by Sean Black
Standing in the middle of the ranch house, the thought set him on edge. There was one thing more dangerous than someone backed into a corner. Someone who also felt like they had nothing left to lose.
They kept moving. Ty keeping Chris in front of him, a human shield, as they rounded every corner.
In the office, Ty made straight for the phone. He picked it up from its cradle, held it in one hand and quickly punched in Lock’s cell phone number.
It was only when he put the phone to his ear that he realized it was dead. He walked over to where it was plugged into the wall socket. The cable had been ripped out, the wall socket smashed, the wires inside pulled out.
Ty turned to Chris. “Where does she keep the cell-phone blocker?”
Chris hesitated.
Ty pointed the gun straight at him. “Let me explain a couple of things to you really quick. You’ve already shot me, so I’m not all that fussed about keeping you alive. And if you don’t help me out here then I truly don’t have any reason to keep you around.”
It’s over there,” said Chris, pointing to a cabinet behind the desk.
“You know how to disable it?”
“Gretchen doesn’t let anyone near it apart from her.”
Ty marched over to the cabinet. It was padlocked. No great surprise.
He raised the SIG, leveling the barrel at the lock.
“What the hell are you doing?” Chris shouted.
Ty shrugged. “What? You’re worried that I’m going to damage it?”
He blasted two quick rounds into the cabinet. He dug out his cell phone. He was low on battery, but he had a signal.
Hallelujah.
He tapped on the screen, pulled out Lock’s number and hit the call icon. The connection was fussy. Static crackled. But after a few seconds Lock answered.
“Ty? Where are you?”
“Up here in the ranch house.”
“Okay, good, we’re almost there. Be about five minutes.”
“We?” asked Ty.
“I got Donald Price with me.”
Terrific, thought Ty. That was all they needed.
When Don Price arrived to find his daughter missing, and all this chaos, he’d go ballistic. Their biggest problem would be preventing him from burning the place to the ground.
A thought struck Ty. Something that Gretchen had mentioned earlier. “Where does she keep the guns? She told me she had a gun safe.”
“I don’t know,” said Chris. “She gave me yours after she told me you’d been sent in to spy on us. I don’t know anything about a gun safe.”
“Bullshit.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Okay then, start looking.”
Together they began to search the office. Ty found it, concealed behind a regular-looking wooden cabinet door. He pulled it open. The safe wasn’t locked. He threw its door wide.
It was empty.
68
So what do you plan on doing with me?” Chris asked Ty, as they headed back out of the ranch house and toward the dormitories.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you give me any more trouble or not. If you do, I’m going to shoot you.”
“And if I don’t?”
Ty took a second to think about what he should say. “Tell you what, you help me find Gretchen, make sure the kids are safe, and explain to the authorities how badly this place needs to be shut down, I’ll try to help you out.”
“How are you going to do that? I shot you.”
“I can say the gun went off accidentally. Happens all the time.”
“You’d do that for me?” said Chris, sounding so grateful it bordered on pathetic.
“If you do what I ask, then sure,” said Ty.
In truth, he had no intention of helping Chris Fontaine once this was resolved. None at all. He wouldn’t hurt him, but the guy deserved to stand before a judge and jury.
“I can’t believe you’d do that for me after what I did.”
“Neither can I,” said Ty.
* * *
Thirty seconds later, they reached the first dormitory. Chris pulled the door open, and walked in, Ty close behind him. For once the arrows marked on the walls performed a useful function. If Ty stayed two arrows behind, he would have enough time to deal with Chris turning and attempting to disarm him.
Inside, the quiet was eerie. They came to a classroom. Ty gestured for Chris to walk past, then stopped at the door and pushed it open with the toe of his boot. It took him a second or two to process what he was looking at.
Papers and workbooks were crumpled up, torn and scattered across the floor. The partitions that had separated each student from their neighbor had been ripped down. One had been thrown through a window. It sat, held in place by jagged shards of glass, half inside and half out.
Chris followed Ty and stood behind him, taking in the chaos. Ty pulled out his cell phone, and tapped on its light. He swept the beam across the walls, picking out fragments of graffiti. It took him just a few seconds to grasp the message that the person or persons who had written it had wanted to convey. Chris must have got it, too, because before Ty could stop him, he had turned on his heel and made a mad rush back toward the door and down the corridor.
Ty started after him, then stopped. Running made his shoulder scream with pain. But that wasn’t why he had decided not to go after Chris. If he’d been in Chris’s shoes, Ty would have run too. And he wouldn’t have stopped until he was a long way from Broken Ridge.
Ty pulled up Lock’s number again. He hit the call icon.
“Almost there, Ty. You okay?”
“Yeah. But keep your eyes wide open. I think we got some really bad shit about to go down.”
At the other end of the line, he heard Lock shout something he couldn’t make out. The call dropped.
Outside, someone let out a high-pitched scream. It was followed by the whipcrack of a single gunshot, then more shouting. Punching his gun out ahead of him, Ty charged into the corridor.
It was empty. He moved as quickly as he could to the first dorm room. He kicked the door open, and rushed in, gun high. He took in the room with a single sweep from left to right.
No one.
He backed out. Went to the next room. Repeated. No one there either.
The gun safe had been empty, and now so was the dormitory.
69
Seventy-eight seconds earlier
As Lock made the turn onto the approach road to Broken Ridge, Ty’s name flashed on his cell.
“Almost there, Ty. You okay?”
“Yeah. But keep your eyes wide open, I think we got some really bad shit about to go down.”
Before he could respond there was a rush of movement from the side of the road. Someone ran directly in front of the front of the Explorer.
Yanking down hard on the steering-wheel, Lock stood on the brake pedal. The wheels spun, struggling to maintain grip on the dirt. The Explorer shuddered and shook. Next to him, Don was thrown hard against the door.
The person who’d run in front of them disappeared from view. Lock struggled with the wheel, and eased up on the brakes, trying to stop the Explorer toppling over as it hurtled off the dirt road.
The vehicle spun. Lock felt it tilt. He struggled to keep hold of the wheel as the tires on the passenger side lost contact with the ground.
The vehicle rolled. There was a whooshing sound as front and side airbags deployed, throwing Lock back into his seat. The Explorer rolled again. Everything that wasn’t secured flew about the cabin.
Lock’s mind flashed inexorably to a lonely Topanga Canyon road on a rain-lashed night that had changed him for ever. An acid-splash of bile rose at the back of his throat.
Finally, the Explorer settled in the dust. Lock’s hand fell immediately to his side. He flipped open the pouch holding his Gerber knife, and pulled it out. Reaching up, he slashed through the seatbelt. He jabbed the point of the blade into the front air bag
, and slashed that too. He repeated the same action with the side air bag.
He took a moment to get his bearings. Aligning his position with land and sky, he realized the Explorer had done a full roll, landing back on its wheels. A stroke of luck, making getting out a lot easier than if it had finished on its side.
He looked across at Don Price. His eyes were closed. Lock reached over, and touched his neck, feeling for a pulse. Don stirred, pushing out his hand to swat him away. “Get the hell off me.”
“You okay?”
“Terrific. Now what the hell was that?”
Lock reached for his door and opened it. “Why don’t we go see?” He jumped out, legs wobbly from the aftermath of the crash. He looked around, unable to make out anyone in the darkness. Drawing his gun, he walked to the front of the Explorer. He checked the front for a person-sized dent. It was intact. So was the windshield. Good news for whoever had run in front of them.
He heard someone move close by. He spun round, pointing his SIG in their direction as, behind him, Don clambered out of the passenger side, his gun also in his hand.
If the bad trouble Ty had warned him about had just forced him off the road, then Lock was about to give them the good news. He narrowed his eyes, adjusting to the gloom. The pad of his index finger settled on the trigger.
He moved it back as a teenage girl stepped down from the road toward them. She had a ghostly white complexion and red hair. A blood-soaked strip of cloth was wrapped tight around one of her arms.
Lock exhaled. He had come within a split second of ending her life twice within the space of a minute. Fear gave way to anger. “What the hell are you doing jumping out like that? I could have killed you.”
The girl looked at him evenly. “So why didn’t you?”
70
The gun felt good in Jacob’s hand. Finally, he had the power. He was the one in control. People would do what he said now.
He looked at the other kids. They were scared. Scared of him. Like he had been scared of them once upon a time. Even the level sixes were frightened. Maybe especially the sixes. All those perfect little rule followers who had looked down on him. Who had treated him worse than dirt.
It was all so different now. The level ones were in charge, and the sixes were at the bottom of the heap. Not all of the level ones had followed him. Most hadn’t. That was okay. He didn’t need much help. In the end only two had come in with him. Both boys who, like him, had been there for over a year without making it past level one. Boys the staff had picked on, and other kids had bullied because they were different somehow, or wouldn’t do as they were told.
One, Adam, was a scrawny fourteen-year-old with ears that stuck out and made him a target. Not that anyone was laughing at his ears now. Nor were they calling Jacob’s other friend, Corey, who was fifteen and stuttered, any names. Not when he was holding a gun to the back of Little Miss Perfect Rachel’s head as the other kids followed Jacob’s instructions to light the fire pits.
Tonight they were going to have some fun around the fire pits that no one would ever forget. And Jacob was going to have his say, without anyone telling him he was wrong. So was Adam, and so was Corey, and so were any of the other kids who’d been bullied and picked on.
There would be one rule for the fire pit. You could say what you wanted. You could tell the truth. The real truth. Not the truth you thought Gretchen Applewhite and the other staff wanted to hear.
But before that, Jacob was going to start things out with a special piece of entertainment. Something that would set the mood.
Gretchen always had to be the center of attention. And Jacob was going to make sure she was. One final time.
After all, none of this would have been happening without her. Not just because she had made him who he was but because, once she was done torturing him, she had made the mistake of believing he was incapable of revenge.
After the electro-shock therapy sessions, all three of them, he had shuffled and drooled around Broken Ridge for real. He hadn’t been able to lift his feet or control what his mouth did. But, as time passed, his body and his nervous system had recovered. Only he had decided to stay the same, at least as far as everyone was concerned.
That was when he noticed something interesting beginning to happen. Because of how he behaved, the staff ignored him. It was as if they thought he was deaf. They didn’t guard what they said when he was around. It was as if he was invisible. Gretchen even put him to work cleaning up in the ranch house. That was when he had discovered the safe. Only thing he had to do after that was gather a few recruits to his cause (which wasn’t difficult) and bide his time.
Jacob had known that, sooner or later, something would give. The place would begin its descent into chaos. When it did, he would be ready. Ready to pay back Gretchen and all the others for what they had done to him. The level ones would be powerful, and the level sixes would be ground into the dust. Jacob was going to take Gretchen’s stupid system and turn it upside down.
After all, Jacob reasoned, what could she do to him now that she hadn’t already done?
* * *
Ty hunkered down at the corner of the dormitory building closest to the fire pits. The scene in front of him verged on surreal. Three of the students, armed with handguns and a rifle, were holding the rest at gunpoint. They barked orders to a handful of the younger students who were busy lighting the fires, while the rest had been forced into their usual positions around the pits.
Of all the sights Ty had anticipated confronting when he’d heard the gunshots, this wasn’t one. From the look of shock on the faces of the small group of staff members who were huddled together in the middle of the fire pits, he wasn’t the only one who’d been taken by surprise.
As he looked out from the corner of the building, there was another shock. Not only had Chris gone to ground, Gretchen was nowhere to be seen either.
Ty quickly shifted back into work mode. He was facing a hostage shooting with three gunmen holding at least a hundred captives. So far they didn’t appear to have killed or injured anyone. That could change in the blink of an eye.
The three holding the weapons didn’t appear to have any level of training. But that could work for or against the people being held. Gunmen with training were a more difficult threat to deal with. But those with no training or experience were apt to panic and take someone out without meaning to. In any case, calling them gunmen seemed to be a stretch. They were runty teenage boys who hadn’t started shaving yet.
There was one positive, though. The situation seemed to be relatively stable. In a mass hostage situation, the two critical points were, by definition, at the beginning and the end of the event. As far as Ty could tell they hadn’t started out by shooting anyone, which made it less likely that they would do so now. Less likely, but not certain.
Although he was outgunned three to one, the three shooters would be no match for him. Plus, they were out in the open. Hostages would be able to scatter. But—and there was no getting away from this—if he did something now, it was certain that there would be casualties. He’d likely have to shoot at least one of the boys holding weapons. That wasn’t a decision to take lightly. Not if it could be avoided.
He decided upon a tactical retreat. He’d stay close enough to take action if the situation changed, and try to make contact again with Lock, and law enforcement.
He backed up slowly, melting around the side of the dorm building. Out of sight of the three shooters. Ty squatted, his back against the dorm wall. His shoulder throbbed and he tried to lift his left arm. No go. He could barely get it away from his side. Too bad. Getting it seen to would have to wait.
He laid his SIG on the ground for a moment and took out his cell phone, ready to try Lock again. He didn’t know what had caused his partner to terminate their last call, but it hadn’t sounded good.
He was about make the call when someone shouted from around the corner. Ty didn’t catch what they’d said. A low buzz of chatter rose from
dead silence.
Pocketing his phone, Ty picked up his gun again and duck-walked back down the side of the building. When he reached the corner, he took a quick peek around.
The surreal scene clicked up another notch. The fire pits had all been lit, bathing the hostages in dancing orange light. One of the teenage shooters was pushing someone toward the center pit at gunpoint. Gretchen.
The shooter stopped, and picked up a red two-gallon can. The can would be full of an accelerant, either gasoline or something similar. He turned back to the kid who was directing everything: Jacob. Jacob gave him a thumbs-up.
The kid raised the gas can above Gretchen’s head, and began to pour, dousing her with it. Gasoline. Ty could smell it from where he was. Gretchen began to whimper and moan, her cries muffled by the thick silver tape wrapped tight around her mouth. Her hands were cinched tightly behind her back with a length of rope.
Jacob watched her distress with a smile. The tormented now the tormentor.
Gretchen half turned, and took a step, making a run for it. The kid with the gas can was caught flat-footed. She had three steps on him. She picked up her pace. One of the kids sitting down swiveled around, put out their leg and tripped her as she ran past.
Gretchen stumbled, and fell forward. She face-planted into the ground, no arms ready to break her fall. The shooter caught up with her. He tipped the final contents of the gas can over her, starting at her slippers and working all the way up to her head.
Face down in the dirt, Gretchen wriggled and writhed. One of the staff members, an older woman, got up from where she was sitting. “Enough! Stop this right now.”
Jacob turned, raised his gun and shot the woman in the chest. She fell back. He dropped another round, that one into her head. “No talking!” he shouted. “Those are the rules.”
Ty’s blood chilled. Glancing back to Gretchen, he caught a look at the student who had tripped her, foiling her escape. It was one of the girls from Ruth’s dorm.
