Desert
Jordan flinched, and the searing pain looped around her wrists reminded her to be still.
Grim gray daylight had snuck in down the window shaft. She must have fallen asleep.
He was going to kill her, and she'd fallen asleep.
She didn't *know* he was going to kill her -- not really. She didn't know why he was here, why he'd zip-tied her to a water pipe in the basement, why he'd just left her alone down here... why he hadn't killed her already, or done things to her...
Jordan clenched her teeth. Her mind was running in circles again. He was probably counting on that.
Concrete pressed against cheek, breast, hip, ankle. Jordan suddenly felt the submissiveness of her position. She wasn't going to let him see her like this.
The wall with the imprisoning pipe was behind her; still lying on her side, she began to wiggle closer to it. The zip-ties around her wrists shifted, clawing at the bloody flesh beneath. It was hard not to scream. Fingers probed gingerly for the string of zip-ties that linked her wrists to the pipe: if she could hold the makeshift handcuffs still then they wouldn't hurt so much.
Jordan took a deep breath and sat up. Prickling coarse fabric slid off her ankle, and something thick and heavy shifted her t-shirt before falling free of her shoulder and into her lap. A blanket. He must have put it on her after she'd collapsed. So he'd already seen her, lying on the floor. The kindness was probably supposed to confuse her, or maybe knowing he'd been there while she'd slept was supposed to scare her, or--
No. She'd worked herself into a frenzy last night, and she'd hurt herself trying to break free. She had to think about something else.
Her skirt was twisted; she used her foot to work it straight again. Jordan hated this skirt. A brown paisley ankle-length peasant skirt was hardly provocative, but it was always catching on things and getting twisted. And she didn't like the way some men looked at her when she wore a skirt. Predatory looks. If it weren't for her meds, looks like those might make her--
Jordan willed the thought out of her head. She wasn't like that anymore. That was in the past. She had her meds, and her time at Ravenwood, and it had been a very long time since she'd felt... that.
The basement window was on the wall behind her, a few feet to her right, partially blocked by a metal shelving unit laden with leftover paint and fishing tackle. The dull light wasn't much, but it was enough to outline familiar objects: washer and dryer, step ladder, disused mountain bikes.
Jordan had spent plenty of time down here before, "waiting for laundry" -- really, avoiding Lynn's mom. Anne liked to give advice without being asked, most of it about getting a boyfriend, or about changing clothes or makeup or hair or diet in furtherance of getting said boyfriend. But Anne was a decent person -- and she and Lynn's dad Robert were as close to parents as Jordan was going to get. Of course, they didn't go through what Jordan's mom and dad did. They didn't know who she was. Lynn knew, basically, but she didn't seem to care. Lynn didn't care about anything that wasn't in the moment.
Jordan wondered how Lynn would feel about being here in this moment. She'd probably be pissed at the inconvenience of it -- couldn't he have picked a different weekend? She'd be demanding a shower. And a hard lemonade. She'd probably flirt with him, or at least tell him he'd lost any chance of sleeping with her. Lynn would probably make light of it, right up to the last moment.
They were opposites in every way. Lynn, the tall curvacious redheaded party girl; Jordan, the petite brown-haired demigoth. Lynn, the center of a perfect and very upper-middle-class family; Jordan, a de facto orphan with two jobs, three scholarships, and four dollars in her pocket. Lynn, always with a different guy and usually juggling several at once; Jordan, always with a different book and usually juggling several at once. The only thing they had in common besides a dorm room and a fondness for pistachio ice cream was Ravenwood -- and even in that they were opposites, Lynn there just for a "crisis" weekend and Jordan for... well, longer.
Something overhead began to hiss. Running water. It went on for a while; was he taking a shower? He was certainly making himself at home. No doubt eating the food she'd brought, too. Did he know that Lynn and her parents were in Nice for Spring Break? Did it matter that no one knew Jordan was out here? She didn't think she was the point of his visit; did she ruin his plans or was she a minor inconvenience? --Stop. Clarity didn't simply come when called. Not real clarity.
There was a gritty taste in her mouth; she'd probably breathed in dust off the floor. He hadn't bothered to gag her. He had to know there was no need. People bought property out here to be left alone, and most of them only came out for the summer. The house across the road was the only one you could see -- barely -- and they didn't seem the type to check on the neighbors if they heard something.
Not that anybody would. Not when the call of a jay sounded so much like a distant scream.
The water shut off. Jordan listened hard, but unless he went into the kitchen she wouldn't hear him.
The shapes in front of her began to shift; it almost looked like the washer and dryer were squatting. Jordan felt a moment of panic -- but no, it was a shadow. A real shadow. Wasn't it? The window -- there was someone outside the window. Him? No, the water hadn't been off long enough.
And then she heard a whisper. "Jordan?" Above her -- coming from the window. She wracked her brain -- who would be up here? Who would know her? Who would be at the basement window?
"Danny?" The 16-year-old whose parents owned the property behind Lynn's, past the creek on the other side of the hill.
"Hey," he answered.
Danny was a little shit. Last Thanksgiving Jordan had caught him down here smoking pot -- too cold to smoke outside, he'd said. The summer before, she found him in the little clearing just up the hill, using a zoom lens to spy on Lynn through her bedroom window.
But today, Jordan was glad the neighbor was a perv. "I need your help."
Danny's voice became clearer; he must have pushed the window open. "You okay?"
"No. Some creep broke into Lynn's house and he..." she didn't want to say she was tied up for some reason, "...locked me down here."
"He's a scary dude, Jordan. Looks like an assassin or something." How reassuring. "I was walking past, and I saw him, so I ducked in here. I don't *think* he saw me."
'Here' was the dugout shaft, maybe three feet deep, that let indirect light reach the basement window. It was also how Danny had snuck into the basement last winter. Jordan hadn't ratted him out, but she had asked Lynn's dad to move the utility shelves so they partially blocked the window, "in case a wild animal finds the shaft and tries to get in." The shelves weighed a ton -- Robert almost couldn't move them -- so now Danny couldn't get in. So now Jordan couldn't get out.
But Danny could call for help. "Danny. Call the sherriff."
"Dude, I don't have a phone."
Naturally. "Go back to your house."
"Dude, what if he sees me?"
"He won't see you."
"Dude, just a minute ago he was standing at the picture window, just staring out across the yard."
"So go around the other way."
"Dude, it's hella slippery that way. Stupid leaves... I almost busted my ass getting down here."
"So be careful."
"Dude, I can't. Gravity, dude."
So much for chivalry. And, "Dude. Stop calling me dude."
"Sorry. I been hangin' out with this girl lately, she says 'dude' to her friends all the time."
So Danny had a girlfriend. Maybe he wouldn't spy on Lynn this summer. Though Lynn probably liked it...
That didn't help her now. "Look, I know he might see you, but... Danny, I don't know what he's gonna do to me." She tried to sound scared; it wasn't hard.
"Don't worry, I won't let him do anything to you." So chivalry wasn't dead, just retarded.
"He has a gun." Probably not the best argument for rabbiting home.
"But I have the element of surprise."
Yeah. And people with guns don't shoot at things that surprise them. "Danny..."
"What if he tries something while I'm gone?"
What if he tried something while Danny was here? "Danny, listen to me. I need you to go get help. This guy is... I don't want you to get hurt."
"But I can help you." He wasn't whispering anymore.
"That's what I'm asking -- go get help." Were all boys his age this slow? And... did his voice change since the last time she saw him?
"No, I mean I can help you. Like when you were little."
Jordan felt the blood leave her skin.
Danny wasn't Danny.
The whisper in the dark belonged to someone else -- a shadow from Jordan's past.
Waite.
Black dread squeezed Jordan's chest.
She'd met Waite when she was a little girl. For a while, they were best friends; they went everywhere together.
But Waite was Chaos. His "help" made things worse. Waite was the reason she needed meds. He was the reason she'd been sent to Ravenwood.
Waite had hurt someone -- and he'd done it for her. He'd been helping Jordan and he went too far.
Waite would always go too far.
"Come on," Waite said, "it's been a long time, but I know you still feel something."
But Jordan didn't feel anything. She didn't *want* to feel anything. What she was feeling was... was... it was just fatigue. And... of course: a physical reaction, things out of whack because... "Shut up, Waite; I just missed my dose. It's a physical reaction." Her mind hardened, anxiety replaced with anger. "Like nausea," she said with sting.
Waite seemed miffed. "It wasn't easy to find you."
"It wasn't easy to lose you," Jordan snapped back. "You ruined my life."
"You can't blame me for what they did to you."
"They were scared. *I* was scared."
"You know I'd never hurt you."
"That's not what they were afraid of," she snarled.
Waite was defensive. "I never hurt anyone unless you ask me to."
"I didn't ask-... I just asked you to help. I didn't know what you'd do."
"You didn't just ask for help," Waite admonished. "You said, 'make it stop.'"
"I didn't ask you to hurt them."
Waite's voice darkened. "But it's what you wanted."
"I didn't want *that*!" Jordan shouted. "Fuck, Waite, I was *eight*!"
"I'm sorry, babe." He didn't sound it. "But I can't help what I am, any more than you can help what you are. No matter how many pills you take, it's still there."
"No."
"If it wasn't, I wouldn't be here."
Jordan tried to push the tremor out of her voice. "I didn't ask you to come."
"So you'd rather be stuck with *him*?" It was a rhetorical question.
But Jordan answered it. "Yes." Hateful. Fatalistic. Desperate.
"Don't be stupid. You know he plans to kill you."
"You don't know that."
"He's an assassin."
"Out here?"
"Come on. Who lives out here? Across the street? You think Lynn was joking when she said she lived across the street from a mob boss? And what's in the long briefcase upstairs? You think he's going to let you go now that he's tied you up? Now that you've *seen* him?"
"I didn't get a good look at him."
"Like he cares..." Waite trailed off. "Oh. I get it."
His voice softened.
"You avoid them." He sounded hurt. "Am I really that bad?"
"How can you ask that?" Jordan's voice cracked; she felt herself slipping. She knew when Waite hung around long enough, eventually things started to become clear.
No. That wasn't clarity. That was the opposite of clarity.
"Well," Waite said ruefully, "maybe you haven't really seen him. But from the look of things, you will."
Jordan's voice cracked again. "I won't."
"Do you really think you can *talk* him out of it?" Waite sounded angry. No... upset. "You're in deep shit, Jordan, and you need me to help you get out of it. Why don't you want me to? What are you afraid of? You'd rather *die* than ask me for help?"
Jordan felt reality tighten around her.
Waite's voice turned nasty. "You think he doesn't deserve it?"
"No one deserves what you did!" Jordan screamed.
"You don't believe that, do you? You *saw* them. And you'll see this one too. You can't close your eyes forever."
A desperate tear rolled down Jordan's cheek. "Only when I see myself," she whispered.
Waite's voice became more forceful. "You can't do this, Jordan. You can't ask me to just let you die. You can't ask me to watch you... kill yourself, to save some... hit-man."
"It's not about him."
Something thunked at the top of the stairs; a sliver of bright light streaked across the floor, then widened. Black boots stepped with unexpected lightness down the stairs, bringing Jordan's captor with them. He stopped at the foot of the stairs; Jordan's eyes fell to his hands, which were held out in front of him, clasped together around a pistol and a flashlight. The light swiveled and blinded her briefly, then moved away; the utility bulb overhead came on, and Jordan had to squint.
"Who are you talking to?" His voice wasn't as deep as her imagination had made it since last night, when he'd tersely instructed her at gunpoint into her current predicament.
"Nobody," she said flatly. She watched him through the corner of her eye as he performed a cautious search of the darker crevices. His gaze seemed to linger at the window shaft for a long extra moment.
"Talking to yourself, huh?"
"Something like that."
He stood in front of her, almost leaning over her; she looked away.
"Jordan," he said. Must have gotten it from her purse. "Unusual name."
"Not really."
"I always thought it was a guy's name. It's unusual for a girl, at least one your age."
Why was he chatty all of a sudden? Jordan steeled herself.
The situation was changing.
"Where are you from?"
"Wisconsin."
He grunted. "You don't *sound* like you're from Wisconsin."
"Well I am. I go to school there. Go Badgers." Jordan heard the snarkiness in her voice. It probably wasn't smart, but it was hard to suppress it.
He leaned down and grabbed her chin, forcing her to face him. "Don't bullshit me." His voice was patient, serene, serious. He was not one to lose control, but he was one to take it. He flicked the pistol to draw her attention to it, but didn't point it at her. The flick was enough.
"Kansas," she answered, sharply. "Lawrence."
He stood up and took a step back, as if studying her. His eyes were out of her immediate line of sight; she stole a lingering glance at his body. He didn't seem particularly muscular, or tall, or... anything. Maybe a little more fit than average. Last night's close-fitting black turtle-neck and slacks had been traded for a tan polo and olive cargo pants. Colors that were hard to see in the woods.
"Lawrence," he repeated, as if recalling something.
Suddenly:
"I know you."
Jordan's eyes fell to her lap. "I don't think so," she muttered, unconvincing.
"Yeah," he said, drawn out. "From that TV show. 'Real Beyond.'"
Fuck.
"You're the girl who set those kids on fire."
Jordan squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could, shrinking in the shadow of a memory so meticulously caged, a memory suddenly loosed and looming . . .
Her brother Howard wipes his mouth. His lip is bleeding.
Howard always tells her to run home before they start, and she always listens. But not today. Today she's staying with him.
Today is different. *They're* different. She feels it, even before they start teasing her. They usually do it just to get a rise out of Howard. But today they seem... meaner. Waite always told her they were mean boys, especially the quiet one, Frank. Now she feels it. She sees it in their eyes.
"Jordan," Howard repeats, "go *home*."
"No," she pouts, grabbing his hand, squeezing it tight. If she stays, they won't hurt him as bad as they were going to. Because she's a girl. Because she's only eight. Because she'll tell.
"See?" the loud one, Tommy, says. "Even Howie's little *sister* could kick his ass."
Jordan looks past Tommy to Frank. Frank is a year older than Tommy and Howard, held back a year, and bigger than both of them, but he has a lisp, like Jordan does, only not because of a missing baby tooth like her.
Frank usually stays back a few steps and lets Tommy do all the talking. And all the hitting.
Today Frank is right behind Tommy. Today Frank speaks.
"If she's the tough one, maybe we should pick on her."
Jordan squeezes Howard's hand even tighter.
Howard yanks his hand away. It clenches, a trembling fist. "Stay away from my sister, or you'll be sorry." His voice trembles too, but Jordan knows he's not afraid.
Jordan is afraid. "Stop it," she says, quietly; no one hears her. They just keep staring hard at each other. She says it again, louder. "STOP IT."
Tommy doesn't see Frank's hard scowl. But he has a mean look all his own. "Make us," he says.
Frank suddenly steps out from behind Tommy, toward Jordan.
Howard's backpack is in his other hand; he swings it in front of him with all his might. He means to hit Frank, but the bag gets away from him and strikes Tommy instead.
Howard is smart. He takes hard classes.
His books are heavy.
Tommy falls against Frank; they both fall to the ground.
Howard stumbles; when he regains his balance, he shoves Jordan. "Run home, Jordan. *RUN*!" Howard yells so loud it scares Jordan; she jumps, and starts running.
Behind her, Tommy and Frank are yelling. "You're *dead* now, Howie!" "Nobody hits me!"
And Howard is screeching, "Ow! Stop it! No fair! Ow! Ow!"
It's when Howard stops yelling that Jordan turns around.
Howard and Tommy are on the ground, rolling, kicking, hitting; Tommy gets on top and stays there, his fists flailing down at Howard's face, hitting through and around Howard's blocking arms. Howard is whimpering.
"*STOP*!" Jordan screams, impossibly loud. Frank looks up, but Tommy just keeps hitting and hitting.
Frank sneers.
Jordan starts running, right for Tommy, as fast as she can, throwing herself on him, her legs wrapped around his, her little fists pounding on his back, then opening, fingers clawing, grabbing, pulling, finding Tommy's hair...
"Ow! Get her off me!" Tommy yells, crouching down on top of Howard.
Jordan feels herself yanked in the air; Tommy's hair and shirt slip from her small fingers; she sees a blur of sky, and then smacks down hard on the sidewalk. She doesn't feel anything for an instant, and then her hands and knees and cheek start to hurt a lot; she starts to cry.
She sits up. Tommy is now holding Howard down, and Frank is kicking him. Howard isn't making any noise, except the hollow sound when Frank's foot hits him.
Jordan starts to wail; she can't see through the tears. They're hurting her brother, hurting him bad, and she can't stop them.
She feels someone behind her. "Jordan!" It's Waite.
"They're hurting him! Why are they hurting him?"
"Because they're mean."
"Stop it! Stop it!" She screams. "Please! Make it stop! Make it stop..."
Waite's voice is barely a whisper.
"Okay."
Through her tears Jordan sees only a dark blur; it settles on Frank like a shadow. The shadow darkens and grows, like there's a raincloud over the boys, only there's no clouds in the sky.
Frank is about to kick Howard again but he stops and looks up. Jordan sees his face change. It looks like he's really scared. But Jordan doesn't see what he's scared of. The shadow? Frank backs up a step, hands coming up to protect his face.
Then Jordan sees another shadow, just on Frank's hands. It starts to look like he's dipped them in gray fingerpaint, and it's spreading down his fingers and over his hands. Frank yells "Owww!" and yanks his hands down, looking at them.
He looks really, really scared. And then the gray stuff starts spreading up his arms.
Tommy gets up off Howard, standing next to Frank, looking at Frank's hands. He looks confused, and scared.
Frank's fingers and hands are almost black now; the gray is halfway up his arms.
And then Frank's wrists crack, and his hands fall, and when they hit the ground they break like glass.
They all scream.
And Frank turns to run, as the gray stuff reaches his shoulders, even turning his t-shirt gray, and his arms stop moving, and he begins to stumble and lose his balance. And when he falls, his arms don't come up; he falls like the Christmas tree Jordan's daddy cut for them last year, only when Frank hits the ground, his arms break off and crumble, and when he rolls over one of them, it looks like the flour that Jordan's mommy sifts when she makes a cake, only it's dark gray, like the ashes in the fireplace.
"Make it stop!" Jordan cries. "Make it stop..."
Frank's body is dark gray now, and he stops moving, and he turns black, and Jordan can see cracks all over...
Then Tommy stops looking at Frank, and starts to run. But he only runs two steps before his shoe comes off, and he stumbles and falls. But when he holds up his leg, Jordan can't see his foot. She looks at his lost shoe and notices that it's dark gray and glassy... and so are Tommy's jeans, the bottom half looks wet like he was wading in the creek, only they don't move right, they're hard like a statue, and Tommy's crying and begging for it to stop...
And Jordan sees Howard looking at her. And he looks afraid.
But the dark cloud-shadow is only on Tommy now, Tommy whose legs aren't moving, whose jeans are starting to crumble apart like Oreos that have been in the milk too long, and he's crying, saying he's sorry and he'll never do it again and it hurts so bad and just make it stop, make it stop...
Jordan covers her eyes, and she screams with Tommy, begging Waite to stop it, make it stop, make it stop...
...and then she can't scream anymore, and Tommy isn't making any more noise, and she's afraid to look because she knows Tommy looks just like Frank, but she has to see if her brother is okay...
Howard isn't turning gray. But he's so scared he looks pale, like the doll mommy keeps on her bed, the one Jordan isn't supposed to play with...
Jordan starts to crawl toward him; she's scared too. But Howard suddenly backs away from her.
Her brother is afraid; he is afraid of *her*.
"It wasn't me," Jordan sobs, her voice hoarse. "It was Waite. He was protecting you, but I didn't know he would do that, I didn't know he was so awful."
But Howard is standing now, and he just keeps backing away.
"Please, Howie, I'm sorry, I didn't know, it wasn't me, it was Waite, it was Waite!" Jordan reaches for him, but Howard just turns and runs.
Waite whispers in her ear. "It's okay, Jordan. They were very bad boys. You saw it in them. They were bad and they needed to be punished. And now they can't be bad anymore."
And Jordan stands in the street, sobbing and wailing, as the afternoon breeze begins to scatter the piles of dust where Frank and Tommy fell.
"I'm right, aren't I?" her captor repeated. "You're the girl who set those kids on fire."
Jordan shuddered, blinking away a tear. "That's not what happened."
"I knew it was you. I remember, they did a whole thing on it, a reenactment, only they didn't actually show the burning. Still, I don't think they rerun that episode because it's too graphic. It's messed up the way your parents sent you away to an asylum, but I guess they didn't have a choice. But you must be okay now, going to college and driving a car and all. Except I probably shouldn't let you have a smoke." He grinned at that. Was that supposed to be funny?
Jordan was livid. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she spat.
"Hey," he cautioned. "I didn't kill anyone until I was twenty-two. And that was for God and Country."
"Now it's for Benjamin Franklin," she quipped.
He slapped her.
She just sulked.
"I've been nice to you," he warned. "Haven't I been nice to you? I didn't hurt you, I gave you a blanket... and I never *touched* you..." It was the first time he'd lost his temper. But it didn't last. "I don't have to be nice, but I am."
"So you'll let me go?" It was half-provocative, half-hopeful.
"Yeah," he said, unconvincingly. He waved his pistol sideways. "Bend over, I'll cut you loose."
He pulled a pair of wire cutters out of his pocket. He snipped once -- just the link to the pipe. He grabbed her bicep and yanked her to her feet.
She didn't resist when he gestured for her to lead him up the stairs -- he had the end of the zip-tie line, and she was still stiff from sitting so long. But with each slow step, she stretched...
And all the while, she felt Waite's presence, just like she used to when she was little, tugging at her. Certain. Powerful. Hungry.
"Tell me again," Waite whispered. "Tell me he doesn't deserve it."
They reached the top of the stairs. Her captor gestured toward the open door to the garage.
"Look into his eyes," Waite taunted. "*See* him. Tell me it's not there. Tell me it doesn't exist."
"Stop it, Waite."
They were in the garage; her captor had popped open the trunk of his car. He looked at her quizzically. "Wait for what?" He shook his head. "Look, I know you're scared, but it's time we finished this. Into the trunk."
Waite felt almost on top of her now. "Just say the word."
"No!"
"No? Listen little girl, before you start thinking about using what they taught you in self-defense class, you should know that there's more than one way to do this. Now... get in the trunk."
Jordan didn't move.
He grabbed her by the jaw, his grip cruel, yanking her off-balance, until she was looking right into his eyes. "Do you *want* me to make it hurt? Because I can, if that's what you want."
Jordan just looked back at him, her eyes wide open. And she saw. She had clarity.
He practically threw her forward by her jaw; she stumbled ahead, not regaining her balance until she'd landed against the side of the car. He stepped right up to her, his face in hers. "Now be a good girl and get in the trunk, or I won't make it quick and painless. I'll make it *hurt*." He pulled down wickedly on her binding; she gasped, turning away. He leaned in so close she could feel his breath on her neck. "I'll make it hurt so bad," he hissed into her ear, "that you'll beg to make it stop."
Jordan closed her eyes, squeezing away a tear. Her expression hardened.
Her voice was scarcely a whisper.
"Not this time."
She heard him drop his pistol.
She looked down, and saw his fingers scattered like shards of black glass.