopped her before she could.

  “That’s unnecessary.”

  “Is it? Are you going to go or do I have to drag you?”

  “Okay, okay.” I held my hand up to silence her. I was afraid any more talking would puncture the black parasites permanently, and I wasn’t sure I could handle that. “I’m getting up.”

  “Good.” She smiled. “And for the love of God, take a shower. Just because you’re going through post-traumatic…whatever, doesn’t mean you have to smell bad doing it.”

  There weren’t many people in the auditorium. I suspected the proud parents, friends, spouses, and local art aficionados had already seen the show once or twice, and the ones who lingered now were only mildly interested staff members or students looking for a cheap date idea.

  Since I was with Melinda there was the slight benefit of not having to pay for a ticket, not that I would have cared or minded using the emergency credit card, but despite my best effort I failed to stay the least bit positive. Money was possibly the last thing on my mind at that moment. A gum wrapper on the theater floor seemed more significant. Nevertheless, because she had to be there an hour before the show actually started, and she insisted I go with her to make sure I actually go, I was there an hour early as well. I took a seat in the far back row with the remains of my ethics textbook. If nothing else, I’d use the time to study for finals, although at this point, that too, seemed arbitrary.

  I flipped to one of dog-eared pages and began to read. The words went in one ear and out the other. I read them again but they were just words, not strung together to make sentences, let alone sense. I closed the book and sighed, leaning my head back in the uncomfortable chair.