“Romer, say something.”
“I’m fine,” he clears his throat. “I’m listening.”
“Look—I know we barely know each other, but I really need your help. I have no idea what to do.”
Pull yourself together, he squeezes his eyes shut, banishing his crippling weakness.
“How long have you been hiding?” he asks.
“I don’t know… maybe ten minutes?”
“Hang up right now and turn off your phone,” his sharp whisper fogs up his screen. “They’re probably going to search the whole building.”
“They’ve already searched this unit.”
Romer puffs his cheeks and exhales. “Well, in that case, your safest bet is to just stay put.”
“Need I remind you I’m in a dryer?”
He chuckles. “You must look like a pretzel.”
“I feel like one, too.”
“At least you’re in a cage of your own choosing,” he says, and immediately regrets it. Did he just give away his dirty little secret?
It’s fine. She doesn’t know anything.
“Do you think Dylan’s okay?”
Is Dylan okay? Romer hadn’t considered it since before the legitimacy of the cops was brought into question.
“I’m sure he’s fine.” Romer picks up his pace, eyes glued to the bright slit at the end of the passage. He doesn’t know what he can possibly do to help, but if Dylan actually is in some sort of danger…
Just as he is about to step out into the open, an uneasy feeling pins him at the brink. He remains put, concealed by deep shadows, fearful of what could be brought to light should he step out.
He inches to the very edge of the wall and sneaks a glance towards his workshop.
Down by the entry, several black SUVs are idling. Their windows are tinted, so Romer looks up to the second floor where he detects dark figures lurking about—strangers who must have broken his padlock in order to enter his shop.
He glances at either ends of the street. Amongst the casual crowd, there are several well-built men in dark clothes trying to appear inconspicuous. One of them is dawdling on the sidewalk, pretending to be on his phone. Another is sitting on a bench, reading the paper. And the third is snapping photos of the area with a long lens camera.
To someone not looking for it, it would be so easy to miss the dead giveaways: like how the men make intermittent eye-contact with one another, but don’t openly acknowledge each other. Or how each one is engaged in an activity he can quickly abandon.
But who are they? The cops? No. The cops would need a warrant to break into his place.
Unless they’ve already got one. But for what? He hasn’t done anything.
The cemetery…
Someone must have reported him to the cops. No doubt whoever was watching them at the cemetery.
And Neve was with him. It all makes sense now.
He slides back into the depths of the passage. He can’t go back to prison. He won’t.
Three years was already a lifetime.
Retracing his steps back towards the train tracks, he remembers still being on the phone with Neve.
“Hey—you still there?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says after a brief pause, her voice soft and broken.
Romer sighs. “Don’t worry. He’s gonna be fine.”
“Okay,” she says with an even meeker tone. “What do I do, Romer?”
“Just stay put, for now. Wait for the dust to settle. And lose your phone. I will too.”
“If they were tracing our call, I think I’d be in cuffs right now,” she says.
“You really want to risk it?”
“But how do we stay in touch?”
Romer ponders it, and then checks the time on his phone. “Okay, here’s the plan: stay put for as long as you can, unless there’s a fire, or whatever, and once you know for sure the coast is clear, sneak out and meet me at—” he hesitates, deciding to take a more cryptic route. “Meet me at that place where I ‘fell’ for you. Wink wink.”
After another stretch of silence, “when?” she asks.
Romer breathes a sigh of relief.
“Midnight.”
Chapter 21
Asunder
Dylan opens his eyes to pitch black. His head is throbbing, his mind feels foggy, and his entire body is atremble. Despite his best efforts, he can’t seem to retrace his steps to the juncture that has led him here.
Wherever here is.
He goes to swallow, but something rubbery seems to be lodged in his mouth. He reaches up to remove it and finds his left hand following along.
A weak frown registers on his face as he realizes his wrists and legs are tightly bound.
He inhales a deep breath through his nose, taking in warm, stale air. He screams at the top of his lungs, but his gag soaks up his voice like a sponge.
Things are seeming worse by the second.
The wild growl of a v8 engine fills his ears, and he instantly places himself inside the trunk of a car. And with a sudden jolt, he skids to his side and strikes the back of the tight confinement.
The car must’ve been idling at a traffic light when he came to. That would explain the trembling, but as for why he is tied up and being transported in a dark trunk, he can’t even venture a guess.
With his energy slowly returning to him, he starts to feel around for the trunk’s release latch. And in no time, he realizes the pull-grip has been cut off.
Shit.
With a bit of struggle, he repositions himself and starts to claw at the inner lining. If he can just break through to the brake lights, he will be able to shove them out of their sockets. If he’s lucky, he just might be able to alert someone on the outside.
Come on! COME ON!
His raking becomes more and more savage. His nails are breaking, bleeding, but he ignores the sting. His warm, slippery blood is running down his fingers and pooling in-between, but he keeps at it.
Claustrophobia is a state of mind. All suffering is a state of mind, he reminds himself over and over until the words unhinge from their meaning.
His harrowing circumstances are fast becoming a haunting reminder of a deeply-buried memory.
It seems history is adamant to repeat itself.
σ
~Three Years Ago~
Silver light pours over the windowsill. It is almost too bright to look directly at.
It must be a full moon tonight, Dylan thinks, and then looks at the clock on his beaten night-stand.
It is 3:12 a.m., and the barracks are as still as a frozen lake.
Lips pursed and jaw clenched, he exhales through his nose. It’s been about twenty minutes since a bed-frame has creaked, or since one of his roommates has muttered something unintelligible in his sleep.
And in the blink of an eye, it’s already 3:15 a.m., leaving him with exactly fifteen minutes and not a moment to spare.
He rolls to his side and slides off his bed onto his knees. From underneath the bed, he pulls out a small backpack, jacket, and boots.
With his eyes darting from one cadet to another, he sneaks out the room and carefully shuts the door behind him.
One down, he breathes a silent sigh of relief. His least consequential obstacle is now behind him.
He looks down the hallway in both directions. The coast is clear as far as he can tell, but directly across, the door to cadet Colton’s room is ajar.
Every muscle in his body tenses.
Has he been caught? Is it over, already?
And in that moment, Dylan realizes he hasn’t even thought of a plausible explanation for being out and about so late.
He looks down the hallway towards the latrines, and quickly decides not to stick around for an actual problem to present itself. He takes the stairs all the way down to the main level, and then starts to put on his boots and jacket.
He throws on his backpack, and lurks over to the exit, peering at the grounds through the small glass window.
Once again, the coast is clear.
As he exits the building, his face is stung by the crisp night air. He inhales a deep, oxygenated breath, and sets out towards the plush forest framing the academy.
Though the odds of running into a security guard are slim at this hour, he doesn’t risk cutting across the open field. It’s far too big a risk to shave only a few minutes off his excursion. So he keeps within the dark shadows of the night with his sights set on the trees in the distance.
Soon enough, he reaches the brim of the forest and crosses the threshold into the heart of nature.
The darkness is sweeping, the moonlight barely managing to penetrate the thick foliage. And Dylan is still far too close to the premises to even entertain using his flashlight.
So he hurries through the winding trail, assessing each step based on the outlines of trees and bushes.
The rustling of dried leaves beneath his boots is roaring in the dead of night, sending his heartbeat to a gallop. He needs to be especially careful not to drift off onto one of the embedded training grounds, or stumble into a man-made ravine.
Or worst of all: trip an alarm.
His eyes eventually adjust to the darkness, able to better detect the ditches compromising his gait. But even once he has picked up the pace, the end of the trail seems nowhere in sight.
Is he lost? Or is it just harder to tell the progress he’s made because of the lack of light?
He reaches for his map, confident that by now he is far enough from campus. But just as he grabs his flashlight, the crunching of brittle twigs startles him.
Dylan swings his head towards the source of the noise and sees a pair of hands spring up into the air.
A gesture of peace?
“Identify yourself,” Dylan demands with a rather assertive tone. If it’s one of the junior cadets, he just might be able to feign authority and send the kid on his way.
“I don’t want no trouble, man,” a surprisingly lax voice reassures. “Just doin’ a late-night delivery.”
Dylan switches his flashlight on and holds it up. “Step into the light,” he orders, and watches a lanky twenty-something year-old step forward.
It must be him. “Are you Bryce?”
“The one and only,” Bryce cracks a smile.
Dylan unclenches a bit. “Are we set?”
“Ssss, yeah… there was this little hitch.”
“What?” Dylan’s tone drops.
“Well, most of what they had were either panty-droppers or guzzlers, so I grabbed you a hatchback. It’s a total mom-car, but easy on gas if you—”
“What about the passport?”
As though he just remembered there was more to their deal, Bryce pulls out a navy passport from the inside of his jacket pocket.
“Got it right here,” he taps it onto his open palm, boasting a playful smirk.
Dylan flicks his flashlight at it. “Hold it up.”
“It’s legit man. I’m a pro,” Bryce flips to the page containing Dylan’s photo, and then holds it up to the light.
Dylan steps forward with his stern gaze fixed to his commissioned ID. He then looks up at Bryce and takes a second to read him.
Frail build, unkempt hair, and dilated pupils. But he doesn’t strike Dylan as the type that screws over his customers.
Dylan puts his flashlight away, and then pulls out twelve hundred-dollar bills from his back pocket.
He completes the exchange and begins to inspect his ID more closely.
It’s good, he nods to himself. He would never be able to tell it apart from his real one. “You weren’t kidding about being a pro,” he half-chuckles.
“A happy customer—” Bryce counts the cash, “is a returning customer,” and tucks it away in his fanny-pack, having no idea that once Dylan gets to Seattle, he plans on leaving the car at the rental branch and taking a bus across the border into Canada.
He slips his passport into his pocket. “You rented the car under an alias, right?”
“Yeah, we cool,” Bryce bobs his head.
“So, where is it?”
“That way—” Bryce nods towards the end of the trail. “It’s a dark gray hatchback in the third stall of the cemetery parking lot.” Off Dylan’s look, “I know, it’s eerie as fuck,” he chuckles, “but at least I don’t gotta worry about running into no one at this hour. Unless it’s Halloween,” he scoffs, “learned that the hard way.” He reaches back into his fanny-pack and pulls out the car keys.
Dylan reaches out to grab them, but nearly jumps out of his skin when he hears a piercing scream. The morbid sound floods the forest like light engulfing a silhouette.
“Shit—” Bryce panics like a spooked gazelle and bolts down the trail, vanishing almost instantly.
Another scream trails the echoes of the previous, luring Dylan’s attention. And he can’t tell whether it belongs to a girl, or a young boy.
He looks in the direction of Bryce’s flight; towards his one and only shot at getting to Romer before his trial. But the tortured voice of a complete stranger has pinned him in place.
“Fuck,” he curses and segues off the trail towards the screams. With each and every step, the victim’s voice becomes magnified, until Dylan emerges at the brink of an enormous cemetery.
Must be the one Bryce mentioned.
He remains hidden behind a large tree, gawking at the astonishing sight before him.
Roughly fifty feet ahead, three cadets are standing ten-hut with their backs to him, decked-out in their combat uniforms. The fourth is circling six younger cadets on their knees who are assembled in a perfect line. They’ve all been stripped down to their boxers and numbered on their torsos with what appears to be mud.
And not until one of them bends over does Dylan realize their wrists are tied behind their backs.
With his forehead on the ground, the bent-over cadet slavers from his gaping mouth. His sobbing has become so intensified that no actual sound is leaving his throat.
Meanwhile, the circling cadet is going on and on about what it takes to become a real soldier. How graduating from this academy is the kind of honor you earn. And most importantly, how facing your fears before you’re dispatched onto the battlefield is detrimental to your survival.
Don’t you mean ‘instrumental’ you overgrown tool?
Dylan scowls at the loathsome roid-monkey and the self-proclaimed alpha of the academy, Tobias Colton. The prick is quite possibly the only person in the world Dylan would shoot right in the face, and feel nothing.
Colton concludes his monologue and comes to a stop by the weeping cadet. He stares down at him for a few moments, and then suddenly swoops down.
“GET THE FUCK UP!” he barks into the cadet’s ear, jolting the kid back up onto his folded legs. “And you call yourself a GODDAMN SOLDIER!?”
“I’m claustrophphph—” the cadet stammers, “ph-phobic,” his posture wilting under the weight of his fear. “I sss-swear.”
Claustrophobic?
Dylan follows Colton’s line of sight to what seems to be a rough and poorly assembled rectangular box.
A coffin.
And directly next to it, there’s a dark, rectangular patch. And it’s not a shadow.
It’s a freshly-dug grave.
Dylan’s wide eyes dart back to Colton as he tosses something the size of a sugar cube into the air.
“Luck of the draw, solider,” Colton flashes a smug grin. “Unless, of course, one of your comrades wants to volunteer?” He looks to the other candidates, but they all avert their eyes.
“NO,” the young cadet begs as Colton’s crew grab and drag him over to the coffin.
“Quit being a little bitch!” Colton barks as the kid is stuffed into the box. He then slams the lid down, snuffing his victim’s pleas for mercy.
“And you might want to stop panting so much,” he bends down and shouts at the box. “That air’s gotta last you the next four hours.”
Boasting a wide grin, Colton crosses his arms
and backs up, spectating as his crew pummel nails into the coffin’s lid. And Dylan finds himself in full stride towards Colton like a grenade of rage.
He comes up to Colton from behind and kicks him in the hamstring.
Colton heaves a grunt and falls to his knees, at the sight of which the others cease their hammering.
Dylan takes advantage of the lull and marches up to the coffin, shoves the nearest cadet out of his way, and starts to pull the nails with the hammer’s claw.
“Well, look who it is!” Colton rises back to his feet. “Ain’t this past your bedtime? Shouldn’t you be all tucked in right about now, crying to mommy in your sleep?”
Ignore him. It’s what he does.
“What the hell are you even doing here?” Colton walks over. “Have you been following us?” he teases with a playful voice, and then rests his hands on his hips. “Feelin’ a little left out, are we?”
Dylan pays him no heed. All he wants is to get the kid out and be on his way.
“Transfer students usually do,” Colton goes on as Dylan yanks the final nail out and opens the coffin to reveal the sodden face of a child. “But hey—there are always ways to fix that.”
Fingers dig into Dylan’s shoulders and yank him back, and the ground soars up and collides with the base of his head.
The impact sends a stab of pain down his spine, and for a few moments, he can’t see.
He reaches up to his pulsating head, but his arm springs back down to his side as a savage kick lands onto his ribs.
Dylan recoils as more join in, targeting his torso.
Colton pulls the young cadet from the coffin and throws him down on the grass. He then marches up to Dylan, shoves his crew out of the way, and kicks Dylan in the stomach so hard that it knocks him onto his back. He then steps onto Dylan’s ribcage, leaning his weight onto him.
Gasping for air, Dylan grips Colton’s calf, forms a fist with his other hand, and strikes Colton’s ankle.
The goon grunts and staggers back, and then with a vicious growl, bears back down and starts to kick Dylan in the gut with everything he’s got.
With every inch of him tense and writhing with pain, Dylan feels the fourth kick crack, and the fifth break his ribs. And then, whatever Colton is barking at him he can no longer hear over the sound of his own screaming.