Threat warning

by John Gilstrap

  “Don’t lecture me, Sheriff.” Copley’s tone darkened.

  “I’m not lecturing you, Brother Michael. I’m trying to understand what you’re doing. I thought we agreed when I dropped him off that he was too valuable to kill. His father is a commando, for heaven’s sake. Surely we can use that to our benefit.”

  “Indeed we will,” Copley said.

  Neen paused long enough that Jonathan wondered if the recording had ended. Finally, the sheriff said, “What are you telling me?”

  “Be at the house at seven,” Copley said. “I’ll reveal the plan to all of the elders then.”

  “Can we discuss the wisdom of the execution at the meeting?”

  “If you still believe that there’s anything to discuss at the conclusion of the meeting, then you are free to bring up whatever you wish.”

  The audio clicked again and Rollins’s voice returned. “That’s all of it,” he said.

  Boxers asked, “How long ago was this recorded?”

  “Less than a half hour. Call it twenty, twenty-five minutes.”

  “What else do you have for us?” Jonathan asked.

  “Nothing of note,” Rollins said. “But we’ll keep listening. If we get anything, we’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks, Colonel,” Jonathan said.

  Venice recognized the thank-you for the signal that it was and she dumped Rollins’s call. The team was on its own again.

  Venice said, “I’m going to put this on a disk and have Dom deliver it to Wolverine. She needs to know.”

  “She won’t be able to act on it,” Jonathan cautioned.

  Boxers added, “And if she does, she’ll have to throw us under the bus.”

  “She needs to know,” Venice said again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY – TWO

  Ryan couldn’t stop shivering.

  He was sick of pain and cold and darkness. He didn’t know how much more he could take. From what he saw in the brief seconds when he’d had a chance to survey the place in the light spilled from the hallway, it was a concrete storage room, maybe ten feet square. There was stuff in there, but he hadn’t taken the time to really note what it was. It looked like stuff you’d find in any attic, stacked haphazardly and precariously, but leaving enough room on the concrete floor for him to plant his butt and nurse his arm.

  Part of him was glad he couldn’t see. He’d seen broken bones before-on himself, even, when he’d broken the opposite arm in a skateboarding accident-and they were gross. Seeing the way the bones bent only made it hurt more, and more pain was one thing that he definitely did not need in his life.

  One of his captors had been thoughtful enough to let him bring the pillow with him when they paraded him downstairs to his new prison. In fact, it was Colleen, K-girl’s real name. Except here, she was Sister Colleen.

  Sitting Indian-style with his legs crossed and the pillow on his lap was about his only option to keep the pain under control. Problem was, the awkward posture put a lot of strain on his shoulders and neck, which were beginning to ache.

  What was he going to do now?

  He rested his forehead on his good hand, which itself was propped against his thigh, and he tried not to cry. How the hell could a trip home from a track meet have ended with this much trouble, this much hopelessness?

  Brother Michael was a nutcase. There’d be no reasoning with him. Even if reasoning with him was possible, what would he bargain over? Ryan didn’t even know why he was here. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong.

  Except killing that guy, but that was after.

  Maybe this was just pure random bad luck, in which case Ryan wanted nothing to do with it. Maybe this was God working his mysterious ways, just as his mom always liked to talk about.

  Tell you what, God. Keep your mysterious ways. How about getting off your ass and coughing up a solution?

  Certainly, their first plan to get out of here had been a miserable failure.

  If you can’t trust the cops to do the right thing, he wondered what was left.

  Whose responsibility is it to watch after the cops, anyway? If they’re the enemy, then who else is there?

  Maybe his dad was coming to get him right now. Maybe they were fueling up the Little Bird helicopters at this very moment, and they were waiting to swoop down and take everybody out. That’s what the Unit did for perfect strangers, right? Was it too much to ask for a little of the same consideration for family?

  No, it wasn’t too much to ask.

  But it was too much to answer.

  The fact was that Ryan and Christyne Nasbe were flat-ass out of options. This prison he was in now was impenetrable and inescapable. And even if there was a chance that lightning would strike the guards whose shadows he could almost see walking around in the strip of light that infiltrated in under the door, what was he supposed to do with a broken wing?

  Jesus, it hurt. Reaching over with his left hand to explore his wounded right, he could feel how his fingers had swollen to the size of sausages. His wrist had swollen, too, making the cuff of his jacket and his sweater way too tight, but it was so freaking cold in here that he didn’t want to take them off.

  His eyes began to sting as he thought through the stink pile that his life had become, and he felt his lip tremble. There had to be a way out of here. There had to be a way for him to be more than a simple victim.

  His breath caught in his throat.

  “Don’t cry,” he whispered aloud. He didn’t want to give them that kind of satisfaction.

  Movement outside his door brought his eyes up and put him on full alert. He heard the sound that could only be that of a padlock being manipulated in its hasp.

  He tried to prepare himself for a fight, but his wounded arm simply would not let him.

  The lock slid clear, and then the horizontal seam of light was joined by a vertical cousin. Someone was entering his space.

  “Just stop it,” a voice said. It was Colleen. “I’m going to do this.”

  “They said to leave him alone,” another voice said.

  “This is the right thing to do,” Colleen said.

  “I’m not covering for you.”

  “I didn’t ask you to,” she said, and then she entered his little space. The light behind her in the hallway was dim, but it still made Ryan squint. “Hi, Ryan,” she said. Her arms were filled with items that he couldn’t quite make out.

  “What do you want?” Ryan asked.

  “My name is Sister Colleen,” she said. “I’m here to splint your arm.”

  Ryan drew himself up tighter. “That’s okay, I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine,” Colleen countered. “Your arm is broken and it needs to be splinted. It’ll make it feel better.”

  “What do you care?”

  She moved to his side and set a gym bag on the ground. When she opened it, he saw gauze and scissors and a piece of wood. Suddenly, he was back in Cub Scouts playing with first-aid stuff.

  Colleen didn’t look at him as she said, “Brother Michael shouldn’t have treated you like that. That was wrong.”

  Ryan couldn’t help but chuckle. “Aren’t you the one who killed a bunch of people in their cars?”

  She shook her head. “That was different,” she said. “They were the enemy. You’re our guest.”

  Holy shit, did she just say guest? He opted to keep his mouth shut.

  “I know you think we’re bad people,” Colleen said, spreading out her gear like a surgeon would spread out his instruments. “But we’re not. This is what happens when you go to war.”

  “War?” He’d blurted out the question before he could stop himself. “Who are you at war with?”

  “The Users,” she said.

  The word rang a bell as one she’d used earlier.

  Colleen leaned forward to get a better look at his arm, then shouted over her shoulder, “Turn on the light.”

  The voice from the hall said, “Brother Michael said no.”

  “Then rat me out later
,” Colleen said. “Right now I need light.”

  It probably took ten seconds, but ultimately, an overhead lightbulb jumped to life, bathing them in incandescent white light. As he’d suspected, his wrist and hand-the only parts he could see-were purple and swollen, the discoloration extending all the way to his knuckles on his first two fingers. The angulation of the bones wasn’t as disgusting as he’d feared, but that probably had as much to do with the bulk of his clothes as the actual arrangement of his anatomy.

  “I know what I’m doing,” Colleen said. “I’ve treated injuries here on the compound for years. You can relax.”

  Instinctively, Ryan protected his arm and scooched backward on his butt.

  “Really, I’m not here to hurt you.”

  “No, you’re just here to kidnap me.”

  Colleen paused as she considered those words. “Different things,” she said. As if that was an explanation. She picked up a pair of scissors, the kind you only see in doctors’ offices, on which one of the jaws is blunted so it doesn’t cut flesh. “We need to get your coat and sweater off.”

  He tried to move farther away, but he was up against a hard stop of stuff. “I’m really fine the way I am.”

  She cocked her head in a look of feigned patience. “Do you know what can happen if a broken bone is not mended?”

  “Yeah,” Ryan said. “It stays broken.”

  Colleen rolled her eyes. “Well, that, yes. Of course. But that’s the very best case. The worst case is that you move the wrong way and a bone end pinches a blood vessel or maybe punctures one. They you either bleed to death or you get gangrene and they have to cut off the arm. The alternative would be to die. Which one of those do you like?”

  He didn’t know what to say. He offered his arm.

  She slid the blunted side of the jaws under the cuff of his sleeve, and with a gentleness that surprised him, she moved an inch at a time, pinching a bit of fabric and then snipping it, going through all the layers simultaneously. “If I hurt you, let me know.”

  “Sister Colleen,” Ryan said, tasting the phrase. “Are you a nun or something?”

  When she shook her head, he caught a flash of fiery red hair from under the scarf she wore. “No, I am not a nun. I am, however, a child of God.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  He’d meant it as a throwaway line, a space-taker, but Colleen didn’t know that. “Not all of us,” she said. “Not the Users.”

  Colleen’s thumb found a sensitive spot on his arm and he jumped. “Ow!”

  She stopped cutting and pulled the scissors hand away. “I’m sorry,” she said. She looked like she meant it.

  “That’s okay. Hit a nerve or something, I guess.” As the flesh of his arm was exposed, he discovered a sense of relief. His arm was swollen, and the area from the middle of his forearm to his wrist looked like it had been bruised, but it didn’t look as bad as it hurt. He’d been expecting something L-shaped, but it was nothing like that. As the scissors passed his elbow, Colleen gently placed his forearm back on the pillow, and then used both hands to cut his clothes away to the shoulder.

  “You have good muscles,” she said, stroking his biceps.

  The words startled him. Her touch inexplicably turned him on. “Um, thanks. A few weeks in a cast should take care of that, though.” As soon as the sarcasm escaped his mouth, he wished that he could bring it back. She was being nice to him, for God’s sake. You know, after she’d kidnapped him and threatened to kill him.

  “Who are the Users?” he asked, hoping to change the subject.

  “They’re most of the world. They’re the people who take all of God’s gifts for their own and give nothing back. They live for money and not for goodness. They forget about Him and refuse to pay Him His due.”

  Colleen put the scissors down and returned her attention to his forearm. Reaching into her bag, she produced a padded board splint, much like the ones he’d seen in Coach Jackson’s first-aid kit.

  “I’m going to put this under your arm for support,” she explained. “Then we’ll tie your arm to the board with some gauze wrapping, and then we’ll put your arm in a sling. It will mend faster if it’s immobilized.”

  “But it’s going to hurt,” Ryan said, cutting to the chase.

  “Well… yes. I’ll have to move your arm a little, and I guess that has the potential to hurt.”

  Potential turned to reality. The site of the break shot new lightning bolts as she slid the board into place, but in five seconds, it was over.

  “Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Colleen asked.

  “Says the chick with two good arms.” He said it with a smile. Jesus, he thought. How perverted could he be, getting a woody from the lady who’s hurting him? Well, she did say I have good muscles.

  “Am I a User?” Ryan asked.

  “Probably.” Colleen opened a white paper container that was marked KLING WRAP and revealed a cylinder of gauze. “Judging from your car and your clothes-and your mouth sometimes-I’d say there was a very good chance that you are a User.”

  “What does that mean, though? User, I mean.”

  “Can you hold your arm up for me?” Colleen asked. She demonstrated what she needed by raising his wounded forearm, using the splint.

  Ryan slid his left hand into the spot where her hands were.

  “Good,” she said. “Just like that.” Her fingers seemed to work automatically as she unraveled the Kling Wrap, binding his arm to the board. She carefully avoided the site of the break, leaving that part of his skin unbound.

  “You have done this before,” Ryan said. “Thank you.”

  Colleen kept her eyes on her work as she smiled. “You’re welcome. Here at the compound, we have to learn to do many things. I’ve even delivered a few babies.”

  Ryan recoiled at the thought. “Eew. Really?”

  She laughed at his horror. “What’s wrong with delivering babies?”

  “They’re gross and slimy. Why not just call an ambulance? Or drive them to the hospital?”

  Colleen shook her head. “Oh, no. Outsiders are Users. That’s no way to bring a new life into the world. We don’t want those hands to be the first to touch one of our infants.”

  “There it is again,” Ryan said. “Users. I asked you before and you didn’t tell me. Is that some kind of secret word to you people?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Colleen said. By the time she rolled out the last of the Kling Wrap, the end of his arm looked like a giant Q-tip. It felt better, too. “It would be like explaining sin to a sinner. It’s difficult for people to understand what they are.”

  “Try me.”

  Colleen stopped working on his arm, and sat back to look him in the eye. “What prayer do you say before you eat a meal?”

  He scowled. “What, you mean like grace?”

  “I suppose.” Clearly, it wasn’t exactly what she meant, but her expression showed that it served her point.

  “I don’t,” Ryan said. “Except, you know, sometimes at Christmas or Thanksgiving. It’s kind of part of the tradition.”

  “So even when you say it, you don’t really mean it. It’s something you have to do to get to the food.”

  “So that makes me a User? A User and a sinner are sort of the same?”

  “We are all sinners, Ryan. Do you work for your money?”

  He coughed out a laugh. “What money? Yeah, I work some during the summer, flipping burgers or stocking shelves somewhere. But I don’t make shit.” The disapproving glare told him that dropping the S-bomb was a mistake. “Sorry. Another sin for the list.”

  “You’re not getting it,” Colleen said. “Of whatever money you get working whatever job you have, how much do you give to the poor?”

  “I am the poor. I don’t have anything to give.”

  “You have everything to give. Every day you get paid, you have money to give. Every time you put shoes on, you have shoes to give. You have clothes, and food and possessions that in one year’s
time will cease to have use to you, yet you continue to accumulate more.”

  Oh, man, he wasn’t getting this at all. “So anybody who has anything is a User? Is your enemy?”

  Colleen rolled her eyes in that special way people do that really got his blood boiling. “Yes, you’re obviously one of them.”

  “One of who?” He shouted that and, in the process, did something to make his arm bite him and he grunted against the pain.

  “This is why it’s useless to try to communicate with anyone outside of the community. You refuse to see things as they are.”

  “I don’t even know what we’re talking about.”

  Colleen settled herself as if preparing to explain the obvious to a dimwitted child. “It’s not about owning anything,” she said. “It’s about wanting to own everything, and never being willing to give anything back. You’ll destroy other people, you’ll destroy other countries, you’ll destroy the earth itself, if that’s what it takes.”

  Ryan felt like he’d entered the play of his life in the middle of the second act. “I’m sixteen,” he said, chuckling at the absurdity. “Even if I wanted to do some of those things, I couldn’t. Give me a break.”

  “There it is again,” she said.

  The second guard appeared in the doorway. “I told you it was a waste of time,” he said.

  “Who are you?” Ryan said. He’d learned the hard way that when these nut jobs formed a crowd, life got difficult.

  “I’m one you should be fearing,” he said. The guy was older and bigger than Ryan, but not by much on either count. “Brother Stephen was a friend of mine.”

  “Then you should keep better friends,” Ryan blurted before his filter could slide into place. “He tried to rape my mother. What would you do?”

  The guy smiled. “I guess I might have waited my turn.”

  “Stop it!” Colleen commanded. She put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder as she spoke, as if to reassure him that this new guy was out of line. “This is Brother Zebediah. And sometimes he doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.”