A Heart of Shame

by Kristen Banet

  The we, Sawyer guessed, was the group Stevenson was a member of. God’s Will, or whatever self-righteous piece of shit name they gave themselves.

  “Dear God,” Elijah gasped, grabbing Stevenson’s shirt and yanking his chest forward. “You are letting your son kill people for you? You orchestrated and let loose a serial killer?”

  “He was supposed to kill you all in your fucking sleep,” Stevenson growled weakly. “Supposed to get you out of the way.”

  “I wonder why,” Sawyer mumbled sarcastically, backing away. She ran a hand over her face as she turned away. Her mind was running a thousand miles a second.

  “Sawyer?” Elijah looked back her. “I’ll cuff him and drop him on the couch, if that’s okay with you.”

  She shook her head as she turned back. She looked down at Stevenson.

  “This is all your fault, you know that right? People are dead because of you. A family, a little fucking girl,” Sawyer fumed, squatting next to the sheriff. “A boy is an orphan now. Your children will grow up, forever remembering the monster their father was. And what you turned your son into…”

  “He was always crazy. Fucking unhinged. I gave him purpose, so he could prove himself to the Lord and live as a warrior for God. Like I have—repentant for being a fucking freak. You thrive on using your demonic powers, but some of us know the Lord is always watching. You belong in Hell, heathen,” Stevenson snarled at her, as loud as he could. He coughed after and whimpered in pain.

  “I’ll meet you there,” Sawyer hissed. This old man was off his fucking rocker.

  She grabbed his forehead and slammed his head into the wall. He went through the plaster, and she stood up, leaving him there. He wasn’t dead, but he was also no longer a problem. They knew what they needed to know. She heard the click of handcuffs and stepped out onto the front porch for some air.

  She was only out there for a moment when Elijah followed her. She felt a large hand touch her back and another cover her left hand.

  “You’re shaking,” he whispered with concern.

  “I do that,” Sawyer answered, louder than she’d intended. “He beat his son to the point, I’m guessing, that Cory thinks the only way to make up for what he is, is to kill other Magi. To… cleanse and purge.” The words made her sick with anger. “He turned his son into a monster and thinks it’s okay. Thinks he did something good. God, what if he had turned on his siblings?” Sawyer’s stomach rolled uncomfortably in her stomach.

  “I’ll call Vincent.” Elijah sighed, pulling out his phone.

  Sawyer pulled her shaking hands to her chest. Cory was supposed to kill them, but now she sort of understood why the creep kept entering her nightmares. He understood in a weird way, probably. Getting beaten on like that… he had firsthand experience.

  She wondered if it was just for cheap thrills, or maybe he didn’t kill them because he had sympathy for her.

  And Sawyer realized something else.

  Cory was a boy she could have saved, like his siblings.

  He was just another victim, doing what he thought was right. As awful and terrible as it was, he was just searching for a way to redeem himself in the eyes of a higher power, one that he’d been told could never tolerate him, could never love him. He was looking for salvation, thinking that being a Magi was a sin—one he couldn’t change.

  He was also probably trying to prove to his father that he could be loved.

  That struck an awful cord in Sawyer. It made her pity him.

  She guessed there was probably some mental illness involved as well. Cory couldn’t just be an abused boy turned religious fanatic. That would cause him to be his father, not a serial killer. Unhinged, Stevenson had said. This entire, backwoods shithole was un-fucking-hinged, in her opinion. There were great Christians out there, Magi and non-Magi, alike. People like these? They were rare. Fanatics that went this far were rare and shook Sawyer to the bone. They normally never went this far.

  “They’ll put out word on Cory.” Elijah sighed when he walked back. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Sawyer bit out. She explained to him what she felt about Cory. Elijah only nodded.

  “Makes sense,” Elijah said plainly several minutes after she was done. “They are coming to pick us up. And to try to see if the sheriff knows where Cory will be going next. Zander will get him up.”

  “I take it nothing could be gleaned from the scene?” Sawyer asked.

  “Nope.” Elijah shook his head and didn’t give away how he was feeling by his tone of voice. Sawyer reached out and touched his large arm.

  “We’ll catch him,” she said with a confidence she wasn’t sure she felt. She was out of her depth, really. She had never really had to track someone down like this, someone that passed by unnoticed. Her targets had always been high-value, visible people, who couldn’t keep secrets about where they were and when. This was different, and people’s lives were on the line.

  “Vincent thinks Cory is going to rush now,” Elijah groaned. “Thinks he’ll jump immediately after his next target.”

  “Is he going in order? The names on the list?” Sawyer asked, removing her hand when Elijah didn’t acknowledge it. She’d tried to do the comforting thing.

  “No, he’s not.” Elijah pulled the list out of his pocket and began looking over it. “I think we should just start rounding everyone up. Everyone is pretty close, I’m guessing. We can have Dallas find addresses. Get them to Abilene, give them to the locals there for protection. At least in numbers, they won’t be as vulnerable.”

  “That takes time we might not have,” Sawyer reminded him, feeling anxious suddenly. They had no time and no way to find this guy.

  “There’s Vincent,” Elijah blurted out, as if he wanted to avoid what Sawyer had just said. She turned and saw the Explorers screaming down the dirt driveway, kicking up dust and rocks. They were going fast enough that Sawyer knew something was wrong.

  “What the hell,” she wondered to herself. She watched Zander slam on the brakes and nearly hit the porch. Sawyer and Elijah both moved, just in case. The second Explorer, probably being driven by Vincent, nearly slammed into the first as it came to a stop.

  She felt a wave of fear as the rest of the team all jumped out of the vehicles. Zander didn’t even bother turning his off.

  “Where’s Stevenson?” Vincent yelled as he ran up.

  “Inside, what’s going on?” Sawyer asked, looking from Vincent to Zander, as the later ran inside past them.

  “The boy? The last member of the family? He wasn’t at the school when the Dallas officer got there to pick him up. The school lost him. A review of the security tapes show him literally disappearing. Someone cloaked him and walked out with him.”

  Sawyer felt the blood rush from her head and then a curl of despair entered the pit of her stomach.

  “No,” Sawyer gasped, turned to where Zander was healing Stevenson and watched the sheriff wake up slowly.

  “I have a few questions for you, Stevenson,” Zander snarled.

  “Go to hell,” Stevenson snarled back, spittle flying from his mouth, now wide awake.

  Sawyer watched Zander put a hand to the sheriff’s ribs and push. Stevenson screamed. Sawyer realized that her other teammates also weren’t above torture in certain situations.

  “You are going to answer them,” Zander threatened, “and when I think you’re fucking trying to evade giving me an answer, I’m going to make it painful. I’m not above this.”

  “Okay!” Stevenson screamed, and Sawyer saw tears in his eyes. She wondered what Zander had just done to the man. Quinn walked up next to her and she took a glance at his face. Bad idea. He looked furious. Shade and Scout moved past, and, when they arrived at Stevenson, Shade bit down on his unbroken leg, bringing another scream.

  “Cory kidnapped a boy,” Zander growled. “Where would he take him?”

  “The Acampo boy?” Stevenson gasped. “He’s probably dead by now-”

  Sawyer heard a sickening cr
unch and a snarl. Stevenson screamed as Scout bit down on the broken shin.

  “Jesus,” Sawyer breathed out.

  “We’re working on limited time and we need to impress the severity of that on Stevenson,” Vincent told her, sounding mild. She glanced to him but saw he was a little pale.

  “You aren’t comfortable with this,” she noted, taking in his lack of color.

  “We have legal right to do it,” Vincent said, trying to sound controlled, but Sawyer could hear the cracks. “There are things I’m willing to look past when others’ lives are on the line. It’s just hard to watch, and we’ve never had to do it before, not like this. Too much is riding on him telling us something, anything.”

  “I understand the need,” Sawyer told him, as Stevenson gave another scream. She looked back in the room and saw Elijah was now with Zander. She hadn’t noticed him walk off to join Zander.

  “This isn’t normal, though,” Jasper finally spoke up. “We normally don’t have to go this far.”

  Sawyer looked behind her to see that Jasper wasn’t even watching. The entire scene was punctuated by repeated questions from Elijah or Zander and Stevenson’s whimpering, pitiful sounds.

  “Jasper?” She took a step to him. “I’m not… completely comfortable either, if it makes a difference.” He turned to her and sighed.

  “I judge you for all sorts of things,” he mumbled, “and yet, we do this and call it the greater good.”

  “A boy could die if Zander and Elijah don’t find out where Cory might take him,” Sawyer countered. “It is the greater good.”

  “I know,” Jasper said plainly, “but two wrongs don’t always make a right. And you’ll notice, I’m not trying to stop them.” Sawyer nodded slowly. He wasn’t. That said something at least, that Jasper was willing to bend his moral high ground for something.

  “The… farmhouse!” Stevenson finally groaned. “Cory goes to the farmhouse when he wants to hide out from the world.”

  “What farmhouse?” Elijah pressed. Sawyer turned back to the scene.

  “Abandoned, about ten miles from here. You’ll find a gated drive down the road. It’s down that. He walks out there or uses his four-wheeler. He would have taken the four-wheeler if he has the boy!” Stevenson sounded like he was dying. Sawyer didn’t think anything Elijah and Zander had done to him was fatal, but enough pain could make anyone think they were going to die.

  “If you are wrong, if you are lying to us,” Zander growled in a low voice, “I will come back, and I will fucking kill you.”

  “I’m not!” Stevenson screamed. He told them the actual road names as Sawyer collected her and Elijah’s bags.

  “He won’t go anywhere,” Elijah snarled. “Let’s go.”

  Sawyer ran with the team to the Explorers. Elijah looked at the sheriff’s truck and Sawyer watched wide-eyed with satisfaction as the interior lit up in flames. It lasted ten seconds then cut off like a gas stove.

  No, she thought, the sheriff wouldn’t be going anywhere now.

  It was a bumpy ride as they tore off down the driveway.

  No one spoke, yet. They didn’t know what they would find or who. There was nothing to plan for yet. They could only hope the boy was safe and alive. They could only hope it was Cory who had him.

  23

  Jasper

  They had just tortured a man.

  Jasper had never felt like this before. He’d already been having a hard time with the fact that Sawyer often took the law into her own hands and did things that most would frown on, that he would frown on. He knew his team was legally in the right, at least to the WMC, but Jasper wasn’t sure that made any of it okay. His internal scales of right and wrong were thrown off. A boy’s life was most likely at risk, but they had just done something, just crossed a line, they had never needed to cross before. Something they often talked down about the WMC for doing.

  “Jasper, get out of your head, we’re nearly there,” Elijah scolded him.

  “Roger that,” Jasper growled, glaring at the cowboy. He trusted his team, he needed to. They were the law, the enforcers and protectors for Magi everywhere.

  They had just tortured a man. Not just letting Sawyer kick the shit out of him, but let the wolves do serious damage, let Zander heal him slightly, then re-break the weak spots. He’d known that was what Zander had been doing.

  Jasper looked through the front window, leaning to see between the front seats. The Explorer was slowing down, and Jasper saw the gate.

  “I got this,” Elijah growled, making the interior of the Explorer heat up to near uncomfortable levels.

  “No, you don’t,” Vincent said as Jasper watched the gate get eaten into the earth and disappear. Quinn had handled it from the other Explorer.

  Jasper was knocked back into his seat as Vincent slammed back on the gas and sped down the old dirt drive.

  It was another two agonizing minutes until they saw the old, decrepit farmhouse. Jasper closed his eyes and focused. They had to save this boy if he was here. They had to stop Cory, if he was here. This had to end, and he could come to terms with what they had needed to do later.

  Vincent stopped them nearly fifty yards away, Zander pulling up next to them. They all jumped out, and Jasper looked at Sawyer, who was glaring at the cabin. They were too far away to really tell if there were any Magi inside.

  “Me and you,” he told her. “If we can get in and judge the situation, we can either handle it or call the team in.”

  “Good idea,” Vincent agreed, walking around the front of the Explorer. “We’ll wait right up by the door. If we all just barge in, we can spook him.”

  “That’s right,” Jasper sighed. “Sawyer?” He was concerned that she hadn’t even acknowledged him yet.

  “Let’s go,” Sawyer whispered and began walking away. Jasper looked over at her. She was carrying her daggers. He walked behind her and put a hand over her shoulder. He didn’t react this time when she cloaked them about ten yards from the farmhouse and the world went black and grey, colorless and bleak, even in the harsh light of the Texas afternoon.

  Such a bright day to go hunting a serial killer.

  As they got closer, he glanced back at the team. They were arming up, just in case.

  “Sawyer?”

  “We’ve done this before,” Sawyer whispered back and began to go through the wall, Jasper keeping a hand on her and making sure to phase at the right moment, so he didn’t lose the cloaking or another limb.

  Once inside, Sawyer pulled him to her. He was thankful for the enchantments that Elijah had put on the leg. He’d finally explained that the prosthetic would react and act like a normal leg, instead of a dead weight. Jasper didn’t really understand it, but something about an enchantment that would react to signals from the nerves.

  He was thankful for it, though. Sawyer had pulled him hard enough to nearly knock him off balance, since he had no idea what obstacles were there. They were slightly behind a large set of boxes and crates, so she dropped the cloak, as well, letting color return to their worlds.

  He glared at her and she pointed. He followed.

  An older teen, or young man, Jasper decided, looking distraught, pale, sweaty, and nervous as he paced around. A young boy, sitting on the floor, looking scared and worried.

  Cory has his father’s brown hair that went in every direction as he ran a hand through it. He was lean and tall, looking half starved.

  “Gabriel,” Cory mumbled. “I need you to listen okay? You can help me.”

  “Help you with what, Cory? Why are we here? What happened?” Gabriel answered, starting to stand up.

  “Don’t move!” Cory roared. Jasper nearly jumped at the sudden escalation. Gabriel just got teary eyed, looking terrified and sat back down. “Nothing happened. I took you away from that awful, sinful family and now you can help me. Together, we can do this.”

  “Do what?” Gabriel asked, confusion and fear warring on his pale, young features, his blonde hair falling away from h
is eyes as he looked up to Cory. Jasper’s heart was racing. Gabriel wasn’t in danger yet. Cory had him here for another reason.

  “Help me do God’s work, of course!” Cory snapped. “Like we talked about in church. You said you wanted to be a good Christian, and I’m going to give you the chance. Together, we can earn our places in Heaven, and the Lord will accept us, even though we’re demon-touched and tainted.”

  “I don’t understand,” Gabriel cried out.

  Jasper did. Cory thought he found a fellow, a friend, a protégé.

  Good God.

  Sawyer moved even closer, and Jasper could nearly feel her shaking. They were both assessing the situation silently, trying to find out the best way to intervene.

  They never had the chance to figure it out.

  Cory backed-handed Gabriel as the younger boy kept trying to understand.

  “You need to understand. I thought I told you, already!” Cory roared.

  Jasper started to run forward and bumped Sawyer. She cursed, and Jasper saw a black knife fly through the room and slice Cory’s arm. He’d knocked her aim off.

  Cory screamed and held the wound, looking wildly to where the dagger had come from.

  Jasper and Sawyer were outed. There was no turning back now.

  “Get Gabriel,” Jasper roared, running for Cory who had turned to run the other direction. He was headed for the back door, and Jasper hauled after him. He was slower than he’d once been, still unused to the new prosthetic, but he was going to catch this guy.

  Sawyer blinked between Cory and the back door. Jasper skidded to a halt as Cory barreled into Sawyer and was promptly over-powered. She sent an elbow to the young man’s head, dropping Cory to the floor. Jasper got a momentary glance at her face.

  It was cold and furious. Anger consumed her. He’d seen this before. She thought her face was emotionless, and maybe it was to others, but Jasper saw the pure fury in her eyes—that dangerous anger that made people fear her. Only someone who knew true rage could summon that sort of emotion in their eyes. And that rage? That rage was deadly.