The Altruism Effect: Book One (Mastermind Murderers Series 1)

by Kristin Helling

  Raine had chosen quite the opposite. She had done nothing but make a racket since she got there. She was a new hope to the troublemakers and double agents that were already there inside the prison—Arie and Megan and Perez. She’d already attempted an escape and seen the Warden’s living space, something that she hadn’t even told Arie about yet. Lastly, the fact that she’d seen the face of her kidnapper.

  Nothing good could come from that. He was used to living behind cameras. Used to living a double life.

  She’d seen his face now, which meant if she escaped, she could turn him in to authorities and give a pretty accurate description. This scared her even more. That meant that the Warden was even more vulnerable. That meant that he had no intention of Raine ever seeing the light of day again.

  And that, to her, was the most frightening reality of all.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Mornings in Altruism Prison came abruptly, in the form of the warehouse fluorescents blinking on. Raine squirmed on the concrete; stiffness gripped her neck and shoulders. She felt as though she’d just shut her eyes a moment ago. The light in her eyes told her one thing, it was the next day, the day she would implement Perez’s plan for her escape. All she needed to do was make it through today. Survive one last shift of the daytime guards.

  The door to the warehouse opened, almost like clockwork. She moved to the front of her cage and peered down the aisle. She held her breath, she wasn’t sure which one of the guards would come in.

  She felt like one of Pavlov’s dogs every time the door squealed open. It was the result of classical conditioning. No matter who came through those doors, the moment she heard them, her stomach twisted with anxiety.

  This time it was the quiet guard. Buck’s partner. He carried a large stack of plastic bowls that looked similar to the ones her parents used while camping in one of those pop up campers when she was a kid.

  He dropped the bowls one by one on the ground in front of the cage doors. A clatter echoed from each bowl as it landed. He finished up the row and walked back out of the warehouse door.

  “How’d you sleep?” Arie asked.

  “Didn’t.” Her voice was groggy.

  “Oh, you too?”

  “Big day.”

  They were quiet a moment.

  The quiet guard made his way back down the row, carrying a pot this time.

  “You know what I’m really craving this morning?” Arie asked.

  “Hm?”

  “Some nice, cold, soggy oatmeal.”

  Raine stifled a laugh.

  The guard slopped the usual mashed oatmeal cereal into the bowls.

  “Hey, look. It’s your lucky day,” she whispered as the guard approached.

  He stopped in front of their cages, and dropped some oatmeal into Arie’s bowl.

  Raine looked up at him. He stared down at her, his eyes beet red and he slowly poured her ladle of slop into the bowl. He didn’t blink.

  Does he know something? She looked away from him, down to the floor. Submission.

  He moved on.

  She exhaled. When the guard was down the row, she reached through the bars and grabbed the bowl. Unless she wanted to scoop it up and bring it to her face through the bars, she learned to put her hand on top of the oatmeal and tip the bowl to its side, then slide it vertically through the bars before setting it down flat again. With her hand already covered with the stuff, she scooped up the sloppy mush and brought it to her lips. It was cold as usual, apart from the time she was in solitary confinement and Megan brought her the warm bowl. Best to swallow it without chewing, or else the texture and the temperature would make her gag. She needed to get it down and have something substantial settle in her nervous stomach. At least they were fed at all.

  She closed her eyes as she swallowed the cold, lumpy oatmeal and imagined it was a mason jar of gluten free, cinnamon apple, honey, overnight oats that she’d just pulled from the fridge. She licked her lips and scooped another bite into her mouth with her fingers.

  The guard was back, picking up empty bowls as he walked the aisle.

  She hurried up and shoved the rest in her mouth, licked the inside of the bowl the best she could, and slipped it sideways through the bars, onto the floor.

  The guard scooped it up as it landed, and continued on.

  She watched as he crossed over to the other side, opposite her. He picked up each bowl and added it to the stack.

  He stopped short at one of the cages diagonal to hers. A guy with a bald head and tattoos covering both of his arms sat slumped in the cage. The guard looked in at the bowl, and moved onto the next. That guy must not have touched his food. The guard left it and continued to the rest, leaving with the stack.

  That wasn’t good. They needed to eat, especially if they’d been holding out for a while. She wasn’t sure how long he’d been doing this. She’d never even done something as small as saying hi to this guy, and she’d passed his cage several times as she was brought in and out.

  She went over the plan again in her head: which door would be unlocked already, and where to drop Perez’s keys. Just when she was about to settle and get as comfortable as physically possible in the back of her cage, the door opened again. Anxiety.

  Buck walked in.

  She hoped he wasn’t headed in her direction.

  He wasn’t. He was headed for the single bowl lying on the concrete. He walked over to the tattooed man’s cage. “You not hungry?” he asked, leaning down. “Ah I see how it is.” He put his key into the cage, and instructed to the quiet guard to bring the guy out. The man was limp, and dragged easily out of the cage, his limbs flopping like a dead fish. The partner dropped him on the floor by the Buck’s feet.

  Buck knelt down and grabbed the bowl, scooping a big handful of the goop. “Yer gone eat this, whether you like it or not, you ungrateful lil prick.” He shoved the food into the man’s mouth, and covered it with his hand.

  Raine covered her own mouth and pushed back in her cage, her whole body tense.

  The man tried to move his head back and forth, choking underneath the pressing hand. His eyes were wide.

  Raine tore her eyes from the scene and curled into a ball. She thought she felt the oatmeal working its way back up her throat, along with some acid, but she swallowed it back down and tried to take herself away from the scene.

  She opened her eyes again when she heard the flailing. As soon as the guard took his hand away and the man had choked down the mush that was pasted across his mouth and face, Buck placed his hand on the back of the guy’s head and smashed it into the bowl on the concrete. His head bounced, and blood gushed from his face.

  “Put em back,” he called to his partner. The quiet guard shuffled, dragging the unconscious man, who was bleeding from the nose. He tossed him back into the cage, closed the door behind him, and locked it.

  “Anyone else not hungry?” he shouted out to the rest of them, his voice resonating through the warehouse. He pulled out his baton from his belt. As he walked down the row of cages, he dragged his bat across the bars.

  The sound was deafening; the pattern of the banging baton on metal, clang clang clang clang.

  It wasn’t until the guards were gone and the sound subsided that Raine took her hands off her ears. But she didn’t have the guts to open her eyes to see what was left of breakfast.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Raine ran her fingers through her hair, unraveling the French braid. The crimped hair hung down her back, and she rested her head up against Arie’s wall. If she hadn’t been kidnapped, she never would have met him. Do I feel close to him because of the circumstances? Would I have looked at him twice on the street?

  After they escaped, would she want to see him? Or would it remind her of the horrors of this prison? Would the relationship be healthy if the foundation had been built upon the terror of their experience?<
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  “Arie, what are you doing over there?”

  He shuffled over. “I’m trying to sleep the day away. Sleep makes the night come faster. We need our strength.”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Talk to me, then.”

  She smiled. “I don’t want to bother you.”

  “It’s ok. I want to be bothered. Tell me about Viona.”

  Viona… she smiled to herself at the sound of her name. “She has an intuition stronger than any animal I’ve ever seen. She knows when I’m lonely or sad. She’d come and put her black, wet, nose on my knee until I called her up on the couch to cuddle me. But she’d wait to see if that’s what I needed first, like she knew. I don’t know. It’s crazy.”

  “What kind of dog is she?”

  “Some kind of Pit Bull mix. She’s light colored. A creamy tan color. I miss her.”

  “Was she a rescue?”

  “Yeah. I adopted her from a shelter, but she was born there.”

  “Ah, I see. I don’t think I could choose between my dogs. Like I said, there’s about thirty or so in the shelter, but we get more dropped off all the time. The best times are when they have a microchip or something, finding their worried owners that have been searching everywhere for them. The worst is when they’ve been just dumped somewhere. Abandoned. Dogs don’t judge. They see and feel and experience everything in this world at an exponential rate, but their lives are just so short that they don’t have time to remain angry or judgmental. Unless they’ve been abused. Then they get smart. Defensive. You have to gain their trust.”

  His voice was boyish and she held onto every word. He really loves his work. Even if it didn’t seem like owning a shelter was such a glamorous profession. Even if he didn’t go to college and spend thousands of dollars getting into debt to get there, like she did.

  “When I get back, I want to take away the cages in the shelter. Not take away their boundaries or structure, but the rows of kennels. We let them out for runs and play time, and we also have lots of blankets and comfort in the kennels, but sometimes I feel like being here has opened up a whole new perspective for me. I’m in this terrible dream. Like this is a metaphor for what I’m doing.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for this. This—this is the work of a psychopath. The man is ill, demented. But he has this idea that he feels like he’s doing something right for the world. Of course it’s at our expense, but people like him need to be identified, they need to be helped.”

  “Are you defending him?”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  “I know, I’m teasing. Did you learn all that in your profession?”

  “Yes. I’ve worked with monsters before. And I know there are many more out there who have never been treated. Even after dedicating my life to studying the human mind and human behavior, despite spending all my waking hours trying to help people, I still ended up in this cage. It’s sort of, I don’t know. Ironic?”

  “So what are you in for?” Arie asked.

  Raine was quiet a moment. “What did they say I did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They say I murdered someone. Second degree? You heard them when they threw me in here.”

  “Well I don’t know. I think I was disoriented. Mesmerized by your beauty and resilience when I saw them drag you in.”

  She laughed.

  “Did you… did you start to believe what they accused you of?” he asked.

  “In the beginning, yes. It’s only natural. I was distressed, and in these shocking circumstances. You don’t expect to be a prisoner in a prison that was built from scratch at the hands of a psychopath, or you shouldn’t. I bet you there are other victims in here that still think they’re in an actual jail. But we know this is highly unorthodox. And I didn’t tell you what happened to me the first time I escaped.”

  “I was afraid to ask. I’ve heard Meg’s stories, at least in the beginning. She’s stopped sharing.”

  She stretched her neck from side to side. “Well to be brief, I wandered into the residence of our Warden. I’m not entirely sure the guards have even seen it. But for some reason the door to get down to his loft was unlocked. I bet you he didn’t expect anybody to come down there, because we’re all locked up. Or supposed to be.”

  “Or maybe he did want someone to come down there. Maybe he expected it and he was luring you into some kind of trap.” Arie said.

  “Well I did think that at one point, too. But the way he acted when he captured me… as if I’d caught him off guard and he had to do something to gain back the feeling of control and power over me. He kept using that anesthetic syringe as a threat on me. It was terrifying. But he didn’t hurt me fully, Arie.”

  “What did his place look like?”

  “Sterile. It was completely clean and white. No personal effects. Modern decor. Huge windows.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Sunlight. It was so bright and I was disoriented from my eyes being so used to the dark. You know, like when you’ve been playing outside for a while and you come inside and your eyes need time to adjust—everything is all dark? Well this is sort of the opposite effect. Only I didn’t have time to adjust, because I heard a noise.”

  “Did you find where he has all his camera feeds?”

  “I did not. Can I ask you something now?” she asked. He was quiet, and she took that as a yes. “What were you accused of when they brought you here?”

  “Animal endangerment.” His voice was low and monotone, as if that were the worst crime you could possibly commit.

  “Did you ask me if I started to believe what they accused me of, because you did?” she asked. The barrier between them was beginning to get to her. She wished she could see him face to face. The wall blocked her from seeing his body language, one of her favorite things to observe when she had a conversation with someone. She tried to tell herself to shut off the psychologist. It was only natural, after all her training, to diagnose all of her friends and family. In this situation, there was nothing to figure out. She punished herself in her mind.

  But the fact that the wall stood between them forced her to listen to his words with her ears, as opposed to her eyes. And she heard the tinges of emotion in his words, the sincerity. For now, that had to be enough. She felt like she herself needed a therapist to bring her out of this mess in her mind.

  “Yes. I did,” he replied, “I racked my brain and came up with scenarios that connected me to this place. There was one time. The shelter is full of volunteers, right? Well we have some volunteers come in and walk the dogs, give them exercise. We rescued a mutt that was chained in a backyard and neglected for years. We hadn’t had the opportunity to work with him yet. Well one of the volunteers went into his cage to get him out—also a big no no. You’re supposed to make the dog come to you, not approach them. Anyway, he mauled her. I did the only thing I could to save the poor girl. She needed thirty stitches. And I had to bury the dog myself.”

  She swallowed hard. She didn’t dare ask what he did to the animal. “But you had to. You had to save the girl.”

  “But did I take it too far? Could I have saved her without killing the dog? It wasn’t his fault. He’d been abused by humans his whole life. He didn’t understand what was going on. I’ve had a lot of time to think in here about this stuff.”

  “Me too.” she agreed. “We’re in this together, man. I’m like you. I searched my memories for something I could have possibly done to get myself here. As a therapist, there were many emotionally unstable people I was supposed to help. But I couldn’t help everyone. There was this one boy… he… he committed suicide. And I believed it was my fault because I couldn’t save him. He came to me for help and I failed.”

  “No.”

  “Just listen. I understand that it wasn’t my fault he took his own life. But I can’t help but feel responsibl
e for it. Everyone makes choices. In the moment, you have to decide which one is the right one, and which one is the wrong one. Sometimes, you just have to go with instinct. And those are the moments, when we don’t really have time to think, that define us.”

  “So what kind of person are you?” he asked quietly.

  “I’m resilient.”

  “Lets get the hell out of here, Raine.”

  She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “Lets get the hell out of here,” she whispered back.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  When the lights went out in the warehouse, Raine’s heart skipped a beat. It was night. It was time. She’d run the plan over and over in her head so many times that the blueprint was engraved in her mind.

  Her nerves had already begun to run marathons through her limbs, and she rubbed at her cramped stomach. She looked up and down the row at the inmates, no more than shadows in their cages. Her hyperawareness pulled at her, and her eyes grew itchy with tiredness. She didn’t dare give in to it.

  The worst part was that she had no idea when Perez was going to come. She’d waited all day, what felt like the longest day of her life, and now she wasn’t sure how long she’d have to wait in the dark for the plan to start.

  She stretched down to her legs. It’d been at least a day since she’d stood up. It’d probably been longer for some of the other victims, and that she regretted, but both legs tingled and grew numb, so she shook them and stretched, twisting her spine from side to side.

  As the time passed, the uneasiness that swirled in her stomach increased. Something went wrong. Something had to have gone wrong. He’d have been there by now. Just when she thought she’d explode, the door creaked open. No nonsense guard, Perez’s night shift partner, stepped in, tucking his disheveled shirt into his pants. He yanked his waistband up and pulled out the ring of keys. He walked down the aisle, stopping at each cage and tugging on the padlocks attached to each.