by P. T. Hylton
She kicked and thrashed wildly, but their hold on her was too strong. She felt weak; the fight with Rodgers on the rooftop seemed like it had happened both moments before and a lifetime ago. She wasn’t going to be able to squirm out of their grasp, even as wet and slippery as she was.
They carried her through the darkness in near silence, only the dim beam of men’s headlamps illuminating the trail ahead; the only sound was her own groaning and cursing and the labored breathing of the men. They moved slowly, Baldwin going first, one of her legs held on either side of him like he was pulling a wheelbarrow. They stopped a few times, and she could have sworn they doubled back more than once.
After what seemed like ten minutes of trudging through the rain, the men stumbled to a halt, and she heard a sound like knuckles rapping on wood.
“Yeah?” The voice was muffled and distant.
“It’s Baldwin and Leonard. We’ve got a new arrival.”
There was a long pause. Then, “There’s not one tonight.”
“Open the door, Frasier,” Leonard yelled. “We found her in the woods.”
Another long pause, then the squeal of metal on metal as the hinges reluctantly opened and a slowly widening rectangle of light appeared. The door was only a quarter open when Baldwin pushed into the room, shouldering it open the rest of the way.
They brought her into a sparsely furnished room. Leonard shut the door behind him.
Sophie squinted against the light, not wanting to wait until her eyes adjusted before taking in her new surroundings. There was a card table in the center of the room. A checkers game that appeared to be in progress was set up on the table. There were four wooden chairs, a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels, and an open paperback on the floor. The room had the look of an old log cabin.
The man standing next to the card table was rail thin and looked older than Baldwin and Leonard put together.
Leonard said, “Get the door. Then get Logan.”
The old man nodded and rushed to a door on the other side of the room. Baldwin and Leonard carried her into a new room, which was empty but for a garden hose on the ground and three work lamps clamped to the exposed overhead beams. And a chair with four sets of handcuffs attached to it, one on each leg.
The fear that had been racing through Sophie’s veins since Rodgers pulled the gun outside the pizza place suddenly reached a new pitch. The men dropped her into the chair. Leonard held her down while Baldwin snapped the handcuffs into place, one on each wrist and one on each ankle.
Leonard smiled. “Look…,” he paused and scratched his head. If Sophie didn’t know better, she’d have guessed he was embarrassed. “We’ll talk soon, okay?”
She hurled a few of her more creative strings of curses at him by way of response. Baldwin shook his head and chuckled. “Logan will be along.”
The two men marched out of the room without another word. The door shut, she heard a click, and the lights went out. She was once again in darkness.
She took a deep breath and tried to stop the panic racing through her brain. She had to think clearly now. No telling when this Logan person would arrive. She tested her wrists against the handcuffs and choked back her desperation. She couldn’t so much as twist her arm in the cuff, let alone slip out of it. She took a deep breath and pulled as hard as she could with both hands, then cried out in pain as the cuffs cut into her wrists. She tried the same thing with her feet and achieved the same painful result.
Sophie squirmed and felt her rain-soaked pantsuit squish wetly on the seat. She’d been so proud of the outfit only a few hours ago. Picked out special to impress the warden, a man she would never even meet.
The chair was bolted to the floor. The cuffs were too strong to escape. She’d have to talk her way out of it when Logan arrived. Appeal to his sense of humanity. Or something.
The years spent under her mother’s optimistic tutelage—even in the hard times—suddenly came back to her. She tried to think of something positive. “A happy mind is a clear mind,” her mother had always said, and, God help her, Sophie believed it.
So, happy thoughts.
For one thing, she wasn’t splattered on the pavement outside city hall. That was something. She wasn’t dead or even hurt much. Best of all, there was a chance Charles Taylor, the Curbside Killer himself, was here in these very woods. Or, at least he’d been very recently.
The work lights clamped to the ceiling suddenly turned on, flooding the room with hot white light and shooting daggers of pain into her skull. She snapped her eyes shut and then opened them a little, squinting to see what was happening.
She heard the creak of the door opening and the click-click of footsteps. She saw the silhouette of the new arrival, but couldn’t make out any of the features.
A woman’s voice said, “Do you seek sanctuary and protection?”
Sophie relaxed a little at the female voice. But only a little. “Yeah.”
“Request denied.” The woman’s voice was cold and hard. “What’s your name?”
“Sophie Porter.”
A spray of ice-cold water hit her in the chest and she yelled in surprise.
“No!” the woman shouted. “That’s not your name. We don’t use full names here. How’d you get here? What were you doing when you said the word?”
Sophie spat the cold water out of her mouth. “I take it you’re Logan?”
Another stream of water blasted her.
“Answer the question! What were you doing?”
The water was still slamming against her and she shouted to be heard over it. “I was falling! I fell off a building.”
The water shut off, leaving her shivering. The woman said, “Sophie Porter’s as good as dead. She might as well have hit the ground and died on impact. All that’s left is you, a new person. You have the chance to start fresh here. You can be Sophie or Porter. Take your pick.”
Sophie shook her head hard to clear the water out of her face. “Listen, I’m happy to answer any questions you have, but can we behave like civilized human beings and stop spraying me with water?”
A blast of water to the face was her only answer.
“Okay! Okay! Sophie! I’ll go by Sophie.” The spray stopped, and she spit out another mouthful of water. “Listen, there’s something you need to know. There’s a guy named Charles Taylor around here. He was on death row, and—”
Water hit her in her open mouth, causing her to cough and choke.
“There’s not any Charles Taylor here. Charles Taylor’s dead, just like Sophie Porter. No one here has a past.”
“Are you kidding me?” Sophie screamed through the water. “He was the Curbside Killer! He smashed strangers’ heads in with baseball bats!”
“You’re not listening! We don’t care if you were the pope or Satan himself in your past life. All that matters is whether you can follow the rules.”
“Some comfort that’ll be when he kills you in your bed.”
The angle of the water changed and it shot up her nose. She twisted her head, but the water followed.
“Do yourself a favor, and shut up,” the woman said.
The door creaked open and another silhouette darkened the doorway.
“Really, Logan?” a male voice said. “Is this necessary?”
“She’s lippy. Talking about people’s pasts. I’m telling her the rules.”
“That’s not your job.”
“You weren’t here.”
“True enough. What’s she go by?”
“She goes by Sophie,” Sophie muttered through the water.
“Will you turn off the water, please?” the man asked. “And get the lights?”
The water stopped, and Sophie gasped for air. A moment later the work lights turned off, and the softer light of an overhead bulb replaced them.
The man walked over, his feet squeaking as he came. Sophie squeezed her eyes shut tight to blink away the water, and then opened them. He looked to be in his late-thirties. Most of his hair was go
ne and an expansive belly hung over the front of his pants. His smile shone bright as he leaned down toward her.
“I’m sorry about all that. Logan gets a bit carried away with the whole hazing thing.”
Sophie was shivering hard now. “Apology accepted. You gonna unlock me now so I can kick her ass?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. There’s one more thing.”
She gritted her teeth and waited.
“Sophie, do you come here seeking sanctuary and protection?”
She glanced over the man’s shoulder and got her first good look at Logan. The woman was tall with fiery red hair, and she wore a tank top that showed off her well-muscled arms.
Sophie looked back at the man. She’d asked this question before, but she had a feeling she might get a straight-forward answer this time. “What happens if I say no?”
He waved toward the door. “You walk out of here and go on your merry way. Though, I must say, I seriously doubt you’d survive long in those woods. And you’d never be welcomed back into our fold. This is a one-time offer.”
Sophie looked at the pool of water around her feet. “Your fold, huh? That’s what you call it?”
“Answer the question, Sophie,” Logan said.
Sophie bit back a snide retort. “I’m looking for a man named Charles Taylor. Is he here?”
“I won’t answer that question,” the man said. “Not until you answer mine.”
Sophie took a deep breath. “Yes. I want sanctuary.”
The man broke out in a wide grin. He bent down and unlocked the cuffs around her ankles, and then the ones around her wrists. He held out his hand to her. “Sophie, my name’s Nate. Welcome to Sanctuary.”
3. Rook Mountain
The doorbell woke Sean. He looked around the room frantically, filled suddenly with a mix of adrenaline and confusion. He glanced at the clock. 3:12 AM. He sat up, swung his feet out of bed, and rubbed his eyes.
Had that really been the doorbell? Or had it been the tail end of a dream that spun so neatly into reality he thought he’d heard something?
He stood up and stretched. Only one way to find out.
The doorbell rang again, a series of three chimes that each felt like ice picks driving panic into his chest. There were few things scarier than an unexpected caller at three twelve in the morning.
He hurried to his dresser and grabbed his service revolver from the top drawer. Maybe not the best idea considering the adrenaline rushing through his veins and the sleep still clouding his mind. This was the exact type of situation where the wrong person could get shot. Still, he’d feel mighty dumb if he interrupted a home invasion and left a perfectly good gun in a drawer in the bedroom.
But, really, how many home invaders rang the doorbell?
Sean crept out of the bedroom, down the stairs, and toward the front door. He kept the lights off, not wanting to ruin his night vision. He slid his feet along the ground, moving swiftly and carefully to avoid anything he might have left on the floor.
As he moved through the house, he thought about the last time he’d woken in the middle of the night to find an unexpected visitor at the door. It had been his old friend Frank Hinkle. Frank had a crazy look in his eyes that night, and he’d been blabbering about the items with the broken clock symbol. At least this couldn’t be any worse than that. An hour after that visit the Unfeathered had made their return to Rook Mountain.
He took a deep breath and flipped on the porch light. Pushing aside the curtain, he looked out. A single, thin figure stood on the porch. Colt Bryant. The kid from the crime scene earlier that day.
He pulled the door open. The chain was still latched, and he opened it wide enough to look out at the kid.
“Colt, what is it?” Sean asked. He tried hard to mask the irritation in his voice, but he wasn’t sure if he succeeded.
Colt wore only a tee shirt and jeans. His arms were wrapped around his chest, and he looked much younger than he had this morning. “Hi. I’m really sorry to wake you up.”
Sean shook his head. “It’s okay. What’s going on?”
The kid stared up into Sean’s eyes, a pathetic look of despair on his face. “Remember when you told me I could come talk to you if I was ever in trouble?”
Sean searched his memory for when he might have said that to this kid, but he came up empty. To the best of his knowledge, he’d never even spoken with Colt Bryant before today. Maybe he’d said it when talking at Colt’s school or something. Of course, if that was the case, he would have been talking to the class about the Regulations, telling them to turn in any Regulation Breakers to the first police officer they could find.
“Yeah, I remember. Are you in trouble?”
Colt shook his head. “No. Well, maybe. I’m not sure yet.”
“Okay. Tell me what you need.”
Colt squinted into the black space between the door and the door frame. “Can I come in and talk?”
Sean paused, suddenly aware that all he was wearing was his boxers. “How about I come out there?”
“Okay.”
“You want me to bring you a jacket?”
The kid shook his head. Sean shut the door and unhooked the chain. He grabbed his blue hoodie off the back of the recliner where he’d thrown it last night and slipped it on. He hesitated, and then shoved the gun into the pocket of the hoodie, keeping his right hand in there with it. Just in case. Something about Colt Bryant creeped him out a little, even when it wasn’t 3:12 AM.
He stepped outside and gestured to the two rocking chairs on the porch. “Have a seat.”
Colt shook his head. “This won’t take long. I wanted to talk about the crime scene today. I have some information that might help you. With the case.”
They needed all the help they could get on this one. The blood and the injuries made it clear Rodgers had taken a beaten before plunging off that roof, but their search of the building and interviews with bystanders had turned up nothing. A little help could go a long way. He’d prefer to not have evidence handed over on his porch in the middle of the night, though.
“That would be great,” he said. “Why don’t I get dressed and we can head down to the station?”
“No, I want to talk here. I don’t think the station would be the safest place for me. Like I said, I might be in some trouble.”
Sean nodded. “Okay. Let’s talk here.”
Colt paused, looking out into the night. “First, I have to ask you a question. Did you find anything on the body?”
Sean gripped his gun a bit harder. Was this why Colt had gotten him out of bed in the middle of the night? “We already talked about this at the scene. I can’t give out that information.”
Colt lowered his head, and his voice came out choked when he spoke. “I know he had something. Please. I need it.”
“Tell me what kind of trouble you’re in, son.”
“Everyone’s gonna think he killed himself because that death row inmate escaped while he was on duty. But that’s not what happened.”
Sean raised an eyebrow. “And you know what did happen?”
Colt’s body shook for a moment as if he was crying. He cleared his throat. “You…you remember Regulation 2? The items with the broken clock symbol?”
Even hearing mention of that Regulation sent a jolt through Sean. That was the last thing he had expected to hear. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Rodgers had one of the objects. A compass.”
“How do you know that?”
Colt shrugged. “He wasn’t exactly subtle about it. Ever since so-called Deregulation Day, he’s been drinking in bars, running his mouth. The wrong person overheard him.”
“And how exactly did you get involved?” Sean asked.
“I’ve been running with Zed Heads lately.”
“Yeah, I saw the tat.”
“The Zed Heads want that object. Day before yesterday, they sent me and a couple of the younger guys to take it from him. Thing is, we didn’t expect him to be ar
med.”
“What happened?”
“We asked for the item. He admitted he had it. Even told us it was a compass. He pulled out a gun and I chickened out and left. He must have realized the Zed Heads would never let it go and offed himself.”
Maybe this kid didn’t know as much as he thought he did about what had happened. “Thank you, Colt,” Sean said. “That’s valuable information.”
Colt nodded, and then he smiled a crooked smile, and a sudden light danced in his eyes. “The thing is, Officer Lee, Rodgers wasn’t dumb. I respect him for that. He understood his situation and he acted on it. See, the Zed Heads aren’t the kind of people to let something like this go. This joke of a government, these arbitrary laws we follow now, they’re meaningless. The Regulations are the true law. They must be upheld. Regulation 2 is no exception.”
Sean felt a chill in the air.
Colt continued. “Take you, for example. You were the first one at the scene today. Everyone there saw you bending down, pawing at the body. I happen to know the Zed Heads have friends in the police department, friends who are still loyal to Zed and what he stands for. Those friends tell us the compass wasn’t on the body. I also happen to know the Zed Heads searched Rodgers’ house. And his car. And a Zed-loyal guard searched his locker at the prison. The compass wasn’t in any of those places. Some people might think you decided to keep the compass for yourself.”
Sean leaned in close. “Is that why you came here? Are you trying to threaten me?”
“Officer Lee, it would help me out, and you too really, if you would hand over the compass. We would highly appreciate it.”
“I don’t have the compass. I think it’s time for you to leave.”
Colt’s smile widened a little. “Okay. I’ll go. I can’t speak for my friends, though.” He gestured toward the road.
Sean squinted out into the night. It took a moment, and then he saw them. There must have been two dozen dark shapes standing on the sidewalk facing the house. The Zed Heads. How long had they been there, silently watching, listening to the conversation? Sean’s heart raced. He pulled the gun out of his pocket and held it down at his side, making sure Colt could see it.
