Rage Within (17 page)

They waited a little longer before even Aries had to admit it was best to head home. There was nothing moving on the beach except for the rain and the tide.

“We can try again tomorrow night,” Clementine suggested as they started back across the parking lot.

Would Aries do it? Come back every night like a jilted lover, waiting for her prince to appear and take her away from everything?

“No,” she finally said. “Tomorrow we start looking for Mason. You don’t give up on Heath and I’m not giving up on Mason. Like you said, until we see a body, there’s always hope. And if Michael’s not back tomorrow, we start looking for him, too. I’ve worked too hard to start losing people now.”

Raj pulled back his hoodie, letting the rain splash down on his hair. “I’m in, babes,” he said with his cheerful accent. “I owe you guys that much for taking us in. Where do we start?”

Aries turned and pointed back across the bay, where she could see the lone spotlight reflecting off the rain-pregnant clouds. “There. We go there.”

“The lion’s den?” Raj said. “You want to go to the one place we should be avoiding like the plague?”

Aries nodded. “Mason’s not here for a reason. He’s being kept away. If the Baggers have him, they’ll have taken him there.”

“We’ll need better supplies,” Clementine said. “Michael’s binoculars aren’t going to be enough.”

“We’ll hit up something tomorrow,” Aries said.

Raj clapped his hands together. “Wish I had the keys to the chem lab. Then we’d really be able to have some fun.”

Aries smiled. “You know, that’s not such a bad idea.”

They headed back to the house, talking about what sort of supplies they’d have to find. But no amount of conversation could change the gnawing feeling growing inside her stomach.

Aries was the leader. She’d kept them safe. How was she going to keep them alive if more of them went missing?

NOTHING

Black paint.

The sounds and the screams are silenced here, bouncing off the paint and being absorbed by its darkness. I’m a frozen shadow. A puppet. My strings have been reeled back in.

Help me.

Voices. Voices whispering through the walls. They caress my skin, and when I open my mouth, the voices slip down inside my throat and drop into my stomach cavity. They slosh against the walls, crawling along my spleen like a thousand baby mice. My stomach is crammed full of rodents. There’s fine dining to be had on my spleen.

They came, they saw, they conquered. They came to take me away. They’re determined to climb farther inside my head. They want to talk. The voices warned me that this would happen. If I smash my head against the wall enough times, I might be able to stop them. But I can’t bring myself to touch the wall. The darkness will consume me. Not that way. I can’t go that way.

Help me.

I’m not strong.

MASON

Cages.

An entire room filled with cages.

The fluorescent lights burned bright above him. A never-ending day. It was strange seeing electricity again. It scalded his eyes and made him want to blink a lot. Intense. Like being on display in the middle of the sun.

Nowhere to hide in all that brightness.

They were in the remains of the Edgewater Casino. It had been a bit of a surreal experience earlier when the Baggers had escorted Daniel and Mason through the doors and underneath the gigantic darkened neon Casino sign. How often could someone say they were ushered into a gambling establishment at gunpoint? Once upon a time that would have been well worth tweeting or a Facebook update.

The Baggers had obviously been doing a lot of remodeling, because the inside was completely unrecognizable. Weren’t most casinos cheerful in a tacky sort of way? Mason had never been there before, so he couldn’t quite tell what kind of room it used to be, but it had clearly been gutted, everything removed in order to put in the cages. The walls had been
painted black. Far back in the corner of the room, he could see a stack of blackjack tables and electronic slot machines piled against one another.

Mason sat on the ground in his small prison. His back leaned against the edge of his five-by-five cell. The walls were twenty feet of fencing that ended with more chain link and barbed wire over the top as a makeshift ceiling. There were a few gaps between wall and ceiling, but they were narrow. Even if he tried to climb his way out, he’d either slice his skin trying to slip through the gap or be stopped by the guards who paced the floor at regular intervals. They carried guns and various other weapons. Mason still had his jacket. They’d gone through his pockets and removed his Swiss Army knife. They took his wallet and the few dollars he had left, not that money meant anything. But they hadn’t checked his shirt pocket, where the tiny vial of sand still pressed against his chest. It was now the only thing he had left in the world. He wanted to take it out and hold it in his hands, but he was afraid someone might notice. So it remained hidden away, his lucky charm.

Some charm.

It was strange having his proof of identity gone. It wasn’t like he could order up a new set. His back pocket felt empty against his skin. What if something was to happen to him now and there was no one to recognize his body? He’d die without a name. Had Chickadee been carrying a wallet when he buried her? Would someone come along in the future and unearth her body? Would it matter if they read her name off her decaying driver’s license?

Mason shook his head slightly. This wasn’t the time for ridiculous thoughts. He needed to focus. Figuring out how to get free would be a good start.

But even if he managed to scale the fence and get outside, they’d bring him down in a second.

There wasn’t really a door to his cell. They’d just pulled back the mesh to reveal a two-foot opening and shoved him inside. He’d been locked in with a combination padlock. It was one of the cheap ones he used to buy at the discount store. Two bucks or not, it was still strong enough to keep him in. He double-checked his empty pockets, but there wasn’t anything useful to try and pick the lock with.

There was nothing to do except wait, for now at least.

There were a lot of other people in the room. The majority of the cages were filled. Someone was crying in the far corner. It might have been a woman’s voice, but it was hard to tell. He’d tried to spot them, but they were too far away and there was too much fencing. All he could see was a darkened lump curled into the fetal position. A small shadowy figure lay on the floor in the adjoining cage. They’d pushed their hands through the wire to try and reach the sobbing person.

No one spoke to anyone. A few people glanced in Mason’s direction every now and then. But no voices. They didn’t have to speak. It didn’t take a genius to know what every single person was thinking.

The fluorescent bulb above him kept flickering off and on. It made a loud humming noise that hurt his ears.

“This is just peachy.”

The voice came from his right.

Daniel was two cages down from him. Between them was an elderly man that might have been dead or just sleeping, neither of them could tell. The man was lying facedown on the floor, his features half covered by his jacket. He hadn’t moved since they arrived. Mason thought his leg might have twitched at least once, but he couldn’t say for sure.

The air was cool and Mason exhaled several times to see if he could actually see his breath. Negative. Stuffing his hands inside his pockets, he leaned his head back against the fencing.

“Whose bright idea was this again?” Although he spoke quietly, his voice sounded like a shotgun echoing through the silent room.

“Yours, I believe,” Daniel said. He was leaning against the wall too, only about seven feet away. He absently tapped his foot against the concrete. “Of course, I do recall saying we shouldn’t get caught.”

“Glad to see you’re so casual about this.”

“I’m shaking to death on the inside. Trust me—shivers, conniptions, the whole shebang.” Daniel leaned his head over and took a long look at Mason. He held up his hand in front of his face and made his fingers shake slightly. “Seriously, all jokes aside, you know they’re not going to just let us go, right?”

Mason turned away from Daniel, and the first pair of eyes he found was that of a young teenage girl. Her hair was long and matted and her glasses were askew. Although her face was covered in grime, he could tell that once upon a time she had been quite pretty. He probably would have noticed her if she’d walked down the hall at school. Now her cheeks were sunken and there were shadows under her eyes, which were big and frightened. Had she been captured or had she listened to the white vans and walked willingly into the Baggers’ grasp? It wouldn’t have been difficult. She was probably scared, tired of hiding, and slowly starving to death. It wouldn’t have been hard to convince herself that the Baggers meant everything they said about safety. Mason opened his mouth, maybe to say something to her, but he couldn’t think of a single word that wouldn’t sound fake or condescending. Besides, she was
several cages away; he didn’t even know if she’d be able to hear him.

“So what do we do, then?” Mason swallowed. The insides of his mouth were dry.

“Keep quiet,” Daniel said. “We can’t tell them anything. Especially about the others. If they find out where Aries lives, they’ll kill her. They’ll kill all of them, or worse.”

“You really think I’d do something so stupid?”

“Yes.”

Mason’s cheeks burned. He clenched his hand into a tight fist. “I’d never do anything to hurt Aries, and you know it. At least I have the decency to stick around. You can’t even bother to be there when she needs you.”

From two cages away, Mason watched Daniel’s eyes narrow and harden.

“You have no idea,” Daniel said. “I stay away to protect her.”

“Protect her?” It was impossible to keep his voice from rising. “From what? How?”

“You’ll see.”

There was a long pause as the two of them refused to acknowledge each other. Mason focused on his chain-link ceiling. It was easier than looking at the other hopeless people.

“It won’t matter,” Daniel finally said. “If they want the information, they’ll find it. There’s nothing you and I can do about it. They have ways of getting inside your head.”

The sound of shoes slapping the casino carpet made him pay attention. Four Baggers, all carrying police batons, moved along the aisle. Mason knew immediately they were coming for Daniel and him. He wasn’t disappointed when they stopped at his cage. The smallest one shoved a key in the lock and opened the gate.

“Come,” he said.

Mason didn’t move.

Two of the bigger ones stepped into the cage and reached down, yanking Mason up by the arms and pulling him out. It happened so quickly, he didn’t have time to react. Besides, even he was smart enough to know when not to pick a fight. All four of them looked like they’d personally love it if he tried to cause a scene. One of them held on to his baton so tightly, his white knuckles glowed under the fluorescent lights.

They slammed Mason up against the cage of his neighbor, the still unmoving clump of a person who might or might not be dead. A foot twitched slightly, but it might have been a muscle spasm. He didn’t have time to go in for a closer look. The largest Bagger grabbed Mason’s arm, pulling it painfully back, and slapped handcuffs around his wrists. Mason’s face was pressed tightly up against the fencing. He managed to twist his head a little to where he could see Daniel back against the wall. His arms were crossed over his chest, pulling his jacket tight against his skin.

Daniel’s eyes were big.

Mason opened his mouth again, but the Baggers were already dragging him away.

They brought him to a room with no windows. Inside were a couple of chairs and a desk. A filing cabinet stood against the wall, covered in dust, a moldy Burger King sandwich wrapper resting on the top.

The Baggers shoved him into the chair closest to the desk and then vacated the room. Still in the handcuffs, he managed to wrestle himself up onto his feet. He turned around and tried to open the handle behind his back. The door was locked. As he looked around the room, his eyes focused on the desk. There might be something useful if he could get
inside. There were two drawers, both on the right side. It was a little trickier; he had to bend his knees in order to reach the first one. He managed to get it open but found it empty. No pens or paper clips, nothing he could use to try and pick the lock on his cuffs. There wasn’t even so much as an envelope. The second drawer was even harder to reach. He had to maneuver himself down onto his knees, which was no easy feat. Moving around with his hands locked behind his back was nearly impossible. They always made it look so easy in the movies. After balancing himself on one knee, he closed his fingers around the metal handle and pulled.

Drawer two was empty, too.

Leaning against the desk, he pulled himself back up to a standing position. Frustrated, he kicked the drawer closed with his foot.

He didn’t have any better luck with the filing cabinet. The drawers were locked.

There was nothing to do but wait.

He refused to sit back down. That seemed too vulnerable. Instead, he leaned against the wall awkwardly, ignoring the tingling sensation in his hands from where the blood was being cut off by the handcuffs. When he looked up he saw there was a small security camera in the corner by the door. Were they watching him? Laughing at his helplessness?

If his hands hadn’t been tied behind his back he would have given the camera the finger. It was suddenly a lot harder to maintain a certain level of coolness.

It didn’t take long before he heard the key in the lock.

The Bagger that walked through the door wasn’t particularly terrifying. He wasn’t big and menacing. There wasn’t blood dripping off his hands or clothing. In fact, he was rather normal. He wore a nice dress shirt and a pair of jeans
with shoes that were shined properly. There was a blue silk tie around his neck but it was loose and not tied properly. His hair was stylishly trimmed and he was clean shaven. Laugh lines were at the corners of his eyes. He looked like he was ready to go out for a casual night on the town, not like the killer he actually was.