Out (25 page)

After a long
hug, he lets go, holds my face in his hands, and stares into my eyes. “What
happened?” He shakes his head, and tears well up in his eyes. “I knew we
shouldn’t have let you go with him. I swear, I knew he was—”

“Warren.”
David’s icy voice kills the moment. “Sit down.” Warren frowns apologetically,
then
lets
go and takes his seat.

“Now, Chris,”
David says, tapping the table with his fingers. “Sit down. We got a call from
someone who said you’d been detained in connection with the disappearance of
Jim McFarland. What do you know about it?”

“Where is this
place?” I ask.

“I’m asking the
questions,” David says evenly.

“It’s the
Kettering Sheriff’s Station,” Warren answers. David shoots him a dirty look,
but Warren continues. “We got a call in the middle of the night that you were
being held here, that you’d been arrested. We were frantic, of course, and we
got here as fast as we could. Why are you all the way out in Kettering? Weren’t
you at Indian Lake?”

“Yes.” I answer
carefully. I have no idea where Kettering is, or how far it is from where I
was. So the sheriffs are in on this too? I can’t tell my parents anything. They
won’t believe it anyway.

David clears
his throat, annoyed. “So, you made it to Indian Lake. You were in the cabin…and
then what?”

A flick of
motion catches my eye. There’s a black bug-eyed camera in the corner of the
ceiling, very small, recording everything I say. “He went out to get the bags,
he didn’t come back. It was raining, so I thought maybe he fell down or
something, so I went out to see if he was there, and I couldn’t find him.”

“And then you
were in the woods shooting at people?” David says, his voice tightening.

“I never shot
anyone. I didn’t even have a gun!”

Warren
grimaces. “They found one in your pocket, Chris.”

“What?”

David shakes
his head. “Don’t act like you don’t know what we’re talking about. It’s
insulting.”

“No!” I stand
up, slap my hands on the table. “I didn’t have a gun. They must have planted
that on me.”

“Sure they did.”
David shakes his head and turns to Warren. “We should just leave him here if
he’s going to lie to us too.”

“Now wait a
minute.” Warren stares at me intently. “You say you didn’t have a gun?”

“Warren, when
have I ever even fired a gun? Why would I have one?”

“Maybe you
wanted to get rid of someone,” David replies frostily.

“McFarland? Why
would I want to get rid of him?” I know I must sound almost hysterical, but
this is even worse than I thought. Now I’m a murderer? “Why would I have gone
with him if that’s what I wanted? That doesn’t even make sense.”

“I thought your
change of heart was pretty sudden,” David hisses. “Now I know why you were so
eager to go. But I still don’t know why you’d want him dead. All he ever wanted
to do was help you. Why did you do it?”

“Jesus, David!”
Warren shouts. “Whose side are you on?”

A polite knock
at the door.
 
The green-dress lady pokes
her head in. “Minister Bryant? The sheriff would like a word. Alone.” She grins
apologetically at me and Warren, sorry we’re not included in the conversation.

David stands
up, sighs heavily, and shakes a finger at me. “I want you to know that whatever
you did, we’re going to get to the bottom of it. And being my son is not going
to save you.” He glides out of the room without looking back.

I put my head
down on the cool tabletop. Could I go back to my old life? Is that even possible?
But no…I couldn’t. Not knowing what I know and feeling how I feel about her.
How can I even explain it to anyone?

“Chris.”
Warren’s rubbing my head. “Talk to me.”

I don’t move.

“Please.” He
sits down next to me, pulls his chair close, and whispers in my ear.
 
“Whatever you did, I’ll get you out of here.
You just have to trust me.”

 
I don’t even know if I should believe him. I
want to. But…they’re recording everything, and who knows what they’re telling
David? Would Warren stand by me if he knew what really happened? I can’t think
he would.

“How’s Jana?” I
croak.

“What?”

“How’s Jana? Is
she okay?” I lift my face from the table and look at him.

“I guess so. We
woke her to tell her we were coming here, but we left her alone.” He leans in
again. “Tell me what happened.”

“I can’t.” I
point to the camera in the corner. “Nobody would understand.”

 
Warren glances at the unblinking eye, and
turns back to me. “I would understand.” He taps my wrist, my bracelet.

I freeze. Does
he mean what I think he means? How could he know? Jana could have told him, I
guess. Would she compromise everything just to get me out?

Warren clears
his throat, then puts an arm around my shoulder, huddles up close, and leans so
his head is next to mine. “I’m so sorry,” he says aloud. But he whispers, “I
know about Carmen.”

I look him in
the eye. All I see is love there.

I lean on his
shoulder like a baby, weeping for all the injustice and the wrongness and the
love of someone understanding me. He holds me tight, and he cries too.

“What am I
going to do?” I ask him in a small voice.

“I don’t know.”
He eyes the door. “Wait for David. He’ll know what to do.”

“David?” My
voice squeaks. “He’ll leave me here to rot.”

“You’re still
his son, Chris.” Warren shakes his head. “No matter what, that comes first.”

“You’re wrong,”
I say. I realize that now that I’ve told Warren, or he’s guessed, he won’t keep
it from David, and that’s the horror of it. He really believes that David loves
me more than he loves his church and his religion, and I know that’s not true. “You
can’t say anything.”

 
Warren grimaces. “I know it’s hard, but
telling the truth is the only way. We can help you.”

 
“You can…help me?”

 
The door opens and David walks in, flanked by
two security guards in gray. His eyes are softer now, almost forgiving. “Chris,
we know all about what you’ve been going through, how this girl corrupted you
and used you.”

“She never—”

“She’ll pay for
what she’s done, believe me.” He sits on the other side of me and puts an arm
around my shoulder. “We know what she’s done to you. They found her and the
other conspirators near some drop point at the river. They’ve all but confessed
what they…what you…were going to do. I wanted you to admit to it. That’s the
first step in helping you overcome it.”

Warren blows
his nose into a large white handkerchief, and David links arms with him. “I
know this McFarland thing has been very tough on you, and I pushed you too far
with it.” He smiles at me grudgingly. “I pushed you to this path. I ask
forgiveness for that.”

Warren cups my
face in his large hand. “We’re here for you. We want to help you.” One of the
gray security guards clears his throat. “We’re taking you to a hospital near
home, somewhere you can work on recovery. You just have to sign a paper
admitting your guilt, and—”

Guilt.

That’s when I
realize it: nothing will ever change. Nothing.

“We also
realize that Mr. McFarland’s disappearance may have been linked to
your…aberration, but that you had nothing to do with it.” David smiles at me as
if this is the most wonderful piece of news in the world. “The authorities know
that too. If something unfortunate happened to him, we’ll certainly work with
them to find out who’s responsible. I know you’ll help with that also.”

Something in my
head is ringing, and all I can do it rub at the red yarn bracelet with my
finger and thumb.

“Chris?” Warren
grabs my hand. His palm is warm and damp. “I’d really like to get you out of
here. If you’ll just sign, we can go.”

“Do you know
what this place is?” My voice sounds calm even though inside, I’m screaming.

Warren looks at
David, puzzled. “A sheriff’s station, I already told you. It’s—”

“It’s a
rehabilitation camp.” I pull up my shirt and show them the burn marks. “This is
what they did to me before they knew you were my parents. I don’t know what
else would’ve happened if they hadn’t found out.”

David’s face is
stone again. “That’s all just a myth.” He pulls my shirt down over my chest. “You
could have gotten those injuries in the woods. It was raining and dark, you
fell a number of times, I’m sure.”

“It’s not a
myth.” I turn to Warren. “They’re keeping people here against their will.”

“Well, it’s a
jail,” Warren says. “Most people don’t want to go to jail.”

“It’s not just
a jail. They torture people here. They keep people here without any lawyers or
hearings, or anything—”

“That’s just
Perpendicular propaganda,” David spits. “Exactly why we need to get you into a
treatment program. They’ve brainwashed you, Chris.”

“You’ve
brainwashed me for seventeen years.”

The color
drains from David’s face. “That’s enough of that. We can just leave you here if
that’s how you feel about it.”

“David,” Warren
says soothingly.

“No. If he
really doesn’t want to come with us, he can stay here in jail.”

I yell, “It’s
not a jail, David! It’s a concentration camp. It’s a place where they torture
Perpendiculars, all in the name of God. Is that the kind of religion you stand
for? If it is, you’re right. You should leave me here.”

Warren gasps. “Chris,
you don’t know what you’re saying. We can take you out of here tonight, right
now. Just sign the paper.”

“I’m not
signing anything.”

“You most
certainly are!” David thunders, grabbing my arm roughly and pulling me toward
the door. “Sheriff! Bring that paper in here!”

I rip my arm away
from him, and he looks surprised, but he grabs on again, harder this time. No.
I’m not going to let him shove me or pull me or throw me into anything again. I
pull back, and we’re struggling up against a wall, so close I can smell soap on
his skin, and he’s squeezing my arm with all the frustration and hate he feels
against me, against people like me.

 
“You can’t admit that a son of yours would
even be Perpendicular, can you?” I hiss at him as he rams me into the doorjamb.

“You’re not a
Perpendicular!” he screams, punching the wall beside my head, leaving a huge
hole in the plaster. His eyes, wide and crazed, stare into mine. “You are not!”

“I am.” I say
it calmly, as a fact, no emotion. “And I love that girl.”

With a
gut-wrenching howl he shoves me into the wall. I grab his shirt, pull, rip,
claw to get free.

Guttural noises
come from David as he attacks, attacks, attacks, relentless until a sheriff and
Warren pull him off me. We pause in an eerie silence, stare at each other,
hatred flying across the chasm between us.

“Leave him
here,” David growls. He shrugs out of the grip of the sheriff, stalks out of
the room without looking back at me. Warren looks like his heart is broken, but
he follows.

I wipe blood
from my face with the hem of my shirt, sink into a chair, and will myself to
pass out. But I don’t. Instead, the lady in the green dress returns, pleasant
as anything. She wrinkles her nose when she sees the blood on her floor, but
she simply says, “Well, I guess you’ll be staying on with us for a bit.
Sergeant, could you escort Mr. Bryant to processing?” She turns to go, but over
her shoulder, she says, “You deserve whatever you get.”

My nose throbs
from David’s punches, although the bleeding has stopped. The guards walk me
down the hall again, through a labyrinth of industrial-looking corridors, cuffs
on my hands and shackles on my feet, like I’m a dangerous criminal. We finally
get to double-steel doors with big warning signs on them: Quarantine: Do Not
Enter.
 
One guard keys in a code on a pad.

“What’s the
quarantine for?” I ask, but before the words are out of my mouth, the man
viciously jabs the rifle butt into my mouth, knocking out one of my front
teeth. I crumple from the pain, blinded temporarily by the lightning response
and the brutality.

The other guard
simply says, “No questions.” I think I figured that out.

God, my lip is
swelling up and the socket of the tooth aches, blood’s dripping from my mouth.
I follow the first guy into the hallway behind the steel doors. It’s a lot
different from the rest of the building; there’s no pretending it’s a doctor’s
office or waiting room.

There are only
doors here, unpainted metal, no windows, and every door has a number stenciled
in white.
 
Bare bulbs light the hall,
make it look like a horror movie. I count the doors, five, ten, fifteen…does it
ever end? What’s in those rooms?

Blood is
trickling down my chin now, but I can’t do anything about it because of the
cuffs. I want to spit, but I’m afraid it might mean another lost tooth. We keep
walking, turn a corner into another identical hallway with more doors…five,
fifteen, twenty-five.

The one in
front of me stops, and the one behind me grabs my shoulder harshly so I don’t
ram into the first guy.

I want to
scream and run, confess, cry like a baby. In my mind, I tear off the cuffs and
shackles, turn the guns on the guards, shoot them, run, pound on doors, find
Carmen. Tears start rolling when I think of her, mingle with the blood from my
mouth.

I try to
breathe, get calm. Panic won’t help me. We stop. The first guy keys in a code
next to a door stenciled with the word Intake. “Step forward into the cubicle
on the left, disrobe, then step into the shower stall adjacent.”
 
I try to read his face, but it’s stone. The
second guy uses a key to unlock the cuffs, bends down and unlocks the shackles,
and he follows me into the room. It feels good to have the chains off, but I
have to fight the urge to run like a rabbit. I’d be shot for sure.