by Parker, Kara
“Inside,” Terrance whispered. He glanced up and down the street and then shoved his way inside and closed the door. “Don’t shout like that up and down the street!” Terrance hissed as he peeked behind a curtain to look outside.
“Why do I care if anyone hears? I want people to hear!” Chelsea shouted.
“No, you don’t,” Terrance said. He looked rough; his hair was a mess and his suit was rumpled. There was dirt on his formerly shined shoes and bags under his eyes. He thrust an envelope at Chelsea and she reluctantly took it from his hand.
Chelsea opened the envelope and pulled out a handful of pictures. She frowned as she looked through them. They were pictures of her – her at the airport and then more of her pulling up to the house. There were even a few of her at Mikey G’s house and it looked like they had been taken by someone hiding in the bushes.
“Paparazzi photos? Who cares?” she said, tossing them back to Terrance.
“Are paparazzi photos usually slid underneath your doorway in a plain envelope at two in the morning?” Terrance asked. “The paparazzi are a dream compared to these guys. This isn’t a vanity project, Chelsea; these pictures mean you’re next.”
A chill ran down Chelsea’s back, but she hid it well. She’d had no idea that someone was watching her. She hadn’t seen or noticed anyone, but they had seen her.
“Why were they delivered to your house?” Blue asked.
“I guess they think you’re still staying with me. And don’t worry, I won’t clue them in to where you really are.”
“Don’t do us any favors,” Blue spit. “You did this. All of these photos were taken when you knew where Chelsea would be; you sent photographers after her. If there really was someone watching her they would know she was here and not at your house.”
“Look,” Terrance said, throwing up his hands. “I got the pictures that I got. I’m sorry if it wasn’t what you wanted, but they know you’re here,” he said pointing at Chelsea, “and this is just a fair warning; they’re coming for you next.
“Where is Jamie!?” Chelsea screamed at Terrance. She ripped the photos from his hands and threw them on the ground, sending them scattering around the living room.
“I swear I don’t know.”
“You’re lying,” Chelsea yelled and she lunged at Terrance, but Blue held her back.
“That’s right, hold her back,” Terrance sneered. “You think you can lay a hand on me, Chelsea? I will lay you out.” He adjusted his jacket and ran his hand through his hair. “I was just here as a favor. Now I regret coming back at all. Blue, why don’t you and I talk outside?”
“No,” Blue said.
“What did you say to me?”
“You heard me. Get out and stay out. Unless you’re willing to admit your role in this I don’t want to see you or have anything to do with you.”
“Three days, Blue,” Terrance said, holding up three fingers. “Three days,” he gave a snide nod to Chelsea and turned and walked out the door.
Chelsea made a move to follow him, but Blue was still holding on to her arm and he tightened his grip and held her in place.
“He’s not a nice guy, Chelsea,” Blue said. “He’ll hit a woman. He doesn’t care, and he has a mean right hook.” A tear slid down Chelsea’s cheek but she nodded and forced herself to relax until Blue released her arm and began to gather the pictures from the floor.
“We need to be careful,” he said. “Terrance is right. This is a warning. But I will protect you, Chelsea. We’ll stay together and I’ll be with you and no one will hurt you.”
Chelsea nodded and wiped away a tear as she glanced at the photos in his hand. How could he really protect her, though? They had taken Jamie without anyone even noticing. Whoever these people were they were dangerous and they were good. If they wanted Chelsea, she couldn’t see how Blue alone could stop them. The thought made her sick, but at the same time she realized that there was nothing she could do about it. Still, the pictures were unnerving. How much had the spy seen?
Blue was moving about the house blocking the doors with chairs when Chelsea’s cellphone buzzed. She grabbed for it hoping against hope that it was for her sister, but it was only a text message from Ryan. “Glad to hear we’re moving forward. Looking forward to getting to know you, can’t stop listening to love b true. Great track.” Chelsea read the message and then numbly put her phone away.
Ryan Baron and Hollywood felt like an entire planet away. It was so separate from Chelsea’s life she had almost forgotten it was real. It was like Snowbird had swallowed her alive. It was like she was falling right back into her old place, cash poor and desperate in a small town. But that wasn’t quite right; she had never been this desperate before. Blue had, though. She glanced up at him and watched as he worked. His movements had a practiced sophistication about them. This was normal for him, double locking doors and making sure every room had two exits. Poor Blue, she hated that he was being dragged back into his crazy father’s life. He had come back to be with Chelsea and, crazy as it was, she couldn’t help but place the blame for all of this on her own shoulders. Even though she hadn’t caused it, it seemed that everything had something to do with Chelsea, her money, her relationship with Blue, her relationship with her sister. Maybe it would have been better for her to have been alone.
“I can’t stay holed up in this house for three days. I’ll go crazy, Blue.” Already it felt like the walls were closing in on her and the air felt stale and heavy. She had cried all night and now she was antsy and ready to do something.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Blue said. “If you promise to listen to me and do exactly as I say, I might have an idea.”
“Yes,” Chelsea answered immediately.
“It’s going to be dangerous.”
“I can handle it.”
“All right,” Blue said with a nod. “We don’t have much to go on. But we could look for her. I don’t know where the next fight is, but I know places where I’ve fought. We can go and check them out and see if anyone knows anything. But you have to be careful, Chelsea.”
“I’ll be careful, I promise. I will do what you say, anything to get Jamie back.”
“Okay,” Blue nodded. “It’s been a couple of years, so some of the places I know might be busts. But we can check them out and see if there’s been any recent activity.”
“What places do you remember?” Chelsea asked. She tried to keep her voice even. She didn’t want to push him; she knew how hard this was for him, but, at the same time, she needed to know.
“They said the fight this week would be in the basement of the abandoned mall. That means no one will be there or has been for a while. They like to cycle their locations to keep the cops confused. No one goes to the spot of the next fight until the fight and there’s a rotation in the locations.”
“So what other locations are there?”
“There’s the basement of the abandoned gas station on the edge of town. The red shed on the Weir Potato Farm, the back room of Fred’s Bowling alley...”
Chelsea shuddered. She had been to all of those place at one time or another. She had gone for parties with friends to these hidden out of the way places where they could sneak beer and be wild and break the rules. It sickened to her to know that while she had been having fun, Blue had been forced to fight by his own father. This had been going on her hometown. This had been happening for years to one of her best friends and she had just discovered it now. Had she been blind, or had they hid it that well?
Once she got Jamie back things would be different, she decided. Chelsea Riley was going to blow up soon and then she could bring some real justice to this town. She could let everyone know of the horrors that had happened in her sleepy town. Chelsea Riley was supposed to be an all-American girl, but she had been raised in a town that was anything but. Snowbird had a dark underbelly and Chelsea was about to dive right in.
Chapter Nineteen
They decided to start at the abandoned ga
s station. In Blue’s four years as a fighter that was the one location that was never raided. The frost had thawed in the morning sun, but it was still cold outside and they shivered in the car as they waited for it for warm up. They drove for a while until Blue stopped at a gas station to fill up and Chelsea went inside to get two coffees.
Inside, the gas station seemed lit in a strange yellow light. Everything seemed dreamy and far off to Chelsea. It was suddenly impossible for her to give things meaning. Her sister was currently kidnapped and she was drinking coffee; it didn’t seem right. It seemed indecent that she was enjoying normal pleasures like a cup of coffee while her sister was missing. It felt wrong to be able to enjoy something with the worry of someone else over her head. But at the same time it was the only thing she could do. Chelsea had to keep going if she was going to do her sister any good.
Chelsea brought her drinks up the counter, which was manned by a high school age girl. She had hair that was dyed black with stripes of green. She stared openly at Chelsea and then her eyes flicked to the newsstand and back. Chelsea wasn’t in the mood to explain to this girl where she was from so she dropped three dollars on the counter and told the girl to keep the change.
She handed Blue his coffee and they headed west towards the edge of town. It was still harvesting season and Blue went around slow-moving tractor trailers and feed trucks. Chelsea didn’t understand how people were getting up and going to work. Didn’t they understand what was happening around them? Innocent girls were being kidnapped and no one had any idea. As they became stuck behind another tractor Chelsea felt the urge to scream bubbling up within her, but Blue just took her hand and gave it a squeeze as he went around it.
They drove past the residential area and ended up in the farmlands. After that it was just rows and rows of potato fields as far as the eye could see. They were on a two-lane highway that was empty save for the occasional pick-up truck headed the other way. Harvesting season was coming to a close and they were surrounded by endless rows of empty dirt and lonely farms. There went miles without seeing another person or car and at times Chelsea felt like she and Blue were the only people left. Finally, Chelsea saw it on her right. The location of many a late night secret party. The gas prices remained forever frozen in time as the battered sign listed it for sale at a dollar eighty-eight a gallon and cigarettes were three dollars a pack.
The overhangs for the filling stations were still there, although loose canvas hung from the roof and flapped about in the wind. The filling stations had been knocked over and torn away years ago and the storefront was a hollowed out shell, all the windows and shelves longs since destroyed by bored teenagers.
Blue parked the car and together they stepped out into the parking lot. The asphalt was cracked and broken and tall weeds grew wherever they could. Chelsea looked around with a chill and pulled her scarf around her. Without a bonfire and music pouring from someone’s car the old gas station was depressed and a little scary.
“This way,” Blue said with a nod. He walked into the store and Chelsea followed, broken grass crackling under her feet as she walked.
They walked into the abandoned store and down one of the empty aisles. At the end was a large standing fridge, long since emptied of all its goods and even the wire racks that used to hold sodas and Gatorade. Chelsea looked at Blue in confusion as he walked over the refrigerator; what was she supposed to be looking at? But with a little effort he pushed the huge thing aside and Chelsea could see there was a wooden door with a simple brass knob.
Blue tried the knob, but it didn’t move. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a decent looking Swiss Army knife. He opened up a thin flat blade and slipped it between the jam and the door while Chelsea checked the road. After a few moments of fiddling there was satisfying click and with a loud whine the door swung open.
Blue held his hand out to hold Chelsea back as he peered down a black staircase. She was eager to see what was down there and she reached for her phone and pulled up her flashlight app, shining it down into the darkness.
“Stay here,” Blue said.
“What? No!” Chelsea argued. She wasn’t going to be some sidekick who sat in the car while all the real action happened. It was her sister who had been kidnapped and she didn’t want to endanger Blue in her search for Jamie.
“Chelsea, someone has definitely been following you. They could be following us; they could be watching us right now. If we both go down there, someone could sneak up on us and lock us down there. So you stay up here and shout if you see someone coming. I’ll go check it out down there. I don’t think I’ll see anything, anyway. The place looks quiet; it doesn’t look like anyone has been here in a long time.”
“What’s down there?” Chelsea asked, peering over his shoulder.
“It’s just a basement with a dirt floor.”
“Okay, I’ll go down and look then,” Chelsea said side stepping Blue.
“No, you’re not,” Blue said, grabbing her arm.
“Blue if someone is coming do you really think I can stop them? I’ll just get pushed down there and then we’ll both be stuck. If the danger isn’t down there, then I should go down and you should stay up here.”
“No-” Blue said, but it was too late.
She had her cellphone in her hand and she was hurrying down the stairs.
“Chelsea!” Blue called out, but she was already at the bottom of the stairs.
His voice echoed around her and Chelsea shivered in the chilly and dark basement. It felt about ten degrees colder down there than it did up in the store. “It’s fine,” she called up. “I’ll be right up, keep an eye out.”
“I can’t believe this...” she heard him mutter.
But she was already walking towards the back wall. Her phone shone a bright light and she watched where she stepped, but there was just a smooth dirt floor beneath her feet. The walls were made of cinder blocks and there was a bare bulb on the ceiling attached to a string. She pulled the string and a harsh light brightened the surprisingly small basement. In one corner she could see a circle that was lower than the rest and the dirt more firmly packed down.
It was the ring. Chelsea’s stomach dropped as she looked at it; the hard pack floor was in a corner so the fighters were penned in with two walls and the other side would have been packed with screaming men who had been watching the fight. They would have been trapped on that small patch of dirt fighting over nothing. She took a tentative step closer to it and she couldn’t help but cross herself. The whole place had an otherworldly horror to it; buried deep in the earth where sunlight couldn’t touch it, Chelsea could sense that this was a place of fear and darkness and evil.
She took another step down and then she was in the ring. It was small and even in the empty basement. Chelsea felt claustrophobic and trapped; she couldn’t imagine what it would be like if the basement was filled with people. Beneath her feet she saw the dark patches in the dirt. Leaning over to investigate, she reached out to touch the dark patches, but then she recoiled quickly. It was blood splattered on the dirt, and next to the dried blood were the white remains of a broken tooth. Chelsea shuddered and walked out of the pit. She looked around the basement, but there was nothing that was of any use to here; there were only a few beer cans in the corner and hundreds of cigarette butts on the floor, but no information and no evidence.
Chelsea hugged herself as she looked around the room. How many times had she sung along to music and drank beer in the spot right above this one? It felt wrong that this dungeon had been under her nose the entire time and she had never noticed. She couldn’t help the pang of guilt that rang through her; she had been having fun while beneath her men had been fighting for their lives. She pulled on the light switch enclosing herself in darkness and hurried up the stairs. As her foot hit the first step she had a sudden moment of panic. She needed to get out there. It was too dark and filled with too many memories. She sped up, running up the stairs, slamming the door behind her and thr
owing her arms around Blue, who hugged her tightly.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” Chelsea said as she ordered herself not to cry. “It was just so horrible and scary. I can’t believe people really do this.”
“I know,” Blue said, running his hands up and down her back. “You didn’t see anything?”
“Just a lot of trash,” Chelsea said finally pulling herself away from Blue and wiping an errant tear away. “What were you hoping for?”
“I don’t know,” Blue said with a shrug looking out over the desolate building around them. “I’ve been out of the fights for so long, all my old contacts are gone. I guess I was hoping there would be someone here who could give us some information. Most of the guys who fight are homeless and desperate for cash. I thought we could give them some money in exchange for information, but there clearly isn’t anyone or anything here.”
