“Okay, wake up,” He says finally, “He followed us to the last exit.”
“He? You don’t know his name?” I ask as I sit straight. I put my hair back in the same fashion as before.
“Like I’ve told you,” he says while looking in his rear view mirror, “The brotherhood is everywhere. We don’t all know each other. We just know what we are a part of.”
“How do you know how to identify each other?”
“Like any other gang, a hand signal.” He swallows hard.
As the miles stretch on, we prepare for another car change. Ward keeps looking at his phone, as they are giving him details and directions. He makes me nervous. I cannot sit still and realize I’m biting my lips raw.
Thoughts rush through my head, as I stare at the white lines passing me so fast, they run together. This whole plan is centered on some journal that may or may not have information in it. How do I know the house is still the same? My friend said a while back that people were breaking in. What if someone has already found it? Or the money? I hope my truth about this diary will not ultimately be my demise. I try and think back to when I was a child. What did I write in it? What would my six-year-old self say right now? I haven’t seen it since I was a child, but I know exactly where it was. In my father’s small den, there was an old ironing board that folded out of a cupboard. Finding it will be easy.
Another wave of thoughts floods my head. I have to find it. I have to go into that house again. I’m hoping after six months, someone would have cleaned it out. I don’t want to relive that nightmare. I don’t want to see my mother’s blood splashed all over the place where I once called home.
Lost in thought, I barely realize Ward has just spoken to me. “Hmm?” I ask.
“We’re almost at the last swap, I said,” He says as we pass a sign that indicated a truck stop about a mile away. I quickly tear off my hat and sunglasses and assume the position.
This swap goes down just as the last one did. This time, the young voice that swaps with asks if he let me relieve myself. Ward explained yes, and then he sedated me again without a struggle. This time, we’re in a nice sedan with tinted windows, and a monitor on the dash that displays the music, and time.
Everything was happening in slow motion. Especially the driving. It felt like we’ve been on a road trip for days. It’s only been five hours. The entire trip has been in silence. I don’t know what the plan is from here. Ward isn’t speaking, and I’m not pressing. He’s becoming very nervous. I’m quite nervous myself. With each passing mile, my hands noticeably shake. I’m becoming increasingly aware of how close we’re getting to my home. Well, my old home. I can’t tell if I’m excited to see landmarks I haven’t seen in half a year, or terrified. I know that this trip is only half the battle. I don’t know what’s going to happen after we’ve arrived at our destination.
And when we pass the road to the opening to my parent’s land, my heart sinks. We pass it at full speed. “You know that was it, right?” I ask.
“Yeah, I know. But we cannot go there in broad daylight. Someone will notice. Head HE has arranged for us to get a motel until the sun goes down.”
That makes my heart beat a little faster. What if he’s there? What will I say to him? I’ve never hated someone so much. I’ve never felt so conflicted over a person whose intentions you thought were good and ended up being the evilest person you've ever met.
“He ordered me to take you off of the sedative about an hour ago, so he wants to meet with us and explain what’s going to happen next.” Ward has read my mind.
“I don’t want to see him,” I say bluntly.
“That isn’t an option, Hay. He has arranged this entire thing. He wants to be reassured we are going to follow through. And besides, you’re going to be half drugged.”
“What?” I whip my head to meet his face.
“Hay. I have to drug you just a little. Not the whole thing, but just enough to make you look drowsy. It’ll be like you took some nighttime sleeping medicine.” He says. His words are cold and unfeeling. His eyes are full of sorrow, but his words are hard and emotionless. He pulls into a gas station and reaches over to the glove box and pops it open. He feels around for the needle and pulls it out. “Please give me your arm.”
Like a robot, I lay my arm over the cloth armrest. I look away as I feel the pinch and sting of the drug flooding my blood. My heart slows down, and my head is wobbly. I see him force the rest of the brown liquid out the window. A tear slips from my eye as my mind goes blank. I can hear everything that’s going on around me, I know exactly where we are when the car jolts off the concrete and onto the pebble parking lot that is Grant’s Motel one mile from my old house. I hear him grunt and scream once we’ve parked. He’s frustrated.
To my right, I hear the window roll down. I can’t move to see what’s going on, but I hear Ward clear his throat as he speaks, “Head HE.”
TWENTY-TWO
“Is she waking up?” I hear his familiar voice booming above me.
“Slowly,” Ward says as he opens his door. The keys jingle as he gets out, and I hear the ding inside the car. It stops when the keys jingle even more, and I hear him pulling the key from the ignition. I use all of my strength to try and move. My eyes are so heavy. My hands are crossed and turned inward towards my stomach. I got my thumbs to move, but my progress is short-lived when I feel the door jolt from beside me. I smell Ward as he reaches around me and I hear a click.
I must have blacked out completely because I wake up in a dark room on a bed. Moving my head up is a chore. My stomach is turning in circles.
“Wake up, whore.” A very low voice chants from the darkness. “I know you’re not completely drugged, so don’t even pretend you were.” A light turns on in the corner, and a figure dressed in black with a black ski mask gets up from a creaky wooden chair. “Did you guys think I was stupid? How dare you conspire against the brotherhood! Every vehicle was wired, idiots.”
I sit up on a stiff flower comforter. As my eyes slowly adjust, I see Ward in a chair. His hands are tied to it, with a black handkerchief wrapped around his face. “Ward!” I scream and try to get up.
“Don’t even think about it, girlie,” I hear a click and see the light from the dim lamp glisten over a newly polished barrel. Its mouth is pointed straight for me. My vision tunnels around the gun as I feel myself plop back onto the bed, void of every emotion but fear. I’ve never had a gun pointed at me before. I prepare to die. I prepare for the loud bang. I flinch every time he moves.
“Why?” I ask.
He rips his mask off. His dirty blonde hair flops in his face, and he flips it back. A face appears hollow under a dim lamp, no brighter than a weak flashlight. Familiar eyes pierce their way through the darkness. “I have a story to tell you, hay.” His voice isn’t the same. His lips curl into a fashion that makes my spine crawl. The southern accent he once carried is completely gone. I don’t know who this person is.
“Why?” I ask again. I hope he hears the hurt in my tone. I hope it cuts his soul and opens up the man I used to know. The one that would do anything for me and my family. The one who has been completely enveloped in darkness. Or, was this darkness always here? The amazing, helpful, family friend was just a show?
“Years ago, Hayden, my father was once a proud, and vicious leader of this brotherhood. Growing up, he had always told me I’d be taking his place someday. That day came when a member had turned on him. Shot him in cold blood in front of me. The day I had killed the man that killed my father, is the day that I became the dominant of this association. Years later, your father had just lost his mother and was an orphan, like you. See, we choose members that have no family. We start them young. They have nothing to live for and will do pretty much anything with the promise of a family. Petty, broken, pathetic people. David, your father, did everything I said when I said it. He was my prized boy. He would’ve gone far with us. When he had just turned eighteen, and his foster family kicked him out, he
was homeless for about three days before I found him. I gave him a mission. It was his ultimate test,” He paused, shifted in his chair, and I kept staring at the dirty blue carpet. “It was something similar to the mission I gave dear old Ward over here,” Suddenly, his accent was back, but just for that last sentence. He sighed hard, “Girl look at me when I’m talking to you,” I forced my eyes to shift onto his black ones. I got myself through the story by pretending I was still looking at the dirt on the ground. What do you know, I was still looking at dirt. “Your father was to go after your mother’s family by befriending their youngest daughter. Patricia, your mother. Her father was an ex-member of this group, and I believe they were hoarding our money. You see, we launder money through other people’s legitimate bank accounts. Mostly members. We give them the order to withdraw what we want, with their family’s lives at risk. The families we’ve given to them. Patricia’s family was hoarding and lying about the money they were depositing. First, it was a bank mistake, then it was a miscount. The excuses were getting out of control. But when one of our members reaches a certain point in their membership, we give much more chances than the regular Joe. So, I sent your father in to find out information. This was before cellphones and the luxuries of modern technology. It took a while for him to report back to me. I had found out he had fallen in love with her. He found no information whatsoever. He all of a sudden didn’t want to be a part of this group. His love for her was so strong. I could not accept his yearning for departure. I decided to confront all of them. I went to Patricia’s parent’s house, the house that I bought for them, and exposed Ward. They acted like they knew. This angered me. They were conspiring against the brotherhood. Patricia wasn’t there. She had just left a friend’s house. Patricia’s parents both pulled guns out on me. David grabbed the mother’s gun and stood in front of them. There in the kitchen, blood was spilled. There in that old smelly kitchen, a life was saved. That night, I had been saved. I had every intention of killing that boy. I had every intention of shooting him right there in cold blood. After I realized what he did for me, I knew that I had to protect him. Acting quickly, we staged a break-in. I sent him to the local arcade, wiped the fingerprints off the gun, and placed it in her mother’s hands, set the alarm, closed the door, and broke it down. I walked down the street and got in my car. I heard the alarm screeching as I left. Patricia had just turned eighteen when her parents were killed. She and David had solid alibies on the night of the murder, and it was ruled a vicious break-in. She never knew the truth about her parents. She knows now,” I’m not quite sure what he means by that, and it puts me even more at edge, “I granted David a full pardon. It wasn’t until years later when I found out he had the money that Patricia’s father was hoarding. This was after one of our prized prostitutes got pregnant. I couldn’t have that. She was bringing in so much money. After she delivered, I gave that precious life to the now married David and Patricia, who failed to get pregnant, with a staged adoption. Emmy, I think you’ve met her.”
My stomach sunk. My heartbeat hastened. The prostitute that was sitting in front of me at the restaurant was my biological mother. Her strange words suddenly made sense. “That’s not true, no,” I find myself crying.
“Believe it, babe,” He gets up and hovers over me. Ward wiggles in his chair, “You wouldn’t have had a chance in hell if I didn’t do what I did. You should be thanking me, little girl.” He stepped back and started to circle Ward like a vulture. “When David found out by word-of-mouth that I knew he had the money, he took his little family and bolted. It took me four years to find them here,” He drug the gun over Ward’s shoulder, “When I finally let them know I was here, I showed up on their pathetic porch with a shiny new badge on my shoulder. Ahh, the look on his face. It was priceless. I gained his trust by assuring him the brotherhood was dead. Along with the blackmail of what he did to his wife’s parents, he bought it,” he went and sat down in the chair by the lamp.
“Why couldn’t you just leave us alone?” I said through hiccupping cries.
“I don’t think you understand,” he reaches over and takes a sip from a cup that’s on the dresser by the lamp, “The families were withholding millions of dollars.”
“If we had millions of dollars, I think we wouldn’t have even been living in an old farmhouse,” I said through gritted teeth. I hope he realizes the logic in my words.
“I know, I thought about that too. Then, I started thinking of the questions your mother might have asked if he just one day showed up with millions of dollars. How would he have explained that? Your mother was so distraught after her parents were killed. If she found out that was blood money, she would have left him and would have taken you in a heartbeat. I know them too well,” He stops and looks at his mug, as if it were a fine wine, “I knew in my soul he had it, somewhere. It took me three long years, and an ugly ass wife to convince him to let me in again. I had to get close to you guys. I even jokingly suggested he should give it up. I drunkenly tried to convince him that the money was just a burden on his family’s shoulders. I told him that if he truly wants to live happily, I would even give him enough money to relocate. He just brushed it off and acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about. Frustrated, I devised the ultimate plan. Having connections in the legal area, I forged papers to your mother that your father was dead. Oh, it was going to be a great plan. I then took your father and held him in a prison outside the county.”
“Wait, what?” I say as confused as I feel.
“Oh yeah, your father is still alive,” He says as a matter-of-fact.
“Where is he?” I say, my teeth still tightly clenched. Is he lying? Is he really alive?
“Hold on, I’m going to get to that,” He sighs and takes a deep breath, “Where was I? Oh, after I had locked him up, with the help of a brother on the inside, I set my plan in motion. I tried to console Patty. I used my charm to win her over. She rejected me because of our age difference and the limited time it was since her husband had passed, and I understood. At least she knew I was there for her,” He smirked, “Days, weeks, and months passed. I got tired of waiting. I had also found out that she was heavily drinking and hitting you. This angered me so much. I had given you to her, and to see her abuse such a precious gift made me almost lose my mind. The day had marked the year of your father’s passing,” He put passing in finger quotation marks, with the gun still in his right hand, “So I paid a little visit to your mom,” he chuckled.
“No,” I said softly, shaking my head. My breathing became so heavy, I almost passed out. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, but I did,” He said sarcastically. “I brought a guest early in the morning. I sat David down in the dining room and tied his ass to the chair in the dark. I watched you leave for school, and then your mother came down. She was quite happy. I stepped out of the darkness and surprised her. She asked me if you let me in, and I said no. I then turned on the dining room light. A cup of hot coffee slipped from her fingers as she took in the sight of him. She passed out. I took her limp body in the bedroom up a flight of stairs and strapped her to the wooden chair in there. I drug his weakened body up the stairs and strapped him down right in front of her. I was going to get answers, and I was going to get them that day. I woke her ass up and made her look at him. The look on her face was priceless. I told her the entire story. I told her that her beloved murdered her parents in cold blood to save me. She didn’t believe it, and David did not deny it. The only thing that was coming out of her mouth was just a sullen, “Why?” David said nothing, he just looked down in shame. I finally started yelling at him. Then at her. I got a razor and drug it across her arm.”
“STOP IT!” I yelled.
“But darling, it’s true. I’ve come to confess my sins here today. I think you deserve to know what kind of person he was. You cannot go on thinking your father was an innocent man!” He shouted. He got up, and stood over me, close to my ear, “He was a thief, a murderer, a criminal, and just a shell of a b
roken man that I had made! You had a happy family, I gave you a happy family. Your family turned on us, and they had to pay the price!” He stopped and held my face tight, “Crying is for the weak.” He let go of my face so hard, it pushed me back a little, “I tortured your mother for four hours straight. I even forced her to strip so I can humiliate her in front of him, and he did nothing. If his love was as strong as he said it was, then why did he not tell me? I wondered that for the last two hours of her poor, pathetic life. I had cut her so deep. She bled heavily.” My stomach feels like it wants to purge itself. He’s telling this story like it didn’t bother him. Like, he was telling a story over a drink at a bar, “I cut her ties free and she used every bit of energy she had left and bolted down the stairs. She hardly made it to the living room. She died on the couch. I decided to write you a little letter. Did you read it?” He stops and laughs, “I had lost my leverage against him. He was silent the entire time. When it was over, a single tear fell from his eye. He looked up at me, emotionally drained and broken. He said to me that he didn’t know what to tell me. He said he really didn’t know where it was. He said he didn’t know who had it, or what became of it. I believed him after that. I actually felt bad. Then, I thought of you. I actually felt bad for you because I had just killed your mother over nothing. I took him back to the prison where he sits now. But then,” He sets puts the back of the barrel of the gun to his forehead, and smiled, “I found out why your mother was so happy that day, she had found a letter in a safe deposit box at a bank that explained that David’s family had a fortune, and you and she were the sole heirs. I found it on the table when you were getting your things upstairs the day of your mother’s funeral. Man, I tore that place apart when I got back. The entire property was flipped upside down. The letter was one of two, and the other page was missing. Oh God, I was so close.” He pauses for a minute, “I had arranged for you to be sent to a group home, where I had one of my own do some research for me.” He points the barrel towards Ward, “I don’t like taking lives, Hayden. I really do not like taking lives. I saved you once, and I really wanted to keep you safe, honestly.”
Hot & Cold: Toxic Love Page 19
