Sovereign Ground (Breaking Bonds)

by Hilarey Johnson

  Few people are out driving on the road early Sunday morning. If I’d known this, I’d come out more often because the emptiness calms me. I like solitude, just not being alone with a…whatever that was, a demon?

  Now I really want to go see Thom, if for no other reason than to talk to Raenah a little more about the spirits. She said they have a ruler, the Great Spirit. I still wonder if they have choices, and get disciplined? Or is it like the chaos in our world?

  I’m alone right now. The knowledge is as strong as the reality that I wasn’t alone at my apartment. Lorna said my grandfather cursed me, called a spirit on me. Can it be called off?

  Hayden might know.

  I turn the corner to take the freeway back to Cori’s place with images of winged beings fighting with swords and flying in the skies. With my eyes focused on the azure horizon, a familiar black and teal pattern catches my attention. Instead of turning to the freeway on-ramp, I veer right. Excitement heaves my heart up and down like an elevator ride. My own enlarged reflection seduces me from high above. I drive down the road and turn around, park and face the billboard.

  The Torchlight ad, finished, beautiful. The curves of me stretch out in front of the Sierra Nevada backdrop. My shoulders dip to my waist and back up to my hip—corresponding with the violet-blue mountains in the morning light. Serene confidence engulfs me. It doesn’t matter that I’m barefoot, in a car I don’t own. I once stood under an ad like this—looking for a job—dreaming of freedom and control. Here I am. Look at me, Reno. I’ll make it after all.

  The serenity soothes me and I feel no rush to get back to the freeway. Finally, I’m where I need to be. A taxi pulls up next to me and I see another picture of myself in the square ad on the rooftop. Clint was right, I’ll be famous. The taxi driver glances in my direction. I’m grinning like a fool. I purse my lips together and wink slow enough to give him time. If he doesn’t recognize me yet, he will later. He stares at me as though he can’t place me. The light turns green, and I accelerate and drive off before he inches forward. If only Cori were here.

  This sobers me to my task. She’ll be happy for me when she’s slept off the liquor—was she even drunk last night? She could be doing something harder than alcohol. I mean, what was up with her nose bleeding like that? If she’s on drugs: I’ll fix it. I’ll take care of Cori. I’m no longer a victim of my dad, Health and Welfare, Lorna, Thom’s inebriated apathy.

  These billboards will be my business card. I could work anywhere in this city now.

  I punch the code to Cori’s gate. 5973. She saw me trying to watch her one time, so she just gave it to me. I never told her she uses the same code Brody uses at the Torchlight. It can’t be a coincidence. My tranquility dissipates. Confidence tumbles and turns with my thoughts. I hate that. Why am I such a swing-set?

  Mounting the steps to Cori’s apartments winds me. You’d think I climbed Everest by the thinning air. An oppressive thickness lurks at the top of the stairs, accompanied by a menacing fear. We are not alone here. I press through to find Cori.

  Cori will die because of you.

  Just like Brita.

  No. I won’t run away. I force my bare feet forward and chant her name with each step. Who does she have, besides me? I ignore the threats in my mind and insert Cori’s keys into her door handle.

  Like heat from a 500-degree oven, the smell of vodka exhales when I arch open her door. I turn my head to gasp a breath of morning. Bullying in my mind persists.

  “Leave me,” I say aloud.

  An awareness of derision answers. I feel vulnerable, weak and wretched.

  “If there is a Great Spirit ruler of spirits—help me.” I step forward into the room, relieved that it was possible. Somehow I‘d convinced myself I would die after I passed the threshold. A piece of paper waits in Cori’s hands on the floor by the corner and I take a step toward the insipid fingers that grip the edge.

  “Cori?”

  She reeks of liquor. Her skin is sticky, pale. I have to straddle her to roll her over in the hallway. She weighs nothing and I flip her harsher than needed. Her arm flops against the wall. An empty bottle of Smirnoff and a box of matches. Dozens of loose matches—some spent, some broken—cover the floor.

  “Brita?”

  I realize I called Cori by the wrong name, but she doesn’t answer either way. My fingers search her wrist for a pulse. I don’t know where it’s supposed to be. My own heart thumping is too loud anyway. “Cori, please answer me.”

  A tiny dusting of white powder lines her nostril. Dried mascara stains her cheeks. Her hand still rests beside the paper, the handwriting intentional and flowing. I pick it up—a suicide note.

  She didn’t drink too much. The stench comes from a dousing. She tried to light herself on fire. I continue to scan it. She wrote to Levi. For how beautiful her writing is, the words are incoherent. Brody is mentioned, something about shadows of stolen girls. My name is there too: Sparrow, not Baby.

  A moan comes out of her mouth. Cori’s alive.

  I jump up, run to the kitchen, grab the cordless phone. The 911 operator promises an ambulance is on its way. He asks me questions, but I only grunt answers. Cori must live.

  EMTs arrive, they ask questions about time and how I found her. I can’t watch them pulling on her clothes and moving her around like a doll, so I return the phone to the kitchen and gather myself to follow Cori to the hospital.

  On the counter is an opened note card. Immediately I find the envelope from Levi. I didn’t notice it when I first grabbed the phone, but it’s the letter Cori received in the mail last night. I return the phone to the cradle and read in simple, manly script.

  Coribelle,

  I forgive you.

  —Levi

  Chapter 20

  The hospital espresso bar nearest the waiting room has three people in line. I’m actually glad for anything to help fill my time. I know I should’ve given the cop Cori’s note. I just need a chance to read it once more, to understand what it was she wanted to say about me. If I hadn’t left her—there wouldn’t even be a note.

  Will she really die because of me?

  In the emergency room, doctors fight for Cori’s life and I’m choosing a flavored syrup for my latte. My knees buckle at the thought. I’m crushed inside, forsaken. When will the cop come back?

  “You okay?” The black woman in front of me has “T” earrings, like the cross at Hayden’s church. “You need to sit down?” The silver swings near her smooth cheeks when she talks. She points to the chairs behind me. I’m glad she guides me. Something is coming, another wave is pursuing me.

  “I’m afraid.” I rub one dirty, naked foot with the other.

  “Oh, darlin’.” She pats my hand and nods empathetically. “This is a hard place to be, waiting for someone you love.”

  The fear is for me, but I won’t explain. I won’t be able to walk away from my curse soon, the spirit’s getting bolder. I hear its voice, threatening me, claiming me.

  “Do you want me to get you something to drink?” She smiles, her dark skin almost luminescent; maybe she’s just sweaty. It does feel like a hundred and fifty degrees in here. I nod. She spins and shuffles away before I can ask for something cool, not hot. The weight of this fear will smother me. How can I be free?

  Clint watches me as he strides with authority. From down the hall, people seem to move out of his way without acknowledging his presence. That’s what a police uniform does, demands respect. Because of his direct steps toward my chair, I feel trapped, even with space behind me. When he stops in front of me, the leather on his uniform creaks. His bald head shines, and his eyes look greener than hazel with the hospital’s teal walls.

  “Cori took her work home with her, huh?”

  My skin burns.

  “Don’t look at me that way, Baby. She’s been threatening it forever.”

  “I never heard her say it.”

  “I didn’t think she had the guts to go through with it.” He sort of points
with his crooked nose to me and then away. “Let’s go tell Brody.”

  I stand on weak legs. “She left a note.” If I can’t trust a cop I know, I’m lost. But I was told to wait here. “Officer…Oh, I can’t remember his name: older guy, little pudgy, light brown hair…”

  “Thinning on top?” Clint asks. “That’s Officer Reynolds. Did he tell you to wait here?”

  “Yes, he needed to talk me.”

  “He’s off duty now. I’m taking his place.”

  I pull the folded envelope from my jean pocket. “Cori left a note, it says something about Brody.”

  Clint stops my hand and looks sharply from side to side. “I need to tell you something.”

  The black woman is paying at the counter; she has two frothy looking drinks.

  “Now.” Clint’s lips dip on the left side. “It’s about Brody.”

  I want to sit and drink my treat with the kind of woman who would pat a stranger’s hand, instead, Clint pulls me to the door. I’ve never seen the ocean, but I read once about an undertow. That’s how my calves and ankles feel—pulled by a force weightier than me. I look back at the drinks in her hands.

  “We’ll stop for a grape soda on the way.” Clint leads me outside to where I parked, and I slide in behind the wheel. His six-foot frame and police gear fold into the front seat of Cori’s Miata. I turn on the ignition.

  “What did the note say?”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” The ability to avoid his eyes, while I focus on the steering wheel, emboldens me.

  “Unless you want to spend the night in jail, we need to get out of here. They think you had something to do with Cori.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, rivalry, jealousy.”

  “No. I love Cori.”

  “But she is the lead dancer.”

  Two uniformed officers glide across the pavement with that purposeful stride men in uniform always have. I reach down to pretend to tie my shoes, but since I’m not wearing any, I inspect a cut on my little toe.

  “And you do have motive.”

  I look up to see if the cops have passed the car. “Why are you helping me?”

  “Come on, Baby, I know you didn’t do it.” He swings his hands up with each syllable. “Let’s go see Brody. He’ll know if she was having problems with anyone else.”

  “Yeah, I want to have something to tell the cops before I talk to them.” This is a great idea. I’m so glad to have Clint on my side.

  Driving in silence gives me time to replay the morning’s events. I remember my fear at home and at Cori’s and it makes me feel foolish. It probably was just dishes settling in the sink—I just exasperated it in my mind. As far as the smell, well, I still smell something horrible. Maybe my clothes are dirty. I should keep the dirty piles and the clean piles more separated.

  Clint turns the vent to open and air blows in the car. “What did the note say?”

  I start to pull out the note again.

  “Eyes on the road, Baby.”

  At the stoplight, I finish pulling out the note and skim until I see Brody’s name.

  “Brody promised incentive anytime. The first girl was named Micah. I still remember her face when she realized I’m not a modeling scout. I still knew all their names. Just a runaway child, a baby. I won’t help with Sparrow. You are on your own with her Brody.

  If only I had known that candy was not payment for each girl. Payment comes when their shadows following me everywhere.”

  A horn blasts behind me. Even though I read that portion twice, I can’t believe what it seems to say. Cori receives payment for girls? Clint doesn’t ask about the note. I can tell by his grim smile that he read over my shoulder.

  “Well, I’ll tell you that we’ve been investigating Brody for some time.” This much I knew from Hayden. “He definitely supplied Cori with cocaine. That’s what incentive means, candy, too.” He points to the letter and I glance quickly while driving.

  The night I first saw Cori dance, she had a dollar bill or something, rolled like a straw. She was obsessed with wiping the counter. It wasn’t that night only, sometimes she would act so erratic, talk so irrational—last night she went into her room alone, before she started acting crazy.

  “It’s making sense now, isn’t it?” Clint waits patiently for my thoughts.

  “She talked of shadow people…”

  “Common with people who use drugs.” His answer comes quick.

  “How is Brody connected?”

  “Dances are not the only thing Brody sells.”

  Why didn’t it ever occur to me that it was more than just Cori prostituting herself? “What about this part?” I try to point while I drive.

  I won’t help with Sparrow. You are on your own with her, Brody.

  “Yeah, what about it?” He asks.

  “Do you think Brody keeps girls against their will?”

  “No. Why would he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Baby, prostitution is legal in Nevada.”

  I’ve had this conversation with Cori enough times. “Outside city limits.”

  “Exactly,” he says. “Why would he need to ‘keep girls,’ as you say? They line up to work at Brody’s other bar. Cori did.”

  “Brody has another bar…”

  Clint interrupts me. “Outside city limits.” He elongates each word. Again, I’m waiting to catch up with what he already knows.

  “They just line up?”

  “Well, girls that seek fame, money…drugs.”

  The sun’s out in full force now and I pull out Cori’s sunglasses. How does someone line up for prostitution? How did I even get where I am? It isn’t like I dreamed of taking off my clothes while other girls played with their dolls. The first time truly was an accident. The money’s just so good—I could never go back to making minimum wage.

  “I needed money when I started. Funny how I need it even more now.”

  Clint smirks at me.

  “What?”

  “Everyone says they’ll do it for a little while, make money and get out. Brody makes sure you get used to the money.”

  In the beginning, at least some of my tips came from Brody. Brita told me not to worry about it, but I definitely saw Brody give money to that trucker. I don’t want to hear this, so I don’t look at Clint, but he continues anyway.

  “Then he encourages apartments and car loans you can’t afford unless you continue dancing.”

  Brody was uncharacteristically helpful when I needed an apartment. Looking at the past six months, I can see manipulation from the day he pressed that first hundred into my hand. And I have walked blindly, wherever directed.

  Trapped. I smack the radio button and turn up the tunes, so I don’t have to listen to Clint anymore. Moisture leaks through at my armpits. I ran out of the house this morning without putting on deodorant. I didn’t even take time to put on a bra and underwear. It never stops. Just when I think I’m in control of something, anything—I let myself get chased by imaginary demons. Have I ever done anything by my own motivation?

  I’m going to tell Brody off. He has no right. He’s going to be so sorry he ever thought he could finagle me. I’m a billboard model. I could work anywhere in this town.

  In the passenger seat, Clint stretches and folds his arms with a satisfied sigh. I’m mad enough to hurt someone, and I hope Brody gets in my way.

  We park in the back of the TorchLight. I’m tempted to just use Brody’s number on the keypad instead of push the call button then look into the camera and wait until he buzzes me in. Clint starts around to the front of the building, I follow. It’s comforting to have a cop with me, the steady pace of his heavy boots, the authority, the knowledge that he is on my side.

  A man and a woman loiter near the front. The man has shoulder length black hair with a dyed, white-blond rooster plume at the crown. He has a dark soul-patch under a full lower lip. It’s waxed into a point, directing my eyes to a softly rounded chin. He holds a handful of red r
oses.

  The woman walks toward me as soon as we make eye contact. Her heavy top-half leans like she is uncomfortable, either in her high heels—or the tight, pin-striped skirt she wears. Halfway between us, she stops and adjusts the three large, studded belts resting on her hips. Clint stiffens and steps back from her path. She ignores him and continues toward me. The letters “MOM” swirl across the side of her neck in tattooed ink. The collar of her “Misfits” shirt is cut out, and the gauzy material stretches down to reveal a purple bra.

  “God loves you.” She hands me a long-stemmed, red rose without any thorns on the stem.

  That’s what Hayden said.

  I glance at the man approaching behind her. “Jesus loves you,” he repeats.

  In my peripheral, Clint shudders.

  I lift the rose to my nose and inhale. Rose perfume in a bottle is sickening—I never would claim to like the scent. This one smells…real. It blocks out the rotten dishrag odor I’ve been ignoring. A little breeze lifts the carpet of my hair and travels around my neck like an embrace. Inhaling, with my eyes closed, I could be anywhere. I’m transported.

  “Brody probably already knows you’re here from the security cameras.” Clint stands next to the front door. I guess he waits for me to open the door for him, just like Brody. I glance at the camera, perched like a vulture behind a fake palm tree decoration. Yeah, Brody knows I’m here.

  And Jesus, does he know where I am?

  Just as I breach the doorway, the woman calls behind me. “Jesus…God’s son knows everything, and he can fix anything. You just have to call out to him.”

  I whip my head around, not nearly as angry as I must look. How did she…did she read my thoughts? Clint’s hand grips my elbow, and I feel rent with the desire to hear more from her. He pulls.

  “Baby.” Behind me, the TorchLight door closes. In front of me stands Brody, grinning like a dog. The dog he is. “What are you doing here on your day off? Are you bringing me your social?”

  “Yes. I have my card here. Day off? What about you? You’re always here. Do you live here?”