From Fiona Ambrose’s memoirs: Daughters of All and Nothing
I probably sat in that cement box for thirty minutes, just listening to the soft bubbling sounds the water heaters made before I spoke a word. I had expected to feel something when finally finding my sister but all there was inside me was a numbness.
My sister…what had she become?!
Despite all I had witnessed and experienced this week, meeting Faye was by far the worst. I don’t know why. It’s so difficult to explain… Ever since I was released from the mental institution, I had entertained theories and fantasies about where my sister was and what might be going on.
One scenario that I frequently contemplated was that my journalist sister was in danger and the police had placed her in the witness protection program…even going to the extreme of faking her own death. That day when I caught a glance of Faye on the street…the day where I broke down… I rationalized that she could not speak to me for fear of endangering me.
Even now, as I sat here in the godforsaken boiler room with the Twins (who were casually discussing sports!) my imagination was running wild, trying to rationalize my sister’s actions. She must be brainwashed! There was something, someone controlling her! Voodoo, drugs, a microchip, something! That had to be it…how else could she actually hurt me?
“Shouldn’t we be trying to escape?” I finally asked, unable to bear the silence any longer.
“Naw, we’ll wait.” West commented as he drummed his fingers along a pipe that ran across the ceiling.
“Wait?!” I nearly screamed, “For what?! For them to come kill us?!”
“There are three armed guards outside that door,” Kurt responded in his infuriating aloof tone as he nodded towards the thick metal door that barred us inside the boiler room, “We can’t take them all at once. So we wait.”
“For what?!” I demanded.
“Broker.” West said soothingly, as if I were a child who had been scared of thunder.
“What? For him?! He is going to be shot in the back! Probably by my sister!” I argued, tears finally running down my face, “H-He’s as good as dead! We’re as good as dead!”
Once again the Twins did something that infuriated and confused me all at once…they began to laugh. Even Kurt’s shoulders shook as he silently chuckled at my expense.
“Oh that’s right!” West boomed, “You really don‘t know who you are dealing with, do you?”
“W-What do you mean?” I asked, just glad to have something to keep my mind away from my sister’s bizarre behavior.
“Listen,” Kurt said as he leaned against a wall, “Broker…he is a complicated man. A capable and complicated man.”
“And a very dangerous one.” West chipped in.
“Dangerous?” I asked, totally flabbergasted that these two, the roughest men I had ever see, would considered Mr. Broker dangerous.
“Broker has had several run-ins with lots of shady people. Not only stateside but all over the world.” West began to explain.
“Ireland, Egypt, West Africa, dozens of islands, Japan, England,” Kurt numbered off casually.
“The thing is, Broker is still here and all those other people aren’t. I don’t know how he does it, but he does. Broker survives. It’s his gift.” West explained with a shrug of his massive shoulders, “So, we wait. He’ll save his skin first and then ours.”
I slumped back to the ground, unable to determine where these two got their faith in someone who brought them along for protection.
“And if he doesn’t save us?” I asked, more to be pessimistic than anything.