The Refugee Sentinel

by Hayes, Harrison

  At first she figured he was a ghost inside her over-stimulated mind and kept walking. But it was Colton, leafing through a book, at a library table. As she tiptoed behind him, careful not to be spotted, she feared God would hit a pause button and wake her. But God stayed put and the world remained as she wanted. She was incapable of defining how she felt. The closest was wishing that this moment stretched forever without caring to miss anything else in life. Then she saw the tremor and the veiled annoyance in his eyes. Maybe attacking him with wet hands was to blame – he never much cared for surprises.

  Shattered... with mascara running down her cheeks, Sylvya somehow staggered home then hid in the bathroom for an hour. She managed to join the kids for dinner, hurrying them to bed so she could fall apart on her own. The following morning brought relief and a new perspective. He must have been shocked to see the past he had travelled so far to leave behind, catch up with him again. Hope told her a second meeting would be different and magical. She would show up at his apartment and he’d invite her in. They would make sweet, passionate love throughout the night and she’d wake in his arms the next morning. They would go to a local bakery for a late breakfast. He would pay the bill and insist on spending the weekend together. Then he’d take her to the movies or rollerblading or to an ice cream spot.

  But their second meeting wasn’t magical. He looked so handsome but when he opened his mouth, his words thrust a dagger in her, cutting out any room for wishful interpretation. Colton didn’t love her. And that was that.

  Getting home was a blur. She came to her senses still dressed under the steaming shower, drowning out the pain that was devouring her whole. She didn’t speak afterward – not to Dallas and Sadie, not to colleagues or patients – and her eyes kept leaking with anguish that only complete silence could befit. For a while, nothing mattered. Reviving her career didn’t matter. Dallas falling in love with Seattle and asking, “Could we stay here for good, Mom, or for as long as we could stretch it?” didn’t matter. Sadie being asked out by a curly-haired boy from her YMCA swimming class and skipping around the house the day he kissed her cheek didn’t matter.

  At the end of the week, the Chief Nursing Officer ordered Sylvya to take time off. Virginia Mason Oncology had blossomed into a higher-quality ward in the one week since she had joined and the Chief wanted the goose that laid the golden-eggs back in tip-top shape. Work could wait until her emotions unsnarled, he said, from the knots they had become. Sylvya was too tired to argue. She spent the following week in bed, with a wet ball turning inside her rib cage and stretching it end-to-end. Over time, the ball grew until Sylvya couldn’t breathe. She went back to work with it spinning inside and shuffled from day to night and back to day, and learned to breathe in spurts, like an animal in heat. Then, almost two years later, when she least expected it, she saw him again...

  She had heard her name come from somewhere she couldn’t see. She had turned several times. Then, as she headed for the commuter station, a splash of red caught her eye. She saw a crimson bandage where a man’s passport should be. Her gaze followed the arm to the torso to the face: Colton’s face. He must have cut his hand to desert Defiance Day. Sylvya shook. She had never thought of him as a deserter. The man she loved was selfless. She walked to him and he grunted a sound she couldn’t understand but his eyes spoke plenty.

  In this moment, the wet ball inside her burst and she patted a shocked hand on her chest, as if checking for wine stains on her lab coat. She breathed in for what felt like a minute until her lungs stopped expanding, still no pain. She smiled and looked at him and saw a different person; someone whose magic over her was gone. She did kiss him, to make sure she wasn’t imagining it and the ball wouldn’t come back. She wasn’t imagining. He was no more but another patient with a male anatomy. She ran back for a gurney, drunken by this new sense of being pain-free.

  Of course, she sheltered him. He was a patient and she was a nurse with an attached Hippocratic Oath. An abandoned supply room became his recovery quarters. Brooms, paint buckets and a broken refrigerator gave way to a coil-mattress coupled with an IV stand. She stitched his stump, nerve clusters and shattered bones, then pumped him full of antibiotics and two IV bags at a time, one for each arm. When he woke, gaunt and ravenous but inflammation-free, she fed him with medicine and food. On the second day, his condition improved to patched-but-stable and he told her about an Asian woman on a mission to kill him. Sylvya listened with a smile, the wet ball inside her gone and replaced by clarity.

  His story wasn’t bad, but after honoring Hippocrates, she had to do her civic duty. Seattle, along with the rest of the US Territory, was bursting at the seams with deserters who cut their own hands to survive Defiance Day. These lost souls branded themselves as fugitives – refugees in their own Territory – until their inevitable capture. Police protocol called for their immediate arrest, but with jail space more scarce than beachfront property, the cops deferred the information until after the nineteenth of December when the jails throughout the Territory were guaranteed to unclog.

  Sylvya punched 911 on her cell phone. An Officer Grant, with a well-trained voice, logged her report of a felon who had self-severed his passport.

  two days till defiance day (58

  “Mrs. Timmons,” a booming voice stretched her ear, “this is the Seattle PD Chief, Natt Gurloskey.”

  Sylvya shifted her cellphone from one hand to the other. “How… may I help you?” Her mouth threw roadblocks between words to buy time. In her brain, she thumbed through any outstanding hiccups she had had with the law. Could it be some ancient scuffle from her Vegas days, or a permit glitch at the SeaTac airport transfer? Then Sylvya gasped… the kids, something was wrong with them.

  “Are Sadie and Dallas, OK?”

  On the other end, the man laughed. “This doesn’t concern your children, dear. They’re safe in their St. Francis School classrooms, being the good students they are.”

  This cop knew where Dallas and Sadie went to school. The premonition of something rotten under his laughter made Sylvya sit down. At least the kids were safe. She could handle whatever else they threw at her.

  “I’m calling in response to your report about Mr. Parker’s felony and current whereabouts.”

  A second wave of relief, “I reported his crime a few minutes ago.”

  “We owe the world to citizens like you.” A rich cough rearranged pieces of saliva along Gurloskey’s throat. “You just moved to Seattle and are contributing already. If I may say so, I love you, Mrs. Timmons.” The rotten smell grew thicker. “Anyway, I need to let you know what’s expected from you for the success of operation Jailbird.”

  “You’ve given this arrest a codename?” she said. The Seattle PD had too much free time.

  “Affirmative. I’ve also commissioned two prowlers with Special Ops personnel to depart to Virginia Mason as we speak. I will accompany them, too.” The cop sounded like a six-year-old discovering a coveted gift on Christmas morning. Such glee, hiding in severity’s clothing, was out of place in the voice of a cop about to capture a fugitive. “My personnel are authorized to apprehend Mr. Parker dead or alive. Your task is to keep the target at the current premises at all costs. Otherwise, our mission would face incalculable risks.”

  “I understand,” she said and closed her eyes.

  “If the target is not at the current location when we arrive, we’ll presume you’ve become his accomplice. But if we bundle this cat you’ll get all the recognition you deserve.” The cop snorted like an animal about to be fed. “Questions?”

  She shook her head in silence.

  “Mrs. Timmons?”

  “No questions.”

  “Keep him nice and tight for us, then.” He hung up.

  Fresh ice heaped on top of the old ice inside of Sylvya’s chest, like a freezer overdue for service. She had fulfilled her duty and saved his life for the second time, when the rest of the world wouldn’t offer him as much as a handshake. And the world had been righ
t. His cowardice had killed her love for him, along with a part of her identity. The Mountain View Sylvya – who had fallen in love with Colton and fought round-the-clock for his life and preempted his every condition before it happened – had died. Duty and a smattering of repulsion had taken over. She hated Defiance Day deserters – end of story.

  On the bright side, she only had about an hour left to endure. The Johnny-on-the-spot cops would purge him from her life and she’d go back to building a home in her beautiful new city.

  She felt like she had lost fifty pounds of heartaches. Deep inside, she felt satisfaction, too.

  part three (sarah perkins

  two days till defiance day (59

  With each twist of the road, Colton’s head hit against the prowler’s window. He sat in his own waste, his arms cuffed at the elbows. He had expected they’d get him; they did in his nightmares. But reality had turned out worse.

  He had just sat down in the bathroom and let loose when the first gas canister had hit. His eyes had switched off and he had reeled sideways, slapping the floor with his one hand to avoid falling down. His stump, by instinct, had shielded his burnt eyes. A second canister had rolled in. His muscles had locked. Then the armored men had stormed in and a kick to the abdomen had depleted whatever oxygen was left in his lungs. Invisible arms, more than two, had held him down and cuffed his elbows behind his back.

  Natt’s voice from the front of the prowler brought him back to the present. “Are you there, Ms. Gao?” The cop was on the phone. “I have delicious news… I have him… The one-handed freak… Yes… He’s been in Virginia goddamn Mason, all along…” Natt was cackling. “How about we do one better? There’s a condemned warehouse on South Lander and Utah in a tiptop shape. You can take your sweet time there, with a warm roof over your head… Yes… You bet… See you there in two hours.” He hung up and turned to Colton.

  “At last, Mr. Parker. We have some time to bond on the way to your final destination. And I do mean – final destination...” Natt’s booming chuckle drowned the end of the sentence. “You comfortable back there?” The Seattle PD Chief wrinkled his nose. “You’ve developed a bit of an odor, friend,” he said and raised the acrylic divider between the front and back seats. Then he turned on the intercom, his voice arm-wrestling with the static. “Better... Did my boys catch you in the act? I apologize for them goofs, we’ll clean you up. Not to worry.”

  Colton’s head kept bouncing against the window.

  “Tell me…” Natt kept on, “how does it feel, to survive us this close to the end? You proud? Disappointed?” More laughter filled the intercom, followed by the clapping of a hand against a leg. “Got to level with you, I thought you might pull it off. But look … I thank God, or whoever else is running the show up there, that I got you. I’d drink to it if I weren’t driving.”

  “Why…” Colton slurred the words, his tongue, thick and foreign. “Why did you do it?”

  “Come again, sunshine?” Natt said.

  “Did she promise to spare your life?” Colton swallowed.

  “What do you care?” Natt’s face kept smiling, but his voice had grown thinner. Colton coughed, discharging a fresh column of drool from his face. “She told you she’d let you live, did she?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “I’d turn this car around if I were you and drive in the opposite direction until you run out of gas. And when you do, I’d get out of the car and run.” Colton stared at Natt’s face in the rearview mirror. “Granted, fleeing will buy you a few extra hours of life, tops. Not much of an improvement, really but...” Another coughing fit swallowed Colton’s words.

  “If your hash-brown brain doesn’t work too well because of the shit fumes, let me break it down for you.” Natt rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Eat, drink and be merry, Colton Parker. For in two hours, you die.” The intercom clicked off, taking with it the static and the conversation.

  two days till defiance day (60

  Purple dusk waited inside the warehouse on South Lander. With elbows cuffed behind his back, Colton entered first, stumbling over the threshold. He teetered from side to side then stood straight. His eyes, still defective from the tear gas, tried to cut through the surroundings and focused on a solitary column of light framed by the open door and the setting sun outside. The rest of the warehouse was steady black. Natt’s pushing from behind had stopped. The cop, too, was busy learning to see in the dark.

  The large warehouse was bone dry. A wide ledge rose ten feet from the ground to form a complete loop along the interior walls. Scattered hay and insulation gave proof that someone had filled the cracks on walls and windows to keep out the moisture and any prying eyes. A box, as tall as an airport x-ray scanner, hulked a dark silhouette in the center of the room. The rest of the space seemed empty, except a floor lamp and a couple of folding chairs. Colton wasn’t done examining the porta potty, but his peripheral vision registered movement and he recognized her in an instant – despite the sting of the teargas and having seen her just once before.

  “Mrs. Gao,” the cop boomed from behind. “Look who the cat dragged in.” He slid the front door almost shut, reducing the column of outside light to the size of a two-by-two, then shoved Colton forward with rediscovered vigor.

  “Welcome to my humble abode, Mr. Parker.” Li-Mei’s voice echoed in the open hall, bouncing off walls. “I’ve missed you since we saw each other last.”

  “You’ve changed some,” Colton said. “No longer the frail orphan from that Woodinville bar.”

  “That frail woman had the lifespan of a gnat: she was born, served and died,” Li-Mei said. “Like the rest of us are bound to do. Only she did it all in a day.” She switched on the floor lamp, illuminating the two chairs and the three people, as if on a theatric stage inside a dark performance hall. Natt pushed Colton into one of the chairs then plopped in the other one. The cop exhaled like a train-whistle and lifted his hand in a high-five invitation for the Chinese woman. She ignored him without looking.

  Colton blinked at the light. “You’re the best at what you do, Gao. I’m surprised I lasted this long.”

  “Then why did you even resist?”

  “I already know what giving up feels like – I wanted to see what happened if I didn’t.” He spat on the dusty floor. “I also thought you’d do your own bidding without relying on the likes of him.” Colton gestured toward the cop. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect Yana from both of you.”

  “She’s such a worthy child, isn’t she?” Li-Mei said and through the dusk, Colton heard a smile in her reply. Outside, the sun was tumbling behind the horizon.

  “I should thank you for helping me realize how much she means to me,” Colton said. He looked ready to keel over. “Protecting her from you felt good. I should have done it ages ago. You gave me hope – a purpose – unlike before, when I was wading through each hopeless day and falling asleep at night, for no other reason but self-preservation. In other words, life’s been all right since you showed up, even if you’ve made it unbearable.”

  “I wish we’d met earlier, Parker,” she said. A draft of air squeezed through the open front door, picked up her jet-black hair and, after toying with it for a moment, dove into some insulation on the floor. “Maybe things would have ended different then. Maybe you would have been on my side of the river... For some time to come.”

  “Call me crazy,” Colton blinked off the sweat trickling over his eyebrows, “but I think you’re hitting on me.” He coughed what was meant to sound as laughter on a better day. “A hit woman, who’s hitting on me. Sorry to burst your bubble, and grant you, not my smartest move given the circumstances, but you’re not my type.”

  “You’re about to die, you realize that?”

  “Too flat-chested, I’m afraid. Which reminds me, I’ve been wondering when’s the last time you got laid?”

  “My intimate life is of no concern to you.”

  “Killing me won’t slay your demons, Gao. It migh
t slow them up for a day. Two, if you killed the cop. What then?”

  “I’m so sick of you,” Gurloskey jumped in, “and your monkey face.” He cocked his gun and shoved it against Colton’s right temple. “Say another word and I’ll splatter your brain on the floor.”

  “Stay out of this.” Li-Mei’s words froze the cop in place then he shriveled back in his chair. She turned to Colton. “Twice you’ve caught me unprepared, Parker. First you survived our encounter then cut off your passport. Fewer targets than you could ever imagine have earned the right to see me twice. You have… and to reward your tenacity, I’ll let you choose how you want to die.”

  “Should I send you a thank you card for the privilege?”

  “Choosing your death is the finest compliment I could give you. Think of it as my equivalent to the Congressional Medal of Honor.” Natt pumped a fist on his chair. “So your options are living less but dying without pain or living a few hours longer but dying in agony. It’s the same coin really, with opposite sides. Option one puts you inside this portable sauna room.” She pointed at the box in the middle of the warehouse. “We’ll click the heat dial to two-hundred degrees and, ten minutes later, we’ll take you out dead. Or option two,” she raised two fingers like a victory sign, “will pump enough Ricin in your veins to kill you in twelve hours.”

  She started a lap around Colton’s chair. “These are tonight’s menu specials. Given how bad I am at small talk, I should warn you that spending twelve hours in my company is the main problem with option two. Plus, you strike me as someone who prioritizes quality of life over quantity. But… I’ve given you my word and will grant you either choice.”

  “Why not shoot my face, like fatty here suggested?”