The house I sat in was small, a two-room bungalow surrounded by woods and swamp. Yet, it did not smell like the swamps with which I was familiar. This one smelled dry, crisp and lemony. The vegetation was tall pine and bracken fern. Streamlets trickled through the ferns and made a pleasant sound that was soothing to the ears. There was a faint odor of salt‒ like the air at the shore.
Maybe Maine or Washington state. It was cold, too and they had a fire going in the Franklin stove. Popping cheerily, I was toasty warm if I faced that way.
We’d been here for two days. Two days after I woke up from the overzealous use of drugs that they’d shot into me. Mr. Tat had kept me on fluids and antibiotics for those two days. Only that morning had he removed my IV and checked the burr holes in my skull. He said that the drain needed to stay in for a few more days but the staples could come out sooner.
I was lethargic. Didn’t think about escaping. I didn’t think about much of anything and I suspected that they were drugging me. Probably in my food or drinks since I wasn’t on any pills.
The man who said he was my grandfather had been in and out. He didn’t leave Tempe alone with me. I heard him telling Tat and the other men to shoot Tempe if he tried to do anything to me, that I was worth more than my father.
I was sitting on the daybed with my feet hanging over the edge. Dangling, they called it. My hands were in my lap.
“You hungry?” Tat asked. He had been appointed my caretaker and was zealous about it.
“Yeah.” He cooked, too.
“Grilled cheese and soup? Or chili with crackers?”
“Whatever.” He was still huge; a bull of a man that could break me without a thought. I suspected that he did not like child molesters.
“Why do you people want me?” I questioned. “Tempe knows if I die, he doesn’t get a dime. And my Trustees won’t pay a ransom.”
“You have to ask your grandfather,” he shrugged. Opening the cabinets, he pulled out several cans and started cooking on the two-burner gas stove top. There wasn’t a bathroom in the little house, just an outhouse on the side. Sometime while I was unconscious, he had removed the catheter, so I peed into a bottle. So far, they hadn’t let me go outside. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was still too weak, or they were afraid that I would run away.
I had headaches. Worse than when I had been a kid. Only when he gave me painkillers did they go away. The pills made me sleep and when I woke, I was dopey for hours afterwards.
“Where is he? My grandfather? What’s his name?”
“At the library,” he responded. I heard butter sizzling in the pain. He wasn’t making chili, then. Buttered bread and melted cheese. My mouth drooled.
“Library? What for? He’s getting books? Or‒ internet research?”
“Like I said, you’ll have to ask him.”
“You know that the FBI is looking for me,” I said.
“I don’t care. Your grandfather is law enforcement. He’s hooked into the alerts and system, he’s aware of what’s going on at the state level. That keeps us one step ahead of them.”
“Look, Tats, why don’t you let me go? Help me to escape? I can pay you lots of money,” I said as he put a grilled cheese onto a plate. He slid it in front of me along with a bowl of tomato soup. With milk added to it.
“Tats?” he said amused.
“Well, it was either that or Hulk,” I said reaching for the plate. I picked up a half sandwich. Hot and gooey.
“You can call me Jax. Like J-A-X, not Jacks. And your grandfather’s name is Arlen. Arlen DeAngelis. Sergeant DeAngelis.”
“I never knew my mom’s maiden name,” I said softly. “She never told me why she left him and went south. I figured it was pretty bad if she wouldn’t talk about it. She told me to go to him only as a last resort.” I took a bite. Grilled perfection. The soup cream of tomato was good, too.
“What did your father do to you?” He sat at the table opposite me and made the small kitchen look positively tinier.
“He beat my mom and me. When he was drunk, he tried to whore both of us out. He raped my mom once. I hit him with a whiskey bottle and almost killed him. He didn’t touch her after that. Not because I scared him, but because mom and I left that night.”
“You said he was a child molester. Did he do that to you?” There was something in his eyes that told me I was safe if I answered him. He might kill me, but he wouldn’t touch me that way.
I looked him dead on in the eyes and didn’t look away. “He murdered me when I was 8 years-old. He’s raped and killed me hundreds of times.”
He stared at me. Hadn’t he heard the stories circulating about my reincarnations? About my miraculous recovery from the wreck and the multi-million-dollar trust fund? My cross-country escape on horseback?
“What? Have you been hiding under a rock? I’ve been in the news like daily.” I finished all my lunch and wiped my mouth on my sleeve. He handed me a napkin.
“Where I’ve been the last few years doesn’t have TV,” he shrugged.
“Russia? I thought they were modernized since Putin took over.”
“I’m a mercenary. My last gig was in South Africa. You’re lucky if you have running water or toilet paper. You should take a nap, you’ll be tired after you ate, and your body needs to recoup after your surgery.”
He picked up my dirty dishes and washed them. When he was done with that, he picked me up and carried me to the daybed as if I were no more than a paper napkin. Settling me under the covers, he pulled the quilt up. I complained that I wasn’t tired and didn’t want to lie down yet in minutes, I could barely keep my eyes open.
“Are you druggin’ me?” I mumbled but he didn’t answer, and I didn’t care. Idly, I realized just before I sank into a deep sleep that he hadn’t asked a single question about my past lives.
My grandfather brought me awake. That and the smell of fresh coffee and bacon sizzling. I rolled over clumsily on the couch and nearly hit the trooper with my head as I struggled to sit up. He was just about to shake me, and I jerked back away from him in fear.
He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt with a down vest. You could tell he was law enforcement even in civvies. On his hip was a heavy black and ugly pistol, held in place with a strap over the hammer at the top of a leather holster.
“You hungry?” he asked as he stepped back so I could get up. No one offered to help. I could have used a hand, the neck brace made me restricted in all movements.
“How long do I have to wear this?” I complained. My feet hit the cold wood floor and I shivered. The stove was going full-bore, it must have been really cold outside. My hand rose to the collar. Tats, Jax told me to leave it alone.
“Why?”
“Because you broke your neck along with your head,” he said flatly. “The doctors put screws and a plate in it. They were going to put a HALO on you, but the break wasn’t that severe.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered. I guessed that the fall had been worse than I’d thought. “Why didn’t they tell me in the hospital?”
He shrugged. “Would you tell a ten-year-old he broke his neck? They weren’t sure if you’d have some paralysis or no effect at all so until they were certain, they didn’t say. If you injure it again or hit your head again, it will be fatal. Or you’ll be a total paraplegic. You know what that means?”
I nodded. Swallowed. “How do you know all this?” I turned to the old man and demanded answers. Where was Tempe? What did they want from me? Where were we and when were they going to let me go.
“You’re my grandson,” he said. “I have the right to see your medical history. I have every right to keep you in my custody. I’m your only living relative.”
“Tempe’s alive,” I pointed out. Not that I’d go back with him.
“Legally, he’s dead. But he’s told me some interesting facts about you. Stories that are fantastic, if true. Is it true that you can read a person’s past lives by touching them?”
I laughed in scorn. “Did he tell you that? The only past lives I know are my own.”
“He said that you knew the locations of lost gold caches. Army payrolls lost since the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. That you found two of them.”
“Which he stole,” I retorted bitterly.
He shook his head. “Not anymore. I have it, the fee for saving his life. Underground doctors aren’t cheap nor is recovering from obvious gunshot and knife wounds, burns and shrapnel. Any legal doc would have turned him in to the police. The FBI. He’s broke.”
“And you’re helping him out of the goodness of your heart,” I sneered.
“You got a mouth on you just like Ari,” he smiled and slapped me. I flew backward into the couch and Tats made an abortive sound of protest.
“Sergeant, his neck,” he said carefully. He was afraid of my grandfather.
“Is that why my mom left you? Because you hit her? A girl?” I said. I wiped at the corner of my mouth. He’d split my lip and my face was stinging from the slap. I watched him carefully. If he tried to do it again, I was going to fight back. His eyes flared red, but he stepped back and gestured for me to go to the table.
I got to my feet and slid past him using the back of the couch/daybed for balance. That short distance was enough to wind me. How, I despaired, was I going to make a run for it in the woods? I’d get no more than a few feet before I was run down and caught.
“Where is Tempe?” I asked taking a cautious bite of my breakfast. Tats was the cook. Eggs, bacon, biscuits and coffee. Every bite tasted like sawdust.
“He’s been taken care of,” my grandfather said carelessly. “No need for you to worry about him anymore. Eat your breakfast and then, we’ll discuss the new rules.”
“Rules? Let me guess, yours?”
“Rules of your behavior. What I expect from you. What you’re going to do for me.”
“You really are nuts,” I said in admiration at his insanity. “The entire police force and the FBI are looking for me and you think you’re going to just take over, do what you want? The first chance I get, I’m going to escape from here. From you.”
He smiled. “I’d like to see you try.” He gave me a long stare, nodded to the men in the room and walked outside. I turned to Tats.
“What’s he talking about?”
“You know that your father is probably dead,” he returned with a shrug. I mimicked his movement unconsciously. That didn’t bother me at all. “Buried in the woods somewhere. He didn’t want to go along with the sergeant’s program either.”
“He won’t kill me,” I snorted. “He won’t get the gold he wants or the trust money.”
“He will if you write a will leaving all your assets to him. He can make you a cripple dependent on someone for everything for your every need. He could make you brain-dead or trapped inside your head without the ability to communicate, see or hear.”
“How? How do you know that?” I burst out uneasily. Looked around the room but he and I were the only ones inside the cabin.
“I’ve seen him do it before,” he returned flatly. “He’s not just a state cop, he’s also a member of a… cult with Satanic leanings. I’ve seen him do things that I can’t explain.”
“Oh, bullshit,” I cursed, spitting. But uneasily, I remember the strange things that I had seen and experienced for which there was no rational explanation. If there was good in the world, there was also evil, and I had seen both.
“Will you help me?” I swallowed, ashamed that I had to ask for help.
“I can’t, kid. I’m in too deep, myself. Don’t ask.”
I turned away, pushed back from the table leaving most of the food untouched. I wanted to get away from all of them, yet my body would not carry me further than the couch. Not upstairs or outside.
I dragged the blanket off the daybed and took it over to the foot of the staircase where I sank onto the floor. Sliding under the steps, I hid myself from view when I knew that they could still see me. I did not come out when they called for me. Not for my pills, food or water. Did not move until one of them finally pulled me out by the ankles on DeAngelis’s orders.
Neither Tats or the other men did anything as my grandfather touched me, although both stood there watching. He jerked me to my feet, whipped me around and pulled down my jeans. I yelled. He hit me with a thin branch. I kicked, screamed curses, fought and succumbed to tears of pain and rage. He didn’t stop until I fell to my knees as he let me go. Warm liquid ran down my back, butt and thighs. Warm salty fluid poured from my eyes, nose and mouth. I had bitten my tongue and the taste of snot and blood was enough to make me puke.
When I was finished, I lay on the floor in my own mess with my pants tangled around my ankles and the blanket wadded under my belly. I couldn’t turn my neck, but I could see him standing over me, in his hands the bloodied tree branch no thicker than my little finger. A switch. He had an obvious bulge in his pants.
“You won’t ignore me again, will you Cris?” he asked, his voice husky. He was… aroused.
I gasped. Swallowed. Thought about what he must have done to my mother. What he’d done to me and wanted to do with me. Slowly, I nodded. “No, sir,” I whispered.
“You’ll be a good little boy who always obeys his grandpa, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. You can lie here all night and think on what you’ve learned. In the morning, we’ll discuss my rules. You’ll eat, bathe and dress. After that, we’ll see how the rest goes.” He turned to the others. “Leave him here. No one is to touch him or treat him. Feed him. If he needs to piss or shit, he can do it and lie in it. Tomorrow, he can clean it up.”
They nodded. Didn’t look at me before they found something else to do or somewhere else to be. They scattered and left the room, finding chores that were more interesting than me.
I couldn’t sleep. Every time I tried to move, the pain made me cry out, and come back to face misery. I hated him. Wanted him to die. Wanted to kill him. Wanted to die myself. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Once Tempe was dead, I was supposed to be free. Live out my life with Matt and be happy. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t sleep that claimed me, just oblivion.