Lauren
I knew I had feelings for Asa. Last night in the motel room had become about more than just sex, and we both knew it. But sometimes you have to push away those you care about when you need to accomplish a greater goal. I'd learned that much from Pops. I turned back to see if I could catch one last glimpse of him before I walked into the lion's den beside my adopted uncle, but the handsome thug had already disappeared into the stacks of God only knew what. My shoulders sagged with the pain of having missed one more glimpse.
“Now, come on,” Uncle Anderson said as he led me deeper in, up to the building, towards the nerve center of the whole operation, “your father is waiting.”
I threaded my way through the mess of men and equipment and inventory, hot on the heels of Uncle Anderson as he took us to a set of industrial steel stairs that led up to a darkened management office overlooking the whole operation. Uncle Anderson swept his eyes back over me as we made it to the landing, a wide grin on his face. His eyes seemed to linger on my breasts a little too long, and I crossed my arms over my chest, turned away from his gaze.
Anderson Vance had been with my pops since before I was born. A few years younger than him, Uncle Anderson had always been a strong voice of reason in his ear, and a doting parental figure in my life. He and my mother had been close, even dated for a little bit before she and my pops got together, even though it went nowhere. Ora, my mother, had always been a strong woman, and Uncle Anderson just hadn't done much for her, I guess.
Anderson had always been like the uncle I'd never had. A shoulder to cry on when I scraped my knee, or a guy who would give me and man's point of view when I had trouble with my boyfriend. I trusted him, even if he had stayed by my father’s side after he'd killed my mother. I knew he had loyalty to my family, and that was important.
But there was still something I needed to know. I'd seen the security coming in, the cameras, all of it. This was costing a fortune, and I knew it. This was the kind of money you spent when you were head of a third world country. So, why was he doing it, then? Why was he spending this kind of money for this kind of security?
“Uncle Anderson,” I said as we stood up on the landing, looking down at all the worker drones loading and unloading product, “I want you to be honest with me.”
“Sure, baby girl, anything you want.”
“All this? This building, and buying up that town, hiring the soldiers? Why did he do it?”
His eyes shifted a little, as if he was looking for an acceptable answer he could give me. “Dalton, he's got enemies. You've known since before you left that he had enemies, lots of 'em, people who wanted to get at him.” He sucked air through his teeth, an unpleasant sound. “This is his way of protecting himself from them.”
I glanced from his face to the men below them. “Uh . . . huh. You believe that?”
Anderson chuckled. “Why wouldn't I? Dalton saved my life, didn't he? He's taken care of me, hasn't he? This is just me letting him feel safe, baby girl. That's all.”
“It's expensive, though, Anderson. Isn't it? How many guys do you have here?”
“Just fifty or so of the soldiers,” he replied, trying to shrug the numbers off.
I tensed up as, together, the three of us went inside.
The lights in the office were shut off, the only illumination coming from screen after screen after screen of security camera footage. A stink of old cigar smoke filled the air, permeating the walls and carpet. My pops sure did love his cigars. Their stale smell had always clung to my clothes, wrinkling the noses of all the other kids in school.
I suddenly realized I could end this thing, right then and there. I could give him what he deserved for hurting mother. I could just finally end my five years of non-stop running and hiding. But could I really? Did I have it in me to kill him, like I'd told Asa I did? Having your potential victim right there in front of you is something completely different from just talking about it in some abstract way.
“Who's that?” asked an old and decrepit sounding voice.
“I brought Lauren,” Anderson said eagerly as he pulled me along next to him. “She's come back to you, Dalton!”
I took a step back as a sunken, yellowed face emerged from the shadows like the villain of a child's scary story, the sallow muscle and fat hanging from his bones. “Lauren? My girl? You're back from your trip?”
Pops was barely a man, nothing like I remembered. Before, he'd been strong and sure of himself, with thick arms and a barrel chest, a long mane of hair hanging to his shoulders. Now his hair was long gone, his shoulders thin and wracked with a weak cough, his eyes glassy and barely focused. He wore a yellowing wife-beater, and the sour smell of death and body odor mixed with the cigar smoke that hung around him.
“From your trip?” he asked again, his voice weak and tinny.
“Jesus,” I said as I tentatively stepped forward, my nose wrinkling at the smell. “What the fuck happened to you?”
“You came back from New York, dear!” he said, stepping closer to me, that smell of long overdue death just growing stronger. “Oh, dear, it's so good to see you! Your mother will be so happy to hear you're home. Ora's been talking about you nonstop for days now, weeks even, wondering when you'd return.”
I glanced at Uncle Anderson in the darkness. “Mother?” I asked uncertainly. “What does he fucking mean?”
Anderson smiled sadly and shrugged. “He's, well . . . his memory ain't what it used to be.”
“Pops?” I asked as I took a shaky step closer. “I haven't been on vacation. I was hiding from you, don't you remember?”
“Hiding?” he asked, laughing and shaking his head, then coughing wetly. “You haven't been hiding! You and I haven't played anything like that since you were a little girl. You're practically a woman now, Lauren.”
Had he really lost it? Or was all this some stupid act on his part to put me off my game? Or, did he really not remember? I felt my face harden, my teeth gritting together, my jaw muscles clenching. “Mom’s not around anymore,” I growled. “You killed her-”
Beside me, Uncle Anderson tried to step in, to interrupt me, but I kept going.
“You beat her to death!”
He staggered back into the shadows, a look of confusion on his face as he shook his head. “No, no, no, no. I didn't do that. Why would you say that about your old man? Why would you lie about me like that?”
There was movement behind him, I realized. Before I could do anything, two men rose up out of the shadows, from behind desks and came up to flank my father. Both were massive, built almost as big as Asa, and they walked with a confident, deadly ease.
“You're with them,” he said, the last word almost a hiss. “Aren't you, girl? You're with the men trying to get at me!”
Now it was my turn to be confused. “What?” I asked as I shook my head and took a step back. “No, I just want you to admit what you did, that's all. You can't act like it didn't happen!”
“The only thing I did,” the old man roared unexpectedly, flecks of foam flying from his lips as he seemed to bite at the words like a mad dog, “was spoiling you too damned much by sparing the rod! Bunk, get hold of her!”
“Yes sir, Mr. Saylor.” One of the security guards darted forward through the shadows and snatched my arm, pulled me close.
I struggled away from him, fighting to get my nails at his face, to put a finger in his eye. Bunk was too strong, though, and he twisted my arm up behind my back as he jerked his face away from my grasping hand. “Stop struggling,” he growled in my ear, “or you'll find out what a dislocated shoulder feels like.”
I struggled again, then grunted as pain shot through my arm and shoulder.
“I said stop,” he said, twisting my arm higher. Beside us, Uncle Anderson was trying to talk some sense into him, but I could tell he wasn't having much luck.
I whimpered softly, knowing I wasn't going to win this fight.
“You're gonna learn some respect, Lauren,” he roared. “And you're gonna stay in there till you do, you hear me?”
“Now, Dalton, come on,” Uncle Anderson tried to soothe, his voice sounding hurt at the way I was being treated, “I think you might be taking this a mite far.”
The old man whirled on Uncle Anderson. “Who in the fuck do you think you are to tell me what's good or bad for me? Or my daughter? You wanna go in the cage with her, you ungrateful piece of shit?”
The cage? What the fuck? I'd been on the run for five years, I reminded myself. No contact with friends, no contact with family. Shitty jobs, shitty people, shitty men. And more than a few who'd try to come and collect me. I knew I could stand up to whatever my deranged pops could throw my way.
I struggled against Bunk again, but he just yanked my arm higher, producing a whine of pain from me. I swallowed hard, realizing that my adopted uncle might be my only way out of this, especially with the way I'd had to ditch Asa down on the floor of the Fortress. “Anderson!” I said, a pained edge to my voice. “Uncle Anderson, it's okay. I'll take my punishment like a good daughter. Alright?”
Uncle Anderson looked at me and shook his head, a look of resignation on his shadowed face. “Fine. I'll take her down there myself.”
I sighed. Pops looked him over with a distrusting eye. “You take Bunk with you, though, Anderson. You always been soft on her.”
“Come on, then,” Anderson said, grabbing my other arm and turning me and Bunk around to follow him. “Let's get on to the cages.”
We left the foul-smelling manager's office. I glanced at Anderson's face, trying to catch some glimpse of his intent, of whether or not he'd help me, but his face was just as unreadable in the light as it had been in the dark. Together, the two men marched me down the stairs and through the Fortress. When one worker stopped to glance over at me, to look me up and down with his knowing eyes, Uncle Anderson barked at him to get back to work.
Almost frantically, I looked around for some sign of Asa, hoped beyond hope that he would come to my rescue like some knight in darkly shining armor. But, he wasn't anywhere to be found. Maybe he was at his new job, somewhere else within this monstrosity? I had no idea.
The farther we walked through the building, the less men we saw. We disappeared down a side hallway that had a short set of stairs branching off it. “Where are you taking me?” I asked as we began to descend into the basement. “What's down here?”
“The cages,” Bunk said without any feeling in his voice.
“Yeah,” Uncle Anderson said with a sigh, “Dalton wants you down here in the cages, so it's the cages it's gotta be, baby girl.”
The temperature didn't change, but the feel of the air seemed to change as we descended the stairs. It became thicker, damper. Off in the distance, I could hear water dripping. Uncle Anderson, still in the lead, opened a sturdy metal door and took us into some kind of access tunnels. Water-stained concrete walls surrounded us on all sides, and a smell of mildew crept into my nose as our footfalls echoed down the underground passages.
We walked a short distance in the tunnels, following a set of pipes till we reached a heavy metal door virtually identical to the one we'd just passed through. He threw open the door and paused as he pulled the string on a single, bare bulb that hung from the ceiling by a long wire. Along the right side was a door that led to, I guessed, more and more cages. The smell of human sweat and waste was heavy here, the acrid smell making my stomach churn.
Along the wall across from us stood a row of cages, maybe half a dozen, all about four feet tall by four feet wide, and six feet deep. A bucket sat in the back corner of each one. Dog kennels, from the looks of them, but reinforced. Heavy locks hung on the latches of each one.
His hand was on his gun as he turned, and I held my breath, hoping he'd do the right thing and turn on the hired dog holding me. But, he didn't. Instead, he just looked me right in the eye, a grim, forced smile on his lips. “Sorry, baby girl,” he mumbled. “But, the boss's word is law here. You know that.”
I returned the resigned smile. “I know,” I said. “Pops has always been an asshole.”
He nodded, but said the exact opposite. “Now, you know he's just doing this outta some misguided love.”
Pops had always been fucked in the head. He'd never spoiled me, or my mother. Towards the end, things had gotten even worse, too. I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. I know.”
Anderson sighed and stepped past me, grabbed a ring of small keys from the wall, then went over to the cage on the far left. He unlocked the padlock and opened it up, the door creaking as it swung open.
I glanced at the cracked pen padlock hanging from the door. I figured I could spring it open in just a few minutes, if I was left unattended.
My uncle saw my eyes, though, and just shook his head with a sigh. “Bunk, get those bobby pins out of her hair. She's got her pop's magic fingers when it comes to that kind of shit.”
I slumped as Bunk just began to pull the remaining pins from my hair. There went that chance.
“Sorry, baby girl,” Anderson said as he stepped aside. “But this is the way it's gotta be for now.”
Bunk wrenched my shoulder up as he guided me towards the cage's opening, forcing me into an awkward, bent over position. He released my arm finally as he shoved me forward into the metal enclosure, then my uncle shut the door and locked it back in place. I was numb, except for the fire in my belly. Now, more than ever, I wanted him dead. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it, but I was going to do it. I had to play it safe while I was in here. I had to keep my true emotions to myself.
Anderson squatted down in front of the cage and leaned forward, his fingers grasping through the metal bars. “This'll blow over,” he whispered. “Don't worry, baby girl. It'll be like nothing happened. You'll see.”
I just shook my head. “I know, uncle. I just hope it does soon. I don't want to spend the rest of my life pissing in a bucket.”
He made a pained face and looked away, then stood and patted the cage's front gate. Then he and Bunk turned and left. At least they left the light on.
Well, that hadn't worked. I just hoped Asa would find me. But then, why would he? I’d just abandoned him. I just shook my head and settled back against the cage's wall, my knees pulled up to my chest, my arms wrapped around them and tried to rock myself into some sense of security.
Miracles weren't real. And miracles never happened.