by Leigh Tudor
“We don’t know,” Forrest admitted, loosening his grip on the overhead strap. “Maybe when Halstead died there was a power struggle. Maybe Ava lost that fight and convinced her sisters to leave? What we do know is that Ava and Mara were involved in a number of crimes, and not in a small way.”
Chapter Forty
“Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.”
—Bertrand Russell
British polymath, philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist and Nobel Laureate
* * *
Loren finished helping her customer load the last bag of potting soil into the back of her SUV. “Thanks, Elsie,” she said, shutting the back hatch as the elderly woman made her way to the door. “Drive safe.”
Elsie opened the car door. “By the way, tell Henry I just love the new shirts.”
Loren glanced down at the black polo with “Wilder’s Hardware” printed on the upper left.
“He’ll like hearing that,” she said, knowing that she was the one who picked them out and ordered them for herself.
More professional.
When Henry saw her wearing it for the first time, he said, “Well, hell. Now everyone will want one.”
Elsie wedged herself in her seat, shut the door, and pushed the button to roll her window down. “Tell Mad that I’ll see her at Ladies Night at the church. She’s promised to teach us how to play Whist.”
Loren chuckled at the nickname the women of Wilder gave Madame. Of course, neither she, Mercy, nor Cara was permitted to utter the moniker, but Loren knew the old woman secretly loved having her own special nickname among her lady friends.
“Sure will, but beware, she’s a card shark. Don’t take your eyes off her, especially if she comes in wearing a white blouse with suspiciously long sleeves.”
Elsie laughed and Loren waved and quickly made her way back into the store. She didn’t want to leave it unattended, as Henry had been called out for an emergency run to the Holict Airport, but Elsie was in her nineties and had no business hauling the potting soil on her own.
As she walked inside, she saw Cara and Ally checking out the bird feeders.
“I didn’t see you two come in. Why aren’t you in school?”
“Half day,” Cara said, hopping on the counter by the cash register. “I forgot. Mercy’s on her way to pick us up.”
Loren gave her a dubious look. “You have quite the selective memory.”
“It’s understandable,” she said with a shrug. “I’m a teenager, which means my prefrontal lobe isn’t yet fully developed.”
They shared a glance and the irony of the brain-related statement.
Loren responded, “Nice try, buuttt, not pickin’ up what you’re puttin’ down.”
“Ugh,” Cara said with an exaggerated eye roll. “Nobody says that anymore. You are so lame.”
Loren turned her attention to Ally. “Hey, Al, have you heard from your brother?”
“Nope,” she said, sorting through the breath mints. “He said he’d call later tonight when he got to his hotel.”
Loren smiled, as he’d told her the same.
“Crapola,” Cara said, rummaging in her book bag, “I totally forgot my pre-Algebra book.”
“Bet you didn’t forget your sheet music,” Loren said.
Cara pulled out what looked to be reams of sheet music from her bag with a toothy grin. “Ravel’s ‘Bolero.’”
“My point exactly.”
“Well,” Cara said, chewing her lip and zipping her bag. “I’ll just have to go to school early in the morning and study for my test.”
“Oh, no, you’re not,” Loren said, “you’re going to march right back to the school, get your book, and come back.”
“Says who?”
“Says Madame Garmond when I call her.”
Cara’s eyes narrowed, but she knew she was bested.
“Fine,” Cara said with a scowl. “Come on, Ally.”
“I’m not going,” Ally replied, pointing her thumb toward her bag next to a display of beef jerky. “I didn’t forget my books.”
Cara pulled her backpack over her shoulder with a huff. “I’ll be back.”
Her dramatic exit was tempered by the twinkling sound of the door chimes as she stomped outside.
Loren checked her next pick-up order as Ally went back to perusing the bird feeders.
“Hey, Ally, I have to go to the back to grab some polyurethane pipe to go with these fittings. Could you keep an eye on the front and let me know if a customer comes in? Shouldn’t take but a minute.”
Ally nodded as she lifted the roof of one of the feeders and peered inside.
Loren jogged to the back lot straight to the pile of pipe sitting next to several palettes of fertilizer. She made a mental note to reorganize the yard, so that more of the related items could be found in proximity to one another.
She pulled her work gloves from the back of her cutoff jean shorts, understanding now why Cara didn’t want to walk all the way back to the school as the sun was particularly hot today despite the season. She bent to check the model number inked on the side of one of the stacks of pipe.
“Hello, Ava.”
She stilled. First at the name, and second, at the voice saying it.
“I do believe it’s time to go home.”
She stood straight to see Jasper no more than twenty feet away. Six so-called orderlies, some tatted on the neck and face, wearing green scrubs, stood close behind him.
She assessed each one in terms of flexibility, which wouldn’t be much. Muscles of their magnitude could be a significant detriment when fighting someone with agility and speed.
She made a quick sweep of her surroundings and in seconds she tallied everything within range that could be used as a weapon.
And then she remembered Mercy.
“Where’s Mercy?” she asked.
“Mara,” Jasper corrected, taking a step closer, “is safe and sound at your hovel of a farmhouse. She will remain so, if you cooperate.”
And then the sound of door chimes. “Hey, Loren.”
Ally.
Loren shut her eyes for a millisecond.
“Mrs. Crannick said she’d come back for her . . . or-der.”
Ally went quiet, probably sensing something was very wrong based on the scary men and Loren not taking her eyes off them.
“Thanks. Ally. Go on home.”
She heard the sound of the door chimes again and knew instinctively that someone was guarding the door so that Ally couldn’t get back inside.
They were trapped.
Per design.
“Um, Loren. . .?” Ally said with a shaky breath.
“Stay where you are,” Loren said over her shoulder, slowly moving a few steps, so she was between the goon at the door and the men in the yard. She then saw the ambulance sitting outside the open chain-link fence.
Jasper said, “There is no reason this young woman should come to any harm. As a matter of fact, she can come with us, and we will see her safely home. What do you say, gentlemen, shall we make room?”
They didn’t make a sound.
No surprise to Loren.
Their job was to attack and subdue, not to engage in light conversation.
Loren glanced to her right at the man who stood between Ally and the door, also built like a tank. There was no doubt they had her beat in terms of numbers, but she’d bet good money they couldn’t come close to her fighting ability.
But she didn’t want Ally to see that.
If she went with them, she’d eventually figure out a way to escape and avoid Ally witnessing some pretty gruesome combat. Protect some of her innocence.
“I will go voluntarily, if you let her go.”
“Don’t be silly, Ava,” Jasper said, as if speaking with a child. “We are here to protect her. From you. There’s no telling what maniacal stories you
’ve told her.”
“She knows nothing,” Loren argued, getting desperate, fully aware that nothing she said would matter.
Jasper shook his head as if saddened by such an unfortunate set of circumstances. “She shouldn’t be left alone. If you’ll just come along with us and allow us to take her home, no one will get hurt.”
Jasper stepped to the side as one of the green Hulks came toward her. She instantly moved into an attack stance.
“You’ll have to kill me first.”
Alec pumped on the brakes and skidded to a stop directly behind an ambulance parked behind the back lot of the hardware store.
He jumped out of the truck, Forrest moving with the same level of urgency.
Alec, because he wanted to get to Loren.
Forrest because he didn’t want to miss the extraction.
Before they could get through the open gate, a skinny little dude in a lab coat stopped them.
“Mr. Forrest, right on time.”
Alec could hear the familiar sounds of a skirmish in the backlot, but the lab coat dude was holding them back.
“I assume this man is part of your team?”
Forrest nodded, “Dr. Bancroft, this is Alec Wilder. Per our discussion, Alec has been surveilling the target for the past several months.”
The man seemed to assess Alec and then nodded his head. “Yes, thank you for the intel. I’m afraid we have an unexpected situation involving a member of your family.”
“Ally?” Alec asked, his heart rate rising.
He nodded as if troubled. “Miss Ava has threatened to kill her if we make any attempt to return her back to the research center. She’s quite agitated and our team is doing their best to subdue her. I’m afraid she’s completely unmanageable at this point. I’m going to have to ask you to allow us to handle this until we can sedate her and then hand her over for transport. I took the liberty of arranging for an ambulance for ease of transport and medical attention.”
Alec pushed past the man and as soon as he got through the gate, with Forrest close behind, he began his search for Ally. No sign of her.
He turned toward the white coat. “Where’s Ally?”
“She’s in the far corner, to the right. Miss Ava won’t allow us to come to her aid. She insists she’ll kill her before going back to her home at the research facility.”
And then his eyes moved to Loren, her hair wild even though it was pulled back, her body covered with prairie dust, blood dripping from her nose and forehead.
Four men lay on the ground, incapacitated but alive, while three others did their best to overpower her.
Forrest stood beside him, watching with the same level of fascination.
“Notice something?” Alec asked, so only Forrest could hear.
They watched side by side as she moved from a V Armlock to a Bow and Arrow Choke. A Ju-Jitsu move she could easily transition for the kill.
But she didn’t.
Forrest said back, “She’s not going for the kill.”
“Something doesn’t add up.” Alec started to move to her aid, as he watched her lose her balance and stumble before reasserting herself. Forrest’s hand reached out to stop him. “Do not blow our cover. We aren’t here to rescue her. We’re here to transport her.”
Alec held back, but only because she was wiping the floor with these idiots.
“It’s like . . . she’s playing cat and mouse with them . . . slowly wearing them down.”
Alec took a step forward, torn between seeing Ally with his own eyes and throwing Loren over his shoulder and taking her somewhere safe.
Forrest continued to hold Alec back, not taking his eyes off Loren and with an expression that held the same level of confusion as Alec.
Alec fumed, “This is fucking horseshit.”
“Do not go rogue on me, Wilder. Do your fucking job.”
Bancroft had moved toward the back of the ambulance and opened the back doors. Forrest caught Alec’s attention, nodding toward the ambulance. Alec followed his gaze to see a man the size of one of his farm silos emerge from the back. His head was shaven, his neck the size of one of Alec’s thighs.
The man’s arms were so huge, they hung at a V, unable to touch the sides of his body. He also wore the same ridiculous blue-green scrubs, so tight the seams threatened to burst.
The silo looked more like a steroid-riddled prison mate than an orderly.
Bancroft explained, “Let me introduce you to Milo.”
Alec huffed. No fucking way. Milo the Silo.
“He and Miss Ava go way back. He has had exceptional luck in subduing her in the past.”
Alec’s fists opened and closed, he leaned toward Forrest. “I swear to God, if he hurts her, I will personally destroy you before tearing his oversized head off his body.”
The giant walked onto the lot, the three other meatheads moving to the side, more than happy to make way for him.
But something very odd happened. As soon as Loren saw Milo the Silo, she stumbled and then stood as if in recognition. And then, with her chest heaving and blood dripping down her chin, an unexpected smile lit her face.
“Yes, they’re old friends,” Dr. Bancroft assured with a thin smile.
Loren didn’t know what game Jasper was playing, but she couldn’t take the chance of any harm coming to Ally. She could never live with herself if it did. Ally had been through enough in her short life, having lost her parents and then suffering abuse from someone she should have trusted.
But this was absurd.
The so-called orderlies Jasper brought with him were pathetic. Easy to overpower and seven clowns short of a circus.
An utter waste of time.
And somehow Jasper knew it.
She was self-taught to train slow. A lesson learned after a number of hard knocks when attempting to replicate certain moves, not fully engrained, at top speeds. She soon recognized that the tactic wasn’t conducive to learning how to do anything effectively and precisely.
The physical motion required calm, a full understanding of each step of the movement, practicing each of them until programmed into muscle memory. Then when the time came, you could replicate the moves, leveraging the adrenaline surge as opposed to suffering from it.
White belt fundamentals executed at black belt speeds.
These guys performed at speeds of napping slugs.
Her sub-par sparring partners lay on the ground. Some holding broken or fractured bones, others scooting toward the perimeter of the lot.
She stumbled from a moment of fatigue when she saw him. Her mind jumbled, as she stood straighter.
Thoughts of Jasper and his fucked-up machinations were obliterated as she gazed at the man who stole her innocence.
Oh, how she had dreamed of killing him.
A wicked smile grew on her face, wiping blood from her chin. Everyone around her dissolved into the background.
It was just her and the man who raped her.
She had learned a thing or two since that day in the padded room. And would use every ounce of fight-mode adrenaline to painfully kill this mindless tree of a man.
“Looking good there, Milo,” she said, taunting him. “I see you’ve not done something different with your hair.”
He moved forward another step, too short of brain cells to anticipate the danger.
“You think you can take me . . . again?” she asked, pointing the toe of her Chuck’s and drawing a line in the prairie dust in front of her. “Just so you’re know, ’cause you’re not the sharpest tool in the shed, if you cross this line, I will kill you. And it’s gonna hurt.” She glanced around the lot. “I might even shove a steel pipe or two up your ass for good measure.” She shrugged theatrically. “I mean, fair’s fair.”
Not a word. Just like before.
She backed up a couple of steps, slowly looking down at her line in the dust and then back up at dead eyes, silently daring him with giddy anticipation.
“Red Rover, Red Rover . . . .
” she sing-songed.
He moved and everything morphed into lines and fractals. The hulking movement of his body translating into slow motion like an old-time movie reel, but instead of a body, she saw kill points.
It took but a few seconds, and with lightning speed-moves he was nothing more than a lifeless body mass at her feet, his stump of a neck twisted awkwardly to the side.
Crouching beside him, she whispered, “The pleasure was all mine, you sick fucker.”
Alec held Ally in his arms as she sobbed.
Loren appeared so absorbed in the wreckage she had caused she hadn't noticed Ally breaking away and running straight into Alec's arms.
Forrest seemed equally taken aback at having witnessed Loren easily manhandle the first set of attackers with what seemed painstaking patience and then swiftly murder the last assailant with psychotic glee.
And that song . . . .
When Alec heard Loren singing while taunting the so-called orderly, his heart sank. Memories struck of Marisa weaving back and forth, singing children's rhymes while Ally was locked in her upstairs closet, beaten and starved.
Dr. Bancroft moved toward Loren with his hands in the air as if in appeal. "Ava," he cajoled her, "that is quite enough."
Loren raised her eyes, shielding the sun with her hand. Her breath lodged in her chest as she saw Alec holding a distraught Ally.
“Omigod, Ally,” she said, and then her hand moved to her mouth in horror.
She glanced down at the prone body at her feet, realizing that the satisfaction of ending the life of the man who took her innocence was nothing close to the self-loathing from stealing a piece of Ally's.
What had she done?
Ally had seen everything.
Had seen her take a life.
The very innocence she committed to protecting, she’d sullied.
Ally would never be the same. There were no take-backs or do-overs. She would be irrevocably damaged. Another piece of her soul was robbed, but this time, by Loren.
To her right she heard a commotion. Mercy and Cara. They were forcing their way to her and being held back by her early attackers.
