Psycho Save Us (37 page)

Tidov sat in the
only chair beside the soundboard and fiddled with a few dials.  He pulled up
one file on the small Hewlett-Packard screen, and after a few seconds the room
was filled with screams.  They came from a pair of small speakers on either
side of the computer monitor.  There was the smacking of flesh against flesh,
loud grunts from men shouting things in Russian, and screams.  The shrieking. 
Tidov sat there, his eyelids starting to get heavy.  Spencer listened to one
Russian shout in English, “Cry for your mother!  Cry for her!”

The next thing
to come through the speakers was a girl’s god awful plea for help from her
mother.  The smacking of flesh on flesh got louder, the grunting more intense,
the screams greater and greater.

“Impressive,”
Spencer said.  “You can turn it off now.”  Tidov seemed only too happy to do
this.  With the click of a mouse, they were once again alone with one another
in silence.

In that silence,
something terrible happened.  Spencer didn’t know where it started—he never
knew when these things started—but there was a pulse just behind his eyes. 
Like the migraines he used to get as a kid that came whenever his vertigo came
over him.  Brief spells, something that came from intense anger that few people
ever felt.  No one felt rage like a psychopath, he’d read that somewhere. 
Whereas love and acceptance was at the forefront of other people’s minds, anger
and an unnaturally strong need to be dominant was all the psychopath cared
for.  It could be spurred by many things.  In Spencer’s case, it was always
spurred by the thought that someone else thought
they
had power.  It
offended him, even when not directed at him.  Hell,
especially
when not
directly at him.  He felt like a master artist looking at some lesser artist’s
work and saying, “No, you’re doing it all wrong.”

And like any
uppity artist, Spencer felt the need to voice his opinion, then
force
it.  “I want to know where the others are.”

Tidov might’ve
been a monster, but he did have a degree of loyalty in him.  He tried to hide
the truth of his accomplices.  “What…what others?”  His eyes closed, then
opened again, then closed, then opened.  He was starting to go out.

“Oh, c’mon now. 
An operation like this doesn’t go off without a hitch without some pals.” 
Spencer waved his Glock about the room.  “Surely there are customers who help
pay for this.  And there
must
be some overhead, am I right?”

“Fffffuck…yyyy—”

“All right, all
right, fuck me,” Spencer said.  “Stand up.  Let’s go for a walk outside.  I
don’t want to have to carry you.”

At this suggestion,
Tidov’s eyes opened a bit wider. 
He believes going outside is good for him
. 
He thinks he’s safer outside than he is inside
.  Indeed, the Russian
stood up with a bit more verve and exited the room.  On his way out, Spencer
saw a bottle of sal volatile (smelling salts) on one of the shelves.  No doubt
used to wake the kids up after they’d been drugged…or after they’d passed out
from the pain.  He pocketed the bottle. 
Be needin’ this later
.  He also
picked up the pair of handcuffs beside the lazy-eyed Elmo.

Spencer didn’t
turn off any of the lights, nor did he close any of the doors.  Whenever the
cops finally showed up here, he wanted this to occupy their time, eat up more of
the manpower that should be out there looking for him. 
It’s a helluva night
in the A-T-L
, he thought.

They made it
downstairs, but by now Tidov was starting to lose a great deal of his balance. 
It won’t be long before he passes out for good
.  On the way to the front
door, he spotted a Motorola Droid phone.  “Is this yours?” he said.

Tidov, drowsy
and leaning against the front door, turned to look at him.  “Yesssss.”

He picked it
up.  “Good.  Now, out the door with you, Vladimir.”

“My
name’s…Yevgeny…”

“I know your
name, fucker.  Now ask me if I give a fuck.”

“Do you…give…?”

“
Fuck
no!”

The room was
quiet for a time.  The Harper girl sat against the far wall, not looking at
either of them.  Kaley sat on the edge of the bed holding Shan.  They remained
this way for what seemed like an eternity; the Harper girl, isolated and alone
and terrified; Shannon, leaning on her sister and lost and terrified; Kaley,
brushing the head and patting the back of her sister and terrified out of her
mind.

None of them
knew how to move on.  None of them knew how to accept their new lives as
prisoners.  Trapped in that worst of in-between zones, where one is placed into
a miserable new set of circumstances and yet still clings to what they once
had.  It was a delicate time.  It was a time when a hard decision needed to be
made, when a person had to determine whether they were going to fight or
submit, knowing that either one could mean termination.  It wouldn’t take Kaley
twenty years to figure out that truth, she knew it right then.

The first thing
to do was to make the decision. 
I don’t want to be raped and killed
. 
And
I don’t want Shannon to be raped and killed
.  Okay, that was easy.  Now,
what was she going to do about it?

With tremulous
hands, Little Sister reached up to Big Sister’s neck.  The Anchor was once
again established.  It pulled Kaley down, down, down…

…down…

There, she felt
the Oceans of Sorrow churning.  That’s what Nan had called them.  The Oceans of
Sorrow.  That’s where a person’s worst thoughts resided, where their dashed
hopes went to die and decay.

Once, Nan had
told her about her sister Irene, dead many years before Nan went to join her. 
Irene had been a talented musician by the time she was seventeen.  Violinist,
pianist, and cellist.  She had shown such promise, but the inferiority of her
circumstances (i.e. where she was born) had played negatively on where she
ended up in life.  She was talented, but not so talented that it guaranteed her
a scholarship, so college would still cost her.  And as practical a woman as Irene
had tried to be, she still felt something for one or two of the men from the
’hood she grew up in.  Being knocked up at age eighteen, and then again when
she was twenty-one, pretty much dashed her hopes.  At first she decided to put
off college, but only for a short time.  A year, no more.  But then came her third
child from a third father.  Ten years later, Nan said she could no longer go
anywhere near Irene.  “Her sorrow pulled me down, chil’,” Nan told her.  “All
that Ocean o’ Sorrow.  It was them dashed hopes of what might’ve been down
there in all o’ that black water.  If I stayed too long around her, I’d sho’ly
drown.  It even caused her to secretly hate her own children.”  She had
pronounced the word
chirren
.  “Oh chil’, no mother wants to admit this,
but many of them
do
secretly despise their young’uns, at least one of
’em.  They may cry at they funeral or when they graduate, but those are tears
shed for what
could
have been, what
should
have been.  They don’t
even know that they feel this way.  That’s my burden to know.  An’ yours too
now, chil’.  Yours too.”

Kaley had
thought Nan a bit silly, even crazy, but then she had to admit that there were
times when she felt bogged down, as well.  Being around her mother was like
that.  Kaley didn’t have the heart to tell her mother, for she truly was
empathetic and could sense those dashed hopes of hers, but she also didn’t want
it to rub off on her, or on Shan.  Shan didn’t know it yet but she had the
charm, and as long as she was around their mother the more likely she was to drown
in the Ocean of Sorrow.

And it’ll bring
me down now, if I let it
.

The attachment Kaley
had now to her sister had her feeling the fear of a child.  It mixed with her
own.  It had her feel every little nook and cranny of her sister’s terror. 
Like a tumor, it swelled and threatened to overtake them both.

“I’m sorry I
ran,” Shannon whimpered.  “I didn’t wanna get you hurt, I thought if I got
away—”

“Hey, shush!”

“—that I could
get help for us both—”

“I said
shush
,
girl!  Don’t you ever apologize to me for tryin’ to save yourself.  You…”  She
wanted to say
You should’ve kept running
, but it was senseless to make
Little Sister even more upset than she already was.  “You’re my sister,” she
said, hugging her.

“Why’re they
doing this, Kaley?” she cried.  “It’s not
fair
!  We didn’t do anything!”

Shannon’s fear
seized hold of Kaley’s heart, and squeezed.  “
Shh
.  I know, sweetie.  I
know. 
Shh
.”  The fear was like a needle of ice through her heart. 
Then, the coldness spread, and her whole heart seemed to stop.

Shannon shivered
in her arms.  It was agony being this close to her.  But she loved her little
sister too much to leave her now.  She couldn’t do it.  Not even for a second. 
Shan was frightened worse than the Harper girl, and she needed comfort or she
would never get through this.

You have to ward
yo heart, chil’
,
she could almost hear Nan saying. 
Protect it
. 
That empathy you
have, that charm, it’s like mine
. 
And, oh, chil’!  What heartbreak it
can bring
.    
Ward yo heart, chil’
. 
Ya hear?

And that’s when
Kaley realized what she had to do.  She had to sever the Connection.  She had
to cut ties to the Anchor.  It was the only way to find strength.  If she
wasn’t strong enough alone, she could never be strong enough for the both of
them.

“Shannon,” she
said.  “Shan?  I need you to let go of me.”

“Where are you
going?!” Shannon demanded at once, clinging hard to Kaley even as Big Sister
moved to stand.  She looked up at Kaley with big, round, rheumy eyes.

“Does it look
like I can go anywhere else but here?” she said, perhaps a little sternly. 
“Now…
let go
.”  She wouldn’t.  Kaley pushed her away, and Shan fought it,
shaking her head and crying.  Shan had the charm, too, and didn’t yet know that
she was in its thrall, that she was
addicted
to Big Sister. 
Like
Mom’s addiction
, Kaley.

“Don’t
leave me—”

“Shannon Alexis Dupré,”
Kaley said, in a voice remarkably like Ricky’s.  Ricky had been the closest
thing either one of them had ever had to a father, and the deep command he had
held over them had been something that Kaley had actually been thankful for at
the time.  He was also the one who pointed out that Shan’s initials were SAD,
and the thought of that broke Kaley’s heart all over again.  “You listen to
me,” she went on, now that she had Little Sister’s attention.  “I am not going
to leave you.  I can’t leave you, not even if you were on the other side o’ the
world.  You know that, don’t you?”

Shannon nodded. 
“Y-yes.”

“We have an
Anchor.  Do you understand what I’m sayin’, girl?”

Shannon nodded. 
“Uh-huh.”  She sniffled, and Kaley fought back the urge to reach down and wipe
away the snot around her nose and the tears streaming around her eyes. 
Touching her again might poison them both.

“Now, let me
go.”

The little hands
were as unbreakable as iron clasps.  But Kaley had discovered a key, and the
locks came off.  When they let go, it was the most reluctant feeling Kaley had
ever sensed out of any person before.  Deep need washed over her, and for a
moment she fought to resist grabbing for her sister again.

Kaley pushed
herself up off the bed before her resolve broke and walked over to inspect the
door.  It stood about seven feet tall and was made of wood.  She tried to will
herself to think about something other than Shan huddled up and alone behind
her.  The other side, if she recalled correctly, had been smooth, whereas this
side was flecked with peeling paint.  A spot about head height in front of her
was dented inwards, and was suspiciously fist-shaped.  

Without knowing
why, Kaley reached up to touch it.

Her knees
buckled.

It held her.

There was a wash
of fear and rage.  Boundless rage.  A young person’s rage.  A
boy’s
rage.  There was temerity there, a great deal of it.  And there was pain.  He’d
had nerve and was awash in shame and bitterness.  Whoever he was, he hadn’t
given up.

It held her.

There was a
sinking feeling in her stomach, and then it did flip-flops.  For a moment she
felt nauseas again.  She felt a hand touch her shoulder.  Someone was trying to
reassure the boy, giving him soft promises that it would be okay, that the pain
was over with.  Then, there was the white-hot rage again.  A silken fury that
felt disturbingly satisfying.  It was directed inwards.  The boy felt angry at
himself for having believed them, even as they had handcuffed him to the
headboard on the bed.  He was angry at himself for falling for it a second
time.

It held her.

It held her.