The Set Up (50 page)

The man, the monster, my assailant, maybe my killer, stares down at me for a long moment as if trying to figure out what to do with me.

“Please don’t kill me,” I beg through desperate sobs.

Those eyes, shrouded by his mask, blink.

It’s too dark and I can’t see their color, or maybe it’s the overabundance of tears in my own eyes that is causing my vision to go blurry. “Please,” I repeat, violently shaking from head to toe.

“Where’s the key?”

This monster wants my father’s papers. He must not know where the storage unit is or I’m sure he would have broken into it.

Screw him.

I blink and blink and blink until his face comes into clear vision. One blue and one green eye stare down at me. I was wrong—it wasn’t Hank behind it all. “Uncle Tom?”

He turns his head. Says nothing more.

Tears once again fill my eyes, but even through my hazy vision I somehow manage to see his arm lift in the air. The vase is held tightly in it. I know what’s coming, and I have nothing left to do but close my eyes tightly and try to force away the fear. I can’t block him, I can’t stop him, and it seems to take forever before he smashes it against my head.

My eyes fly open on impact. My body is drenched in a cold sweat and my brain is swimming. Suddenly, there are two of him—no three, maybe four. Too many monsters to count. I flail and try to escape, but then his hands are around my neck.

My lungs start screaming for air.

That’s not all.

The room is shaking.

The earth is tilting.

The walls are closing in on me.

I’m scared.

I’m alone.

But I’m not eight and this isn’t a dark closet.

Nor is it my dark room.

No one will be coming to let me out.

“Where is the key?” he yells.

He’ll kill me once I give it to him.

Instead of answering him, I turn my head to the side and bright blue flowers fade in and out of my vision. I try to hold on to the memory of them. To Jasper. But I can’t seem to hold on any longer.

His grip is tighter.

Stronger.

There is no air left for me take in.

There’s a knocking in the distance. I think I hear my name. “Charlotte!”

Hope blossoms somewhere deep within.

“Charlotte!” It’s Jake voice.

That hope quickly diminishes when I realize the lack of air is quickly draining the life from me.

I try to scream but I can’t.

“Charlotte, open the door. Tory Worth’s body was found and Jasper’s been arrested.”

I try to process what he’s saying but his words don’t make sense. It’s as if he’s speaking in a different language.

All I know is his voice sounds frantic. Desperate. Then it’s gone.

Don’t leave me alone.

From one heartbeat to the next, everything seems blacker. Darker. I never knew that was possible.

The grip around my neck loosens, but it’s too late.

All I can do is close my eyes and accept the darkness.

Forget me not.

The End

For the adrenaline-filled conclusion of Jasper and Charlotte’s story, don’t miss:

Turn It Up

Coming soon!

ALTHOUGH I TRIED
to stay true to Detroit’s financial and socioeconomic situation, I did take some liberties with facts, locations, dates, and timing.

In December of 2013, the city of Detroit officially became the largest municipality in U.S. history to enter into Chapter 9 bankruptcy. They filed for bankruptcy because they were flat broke. The city was in duress.

Before filing:

1. The city of Detroit owed money to more than 100,000 creditors and was facing $20 billion in debt and unfunded liabilities.
   
2. Between December 2000 and December 2013, 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan were lost.
   
3. There were approximately 78,000 abandoned homes in the city.
   
4. About one-third of Detroit’s 140 square miles was either vacant or derelict.
   
5. Sixty percent of all children in the city of Detroit were living in poverty.
   
6. Forty percent of the streetlights did not work.
   
7. Only about one-third of the ambulances were running.
   
8. The size of the police force in Detroit had been cut by about 40 percent over the past decade.
   
9. When you called the police in Detroit, it took them an average of 58 minutes to respond.
   
10. Due to budget cutbacks, most police stations in Detroit were closed to the public for sixteen hours a day.
    
11. The violent crime rate in Detroit was five times higher than the national average.
    
12. The murder rate in Detroit was eleven times higher than it was in New York City.
    

Cited from:
www.theeconomiccollapseblog.com

DOWN SHIFT

Jasper

THE FEELING OF
metal scraping against skin is unmistakable.

At first the coolness might fool you into thinking there isn’t going to be any pain.
Something so cold couldn’t possibly hurt.
But then the object tears open your flesh and it feels like you’re being cleaved in two.

Sometimes you yell out in pain. Sometimes you persevere and keep going. And other times you have no choice at all in the matter.

Once I thought the space beside the transmission tunnel of my prototype car, the Storm, could accommodate both my hand and a seat track.

I was wrong.

It couldn’t.

At least not while I was trying to wrestle the seat into position and bolt it to the floor at the same time. The feel of the cool metal track as it ripped open my flesh, followed by the sharp sting of searing pain, forced me to yank my hand away. Even before I had freed it, I could see blood welling from my palm. There was no doubt that the rather large slice required stitches. With absolutely no hesitation at all, I grabbed a rag, wrapped it around my hand, and forged on.

The pain was irrelevant—I wanted to get the job done. The raised scar I have today reminds me constantly of that dumbass decision.

Now though, I have no choice in the matter. Which sucks, because I can’t ignore the feel of the cool metal as it scrapes against my wrists any longer. I glance over my shoulder in hopes that coming eye to eye with the blunt force is going to make it feel better.

It doesn’t.

The cuffs are so tight they are rubbing my wrists raw. Trying to ease the throbbing pain, I twist my hands.

Wrong move.

My skin long past welting bursts open and starts bleeding. Although I can’t see it, I can feel the warm liquid oozing down my hands, and if I really listen I can hear it dripping onto the wood floor beneath my feet.

“First up is the State of Michigan versus Storm,” the bail commissioner announces into his microphone.

The sound of his booming voice causes my head to snap in his direction and then to the empty place beside me. Sitting on the hard chair, I give another quick glance over my shoulder, but this time toward the back of the closed courtroom.

Where the fuck is Todd?

As the bail commissioner recites the docket number, I find myself cursing low under my breath. It’s quarter til eight in the morning and I haven’t seen my attorney in over twelve hours.

Last night was long.

Too long.

After being wrongly accused and falsely arrested with the murders of both Eve Hepburn and Tory Worth, I was taken from my apartment to the police station. With the memory of my stint in juvie resurfacing, I fought the urge not to lose it—literally.

Also emotionally combatting my
fuck this
attitude, for my own sake, I remained eerily silent while I was charged, processed, searched, photographed, and fingerprinted. Soon after, I was handed a light-blue jumpsuit and ordered to change. In it, I felt more like a mechanic than a convict, but I remembered that faded color all too well, and it was no grease-monkey suit. Always wondered why the uniforms weren’t orange, but never asked. Didn’t ask last night either.

Escorted by two guards, the three of us got into an elevator. One floor down, we got out. The tiled corridor felt more like a basement—the sounds were muffled and the air damp. We passed a glass window that looked into a small room and then we stopped at an electronically-controlled door with a camera aimed at it. The lock clicked and I entered. Todd Carrington, my attorney, was already inside waiting for me and immediately started spewing legal mumbo jumbo I couldn’t bear to listen to. Not even five minutes later, some all-out bulletin was issued stationwide. They had a runner was all I had heard. This emergency brought the visit to an abrupt end and forced me into premature lock up.

The isolation cell was simple: a bed, a toilet, and a sink. The walls were beige, the blanket on the bunk was green, the fixtures white. Isolated in detainment for more than twelve hours, I thought I might lose my mind. I felt twisted and turned worrying about Charlotte.

I still do.

Sweet, sexy Charlotte—a kitten and a lion.

Mounds of dirty-blond hair.

A beauty that is more than skin deep.

My friend.

My lover.

Unexpected.

How did she take the news about Tory?

About me?

The entire time I’ve been in lock up, I keep thinking about what Todd had said just before he left. “I’ll get you out quickly.”

Quickly.

I wanted quickly more than I wanted air to breathe
.

I need to see Charlotte. Get to her. Hold her. Touch her. Protect her. Make love to her.

It has yet to happen.

And it’s all I’ve been able to think about.

Feeling knotted and useless, I found myself brewing over the situation. The facts. The murders. The known. The unknown. Nothing made sense. Why me? Why was I in here? I wanted to dig the deepest hole, climb the highest wall, bend the strongest bars to get out of here. Never had I wished to be invincible until those long hours spent alone.

It wasn’t until early this morning that the cell door finally slid back. By then I was ready to hurl myself at whoever came into sight. My fingers felt like claws and my body was a live wire. I was ready to dig, scale, bend—everything and anything. When the guard saw me he grinned like a motherfucker. “Easy now,” he teased as if trying to jerk my chain, “I won’t be taking you to your bail hearing until you calm down.”