Fortified Dreams

by James, Hadena

  She still couldn’t tell her anything. One of the serial killers would make sure she was dead before she got there. The proverbial rock and a hard place had gotten much narrower and Rhonda was absolutely stuck between them. Her only hope for survival was to trust the SCTU to get her out alive, and not have a tragic accident afterwards.

  Everything had changed so quickly. Just three months and she had totally fucked up her own life by the promise of money and allure of revenge.

  “Marshal Cain,” Rhonda pushed through the girls, avoiding Jackie and Hannah, trying to find Bella. Isabella Stewart wasn’t exactly her friend, but she wasn’t an enemy either. Once she made things right, Bella would probably help keep her safe even. “Marshal Cain!” She shouted this time. Everyone turned to look at her. She felt as if she had just turned bright blue and materialized out of thin air. To her right, movement caught her eye and she dodged behind one of the other women.

  “Eric.” Aislinn nodded. Eric Clachan was suddenly wading through the group. The women parted like the Red Sea, none of them wanting to be near someone that might have been holding a knife covered in the blood of a Marshal with Clachan heading towards them.

  Hannah Graham stood stock still, the blade in her hand, blood dripping from the tip. Rhonda Mitchell held her side, blood pouring through her fingers. Eric Clachan wasn’t tall, but he was imposing. His presence was oppressive. Even Rhonda could feel it. She felt no pity for Hannah Graham. She hoped Eric beat the hell out of her. Someone grabbed her arm, and she collapsed into the supportive gesture. It hurt. She’d been too slow. She’d been playing with the serial killers for too long. She had believed she had the skills, but in reality, they had just been tamed by their confinement, lulling her and the others into a false sense of security.

  “It’s not good,” she heard Caleb Green say. His face came into view; he was laying her down on the ground.

  “My kids,” she stammered. “Money. Safe place. Lives better.” She struggled to breathe. Her brain was screaming about the fire in her abdomen. It was too focused on the pain to make any real sense, but she wanted to tell them. No, she needed to tell them. “Master code. Hannah. Jackie. More. Account other country. Don’t know who.”

  Aislinn Cain came into her view. Her face seemed dark and her hair was missing. Her brain was now screaming about something else, something Rhonda couldn’t understand. Her hand felt warm suddenly. Her eyes searched and found that Aislinn was holding it. Her eyes didn’t look stern and mean anymore, they looked forgiving. If Rhonda had the strength to cry, she might have, but that was impossible. She was getting so tired. Her eyelids fluttered closed. There was some shouting, but she ignored it, letting them close out the chaos around her. Sounds began to fade. She thought of her children, smiling and happy. Her oldest daughter had just started kindergarten and had made a friend. Her youngest was excited to start next year because her sister seemed to be having so much fun. That would change. They would grow up and rebel, but for now, they were happy. Rhonda exhaled. Her brain stopped thinking. There was one final spasm and then nothing.

  Twenty

  “You have just won the incredibly fucking stupid award,” Eric growled at Hannah. “We only need one and I have little doubt that Jackie can easily be found. That means we do not need you.” Eric lifted the woman off the ground by her throat. Hannah clawed at him. His growl went from words to guttural noises. I dropped Rhonda Mitchell’s hand. None of us would mention this betrayal. She had attempted to come clean. I would make sure everyone agreed that she had not sullied her own reputation.

  “Let her go,” I told my brother. “Double the talkers, double the fun.”

  “She isn’t going to tell you much,” Eric said. “And she’s a cop killer, even if the cop was a little dirty.”

  “She will talk. I need you to go get the liquid nitrogen. We need to get in the room with the rest of them. Malachi and I will make sure that she and Jackie talk. It is amazing how convincing seeing your own blood can be.”

  “You’re going to torture her?” Parsons asked.

  “Yes,” I looked at her. “Is that a problem?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I suggest you stand on the far side of the room then,” I told her. Eric let Hannah go. Bella had a struggling woman. The woman was taller and heavier than Bella, but Bella wasn’t even breaking a sweat. Eric left the corridor, his head turning as he walked silently past the dead bodies.

  “May I present Jackie the Hooker, serial killer of johns,” Bella told me.

  “An interesting twist,” I commented. Lots of johns were serial killers; far fewer hookers take up the hobby. “Think you can handle her until we get inside?”

  “Easily,” Bella answered. I nodded. Fiona may not like her sister, but Bella was rubbing off on me. I could see their shared strengths. If Bella hadn’t been a serial killer, it might have been a happy family. Some part of me was holding out hope that if both Stewart women survived, it still could be. I was rarely an optimist, but I just couldn’t help but want good things for Fiona. She had become as important as Lucas, Xavier, and Gabriel to me.

  “You can’t do this alone, not for as long as we might be here,” Fiona huffed as she walked towards us. “You hold her, I’ll search her. Graham had a knife, so she might too.” I tried not to smile as Fiona patted down the serial killer held by her sister. The glimmer of hope was getting stronger.

  “So we freeze the bomb and then what?” Dominic Lazar asked.

  “Someone runs it away from us, preferably to somewhere secure, and leaves it there to warm up and explode,” I told him. “I’m taking volunteers if you are fast.”

  “I’ll do it,” Caleb stood up, letting Rhonda’s head down gently on the floor. “I have a great stride length and I was a sprinter in high school.”

  “You are hired,” I told him.

  “You’d think that would make me happy, but it doesn’t,” Caleb answered.

  “You are a psychopath. I do not believe much makes you happy,” I told him.

  “Oh, I have one memory that tickles the shit out of me every time I think about it.” He smiled. I glared at him. We had gone on a date, sort of, to a county fair with a truck and tractor pull. He’d bought me a funnel cake. It was possibly the best date I had ever been on, but it ended with most of our group being arrested. By group, I mean the SCTU and VCU, along with my mom, Nyleena, her date, and a few others. They had all gone with us. Somehow a fistfight had broken out, possibly Nyleena’s fault, possibly not. It had taken a lot of talking and some bail money. It had not ended with a good night kiss or an invite inside anywhere, honestly, that would have ruined it. I did have fun, which was rare for me. However, this was not the time or place to reminisce about such things.

  Fiona held a knife up to me after she finished searching Jackie. It was silver in color. The blade and handle were one solid piece of metal. It had no hilt, just a slight curve where a hand fit into the handle. It was not a practical stabbing weapon, unless one wanted to leave DNA behind. Without a hilt, the hand would slide up the handle as the blade entered the body. The harder and faster the trust, the more likely a person was to cut themselves in the process. It wasn’t balanced right, so it wasn’t a throwing knife. The handle had one special feature, four holes through the curve. If one stuck their fingers through the holes, it would be a good stabbing weapon. Their fingers would bruise, but they wouldn’t cut themselves. It wasn’t very long, maybe a three-inch blade with a three-inch handle. It wasn’t double edged, which would have made stabbing easier. In the end, I concluded that it was mostly for show. It looked nifty, but I wouldn’t want to use it. Caleb handed me the blade Eric had taken from Hannah. It was similar, but not the same.

  It was about the same size, but had two nubs that acted like a hilt. The blade was double edged. The poor excuse for a hilt wasn’t going to stop a person from cutting themselves. It would just alert the user that it was coming. To be sure, my gaze found Hannah. One hand dripped blood, not a lot, just enough
to be noticeable.

  These blades were nothing in comparison to the knives the men were carrying. They had large hunting knives or military knives. Theirs were weapons meant for maximum damage and penetration. These small ones would do the job, but they weren’t nearly as effective.

  Which made me wonder about the intentions of the string puller. It didn’t seem like any of the women were armed very well. Those that were, well, they weren’t the most dangerous of the group.

  “How did you kill your tricks?” I asked Jackie.

  “I ain’t telling you shit,” Jackie answered.

  “I do not care about your current loyalties. Judging from your weapon neither does the person who employed you to help with the uprising. The men got much better equipment: bombs, bigger knives, a few guns. I just want to know how you killed when you were on the outside.”

  Jackie narrowed her eyes at me and I could see her jaw working. She wanted to say something, but didn’t. I sighed and looked at Parsons.

  “Shot them,” Parsons answered.

  “Graham?” I asked the Marshal.

  “Poisoner,” Parsons said.

  “Yet, Bella chopped her victims up,” I thought out loud. “How many women actually beat up, tortured, brutalized, chopped up, stabbed, or created death in some other horrific form?”

  To my surprise, hands went into the air. Not Bella’s, but I did not need to know her story. I counted twelve.

  “Were any of you contacted by the mystery man that I have heard of? Honestly. Because I’m having a really terrible thought right now and this might impact our survival.”

  I wasn’t surprised to see all the hands go down. I tried not to sigh or kick a wall. It wasn’t a matter of being a few steps behind our mastermind; it was that we were about a mile behind. None of the females were supposed to survive. I was guessing some of them were payments to the more deviant serials in the men’s cages. The rest were collateral damage, another giant smear across for the US Marshals who were supposed to be keeping things in order.

  “Stop,” Caleb whispered to me. I met his gaze, unsure what he was talking about. He nodded down. My fist had closed around the blade of the knife without a hilt. Blood was starting to pour from it. I forced myself to open my hand. My palm would probably need stitches. I’d never been much of a self-mutilator until today. My anger was getting the better of me. “We need an honest number of people that were contacted by this guy. We don’t care if you agreed or not, but I believe Marshal Cain has a theory and if it’s right, we are going to need to cooperate.”

  A few timid hands went into the air. Three total, not counting Jackie and Hannah who did not get to raise their hands. Demetrius Lazar had control of Hannah and Bella was holding Jackie. I rubbed my forehead and felt my blood start to dry on it. For a second, I considered wiping it off, but decided it was a futile effort. I’d forget and do it again anyway.

  “Here is the thing, the men do not just out number us. They are better armed. I believe some of you are potential victims. It is the best way to pay a sexually deviant serial killer. I believe others are just here to die. I do not think any of you are supposed to survive. No one cares if a few male serial killers kill each other, but when word gets out that the entire female population of the Fortress was killed during a riot caused by male serial killers, there would be national outrage. This area is one of the few in which women are more important than men are. So, you all need to make a decision on whether you want to live as serial killers and mass murders or die as victims.” My words stung more than a few women in the hallway. Their expressions changed for just a moment. Most female serials were victims at one time, and in some form. Killing made it possible for them to gain control again. Even I could not claim that I was completely free of the victim label.

  “Tell them,” a woman stepped forward. Her hair was long and blonde, put up in a perfect French braid that wrapped around the back of her head several times. She was beautiful and that included a scar that made one eye droop a little and the iris appear clouded. She was glaring at Hannah. “Tell them!” She screamed at the bleeding woman. Hannah appeared to shrink back into the arms of Demetrius Lazar. Hannah’s voice shook as she spoke.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she protested and proceeded to explain that the women were supposed to get away, unharmed. Their job had been simple, lure the SCTU to the women’s area and just wait for the men to attack, but the men had been attacking since the beginning, in small waves. The mystery man had not mentioned bombs were going to be detonated or that the men would have weapons. As for the mystery man, he was of average height, average age, and wore glasses. Jackie added that he had brownish hair. Their description was vague and could apply to just about anyone. Both were sure he was a cop of some kind. They also agreed that the goal was to destroy the SCTU like Alejandro Gui had done with the VCU. With both units down and the Marshals disgraced, the Fortress would close and they would go back to a regular prison. Once there, they would be given information on how to escape.

  I shook my head. Caleb did the same. The goal was to bring down the Fortress and let the monsters loose. There was no reason for that, unless the person behind everything was trying to hide something. That something was going to be the key.

  “How’d they find Marshals, like Rhonda Mitchell, to do the job from the inside?” Caleb asked. Both women shrugged. I was pretty sure Rhonda had been about to tell us that. Now, I would need to beat it out of another corrupt Marshal. That actually brightened my day a little. Eric returned, his face looking grim.

  “I got the nitrogen,” he showed me a small container. It was roughly the size of a travel mug. I wasn’t sure it was enough. “However, we have another problem.”

  “I cannot deal with many more problems,” I informed my brother.

  “This one, you’re going to have to deal with.” He threw me a bottle. The label was written in a foreign language. However, it did have a circle with triangles of color on it and it was very heavy, even for metal. Whatever was inside was radioactive. As if to confirm this, my brother tossed another bottle my direction. Caleb caught it. The label read Prussian Blue, a pill that removed radioactive isotopes from the body after exposure.

  Twenty-one

  “What kind of sick person brings in radioactive materials to a prison?” Dominic Lazar asked.

  “The kind that does not want anyone to survive except a handpicked few and I’m willing to bet that we are not among the handpicked.” I examined the container closer. The lid had a small seal around the edges and it hadn’t been broken. I let out a long breath that was more of a relieved gasp than a sigh. It had yet to be used. Unless there were more bottles like this, we were good. “Did you find out who killed all the dead guys out there?” I asked my brother.

  “No, none of them felt like talking,” he answered.

  “So you saw no one on your way up or down from the medical center?” I ignored his joke.

  “No. I should have seen several, but I did not. I got the impression that most of them are hiding, possibly because of the bomb on the cafeteria door.”

  “Except the one that killed them,” I pointed. Several were still bleeding. They had been killed within moments of us getting to this point. While we had stood in the corridor about seven minutes, they still weren’t beyond the leaking blood stage. I’d seen enough dead bodies to know when one was very fresh. These were still very fresh.

  “He’s watching us,” Eric nodded in agreement. “The moment you go to put that on, he’s going to strike.” He pointed towards the nitrogen.

  “That would be very stupid,” I remarked. A few drops would cause instant burns. The entire container would kill him. Or I could dump radioactive powder down his throat. That might be fun too. There was enough Prussian Blue to start just about everyone on it if that was my decision.

  “Before you decide to kill us all with radioactive isotopes, try this first.” Eric threw me another small container that Caleb caught. It was hard
plastic. The word poisonous jumped out at me. It contained hydrochloric acid, another odd thing to have lying around a prison full of killers. I tried not to smile at the bottle. I put the radioactive powder in my pocket and took the hydrochloric acid. I walked forward and grabbed the liquid nitrogen from Eric, handing him the Prussian Blue in the process. Caleb walked with me. If he was worried about what we were about to do and what he would have to do afterwards, it didn’t show. Of course, he was a psychopath and they didn’t know what fear was, so there was a good chance that he wasn’t worried. Eric came with us. I looked at him.

  “Someone is going to have to run the bomb away,” he said.

  “Caleb volunteered.”

  “He’ll need escorts,” Eric said. I could not argue with that. Neither could a few others in the hallway. Dominic Lazar pushed his way near us.

  “I was a runner in college,” he said. I nodded to him.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Demetrius asked.

  “She does,” Caleb assured him. “Once this bomb is off the door, run the women in here as fast as possible.” Demetrius nodded.

  We all stepped into the corridor and over the first dead guy. His body had been opened from his navel to his sternum. The cut continued alone his chin and disappeared. I pointed at the wound. Eric stuck his arm out, across my chest, stopping me from moving forward. The others stopped too. Whoever was awaiting us knew how to use a sword. A sword is a specialty weapon. It wasn’t just a matter of swinging it. One had to have practice and training to get clean and efficient wounds like these. One man inside knew exactly how to do it, but Brent Timmons was head of my fan club and on the other side of the cafeteria door. Malachi and I had both taken classes just for the hell of it. He had become very good with one, but he too was on the other side. I ran through my memories of all the serial killers inside the Fortress, but swordsmanship didn’t come up with any of them. Eric once again grabbed my baton. He flicked it open as if it was an extension of himself. I had forgotten about him being able to use a sword. He’d been big into martial arts as both a kid and an adult. For a moment, a glimmer of something was within me that I ignored.