“God, calm down. It was just a joke.”
The door opened and the blonde walked in. She didn’t look happy. Her usual schtick of lion prowling was cut short. The guards flanked her on either side and she stood with trepidation. It seemed she wanted to be there as little as they wanted her to be.
“Nice to see you again, Irene,” said Marie.
The blonde winced at the sound of her name as the guards looked at each other in surprise.
“Hello,” she said quietly.
Her first step was towards Milo. He shuffled backwards as she came to his side.
“Please, no,” he said. There were tears in his eyes as he spoke.
The blonde shook her head. “You’re not going. I just want to know about your back. Is it okay?”
“My what?”
She gestured towards his side. “The burns. Are they healing?”
His teeth chattered as he spoke. “Oh, um, yeah. I mean sort of. They’re just sore now.”
“Good,” she said. As she walked away she let her hand graze his shoulder. The woman hardly moved an inch as she announced her next victim.
“Benjamin?”
“Yes?”
She waved him over.
“Are you taking me?”
She nodded.
“Thank you,” he whimpered.
The woman looked defeated as he rose to walk to the door. She bent down and handed Marie a small envelope, carefully concealed in the layers of her jacket and slickly was out of view by Marie.
After taking a moment to speak with Dennis, she rose and walked out of the room. She didn’t so much as acknowledge his presence as she sped ahead. The guards kept in time behind him. There wasn’t a need to keep him moving. Benjamin wanted to get through this as fast as possible.
The four of them silently meandered through hallways of what appeared to be a renovated mansion. There were still touches of the old home. The ceilings had the vaulted ceilings and paneling that his parent’s home had. The doors, however, had been removed and replaced with heavy steel slabs with a lock at each entrance. Instead of photos and knick knacks lining the halls, there was a smooth black paint that dimmed the already small amount of light the occasional lantern provided.
At the last door, the blonde went to the left while the guards pushed him to the right. She gathered materials from a closet in the back and made a muted phone call as the guards slammed Dennis in a chair and wheeled him to the desk. His knee banged against the underside as they stuffed his body as close to the desk as it could.
“How are you today, Mr. Langston?”
He nestled into the chair. “I’m fine. I’m good.”
She bit her lip and looked back to her paperwork. “I appreciate your patience. It must have been hard for you these past few days.” As she spoke, her finger crept towards her neck and attempted to cover a large bruise forming there. He snapped his gaze away when she caught him leering.
“No, it’s okay.”
“Good. Good. I, um, I have give you your assignment.” Her voice was weak and detached as she spoke. As she rifled through her work, he noticed the puffy stained cheeks and red-rimmed eyes of a woman had recently been crying.
As she pulled out a sheet of paper, she caught herself and paused as she stared at the text. Suddenly, she placed it on the table and looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “Is he okay?” she whispered.
The question caught him off-guard. This woman who had stomped her way into their little room and shouted and taunted them for minutes on end sat across from him with slumped shoulders and a quivering lip.
“Is who okay?”
“Dennis. Is he okay?”
She was the one that hurt him. It was her heel that broke that phone and prompted the shock. It was her job that got him shot. It was all her fault and now she sat there, weeping, and asking for some kind of forgiveness. “He’s fine.”
“Don’t lie to me. Is he okay?”
“He’s sick and hurt. You know what you did to him. He’s very weak now.”
She winced at the words.
“I gave him some Vicodin. I hope that helps.”
“I’m sure it will,” he said. He couldn’t make heads or tails of this woman. One moment she reveled in their pain and the next she practically wept at the sight of them.
She wiped at the corner of her eye. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Let’s get back to this.”
As she grabbed a piece of paper out, her gaze briefly went to the door of the room. Her slumped posture stiffened and she shook the emotion out of her face. If Marie was right, then this woman wasn’t the mastermind. She was just as much a tool of the machine as they were. If this woman could be turned, the others would have a chance. He would be long gone by then, but they could go back to their lives again.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked.
She barreled through his question and placed the sheet of paper in front of him. “You will be going to Hartford College.”
This was their chance. He had nothing to lose. “Why? What is the point of this?”
“Victor Trayhorn is speaking tonight.”
“Innocent lives are being destroyed.”
She placed the picture of the former vice-president in front of him. “He is talking in front of hundreds of people at the school.”
He slammed the table. “Answer me.”
Her voice quivered. “There is a large backstage area. Very few people are back there.”
Just thinking of Brianna and that teacher rattled his nerves. Those people had families and friends that were going through hell. This woman held precious lives in her hand and she wouldn’t even look him in the eye. “I’m not scared of you,” he said.
“You will be given a handgun,” she said, “and a backstage pass so there will be no trouble.”
“I’m not,” he said. “And I’m not leaving until you tell me.”
She sighed. “What? What do you want to know?” Her eyes still hadn’t gazed from the sheet of paper in front of her.
“Why are you doing this?”
She shook her head. “I can’t tell you.”
Benjamin leaned back in his chair. “Yes, you can. I’m not going back there. Just tell me.”
Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
He’d shown his hand. “I mean...it doesn’t matter.”
She tapped the photo of Trayhorn. “You will be backstage. You will have one hour to take him out before he is done speaking. You must do it in front of the crowd. If you do not follow these rules, there will be consequences.”
He instinctively raised his hand towards his chest. “I know. I know what you’ll do.”
Again she looked at the corner of the room in fear. “No,” she said quietly. “You don’t.”
“What do you mean? The device. I know all about it.”
“No,” she insisted. “It’s...different.”
The guards moved in close as Benjamin felt his body tense. The sense of peace he’d finally felt as he walked down that hallway had begun to dismantle. This woman was clearly troubled with what came next. All he wanted was the chance to see his little girl again. All he wanted was to be with Stephanie once and for all.
“Can I just go?”
Benjamin didn’t want to hear her caveats. As he tried to rise from the chair, one of the guards rushed to his side and pushed him back in the seat. The man’s hand pressed down on his shoulder and pinned him down.
“I have to tell you. Please just let me finish.”
He wanted to scream. He wanted to beg for her to let him go. “What? What is it?”
“He told me about how they found you.”
“He? Who is he?”
Her eyes bugged out as she kept talking without missing a beat. “Not important. We know what you were about to do, Benjamin. We know about Stephanie.”
How dare they use her name.
“They took you from your apartment. You were ready to kill yourself, weren’t you?�
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The bluntness of her statement took him by surprise. Still, he had no interest in speaking with her.
“Those pills would have done the trick, if you had been allowed to finish. We know, Benjamin. We know that you don’t want to live. That’s why he picked you.”
“Picked me?”
She nodded. “A man with no fear is the deadliest weapon of all.”
He pointed towards his chest. “Do I...?”
A shake of the head told him everything.
“Then what’s the point?”
She sighed. “Dennis...”
“I don’t understand.”
“If you fail, then Dennis’ device will activate.”
“And I?”
“You will return. Alive.”
Eduardo hadn’t seen his family in a year. It had been thirteen months since they went into his home and grabbed his mother and his sister. They went to his brother-in-law’s shop and grabbed him, too. They lured their two year old from daycare. When the car got quiet, he could still hear the voice on the other end of the phone.
His voice was clear as day. No garbling, no disguise. David didn’t care. Eduardo had heard this man a hundred times when he was a kid. It was the same grounded lilt that had read him stories when he was sick from school. Story Time had been his favorite show. He’d walked through the aqua blue door and talk right in the camera and tell a new story each morning.
There was no mistaking it was him. At first he thought it was a prank, like one of those guys on the radio trying to screw with him. He hung up the phone and texted his friends to tell them it wasn’t funny/ Why would you pretend David Angeles had your family. It’s f*cked up. He didn’t get the message out before the phone rang again.
Come outside.
He laughed again but this time he wasn’t quite sure.
Or they will die.
Then David hung up again. He wasn’t sure what compelled him but this time he knew. He knew he was supposed to go outside. Something inside knew this was real. Eduardo stepped out the door and walked down the stairs with a foreboding feeling. He prayed it would be the guys from work standing on the street, laughing their asses off.
Instead, he stepped on the sidewalk and there was no one. Just as he was about to turn around and head back inside, he felt a rush of air and an object collide with the back of his head. It was a split second of recognition of the pain before he fell to the ground. In bits and pieces, he recalled the ride to David’s house. There was a man in the car, a guard who was later killed because he screwed up a job. It wasn’t until later that he stayed awake, strapped to a hospital bed. David’s weird doctor friend was there administering off-brand pain medication to him in the hopes that he’d wake up from his blunt trauma.
Ever since it had been a life of driving to jobs, waiting in the car and cleaning up the mess. They hadn’t let him talk to his family in two years. David often walked in his room and reassured him that they were alright. They weren’t in the house and they weren’t abducted. All they were was monitored. He had their house bugged in ever corner. If Eduardo so much as sent them an email, then his family would be terminated. Also, he was told, if he failed in his job then they would be terminated as well. It was the only thing that got him through the day. To think his little brother would suffer because he couldn’t take it anymore hurt more than burying someone in an abandoned field.
The jobs hurt him at first. He spoke with the people in the car and commiserate with their pain. At first he could barely drive the car without tremendous guilt. He’d pull over, he’d make extensive rest stops and he’d get “lost” so the person in the backseat could buy some extra time. One of the people, this sweet young woman, couldn’t stop crying. She was terrified and he was the only person she could talk to. The woman kept talking about her baby at home and how much she missed him. It broke his heart and he made every traffic mistake he could to get out of making her do her job.
After intentionally going down three wrong freeway exits, he got a phone call. It was David.
Get her there or you’re done, too.
It was then that he realized they knew what he was doing. At that moment he didn’t care. David had made it clear that this was a permanent assignment. Unless he somehow escaped, there was no way out. He looked back at the girl in the backseat who shook as they neared the destination. It was then he made peace with it all. His family, his fate, his life and he swerved into oncoming traffic.
It took three seconds before a pickup truck hit their left bumper and sent Edurado and the woman in a tailspin. They were quickly sideswiped by a SUV going forty miles an hour. It hurdled their car over and sent it rolling across two lanes of traffic. As the windshield cracked and the airbag burst against his face, he felt terror and freedom combined. This was his way out and even though he was scared, it was a solution.
The woman died on impact but he survived the crash. There were people all around their car immediately. So much screaming and crying on all sides of him. He struggled to stay awake as good samaritans tried to pry him from the front seat.
Since he was the “getaway car”, there was no one to pick him up. He was to be taken to a regular hospital where he could tell his story. It would take them at least an hour to get another one of the “employees” to come get him. All he had to do was stay awake long enough to get his story out.
And he did. He told everyone: the guy who pulled him onto the street, the paramedics, the nurse, the doctor. But he was injured and had extensive damage everywhere, including a major skull fracture. To the people around him, it was the ramblings of a madman. Every time he got the story going, they would pat his head and tell him to calm down. They got as far as learning his name and contacting his mother, which he begged them not to do. She never made it as far as the hospital but he got to speak to her on the phone for two glorious minutes. She couldn’t believe it was him. He could barely made out her words between the cries of joy. It was her little baby that she thought had been killed all these months. ‘I have to go see you, hijo,” she said as she hung up the phone.
David made sure she didn’t make it. After they stole Eduardo from the hospital and rehabilitated him at their makeshift hospital, he was brought into David’s monstrous office. David sat him down and simply spun around a TV monitor. It showed a car being pulled over by the side of the road by one of his own SUV’s with a fake police light on the top. Immediately he recognized his mother’s 1993 Honda with the busted up back window. The fake cop got out of the backseat of the SUV and nervously walked towards his mother’s car. The man’s hand awkwardly rested against his hip as he tiptoed towards the Honda’s front window.
He saw his mother lean over to give the police officer her license when the man grabbed the gun strapped to his belt. It hovered between him and his mother for what felt like a lifetime. The man briefly let it drift down before he lifted it right back up and pulled the trigger.
It was a tiny pop, no louder than a champagne bottle being opened. The view was from the outside so he couldn’t see what happened to his mother except for the reaction from the man that shot her. All he did was stand there and stared. He didn’t move or even lowered the gun. He stood there frozen and terrified for almost a minute before Frederick got out of the car and dragged him back in.
David had made one of those prisoners kill his mother. They’d killed her for talking to him on the phone.
Ever since then he’d never stepped over the line.
He didn’t speak to the people in the back and he refused to get involved. They could cry and scream but he just made the music louder.
Eduardo pushed in the same heavy metal CD he listened to every time he drove. It was the CD that was in his jacket pocket when they took him in. Gone were his wallet and keys but the CD was still sitting in the inner pocket of his coat when they gave it back to him. It was from his girlfriend--a gift for his birthday. The car burst to life as he turned the volume up past al
l social niceties. Once the music got that loud, the people never bothered to speak.
The car whirred it’s smoky solo in the small garage David had built for his fleet of black SUV’s. He always drove the same car but needed to change the license each time. Sometimes he’d forget and be halfway down the freeway before he pulled over and changed a “1” to a “4” with a Sharpie he’d bought at the gas station.
There was the familiar snap of the door and the shuffle of the next prisoner in the back. It was hard not to hate them. He knew what they did and he always saw the results. While they lived in media silence, he had access to the news and he saw the tsunami of trauma and pain their actions caused. He had to watch families crumble at press conferences as they talked about the senseless death of their loved ones.
Through the hate, there was a tinge of sympathy. They were as trapped as he was. Even though it was their hand that shot the gun or detonated the explosion, they were as helpless as he was behind the wheel.
They stuffed in the lawyer. He hadn’t felt bad about grabbing the lawyer at all. Dennis Dimarco he felt like shit about for days afterwards but the lawyer was asking for it. He had this apartment suited for an OCD serial killer with a 24/7 maid. There wasn’t a thing left out in the place. He had one lamp, a chair and a desk. There were a few books on a shelf and a TV that had probably never been used against the wall. Besides that, it was a dark silent place. Eduardo had bolted up the steps because the guy was about to kill himself before they were going to take him. He couldn’t much blame the guy. If he had lived in a place like that, he’d want to off himself too.
Irene never told him what the lawyer’s issues were but they were bad enough to let him linger for so long in that basement. And now he had to take out a big name. Big names were usually kamikaze missions. David knew that celebrities like the former VP would have at least a bodyguard nearby. The lawyer would never make it out without being caught. Even with Eduardo’s help, he’d been taken down by an overzealous college student before he made it to the parking lot.
The Six: Complete Series Page 21
