by Vremont, Ann
They dragged us, Sandy, looking like she was already dead, and me. They dragged us to the garage with its concrete floor. I could feel nicks in the ground and I heard an electric saw blade start up, and suddenly I sensed that the tool had been used in this fashion -- and in this place -- before.
Awareness penetrated the dark curtain that was my impending death. I realized they were drunk, high on blood, high on the endorphins that were pumping through my body and on the drugs they had injected Sandy with that must now be coursing through their systems.
They were too drunk, jostling with one another for the fun of cutting up their latest victims. Army, the night's procurer, won the first cut and he brought the saw blade down on Sandy's neck. Shattered tendons and bone flew like small pieces of shrapnel. I could feel sharp bits of my mother cutting into my cheek like broken glass.
I was beyond hearing at that point, deaf even to the sound of the blade less than a foot from my head. But I saw the lights, blue and red through the gaps of the garage door. Later, I would learn that one of the neighbor kids heard my single scream as I was being dragged from the truck. He waited until his mom came home to tell her.
It was too late for Sandy, but I was still alive, barely, as panic set in among the men in the garage. I was still alive as the saw blade made its next slice, cutting through Army's wrist.
I was still alive as blood spurted from him, onto my face and naked flesh, onto my open wounds.
I was still alive.
Chapter Four
The feel of blood flowing out is familiar to most people. Covering the skin, it begins to dry, to pull at flesh. It cools, hardens and cracks.
But I'd never experienced the sensation of blood flowing in. Really, who has?
I felt it then. My body seemed to suck it in. My cut flesh yearned toward it. Skin that had grown cold became flushed with warmth.
I experienced all that, there on the concrete floor. Through Army's shrieks and the sound of sirens, I felt life flow back into me and sensed my body's welcoming sigh.
With the blood came pain and hunger. It wasn't my stomach that twisted. Every pore screamed with a famished want. I rolled to my side. Too weak to raise my head, I saw only the boots and tennis shoes of the men that had done this to me.
One screamed. “Grab his hand!”
Someone reached down, scooped it up. The fingers seemed to flex at being touched.
“Down the hole!” Another one shouted.
They fled the garage seconds before its door was torn off with one quick yank from breach hooks. Light flooded the room, blinding me so that I squeaked like a rat that had come up from the sewer.
Later, after the cops had cleared the empty house, they covered me in a blanket and rushed me to an emergency room. Only once they stuck a needle in my arm and started pumping whole blood into me did I finally find peace and drift to sleep.
When I woke, there was a cop waiting in my room. He was young -- or one of those baby-faced narcs. He was dressed in street clothes but he had his badge out on a chain around his neck. His jaw tightened when he realized I had opened my eyes and then he tried to smile something short and reassuring.
“Hey, I'm officer Daniel Gutierrez, Maryvale PD.” He touched the hospital mattress, close to my hand, and then pulled back. “Call me 'Danny' when you're ready to talk, okay?
I looked down at the arm he'd almost touched. Bandages covered most of it. Staring at the skin, I realized how clearly I could see the pores and hair, each so distinct I could count them. I looked at Officer Danny, getting the impression that he had a strong, beautiful face with a neatly trimmed goatee at the end but getting lost in the same details -- the separate dark brown lashes that protected deep blue eyes veined with gray. The lines in his curved bottom lip, the rise and fall of his chest as shallow breaths whispered through his body.
Beyond the closed door, I could hear nurses talking, the buzz of television voices in other rooms.
Again he reached forward, stopping just short of touching me. “Do you want me to page a nurse or a doctor?”
I gave one shake of my head. Lifting my right hand, I pointed at a pitcher beside my bed, hoping it was filled with water.
“Right. You're thirsty.” There was a cup and straw I hadn't seen. He filled the cup and then patiently held the straw to my lips while I slowly sucked down a mouthful.
When he put the cup down, he finally touched me -- just three fingertips against my arm while he looked into my eyes. “Lee, when you're ready, I need to ask you some questions about…”
“I'm not really sure what I saw inside the house.” The words came out cracked. “I think they drugged me.”
They had said they wouldn't -- but with the things I thought I saw, I couldn't understand at the time how I could not have been drugged. How else to explain Army still standing -- screaming with blood squirting from his arm, but still standing. And details about the men, what I'd seen in the flickering candle light, their sharp smiles, their oddly contorted bodies…
“Tox screen -- I mean…” His three fingers danced lightly against my arm. “It doesn't look like they did.”
“Sandy.”
“They pumped her full of heroin.” He drew his hand back, gripped his leg with it. “You know your mom…”
“Sandy's dead. I know. She was next to me when they took her head.” Remembering the flying bone fragments, I raised a shaky hand to my cheek. The skin was smooth, unblemished.
How much had I imagined?
“Do you remember how you got to the house?” He had drawn out a touch phone and was tapping his finger at the screen as he asked me questions.
“This guy, Army, he told her my uncle was there.” That was a lie, of course, but how could I say the truth out loud? Sandy, broke and realizing Paul had probably abandoned her for good, went looking for another protector and paid him with the only currency she had left -- me.
Only her protector had been a complete predator and now she was dead, too.
“They picked me up at school…a white truck, Ford I think. The house was a couple blocks away from Elliot's.” I turned away from him, onto my side where I curled into myself. “I don't remember anything after that.”
Only, I remembered everything, even details I couldn't recall noticing in the first place. Like the tattoo across the back of the skinny guy's hand that said “Nestor” and the small scar that ran from the “r” to the webbing between his thumb and index finger.
“Truck was stolen and the house was empty, bank had foreclosed on it.” He touched my shoulder, again three fingers, each one transferring their warmth through the thin hospital gown to the skin beneath. “Lee, we're going to get these guys, but we need you to remember everything you can.”
I nodded. I wanted him to stay, wanted his fingers warming me. I felt so cold right then.
“They were chanting something, I think.”
His hand left my shoulder while he put the information into his phone. “Was it English?”
I managed a weak shrug. “There was something else.”
“Lee, any thing, the smallest fragment.”
I shook my head, drawing it out. It was a small thing, wasn't it? Not like the tattoo on the guy's hand, a detail they probably had in some police database somewhere. Still, I didn't want to tell him.
His whole hand came down on my shoulder, coaxing me to tell him with a gentle squeeze. “Do you want a female officer?”
“No…I can talk to you.”
“Then talk to me, Lee.” Another squeeze, his thumb dipping down to lightly stroke my neck. It seemed so automatic; I don't think he realized he was doing it.
“It's just -- I think they were looking for a virgin.”
The stroking stopped. His hand tightened on my shoulder. I knew he'd seen the toxicology tests, guessed they'd also done a rape exam while I was unconscious and reported back that, in at least one respect, they'd left me intact.
“We're gonna get these guys, Lee. I promise you.”
Chapter Five
The hospital released me to my uncle Elliot on Monday. There was no insurance, I was healing quicker than they expected and there was no one else to claim me. I hadn't seen my real dad in over nine years. My step-father Paul had left four weeks before, after he'd threatened to kill his mom and gotten the three of us thrown out of her house.
From what Elliot was saying, everyone was still trying to track Paul down to authorize the funeral arrangements.
There was my grandfather, with whom Sandy and I had been staying. But his newest girlfriend Emma and her son lived with him, too. Emma didn't want me back in the house if some biker gang might be looking to finish what they'd started. Truth be told, she just didn't want me back in the house. The tension between Emma and Sandy was why I had missed so many days of school.
So home I went with Elliot. He was on his second marriage, had a nine-year-old daughter and a step-son close to my age. His first marriage had ended in a dead son and a wife in jail for child neglect. Elliot had been at training and the crazy bitch had left the baby alone in his crib while she went out bar hopping for the weekend.
Elliot had gone from crazy bitch to cold bitch with his second wife, Joan. I didn't get the impression Joan wanted me in her house any more than Emma did, but Elliot's word was law. They put me in Casey's room. She had bunk beds and they moved her up to the top bunk while I "recovered" from my injuries. Only my body had healed completely by the second day home -- a fact I kept secret.
Officer Danny called daily. Sometimes twice a day. The Maryvale PD wanted me to sit down with a sketch artist. Danny was quietly relentless, talking about nothing at the start of each conversation, asking if my school work was being delivered to me and if I needed anything. But the conversations all ended the same.
“Have you remembered anything else? Maybe you heard something? People remember things better when they sit down with a sketch artist, Lee.”
No, no and no.
Sadly, the calls were the highlight of my day. The rest of it was listening to Elliot swear he was going to find and kill “that motherfucker, Army” or his arguing with me over why I wouldn't eat.
Every time, I pulled out the same argument stopper. “You didn't care if I was eating before this happened. Why the fucking change of heart?”
I couldn't tell him that food was making me sick, that everything I swallowed other than water was vomited up as soon as it hit my stomach. I couldn't tell him that I lay awake in bed through the night listening to blood pulsing through his nine-year-old daughter.
On the fourth day back from the hospital, Officer Danny stopped by. It was early spring and I was dressed in a long sleeved sweater I'd borrowed from Elliot's wife. It was 70 degrees out and everyone thought the sweater was to cover the marks Army and his gang brothers had left on my body. Instead I was hiding the fact that the marks were completely erased from my skin as if the entire night had never happened.
But it had, and Officer Danny was there to pry more information out of me. He asked Elliot if he could take me for a drive.
Elliot waved us off before turning back to work on his engine. “See if you can't get her to eat something while you're at it.”
Danny held the door open for me. Sliding into the front passenger seat, I felt scrawny -- empty. I watched him walk around the front of the unmarked police car. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, topped by a light leather dress jacket. His face was clean shaven except for the small, stylish goatee and his dark brown hair curled at his ears and collar.
Over the last few days, I had learned to see without being distracted by every little detail. He looked exquisite, the outline of the body beneath the clothes, the way his muscles moved as he walked.
I'd had crushes growing up -- had been trying hard to avoid crushing on Chris. This was beyond a crush. When he was near, my whole body zeroed in on him. Other smells and sounds disappeared until I was left with his scent, the rustle of his clothes, his pulse. I wanted him. It bothered me, how bad I wanted him. I'd spent almost a decade evading men -- one man in particular. Now I wanted to crawl all over Danny.
He got in the car and automatically hit the door locks. I tensed, my reaction surprising me. I hadn't been in a car since the drive back from the hospital and Elliot never locked his doors.
“Christ, I'm sorry, Lee. I should have warned you.” He twisted in his seat until he was looking at me. “They'll lock anyway once the car starts moving. All the units do.”
I nodded. “I'm fine. Maybe we can have the windows down?”
I didn't really need them down, my first reaction had been a knee jerk response. Now, with his worried gaze on me, he seemed to expect me to act afraid, traumatized.
He started the engine and put the power windows down. I dragged the seat belt across my chest, clicked it into place. We pulled out of the drive and he asked me if there was anywhere I wanted to go.
I frowned at him. “Not anywhere there's a sketch artist.”
He laughed. “Sorry. I know I've been hitting that hard.” He put his hand down on the side of my seat and pinched the fabric of my sleeve between his fingers.
“I know this is asking a lot…” He let go of my sleeve and rubbed at his jaw.
“Just ask.” The Maryvale cops had already had me pour through the perp books. I couldn't imagine what else there was left beyond the sketch artist he wanted me to try.
Then I realized we were back on Indian School Road, heading towards 63rd.
“You want to take me into the house?”
“Lee, these guys are predators. They're not going to stop doing this until they're caught.”
“Sure.” I wrapped my arms around my chest and looked out the window, wanting him, for the moment, to leave me alone so I could think. “I'll go in the house.”
It was a typical John F Long home. Most of Maryvale was. My grandfather had bought his place in the mid-sixties when it was still green-lawned, cookie-cutter suburbia. Little rectangles of middle-class paradise. Back before there was at least one meth lab per street.
Danny parked in the drive.
“We started in the garage.” I said.
“Let me cut the tape.” He got out, sliced the crime scene tape at the garage door and opened it. He pulled the car inside.
“The truck had a bench seat.” I unhooked my seat belt. “Sandy was sitting against the door.”
I was going to have to tell him -- about Sandy. I hadn't told anyone yet. I knew better than to try -- Elliot wouldn't believe me and everyone else in his house would fall in line behind him.
“He stopped the truck, the garage door went down. Then he tried to pull me out.”
“Is that when you screamed?” Danny got out and motioned for me to move into the driver's seat.
“No.” I crawled over the center console and held my left arm out to him. “He had me by the arm and I was trying to hit the horn.”
“Techs went over it, said it was disabled.” He took my arm, held me loosely by the wrist. “What was your mom doing?”
I pulled my hand back and he let it go. He repeated his question.
“Helping him,” I answered after a few more seconds. I took a deep breath and repeated myself. “She was helping him. When I screamed after realizing the horn didn't work, she covered my mouth.”
Danny bent down so that he was level with me and covered my hand with his. “I thought so. Your mom didn't have any defensive marks on her.”
“She thought he was going to take care of her. She told me I was going to ruin it if I kept fighting.”
“Shit, Lee.” Danny abruptly leaned forward and wrapped his arms around me. His hand cradled my head and I felt the press of his jaw against my temple. He held me like that for maybe a full minute, his grip growing tighter until he pulled abruptly away.
I looked at his face; he looked away, his cheeks flushing. I guessed he didn't hug most of the victims he worked with.
“Army finally got me out of the cab when he hit m
y leg.” I gestured at my left knee. At the time, it had seemed a crushing blow, may well have been, but, like the cuts, it had healed faster than humanly possible.
“Then he slammed me onto the floor.” I laid down, facing the garage door. “Someone else had come into the garage then, said he thought Army wasn't going to be able to handle me on his own. He called Army 'brother.'”
“His only real brother is in prison in California,” Danny said, helping me off the ground. “Probably a gang brother, but he's not listed as running with a particular gang.”
When I didn't say anything, he prompted me with a question. “Would Elliot know?”
I shrugged. Elliot ran with a lot of different bikers, guys that would kill one another if they were in the same room at the same time. How my uncle managed to pass among them was some kind of miracle. “Elliot isn't in a gang,” I answered. “He just…”
“Buys his drugs from them?”
I didn't say anything, didn't look at him.
“Lee, I know about Elliot--”
I walked past him, the tight space causing me to brush against him. “I passed out, woke up in one of the rooms.”
Before we could enter into the house, I turned back to him. “How'd they get out?”
“House behind this is in foreclosure, too. They'd dug a tunnel to the other yard without anyone knowing.”
Walking into the kitchen, I tried not to think about how many houses in the area were in foreclosure or how many yards Army's friends might have their tunnels running through.
Chapter Six
Army and his gang had torn down the wall that divided the kitchen from the living room. The walls were spray painted black. The table they had placed me on was still there, a four by six foot slab of particle board on top of four fifty gallon drums.
I climbed up onto it.
“Lee, are you sure?”
“Yeah.” There were still candles on the floor and I motioned to one. He lit it, brought it to me. “Turn off the lights.”
He turned them off and then came back to stand beside me.
