The next few minutes became a pool of a million different emotions I hoped I would never feel again after my father died. She was gone. I was an orphan; alone. My mother had died. It had been horrible and painful, and it probably lingered on until her entire body was charred and burned. She probably prayed for death in the end.
She was never coming back. I would never see her again. I would never hear her voice. She wouldn’t take pictures of me before my senior prom. She wouldn’t tear up as she sent me off to college. She wouldn’t meet the man I marry or help me name her grandchildren. That was gone; that life, her life, my life. It was gone, and none of it made any sense.
“I left her,” I muttered. After a while, it became all I could think about. I left my father. I left my mother. I let them both die.
“Don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself,” Casper said. He reached to put a hand on my knee, but I knocked it away. “I don’t blame myself. I blame you.”
He sighed, almost like he had been expecting it. “I get that you’re upset. I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now. Just know that-“
“I told you!” My muscles screamed as I lunged forward. “I told you I couldn’t leave her. I told you I’d rather die, and you did it to me anyway. You had no right! I should have been there with her!”
He jerked the wheel. Screeching across two lanes of traffic, he skidded to a stop alongside the road. “For what?!” He was screaming now too. “So you could die with her? That might be what you want, but have you ever thought about what anybody else wants? Have you ever thought about what your mom might have wanted? You think she fought off those lunatics so that you could get yourself killed anyway? She could have ran and she would have probably been fine, but she wanted to protect you; to make sure you were safe ‘cause that’s the kind of person she was.”
His use of ‘was’ hurt more than anything he would have ever meant to say. He didn’t say ‘the kind of person she is’. My mother ‘was’.
Casper wiped fresh tears from his face. “So, why don’t you have a little bit of gratitude?”
I dropped my head in my hands. “I want you to leave,” I said. “Just go home. I’ll be fine.”
“No,” he said flatly.
“Casper,”
“Cars drive on roads,” he answered.
“That doesn’t mean anything.” My head was still in my hands, but I shook it anyway.
“Cars drive on roads,” he repeated like a mantra.
“You’re not listening,” I looked up at him. He was faced forward, looking straight at the road ahead. “Mom said for you to go to, to forget about us. If you want me to follow her wishes, then you need to-“
“No, you’re not listening,” he whirled toward me. His eyes were closed tight, like a faucet trying to shut off tears. “There is no me in Crestview, not if you’re not there. I have a dad who hates me so much I can’t even sleep at my own house and a mom who’s so drunk and beat down that she’s not even lucid half of the time. There’s nothing for me in that town if you’re gone.So, for the last time, cars drive on roads.”
He was lost too. I couldn’t see it through my grief , but he had lost the only real home he had too. He was scared, and I was so angry that he didn’t even have me to lean on.
I took off his glasses
“Open your eyes,” I told him.
The welled up tears he had been holding back spilled like a waterfall down his freckled cheeks. They matched my own as I undid my seatbelt, reached across the car, and hugged him. All we had was each other now, and we had to pray that that would be enough.
It took a few minutes for us to compose ourselves and get back on the road, and a few minutes more for me to have the wherewithal to actually ask where we were going.
“Looks like Florida,” he said, pointing to the navigation system on the dash. “I typed in those keys your mom mentioned before . . . everything, and this is what popped up. It said we’re headed to a place called Weathersby, wherever that is.”
“273 miles,” I read our remaining distance from the screen.
“Yeah, you were asleep for a while,” Casper said. “Oh, and check this out. “ He pointed to the gas gauge. The needle was lower than I’d ever seen it, buried deep within the E. “It’s been like that for hours. I was afraid to stop at first. I thought somebody might have been following us, you know. But it never ran out. It just keeps going and going.”
I remembered the other thing Mom said before she sent us away.
It might say that you need gas, but that car has tricks.
“Tricks,” I murmured. I wanted more than anything to talk to my mother ,to ask her what was going on. How much did she know about everything? How long had she been hiding that briefcase, and why?
The next few hours were filled with questions like that; questions about Owen, questions about Ezra, questions about myself. Unfortunately, the answers were in shorter supply. As much as I wracked my brain, none of it made any sense. Owen lied to me. Mom lied to me, and now I was probably never going to see either of them again. I was never going to see Crestview again; never sit at Hernando’s worn feet or lay across Dr. Conyers’ couch. I would never again be forced to sit through an awkward abstinence only sex ed class or a Southern fried pep rally.
I didn’t miss it, did I? I couldn’t make sense of any of my emotions right now. And as much as I was going through, I’m sure Casper was going through just as much. He had lived his entire life in Crestview. Crappy or not it was the only home he’d ever known. And his family, I couldn’t even think about that. He may not have gotten along with them, but they were his. And, whether I meant to or not, I took him away from them.
The one thing all these questions were good for was killing time. Before I knew it, the 200 miles on the navigation had dwindled down to 100. It was at fifty when we crossed the Florida state line. Soon Weathersby, whatever the hell that was, was ten miles away. I half wanted to call the police, to report everything that happened and let them take care of it. But Mom’s words kept echoing in my ears.
No police. They’ll slow you down; get you caught.
I still didn’t know what it was that was chasing me.
We came to a stop in front of a large gate with the navigation reading zero and the stalwart fuel light shining orange. Above the curved iron gate, where the two pieces met, the word ‘Weathersby’ was written on a similarly arching sign.
This was where we were supposed to go. But where exactly was ‘this’?
Behind the gate, illuminated by a series of tall streetlamps, a large building peeked out of the darkness. I couldn’t tell its exact shape, other than that it seemed to be a series of squares and, in the dark anyway, looked a lot like Desoto High.
Great. My house blew up. I lost my mom, Owen, and probably my sanity, and I’ve basically ended up back where I started.
I got out of the car to take a closer look. Casper followed. Even though we drove south for hours, the air was chillier down here than it had been in Crestview.
“What is this place, a school?” I asked, walking up to the silver gate.
Casper pointed to a small sign halfway down the driveway on the right.
Now entering Weathersby Juvenile Correction Facility.
Visitors must report to Check-In. All outside contraband must be cleared.
“It’s a jail,” I said under my breath.
“It’s juvie,” Casper amended. “You know, I bet this is the one Janie Evans’ brother went to after he set that school bus on fire.”
He walked up beside me, putting his hands between the bars of the gate like he was the one who was locked up. “Why would your mom send us to juvie?”
“I have no idea,” I sighed.
“Well, she must have known something like this might happen, because obviously she had a plan,” Casper looked at me. “And she programmed this address into her navigation system, so this place must be part of it. Didn’t she tell you to ask for somebody?”
&n
bsp; “Morgan Montgomery,” I answered. I remembered Mom’s eyes as she told me that; so determined, so fearless, and also, so final. It was the last time I would ever see those eyes. “She said to tell him Ash sent us.”
“Who’s Ash?” Casper pulled his arms from the bars and stuffed his hands into his pockets. He must have been exhausted. I know I was, and I had been unconscious half the day. But he never showed it.
“I couldn’t tell you,” I admitted. “But apparently, she’s the reason we’re here.”
Well, her, my ex crush, a legless wunderkind, and an old woman who seemed to vanish from the face of the earth. But who’s being technical?
“So, do we ring the doorbell or something?” Casper asked, looking around.
“It’s late. I’m sure everybody’s asleep. We should probably come back tomorrow,” I answered.
“First off, it’s juvie. There’s never a time when everybody’s asleep. Secondly, we don’t have any cash. It’s a good thing your mom’s car runs off teen angst, or else we have been pushing it across the state line. And C, what if those douches at your house weren’t alone? What if whoever sent them sends somebody else? I don’t want it to be like Mrs. Goolsby’s basement.”
I tilted my head. “I thought you couldn’t remember Mrs. Goolsby.”
“I don’t,” he admitted. “But whatever it was, it ended with us almost getting blown up. So, you know, let’s not repeat it.”
He turned in a full circle, looking in every direction, before settling his sights behind me. “Ah, here it is.”
He brushed past me to a buzzer on a stand beside the gate.
“No!” I motioned for him to stop, but it was too late. He had already pushed the button.
“May I help you? And let me remind you that we are a government facility and, as such, something like playing pranks on us in the middle of the night is considered a felony.” A gruff voice saidthe instant after Casper’s finger left the buzzer.
He jumped back a little, like he hadn’t actually expected for someone to answer. “Um, right. This isn’t a prank,” he went back to the button. “We’re looking for someone; Morgan Montgomery.”
”There is no Morgan Montgomery here. Have a good night,” the voice answered.
I shuffled. “Remind him about Ash,” I suggested. Seeing as how we’d come this far, there was no point in leaving before we had exhausted our resources.
“Axe sent us,” Casper said.
“Ash!” I corrected.
“Right. Ash, Ash sent us. Sorry. I still don’t know who that is,” he said to me after he let go of the button.
“Nobody does,” I answered.
I spoke to soon. Somebody knew who Ash was, because as soon as the words left my mouth, the huge silver gate swung open.
“Please drive all the way to the main building. Stop nowhere on the grounds,” the voice said.
Two men were there to meet us at the main building. As we slowed to a stop, they opened our doors and pulled us to our feet. I had never seen either of them before. Truth be told, they weren’t anything special. They pretty much looked like cops. They even wore cop uniform, except there was a black ‘Weathersby’ across their chests.
“Watch the shirt! I ordered it from New York” Casper said as his guy pulled him toward the building.
He hadn’t.
“It’s vintage Rush. It’s worth like, a lot of money.”
It wasn’t.
To his credit, my guy was gentler. He barely touched me as he guided me into the building. Though, after the day I’d had, I don’t think I’d have cared if he set my Avengers shirt on fire.
Casper had been right about everyone not being asleep. We had barely made it through the front door before two groups of people passed us. One of them, like our guys were in ‘Weathersby’ issued uniforms. The other group consisted of two men and two woman; all of them in white trench coats. They passed us without much notice and, looking past them, I saw that Weathersby was huge, so huge in fact, that at least three Desoto Highs could fit inside there.
I had never seen the inside of a juvie before, aside from the occasion ‘Maury’ scared straight episode. In real life, the place was dank. Large, uncarpeted floors stretched out in every direction. The white tiles that covered it were, in its best places, yellowed with age and, in its worst, pulled up completely, revealing the grime, glue , and stone underneath. Rows of cells, which were made of pane glass instead of the dramatic bars I was picturing, lined either of the walls and piled atop each other for three stories.
Apparently, our arrival was big news because, as Casper and I were guided through the main area, we were met with a sea of eyes. Every prisoner (Were they considered prisoners?) was pressed up against their glass cells staring at us, all wearing matching felon type orange jumpsuits.
They weren’t exactly the hard boiled prisoner types I always envisioned would be in juvie. Most of them were just average looking kids. There was a girl about my age with dark skin and dyed blond hair. She bit on her nails as we passed. A boy, probably in his twenties, had shaggy wet looking hair and a copy of Great Expectations dangling from his left hand. There were young kids here too, including a girl who had her red hair tied up in pigtails and couldn’t have been more than ten.
As we entered the middle of the cell area, every light in the place came on. The space was illuminated, revealing a common area in front of us; including a television, a couch, a ping pong table and, a little further ahead, a gym, complete with a treadmill, bench press, and more free weights than I ever imagined would be in one place. Not that I’d spent a lot of time thinking about free weights or anything.
“Where are we going?” Casper asked.
“Be quiet,” his guy told him, and jerked him into a brightly lit hallway that veered off in front of the gym. My guy motioned for me to follow and, though he didn’t touch me, I still felt a little pushed.
At the end of the hall, a door with the name Mr. Echo swung open.
“Is this where Morgan Montgomery is?” I asked as we approached the door.
“There is no Morgan Montgomery here,” my guy answered and ushered me through the door.
I found myself in a messy, if pretty standard office. Boxes full of files and papers were stacked so high along the walls that they looked like cardboard towers. Between the towers, sat a sandalwood desk that was covered in papers, pens, and a framed photo of a middle aged woman with sandy brown hair and a girl with dark bangs and distant eyes.
“Are these my intruders?” A man walked in behind us. As soon as I saw him, I knew we had made a mistake. It was because she was tall, muscular, and as intimidating as a shark with a mouthful of dynamite. It wasn’t the badge that glistened in his palm. No, it was the fact that he was in his pjs.
Hehe, at least I’m not the only one.
“I told you we should have come back in the morning, “I elbowed Casper in the gut. “Look-“
“Sit down,” the man interrupted me. He motioned to the pair of chairs in front of his desk, showed our guides out, and closed the door behind them.
Casper and I sat on the chairs (Well, Casper mostly slouched) as he rounded the desk and sat behind it.
“I’m Mr. Echo,” he cherry picked a few papers from his desk, straightened them, and put them through a shredder beside his chair. The buzz of the shredder made me grimace, though Mr. Echo didn’t seem to mind. “I’m the warden here at Weathersby and you- Well, I’m not quite sure who you are.”
His green eyes were sharp and felt like knives as they bore into me. His fingers made circles across his dark beard as he sat wordlessly across from us.
“This is the part where you tell me what the hell you’re doing at my detention center,” he said flatly.
Casper’s hands tightened on the arms of his chair. His face took on that pale look it got the time Principal Snyder called us in about the graffiti that had appeared across the gym wall. We hadn’t done it, but that didn’t stop Casper from confessing every bad thi
ng he had done since kindergarten.
Just like that day, Casper started licking his lips anxiously and leaned forward in his seat. He was about to spill everything, to crack like an egg against the kitchen counter. I couldn’t let him do that though. I didn’t know enough about what was going on, and Mom hadn’t said anything about a Mr. Echo. She had said to find one person and one person only. Regardless of the questions floating around in my head, if that was the last request my mother would ever make of me, I was going to make sure I fulfilled it.
“I’ll tell Morgan Montgomery,” I said before Casper had the chance to speak.
Mr. Echo looked irritated as his fingers drummed across the desk. “Where did you hear that name?”
“Bring me to him, and I’ll tell you.” I folded my arms. What followed was a tense stare off. This Echo dude didn’t know who he was dealing with though. Back in Chicago, I once spent three hours with my feet in a tub of ice just to win Bears tickets. He was not beating me.
“Morgan Montgomery hasn’t worked here for over fifteen years,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
My whole body deflated. We had come so far, been through so much, all to get stuck at some juvie in Florida.
“The other name you gave; Ash. “ Mr. Echo tensed a little, bending a pen so far between his fingers that I was sure it was going to pop. “That’s a unique name. How-Who is that?”
“I have no idea,” I answered. “Look, if you can just tell me where to find Morgan Montgomery, we’ll be on our way.”
There was another stare off, but this time Mr. Echo leaned forward in his chair. He got so close to me; his green eyes connected with mine, that I could feel his breath on my cheek.
He jerked back quickly and threw his pen against desk hard. “She’s telling the truth,” he spit out angrily.
“Who are you talking to?” I asked. There was no one in the room except the three of us. Was there a camera? Where we being watched, and if so, by who?
“What?” he asked calmly, his back pressed leisurely against the chair; the pen once again between his fingers. “I was talking to you.”
PANDORA Page 9
