Scar (3 page)

Caelyn’s stomach twisted with nervous cramps. She bit her thumbnail and watched the street as Elijah flicked on the police scanner.

There were voices on the scanner saying things followed by bursts of static, but she couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it.

“You think he’ll be out soon?” she asked.

“He literally just went in. Give the guy five minutes at least before you start freaking out.”

“I’m not freaking out.”

“I know,” he said, gently touching her leg with his hand. “I know.”

Caelyn tried to calm down but her nerves were getting worse. Her leg was shaking and every fresh burst of static from the scanner was making her want to scream.

But the minutes ticked by without anything of note happening. A few cars passed by, hardly slowing. Then some more teenagers came outside and began playing nearby, yelling and hollering, their voices rising loud enough to penetrate the sealed car.

Every new event made Caelyn more anxious. Each shout, each noise from the street made her
want
to pull her hair out.

Elijah looked at her. “Everything’s fine,” he soothed, but his voice had an edge and he was sitting stiffly in his seat.

“How do you know it’s fine?” she asked, as a large white van pulled up to the corner of the street and parked there.

Elijah was watching her closely. “We’re not inside with Trey. He’s the one taking all the risk right now, Caelyn.” He put his hand out and softly stroked her cheek.

She blinked back tears. “I don’t think I can take much more of this, Elijah. I’m scared.”

“I know, kid. I know. But I’m never going to let anything bad happen to you.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Okay, I’m over it,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as Elijah.

“You’re doing fine,” he chuckled. But then he glanced forward and saw the white van. His eyes narrowed and he sat up much straighter, his neck stiffening. “When did that van park there?” he asked.

“Just a second ago,” she told him. “Why?”

He shook his head, staring. “Did anyone get out of it?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe…
”
Caelyn wasn’t sure. She was too freaked out, didn’t trust her own perceptions with the way she was feeling right then. “Maybe we just missed them.”

Elijah drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Fuck.”

“It’s something bad?”

He began playing with the scanner, turning the dial and listening more intently. “I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”

“But something about that van is making you worried?”

He looked up at it again. “Sometimes a van like that can carry a bunch of people. If you want to have a bunch of armed guys sitting inside and nobody can tell from the outside, that’s the kind of vehicle to use.”

Caelyn swallowed. “Elijah, we need to go.”

“It might be nothing,” he said.

She stared at the van, too, as if by sheer force of will she could get x-ray vision and see what was going on inside. The van had taken on some kind of horrifying presence as she watched it. It sat there, malevolent, inert, quiet and simmering. She pictured a bunch of men with guns, ready to pour out of the back doors and begin shooting up the street.

“Do you think they’re watching us?” she whispered.

“I doubt it,” he said. “If anything, they’d be watching the building where Trey and his buddies are doing that deal.”

Her heart was pounding. “I knew this was a bad idea,” she muttered. “From the second we got to his house, I knew.”

“Nothing’s happened yet,” Elijah reminded her.

“I don’t think we should just sit around and wait until it does.”

“We’re not doing anything wrong,” Elijah said.

“But do you think it could be the police?”

He hesitated. “It could be.”

“Elijah, we need to go. Now.”

“We have no money, Caelyn. We can’t let our paranoia scare us off when we’re so close to getting that cash. Without it, we’re totally screwed.”

“I don’t care anymore.” She licked her dry lips and tried to swallow. “I have this terrible feeling and it’s getting worse.”

Elijah sighed and shook his head and then started the car. It rumbled to life, and even the sound of the engine was making Caelyn anxious. She clutched her seatbelt.

Suddenly, another white van, almost identical to the van parked on the corner of the street in front of them, pulled over and parked behind them.

Elijah’s face grew slightly pale. “Oh man,” he moaned. “This is not good at all.”

Caelyn reached out and grabbed his arm. “What’s going on, Elijah?”

“It’s got to be the Feds. They’re about to raid this building, Caelyn. That’s what the second van is for.”

“We have to drive, now!”

“No,” he said, his voice relatively calm, all things considered. “If we draw attention to ourselves, they might start to wonder about us too.”

“So we just sit here and wait for them to notice us?”

Elijah’s eyes went from looking at the van in front of them to flicking up so he could glance at the rearview mirror and watch the other van. “They’re going in within the next minute or two. Once they start their raid, we move. Not a second before.”

Caelyn leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “Please,” she prayed. “Please don’t let anything bad happen.”

“We’re okay,” Elijah said to her. “We’re okay.”

She kept her eyes closed. “Don’t text him,” she said.

“What?”

“Don’t text Trey to warn him. If you do, the cops will see it. They’ll figure out that you warned him and they’ll trace it back to us.”

Elijah let out a hiss of air that showed his frustration. “Damn. You’re right.”

“We have to protect ourselves first, Elijah.”

She didn’t open her eyes, and instead allowed herself to feel his hand as it enveloped her hand. His warm skin was a reminder that they were still together, and she clung to it like a lifeline.

“We’re going to protect ourselves, Caelyn. You know that, don’t you?”

She nodded and tried to keep breathing.

The thought that she could lose Elijah at any moment was more frightening than anything she’d ever felt.

How could she keep from losing him? It felt like the whole world was determined to see them ripped from each other’s lives.

“Now be prepared,” Elijah said, his voice insistent in the stillness of the car. “In a moment there’s going to be a lot of loud noise as they come out of those vans. There’s going to be more noise as they hit the door and break it down with a battering ram. There’ll be yelling, maybe gunshots too.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

And then it happened, exactly as Elijah had just said it would.

There was the unmistakable sound of doors swinging open and boots hitting the ground. Nobody was yelling yet but she heard the voices, the quick and urgent commands.

Caelyn’s eyes popped open, almost against her will, and she watched as perhaps a dozen police, armed and clad in protective gear, ran for the buildings at full speed. They were organized, signaling to one another as they made their way to the apartment complex and surrounded it.

A few of the men were carrying a large battering ram, and she watched as they swung it back and then smashed in one of the main doors. Seconds later, the officers were filing into the building.

Caelyn turned to Elijah. “Drive,” she gasped.

He glanced at her, then back at the vans. “Okay,” he said, shifting into drive and pulling away from the curb.

As they pulled out of their parking spot and began slowly driving away from the scene, they passed by two cop cars and then a third, lights flashing, sirens whooping aggressively.

“Oh my God,” she said, feeling sick. She clutched her seatbelt again. “This is so bad, Elijah.”

He looked straight ahead. “Don’t freak out. Don’t do anything but just look normal. We can’t draw any attention to ourselves.”

They turned out of the road that led to the projects and onto another street, as an ambulance and another police cruiser flew by them.

Suddenly there was a burst of activity from the scanner that was sitting on the dashboard, the scanner that Trey had given them.

“Be advised, we have the situation under control,” a voice said.

There was a rash of static before another voice spoke. “Backup has arrived on the scene.
Repeat, backup has arrived.
Please advise.”

“Suspects have been apprehended. Continue to secure the perimeter.”

“Are all suspects currently in the building?”

“That is correct. All suspects. Shots were fired and we have one wounded officer and one wounded suspect.”

More static. “Ambulance is outside. EMTs are on their way into the building.”

Elijah swore.

Caelyn looked at him. “I hope it isn’t Trey that’s been hurt,” she said.

“It might’ve been. He was armed and he’s not the most stable guy in the world.”

Elijah started driving faster. His knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel. The police scanner had fallen silent for the time being, but even the white noise coming from it felt like a bad omen.

“Don’t speed,” she said, as Elijah continued to increase the speed of the car.

“I’m not speeding,” he replied, an edge in his voice.

“Slow down, Elijah.”

He glared at her briefly. “Should I just turn around and go back so they can arrest me?”

“Don’t be angry with me,” she said. “Don’t take this out on me.”

His jaw flexed and he shook his head almost imperceptibly. After a few moments, she saw his shoulders loosen. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at myself for being stupid enough to trust Trey. I’ve been burned by him before, but I still made the same mistake of thinking he’d changed. But he’s the same old Trey, the same moron that nearly got me killed years ago.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” she said. “You’re doing the best you can.”

“Well it’s not good enough, is it?” he said, smirking.

“Yes it is. We’re here, we’re safe,
we’re
together.”

“For how long?” He said, his eyes searching the road ahead as if for answers to his question.

“For as long as we need to. I’m not going to lose you.”

He glanced at her. His eyes were troubled. “We’ve got no money, Caelyn. In a few hours we’re going to be running low on gas. Then what do we do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well I do know. I’m going to have to get us some cash.”

“Don’t,” she said. “Please, don’t.”

“It needs to be said. I told you what would happen if I didn’t get that money from Trey.”

“Not now, though,” Caelyn said. “Let’s just get as far away from Trey and the cops as possible, and then we can talk about what to do next.”

As if on cue, there were more voices piping up out of the scanner. It was rapid-fire communication, and some of it was unfamiliar jargon, with the cops using numbers as code and people talking over one another.

But finally something made sense, when a voice said, “Suspect is claiming entrapment. Suspect stated that the officers were working with informants who forced him to make a drug deal.”

“Copy that,” another voice responded.

The voice over the scanner continued. “Suspect states that he was harboring a couple that claimed they were police fugitives, and the suspect believes they were actually working in concert with authorities to coerce him into this drug deal in order to make a large drug bust.”

There was some laughter and more static. “Sounds like we got a 5150.” More laughter.

“Suspect gave us two names. Officers on or near the scene should be on the lookout…for two subjects...”

A burst of static made Caelyn jump as she turned to Elijah. “Is that about us?” she asked, hoping against hope that there might be some other explanation.

Elijah was putting his foot on the gas again, and this time Caelyn didn’t tell him to slow down.

The scene outside started to blur as they began racing through the street. Rain had also begun to fall, and now droplets were splatting as they hit the windshield.

“Are they talking about us? Did Trey give our names out?” she asked again, waiting for Elijah to speak.

“Sounds like it,” Elijah said. His expression had grown intense and dark. “We need to find someplace safe, quickly. Somewhere off the grid.”

Caelyn’s heart was pounding faster. “I can’t believe this. This can’t be happening. It doesn’t make sense. Why did he tell them about us?”

“He’s paranoid. He thinks we set him up.”

“If we were working with the cops, then telling the cops about us isn’t news to them.”

“Trey doesn’t think logically,” Elijah said. “He’s probably scared and thinks he can talk his way out of this. Throwing our names in the mix is just the only thing he can do to shake things up and maybe bail
himself
out of trouble. He’ll say anything to take the focus off of him.”