“Are you saying you don’t believe me?” Mike asked, getting Xander’s attention.
“Oh, Mike. If you said that the Pope was the third rapist I’d believe you. Because I know you. That doesn’t make you a witness I can credit.” Tim sounded more tired now.
“What if Cathy--” Mike began desperately.
Tim cut him off abruptly. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this Mike, but the testimony of an emotional fifteen year old girl who is known for crying rape isn’t worth a whole lot to us.”
“Fine!” Mike yelled, angered beyond anything he’d ever thought possible. He slammed the phone back down onto the receiver, then picked it up and slammed it again just to be sure the message got across.
On the other end of the line, Tim let the phone drop to the floor. He buried his forehead into his palms and shook it, now both mentally and physically exhausted. “Those’re the breaks, kid,” he sighed solemnly, then picked up his shiny new Federal badge and wondered exactly what it was good for.
“We goin’ down like that?” Xander grumbled to Mike as they both slipped into their jackets. He was clearly pissed at Tim, all past aid the man had given him pushed aside. This was Cathy they were talking about.
“No fucking way,” Mike spat, a rare curse coming from his lips to punctuate the sentence. “I got a lead I’ll have to go clear across town for. Could take awhile.”
“Need help?” Xander asked, even though he knew Mike would never accept it.
“Naw, no knuckle-bustin’ this time. Strictly recon,” Mike had thrown 80’s street lingo and military speak into that sentence at once. Either of which separately didn’t quite hit the mark coming from him. Together, it was just plain wrong.
“Good,” Xander nodded. “I’m going after Phillips.” His expression was grim, even as he held up the ripped out telephone page for P in Coral Beach.
Mike looked about to protest, then thought better of it. Hopefully, he’d catch the old pervert alone. Should be an easy tag for either of them. “What about Cathy?” he asked, concern finally seeping through his lips.
Xander’s stone gaze softened as he peered up the stairs to where his poor friend slept, no doubt plagued by nightmares of the events of the past days, weeks, and months. He glanced around again, then sighed. “She’ll be fine.”
6020 Temple Ridge Drive, just a thirty-minute sprint to the high school. The home of Dr. Darren Phillips, his name engraved deep into the seeder sign outside.
He stood in his living room, calmly placing orders into the phone that touched his lips. “Yes, she got away. I know, Bram. I know. We need her to be shut up, like the Donaldson girl and that waitress bitch. What do you mean you? Alright, I’ll do it. Just get Allan and bring her here. If she’s not at her place, then she’ll be at Drew’s. Yes, fine. Do what you have to with him.
“We’re going to kill them both anyway.”
The sky had become a dark pink and most of the trees had turned their leaves a bright orange in the past few weeks. The combination of colours looked absolutely gorgeous together, as if someone had taken a paintbrush and a meticulous eye to it. The air all around the buildings practically glowed with the dusk light, from the quaint houses lining each side to the small purple convenience store on the corner that was the only thing that ruined the picture, yet made it real all the same. Let the viewer know that this beauty was completely natural. It was lost on him. Xander hardly even noticed it as he leaned against one of those trees, leaves slowly falling down around him as if he were in some magical, gigantic snow globe. He took a moment to glance at the page in his hand and verify Phillips’ address, then let it go and ignored it as it flapped away in the wind. He glared at the front door expectantly, waiting for something to happen. Wishing for it, too. Silently daring it to burst open in a cloud of smoke and for Phillips, Al and Raine to scramble out of there with guns blazing. Guns that would have little effect on him save to piss him off.
Yeah.
It was exactly that type of fairy tale that he kept telling himself before he even got out of bed in the morning now... And before he went, for that matter. The illusion that he was a twenty-something superhero instead of a fifteen year old with no life who’d barely even kissed a girl. Who cried himself to sleep every night, then woke up to see the blood on his hands and then cried again.
He washed all of those thoughts away, letting the fear swell up inside of him. Like an actor with stage fright, the fear would fuel him. Feed him. Drive him to do what had to be done. For Cathy. For Sara.
If you’re innocent, you’re hurt, or you’re scared: I’ll be there.
He remembered those words from the other night. Somehow they transformed the fear into courage just as the sun went down and he walked over, opening the door to the rapist’s home and delving deep into the belly of the beast.
He expected the door to creek open. The doors always creep open and then a ray of light shines from the door, slitting a line straight through the darkness, where his three opponents would be waiting to take him on one at a time. That was just the way it worked.
In actuality, the doors hinges were quite well oiled. When he opened the front door and stepped quietly into the main hallway, he found that it was actually very
