by Ellis, T. W.
It’s way past her bedtime and she’s yawning, yet Rusty feels alert, as though she is both awake and asleep at the same time. The latter has a good portion to do with firing up the lights and doing her best to push the accelerator pedal through the footwell. She’s gripped by some exhilarating urgency she can’t explain. What’s she trying to do anyway? Catch a fugitive on her lonesome? Madness. She doesn’t even remember the last time she slapped cuffs on anyone. Besides, there’s no guarantee Jem Talhoffer headed to the warehouse with an old man in tow. In fact, it has to be lottery-level odds if she did and Rusty hasn’t so much as won a balloon at a fair in her time. It would make more sense for a scared Jem to head to the big city and lose herself in the millions of other lost souls. She’d be so hard to find there she would be as good as invisible.
That’s what Rusty would do if she ever had to run.
She can’t imagine she would ever need to, but she’s fantasised many times about doing just that. Hitting the road. Leaving her life behind with no plan as to where she would head, just an endless horizon of possibilities and the past behind her.
Rusty’s pretty sure no one would even notice she’d gone.
Positive no one would miss her even if they did.
That’s night driving for you, she tells herself, combined with the residual paranoia caused by marijuana in her system. She’s usually asleep well before this stage. She couldn’t sleep now, even high. She’s too alert, too switched on. This is the buzz she’s read about, heard about. This is what some law enforcement officers live to feel. The rush of hunting down dangerous criminals and bringing them to justice is supposed to be what it’s all about.
Rusty finds it a little unsettling. She’s not used to it.
Isn’t small-town life supposed to be a quiet life?
She told Heidi she felt out of her depth, and while a good part of that was to encourage some sympathy from the Emerald-Eyed Maiden, there was plenty of truth there too. Rusty doesn’t have to do much other than keep the wheels turning in the precinct, which means banging Sabrowski and Zeke about the head every so often to make sure they are doing what they are paid to do. And that usually involves booking folk for driving too fast on the highways and mediating domestic altercations.
Whatever ambition Rusty might have once had was reined in when her girl came along, stopped once and for all when her deadbeat husband walked out on them both, and then stomped all over when her mom got old and had to move in.
Rusty isn’t bitter about any of that because that’s life and you have to play the hand you’re given. She’s happy enough as the chief of a town where nothing ever happens.
Except that town is now the scene of a murder.
So, no smoking away the night on her porch from now on.
She keeps the vehicle rolling at a slow speed with the windows down so she can listen to the night. She’s not sure what she might hear but better to be able to hear whatever it might be than not. She passes many large buildings, wide and low. If not for the quiet rumble of her cruiser would there be any other sound?
She slows to a crawl when she reaches the unit. An ugly, blocky building so nondescript she could have driven right past it and not even realised.
Unlike much of the business park it doesn’t quite fit the post-apocalyptic landscape. It doesn’t quite fit because there’s lights on inside.
More than that, Rusty is almost sure she glimpses a figure at one of the windows.
No zombies here. Only the living.
Her heart thumps, hard and quick.
This is the buzz.
Breathing fast, Rusty pulls the cruiser up outside the warehouse.
Call for backup? No, she can’t be positive she saw anyone inside. She doesn’t want to make a fool of herself.
Seeing things again, Chief?
Shut up, Sabrowski.
Rusty stops the cruiser, uses the rear-view mirror to look herself dead in the eye to summon courage, to reassure herself. It doesn’t work but she gets out of the car anyway.
She heads towards the building, alone.
2:00 a.m.
I gasp, horrified. My hands are on the railing, knuckles white.
‘What have you done?’
‘I’m sorry, Jem,’ Leo says. ‘I didn’t want you to see that.’
My eyes are moist. My legs are weak. ‘What have you—’
‘Come down, baby,’ Leo says. ‘We need to go.’
I can’t move. If I let go of the railing I’m going to tumble down the stairs. ‘Why?’ is all I can say. ‘Why?’
‘She’s a killer, Jem. She would have killed every one of us and not raised her heart rate one beat. Come down, come to me.’
He holds out a hand to me and I can’t breathe.
Trevor says, ‘You didn’t need to kill her. She was disarmed.’
‘You don’t understand the full facts, Trevor. Trust me, I did the right thing.’
‘Then you’ll be willing to give me that gun?’
‘Not possible,’ Leo says. ‘This stays with me.’
Trevor grunts. ‘Figured you might say that.’
‘You just killed her,’ I find myself saying. ‘You didn’t even flinch.’
Leo approaches me, ascending the steps. ‘I’m protecting you. I know this is a lot for you to take in, but this is how it has to be. We can’t be weak. We have to be as strong as our enemies.’
I retreat from him. ‘I … I need to call Rusty.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not a good idea.’
‘Why not?’
‘Use your head, Jem. There’s a dead body in here.’
‘You just a second ago said it was the right thing to do.’
‘It was. It is. The law might not agree, however.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means we need to go. It means we don’t call the police. We don’t call anyone. We just go.’
‘Go where?’
‘Away from here. Lie low. Wait for things to calm down while I figure out our next move.’
‘Figure what out? What next move is there?’ My voice is anxious, desperate. ‘We need to go to the police. We need to stop this.’
‘Jem, get smart. We’ll all go to prison for this, even the old man. You’re accomplices to everything I’ve done. We’re on our own.’
I’m shaking my head. I can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it. I want this over.
Leo points to Wilks. ‘That’s a bad woman dead on the floor. A thief. A murderer. A woman who would have killed us all to get that money back. Come tomorrow they’ll paint her as a hero who died trying to recover stolen intelligence and you’ll pay for her death. We all will.’
‘No …’
‘That’s how the government works. That’s how it always works. We have no villains any more, only dead heroes.’
Trevor says, ‘The federal government can never be trusted, on that we can agree.’
‘Rusty,’ I say. ‘Rusty is different. She’s not part of the federal government. She’s a small-town police chief. She’ll do the right thing. She’ll protect us.’
‘Maybe,’ Leo says. ‘Maybe that will ultimately be the right course of action. But not right now. Not in the aftermath of a life-and-death situation like this. We need to stop. Think. We only get one shot at making the right decision. We don’t get it right we never get a chance to correct it.’
I’m silent.
‘Come with me,’ he insists. ‘We need to get some rest. There’s nothing we can do tonight.’
‘Do you promise?’ I ask. ‘If I still want to go to Rusty in the morning, you’ll do it?’
He nods. ‘If that’s what we agree is best then yes, I’ll come with you.’
I search his eyes and see truth. I hope it’s not simply the truth I want to see. I can’t know. I have to believe him.
I have to trust him one last time.
2:03 a.m.
Rusty is out of her depth but she keeps swimming anyway.
&nb
sp; There’s a riptide trying to drag her down into inescapable black depths of doubt, of self-loathing. But she remembers she’s carrying a buoyancy aid and she unsnaps her holster, feeling a different kind of unease because she can’t remember the last time she did so on duty. She knows how to use her pistol – she cleans and shoots it often enough – but that’s not the same. Hard to get the blood pumping putting holes in paper targets. The cold night feels colder than it did. Her damp skin sucks the chill from the air and deposits it into her bones. Each exhalation sends a dense cloud of white vapour into the dark.
Why are her footsteps so loud? Try as she might she can’t seem to lessen the thunderous boom, challenged only by the throbbing pulse in her ears.
There are no vehicles parked in the narrow lot in front of Leo’s unit and she wonders if that means she really did mis-see the figure at the window. No, she saw what she saw. Her back is bad and her knees aren’t great and she wheezes under the slightest exertion but her eyesight is good and true.
For once, she thinks, trust in yourself.
She remembers Heidi’s words, repeating them in her mind for reassurance.
You’re a badass.
A quick nudge informs her the main entrance into the unit isn’t going to open and there is no obvious other way in from the front, so Rusty edges around the exterior to an alleyway that runs along one flank.
Shapes.
Shapes in the darkness. Not whole. Not formed. A swirling pattern of disjointed limbs, disembodied heads. One rippling body connecting those disparate pieces. Her first thought is paranoia: she’s seeing things, a monster. A nightmare made real, made substantial. But no, it’s not her mind playing tricks.
Shadows on the wall. Multiple people. She can’t be sure who they are.
Maybe a man and maybe a woman.
Rusty’s pulse quickens.
She hurries across the asphalt, pistol out from the holster before she’s aware she’s drawing it, closing the distance at a decent pace despite her lack of fitness. She’s energised by urgency. If she takes her time, they’ll be gone. She knows she’s making noise, knows her footfalls are heavy and audible and there’s nothing she can do about it.
The shadows retreat from her view as those creating them move further away from her.
She sees their silhouettes, dark and featureless yet distinct and unmistakable at the far end of the alleyway.
‘Hey,’ she calls to them. ‘Stop.’
She intended to say more, but she’s out of breath and her heart is hammering.
There’s a moment of silence, of pause, and though she cannot see their faces, she knows they’ve stopped and looked back her way. Rusty’s silhouette must be as clear to them as theirs is to her.
‘Police,’ she calls in case they don’t already know. ‘Stay where you are.’
They do stop, which is surprising to her. She was all set to run after them, as ineffective as that would no doubt prove. She hears nothing. They say nothing to her but they could be whispering among themselves. Rusty’s breathing so fast and hard she would struggle to hear them at this distance even if they were screaming to her. She swipes sweat from her eyes, takes a step forward. The gun feels heavy in her grip, slippery in her damp palm.
She feels something in the air. There’s a tingle in her spine.
Is this still the buzz she’s heard about, read about?
Or something else?
The latter, she discovers, when light flashes brighter than the stars, than the moon, than daylight, and then she feels a strange, dull sensation in the centre of her chest.
She staggers backwards a short step, knees buckling under unseen pressure. She doesn’t realise she’s dropped her pistol until she hears metal banging and scraping on the concrete before her. So close all she needs to do is squat and retrieve it but she knows that such an extravagance of movement is beyond her.
‘You shot me,’ she says to no one. ‘You shot me.’
She reaches for her radio to call for help, for the backup she should have already called, but her hand is weighed down by something, something heavy. Invisible forces pin her entire arm to her side.
Rusty’s held in a vice, trapped. Immobile.
She doesn’t know if the darkness is the night or if her eyelids have drawn a veil over her sight. She’s aware she no longer has control of her body, if she still resides inside it at all.
Rusty’s falling, she realises, she’s falling …
2:07 a.m.
‘No,’ I scream the moment I see Rusty go down. I’m screaming with horror and fury, grabbing at Leo, at the gun, before he can shoot again. His right arm is outstretched before him, the muzzle of the pistol hot and smoking.
Then I’m hitting him, attacking him, but only in my mind. In reality, I can’t move. I haven’t moved. I can barely breathe.
‘How could you?’ I manage to ask.
‘I didn’t mean to hit her,’ Leo answers in a quiet voice, rotating his head to look at me. ‘I just wanted to get her to back off. A warning shot, that’s all I intended. It’s dark. I … ’
His eyes are wide with surprise and alarm, sheening in the sodium light. He looks terrified and about to cry and I don’t know what to do or how to react.
‘She’s still moving,’ Trevor says. ‘We have to help her.’
His old face is cracked and creased, he’s shocked and horrified like myself and Leo, but Trevor is frozen by the paralysis of what has happened. Then he swallows, steps forward. At least he tries to, but he’s old and slow and Leo moves to intercept.
‘No one is doing anything,’ Leo says, stepping between Trevor and where Rusty lies, moving before me. ‘We need to leave. Now. We can’t hang around. There’s been a gunshot.’
‘Get out of my way,’ Trevor tells him in a tone that is both whisper and growl.
Leo doesn’t back down. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Go if you want to,’ Trevor says. ‘I’ll take care of Rusty. And don’t worry, I’ll tell them you didn’t mean to shoot her.’
Leo is silent.
Trevor says, ‘Get out of my way.’
Leo shakes his head. ‘I can’t do that.’
I see his grip tighten on the pistol and I’m stepping between them before this can become any uglier, resting one hand on each of them. They’re each knotted balls of tension. Right now I don’t know what either of them is capable of doing and I don’t want to find out.
‘Please,’ I say, ‘let me call an ambulance. Then we can go.’
Leo shakes his head. ‘She will have called it in before she confronted us. Backup will already be on the way. Every second we’re talking about this they’re getting closer.’
Trevor says, ‘You don’t know that.’
‘I do. I know exactly how these things work.’
‘How can you be so cold?’ I say to Leo.
‘Because you’re my priority,’ he tells me. ‘Not some cop.’
‘She’s not “some cop”,’ I hiss at him. ‘Her name’s Rusty and you shot her.’
‘She would have killed us,’ he answers. ‘Or put us in prison for the rest of our lives, which is worse.’
Now it’s me who says, ‘You don’t know that.’
His eyes are wide, angry. ‘I won’t be put in a cage, Jem, and I won’t allow anyone to put you inside one either. I’m your husband, I love you, and I will do anything – anything – to protect you. If I have to shoot at some cop then that’s what I’m going to do.’
‘I don’t want your protection. I just want to go home.’
‘Get it through your skull, we’re never going home again. Not you. Not me. Not us.’
He grabs me by the arm and pulls me away. I’m too weak, too overwhelmed, to resist.
Trevor is stationary.
‘You too, old man,’ Leo tells him.
Trevor doesn’t move.
Leo raises the gun and is about to say something further, to order or demand, but Trevor sighs and shakes his head and does as he
’s been told. What choice does he have? What choice do I have?
I look at Rusty, lying on the cold ground, alone in the dark. Is she alive? Is she moving? I can’t tell.
Leo ushers us to where his vehicle is parked on a street behind his unit. I note he makes us walk ahead of him, steering and guiding us instead of leading us.
Is my husband kidnapping me?
‘Get in the car.’
It’s a vehicle I haven’t seen before. I don’t know how long he’s had it and I don’t know if Leo owns it or rented it or stole it and I don’t ask. If I did ask him, would he tell me the truth? Would I even believe him if he was honest with me? I’m shaking my head as I tug open the passenger door after Leo thumbs the key-fob and the car unlocks with a loud thunk. Trevor does the same with one of the back doors, but Leo shakes his head.
‘You’re driving,’ he tells him.
Trevor frowns. ‘I am?’
Leo opens the driver’s door for him and says, ‘Get behind the wheel and do exactly what I tell you to do.’
Trevor does so, and Leo slides on to the back seat behind him.
‘Where are we heading?’ Trevor asks him.
‘North,’ is Leo’s answer.
I’m momentarily hopeful. ‘Back home?’
He breaks into a laugh, short and bitter, and my shoulders sag. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. No, we’re not going home, Jem. What did I tell you? We’re never going home again. Never. Ever. Again.’
My voice is weak: ‘Then where?’
‘To the coast. There’s a place we need to reach where we can lie low.’
‘What kind of place?’
‘A house.’
‘Whose house?’
I’m turned in my seat to look directly at him but Leo is not looking at me in return. Instead, his gaze is focused on the night on the other side of the windshield. Is it regret I see in his eyes or is that regret only there because I want to see it?
I’m so sorry, Rusty. I’m so sorry.
