The suction finally started to lessen as Abigail slowed toward the exit placing her gently back into the crawling position that she’d initially been in. As she got out, she noticed the paper was still in her hand and breathed a sigh of relief when she realized how foolish it would’ve been if she’d lost it. Everyone seemed to walk in one direction toward the street. The old lady from before was scurrying along behind everyone else and Abby felt compelled to follow since Deely’s instructions hadn’t mentioned exactly where to exit. It seemed there was only one exit.
It didn’t take long for Abigail to see the differences between Section Four and Section One. Section One looked like it had been painted with a completely different color palette. One with yellows and browns and a few greens here and there rather than the cold gray background of the city. From the outside of the transit station, is where Deely’s directions began and Abigail went on her way, traveling down long sidewalks and taking twists and turns that would’ve been hard to pinpoint if he hadn’t drawn small pictures indicating natural landmarks. Abigail had finally gotten to an area where street signs started to disappear, and trees covered most of the space. As she continued down a path toward the huge tree that ended his instructions, Abigail could see the dinky, white house she was meant to take closer pictures of.
Hiding behind the wide trunk, Abby snapped shot after shot of the front of the house. The pictures making the place look even smaller than it already looked. After about ten shots, Abby looked back through them, all of them the exact same picture. The same picture over and over again probably wasn’t going to be of much use to Deely. He’s the one who knew where this place was, so he’d probably meant for her to catch something more than the house itself. Who was inside?
She crept closer already thinking to talk herself out of whatever she was about to do. But her body continued forward, wanting to help whoever was in there no matter how reckless she’d have to be. She ducked behind bushes until she made it to the driveway where a StarGlider even older than Deely’s rested, looking as if it hadn’t been turned on in years. She was close enough to the house to see a figure walking around. It was a tall, burly figure walking back and forth in the front room of the house.
Abby couldn’t make out exactly what they were doing, but she figured capturing their face could help Deely somehow. Without thinking, she grabbed a rock from the driveway, one that engulfed her entire hand and flung it over the porch railings into the door. The tall figure stopped in the window and slowly moved in the direction of the door. With each step, Abby could feel her heart beating faster and faster. What’s going to happen if they walk this way? Are they going to kill me? Questions continued flooding her head until she heard the door swing open.
Abby looked over to see a tall, heavy set man filling up the doorway. He took a long, menacing glance over his yard, looking for where the rock came from. That’s when Abigail took her chance to take as many pictures as she could of the man; though she’d gotten a good enough look at him that she could probably recite it from memory. A giant with a ginger beard that covered his jaw and a slightly browner mustache that covered the top of his lip. A few wrinkles rested right above his bushy eyebrows. The man couldn’t have been older than Mother at least. She’d had many more wrinkles than Abigail could ever count. Mother’s only known age to the girl was “old.” This man wore oversized overalls that hung loose even on someone of his size and stature. One side was unbuckled giving him an unkempt and uncaring aura that kept going all the way down to his poorly tied dusty black boots.
“Who’s at the door?” A voice came from inside, from behind the large man. It was small but not to be taken lightly.
“No one. Probably a damn kid.” The man bent down and picked up the big rock seeming to have just noticed it.
“Well, close the door, you big idiot. Don’t want the bugs gettin’ in here.”
The man continued looking around, hoping that it was just a child that attempted to grab his attention. An unwitting innocent child who could easily be brushed off as nothing more than a nuisance. He threw the rock out far away from the house, just a few feet away from the huge tree that marked the end of Deely’s map. And he walked back inside closing the door and began locking several locks that resided on the other side. The man wasn’t satisfied until he took one last long look outside of the window before disappearing into the recesses of the house.
The rush that Abby felt when the man stepped out finally started to subside and she couldn’t believe how close she’d gotten to a man of that size without nearly dying. She suddenly realized that it had started getting dark and a text popped up on her phone.
“Where are you?”
Chapter 7
“Just finishing up. On my way back now.”
Deely responded with, “K.” hoping she’d be back sooner rather than later. He didn’t expect to get back to Ol’ Mike’s before her, but his directions weren’t the best in the world. He sat down on the same exact stool that he always did, this time Meri occupied the seat next to him. She sat there with her feet dangling a few inches below where her ankle-length dress ended. She sat there shoveling spoonful after spoonful of macaroni and cheese into her mouth, leaving orange cheese spots all over the corners of her mouth. It was so easy for Deely to forget how much of a little girl Meri was sometimes, especially when she carried herself better than most other people his own age. She, unfortunately, had to grow up a lot faster than most other people.
“What would you like, sir?” Charlie popped up from behind the bar which would’ve probably only given Abigail a scare. Everyone else had gotten used to it by now. It seemed that the android was simply programmed to just “pop up” at any given occasion. He surely never failed to do so.
“The usual.”
“Oh, of course. How could I have forgotten that you love to spend your nights in a drunken stupor.”
Charlie turned around to look for a beer glass before Deely had a chance to retort. But who was he kidding? Charlie was right. He’d take drunken stupor over sleepless night any day of the week.
“So, you find a place for Abigail yet?” he turned toward Meri who was still stuffing her face.
“Yes, I did find a place. But it’s not meant for Abigail.”
“What do you mean? Who else would it be for?”
“The next one. We still need Abigail.”
“What makes you think that? Is it the universe calling to you again?” he asked derisively. Deely wasn’t much of a believer. He could never understand why people felt so drawn to put their faith into something they barely understood. He knew right from wrong and he went on like that, never feeling the power of the universe in his life. He simply lived his life the only way he knew how. Meri, on the other hand, seemed to be swept up with the idea of the universe as her higher power ever since she was little. She wore a necklace with a black blob-like pendant that she’d gotten into the habit of holding when she felt the universe call to her. How the girl could be compelled by some blob, Deely could never really figure out.
“You know, Nat wouldn’t like you making fun of me for my beliefs. I swear, if the universe doesn’t punish you first, she will.”
Deely laughed, “Oh yeah, sorry.” He didn’t really mean it. And he never made any attempt to mean it. “Please explain why we still need Abigail, or should I be asking Mr. Blob?” That’s how he referred to the universe, as “Mr. Blob.” Only adding the “Mr.” after Nat, his mom, had gotten angry at him for simply saying Blob. One might say that Mr. Blob is a bit more offensive but that’s all he was willing to budge.
“I don’t actually know yet but it’s telling me that she’ll be important. Maybe good enough for your little plan.” Deely didn’t like it when Meri belittled his work like that. It cut even deeper coming from such a little girl. But, he deserved it. If he got to make fun of her blob of a universe, she got to make fun of his plans of grandeur. Deely coul
dn’t see anywhere that Abigail fit into them. And he wasn’t exactly ready to be branded a liar now that she wasn’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon.
The doorbell sounded and Abigail rushed in holding her phone up high so everyone, save Meri, could see.
“Someone’s in a good mood. Come on, let’s see ‘em.” Deely smiled.
Deely and Abigail made their way to his study where instead of sitting on opposite sides of the desk, they sat around the desk display table while Deely unfolded the cellular device and plopped it onto the screen, prompting a glowing outline to appear around it and a window that asked “Would you like to open device files? Enter your fingerprint for ‘yes’ or exit this window for ‘no’.” Deely pressed his thumb against the window and looked to see Abigail’s reaction to the fact that the only way she was going to see anything else on there was by chopping his hand off. And that somehow filled him with satisfaction over how well-protected his information was.
Several pictures of the small house appeared as Deely began scrolling through them. And then a skyscraper of a man emerged. The sequence of pictures showing his intense glare at his surroundings and then the last of his pictures showing him picking up a large rock before throwing it.
“Wow, I didn’t expect you to get pictures of anyone inside.”
“He just walked right out.”
“What’s he looking for?”
“No idea,” she lied. “I also heard someone else inside. A lady. Probably near the same age as him. I didn’t get a look at her.”
Deely made a note of the two people on the screen and left it there, hoping to organize it more accurately later. The rest of the pictures were of the house from different angles as well as the nothingness within it. There were also a few clear wide shots of the backyard thrown in. And that’s where the photos ended. With a swipe of his hand, all the pictures moved out of the window, finding a place on the desktop.
“I think these will be extremely helpful. Off.” The table turned to black and he turned toward Abigail not sure how to confess that she’d be here a little longer. “I think you know what we have to do now. Before we start, I should tell you that you’ll be staying here a bit longer than I had said.”
“Why?”
“I still need you.” he wasn’t sure how to explain beyond that without sounding like a complete lunatic. “And then eventually, we’ll set you up in a safe place. For now, do you think you’re ready to tell me about your mother?” Deely asked as sincerely as he could, afraid that she’d close herself up like most people tended to do when faced with a question that only brought up the worst memories.
Abby simply shrugged, “Yeah, sure.”
Deely opened the device he’d given to Abigail to do her investigative work and set it back down on the table in between the two of them with a pulsing red dot showing on the screen and then he started.
“So, Abigail. Where are you from?”
Despite Deely’s best efforts of making this feel like a normal conversation, he couldn’t help but notice how much more uncomfortable the girl looked being so conscious of the recording. But she deserved to know about it at least.
“I actually have no idea what the town’s called. The middle of fucking nowhere looks all the same to me.”
Deely gave her a look that said, “Please try.”
“Um… I guess it’s maybe an hour and a half away from here.”
Deely smiled.
“Could you tell me a little about your mother?”
“She’s not actually my mother. But I wouldn’t say my real mother was any better considering where I ended up. Mother,” she emphasized in order to point out the mother that he had interacted with, “had a name. I didn’t know it. She made a point of getting rid of her name from every piece of paper in the house. She’d scratched her name off every magazine sometimes giving up and removing the entire front cover. Mail never crossed over my hands. Maybe she did that so I wouldn’t be able to name her if I ever got caught when I was younger.”
“Caught doing what?” Deely asked, knowing fully well what she meant but really needing her to say it aloud, for the recording.
“Dating.”
“Well, why would dating be illegal? Did you want to do it?”
“No. I never wanted to do it. It’s basically legal prostitution. No one bats an eye.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because I was told to.” Abby crossed her arms. Deely could feel her becoming more defensive but he had to keep pushing. He’d always thought the more information, the better.
“When were you first told to escort?”
“When I was 15. I’m 19 now.”
“So, what were you doing before then? You said that that lady I met wasn’t your mother. When did she adopt you?”
“When I was 5, I think. It was such a long time ago. From the very beginning, she was kind of a bitch but of course I didn’t really know what she was capable of until I grew up and started acting out like any child would. I lived upstairs, had my own room, my own clothes. There was also a man that lived there, and he died and that’s kind of when she snapped. It was probably a combination of grief and the burden of keeping me that did it. After he died, she moved me to the basement where I lived in a kind of homemade prison. I was probably 12 or 13, I guess.”
“The man who died. What was his name?” Deely could remember how she looked when she walked out of that dark basement. Frail, dirty, tired. He couldn’t see too far into the basement then, but he could only imagine what she meant by “homemade prison.”
“I don’t know. He was bedridden when I met him. His room was all the way at the end of the hallway. Two doors from mine. Mother would make me bring him his lunch every day. He had all these machines around him and there were some that had tubes connected to different places on his body.”
“Was he the only other person that lived in the house while you were there?”
“Uh… no…” Deely could see her start to close up more.
“Who else lived there?”
“A girl.” Deely waved his hand to motion Abigail to go on. “Mother had another girl who was only a bit younger than me. Her name was Katy. I called her Kat.”
“Could you tell me a little more about her?”
“She lived down there with me, in the basement. Sometimes I’d slip her some of my food, she needed it more than me, you know. One time, Mother caught me giving Kat half of my dinner and she punished both of us. She didn’t hit us. She…,” Abby began to trail off. “She trained me like you’d train a dog. Sure, a dog’ll sometimes listen to you. That’s because he has everything. He’s spoiled. But get rid of his food for a day, sure he’ll whine the first time expecting to be fed, but then you wait another day. You wait until he stops whining. Then you wave a fat, juicy piece of meat in front of him, and he doesn’t react. Either because he’s too weak or because you’ve convinced him that food isn’t his anymore. And you drop it right in front of him, giving him permission to finally eat. Now, that dog will always listen to you. You’ve made him believe that you’re his only source of food. You convince him that food doesn’t just come for doing nothing. And that’s really when you know you own that dog.
So, when Mother stopped feeding us, we both got so thin, but Kat got so much smaller. And when Mother came back, she dropped that “fat, juicy piece of meat” in front of me and watched to see what I would do with it. I could hear Kat’s stomach rumbling right next to mine. And before I knew it, I was stuffing the food in my mouth until there was none left over for her. And that continued day after day, me eating all that I could and Mother letting the little girl starve...until she died.”
Abby had started crying as she was telling Deely about her greatest sin. Deely could only see someone who was afraid. Someone who was once so afraid of death that she’d do anything to survive. And now she seemed to
only fear her mother. Like she was some entity more powerful and morbid than death itself. Deely stopped the recording. “I think that’ll be enough, for now.” He let her take a few minutes to get herself together.
“Since you’re going to be here for a while, I figured you could help me with something else.”
“What?” She sniffled getting the last of her tears out.
“I’m planning something big. Much bigger than saving a few escorts at a time. I want to expose important people. Just imagine how much easier this job would be if people were too afraid of being in the public eye with their more promiscuous sides.” He stopped a little dramatically waiting for Abby to say something.
“So, you think I can fit into all that?”
“I think you’ll have to. You’ve got no other choice, really,” he smiled. “But the real question is, how can you help? What are you good at?”
Abby just shrugged.
Deely put a hand on her shoulder, “You’ve survived all that time with your mother. I’m sure you’ll think of something. For right now, I want you to read over these. This information is sensitive, so keep everything that I give you in Meri’s room, please,” he read the names on the file, “ John Patel and Pamatha Simmons. They work for Cassalian Security.” When Abby didn’t look like she recognized the name, he continued explaining. “They’re a security firm over in Section Five. Some important people pay them to keep their illegal affairs private.” He picked up a small square sheet of paper and a pen and wrote down the company. “One of them will be how we get inside the building. Try to learn as much as you can about the company too.”
“What exactly are we going in for?”
“A list of names. Names of everyone they’re collecting money from to keep their shady business under wraps. Read through all of this and I’ll take you with me tomorrow. So, you really know what you’re getting yourself into. Also,” he handed her another set of files, “I want you to scope out these places too over the next week. Don’t want you getting too comfortable.”
Abigail Page 5
