The Runaways

Chapter 12

        “Hailey? Where the hell are you?”

Good old Dad. I’d been missing twelve-hours, and disappointment was the first thing to fly out of his mouth. I kept mine shut. He didn’t need to hear that I’d been crying.

      “Mr. Anderson, it’s lovely to speak to you again, face to face. You know I’m not one to hide behind a ski-mask, sir.”

Liam slapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled my body close like he was posing for a candid. He didn’t need to touch me to put me in my place. I felt small enough as it was. My dad was watching.

        “My guys at the Bureau have been waiting for this phone call all day, Mr. Evans, you’re in quite a bit of trouble, but I’m sure by now you’re aware of that. Hailey, I think you owe me an explanation.”

        “I wanna talk to mom, Dad. Can you tell her I’m okay? I need her to know that I’m okay.”

        “I’m not telling your mother anything, sweetheart. You think I don’t know the difference between a real crime and a cry for attention? CNN’s been airing tapes of you running around with some boy at Union Station since this morning. Took a hell of a lot of convincing to get the press to buy your antics as a kidnapping. But don’t you think for a second that I’m stupid enough not to know exactly what you’re running away from.”

I lost it. Collapsed down on my knees and screamed until my voice broke into jagged little pieces. He wasn’t listening. He wasn’t watching. He wasn’t paying attention. He never did. I was sitting purple-faced and bleeding on camera, and he still wouldn’t accept what was happening for what it was.

I hated him. I hated how easily he wore me down, how he always assumed the worst, how he didn’t care. He never had.

        “Sorry to break up the family drama, but, unfortunately, senator, you know better than I that this situation is very real, and your daughter is very much in danger. We can show you if you like. You’re a smart man, I’m sure you understand the value of dramatic demonstrations.”

One of the four boys pulled both my hands behind my back and loosely wound them in wire cable. The metal didn’t bite into my wrists like it had the first time. My body was too numb to feel it.

        “I’ve got the nation’s finest sitting in my living room listening to every word you say, young man. So think real hard about what you’re gonna do before you do it,” Dad said.

       “Mr. Anderson, I’m ready to die for this. I hope you can say the same. Marcus, pick up that hose. Caleb, get a wide shot of the freezer. I want our senator friend to see what kind of substandard conditions we’re working with here!”

The dull pain kicked to life again, moving out from my stomach and into my bloodstream.

       “Senator, please gather all your pig friends around your lovely phone so they have a proper view. Once we’re finished here, I’d like you to post our little production on the Internet! My brothers and I wanna get good and famous. Make sure you get the credits right. Last name is Evans but you already know that. E-V-A-N-S. Our mother’s name was Deirdre. You put her in an early grave, and today, sir, God’s punishing you for it.”

The frigid kick of water pressure knocked me face first onto the concrete. I tried wrangling my hands loose, but the cables froze faster than I could free them.

The skin of my back rippled and split under the unending stream pounding me apart a piece at a time. My lungs fought to breathe in the thinning air. Everything slowed. Everything stopped.

My eyes slid shut while the cold caved in. Liam’s liquid bullets breathed life into new bruises all over my body. I waited for the blackout, for a break in the pain, for the end I was seconds away from begging for. The water rained down harder, dousing my spirit until I couldn’t scream anymore.

Do you believe me now, Dad?

        “Like what you see, senator? I’ve changed the terms of our little agreement to make things more interesting, and believe me, you’re daughter’s very interesting.”

        “Careful, Evans.”

        “My brothers and I are going to make the most of the private time we have left with your beautiful Hailey, so I suggest you find your way out to our neck of the woods. I’m not a very patient man, senator.”

Silence hung heavy in the air long after Liam hung up the phone. I was the only sound. The only one squirming. The only one squealing. The only one suffering.

        “Holding up alright, Cal?”

Marcus’s voice lilted through the air, his telltale concern towards Caleb giving away his weakness.

        “Yeah.”

        “Liar, you’re paler than a ghost!” Cillian said.

He broke into ragged laughs, each one ricocheting through my veins.

      “He’s right, Cal, you need a little color in those cheeks. Some manly flush, I think,” Liam said, eyes burning holes into my black and blue back.

        “Let’s go. I don’t wanna be in here anymore,” Caleb said.

His footsteps started in the direction of the door and stopped short.

        “The girl’s cold, Cal. You planning on letting her freeze ‘til she stops breathing?”

Cillian’s concern sounded as transparent as his sincerity.

        “Cillian’s right, go on and warm her up for us,” Liam said.

Something was wrong. Everything was wrong. Maybe I hadn’t heard things right, but I couldn’t figure out the conversation. Not the direction, not the danger in its undertones. I didn’t want to understand. I wanted to disappear.

        “She has nothing to do with me, Liam,” Caleb said.

       “Oh, but that’s where you’re mistaken, kiddo. The thing is, you’ve still got some manning up to do, Cal. You’re so goddamn soft it makes me want to carve my intestines out. I’m only saying this ‘cause I see all that beautiful potential you’ve got. But you’re wasting it feeling sorry for her. I’ve forgiven you all day only because you don’t understand yourself well enough to know that it’s only lust. So, I’ve got an offer, and if you refuse it, I’ll kill the both of you. And I’m a man of my word, little brother.”

Fade in. Fade out. Conscious one minute, gone the next.

I kept having this memory, back from two summers ago when I took a run down the Virginia Beach shoreline right before sunrise. It was one of those dark blue mornings when the sand was cold enough to bite.

I stepped out of my house barefoot and the 6:00 a.m. chill rattled right through my bones. I could’ve gone back inside, but I ran and kept running until the cold burned off. When I finally fell into the rhythm of things, both feet in time with my heart beat, I broke into a sprint so fast I felt steps away from flying.

Like I could out do the angels.

I came back to the cold room for a few seconds, long enough to remember someone cutting my clothes away. When he covered my mouth, I didn’t scream. When he held me down, I didn’t fight. ‘Cause I was gone again, sprinting through the sand on an empty beach, racing the sunrise.

Free.