“Wait until you’re outside,” a loud, brash CO said from behind strong plexiglass.
“Ah, keep your pants on. I was just seeing how it felt in my lips,” Brock said. He sucked on it, eager to light it. Gilbert collected a chain with a pentagram medallion and placed it around his neck. “You were into some dark shit, weren’t you, Sanchez?”
He only responded with a smile, thinking back to the times he would spend in the woods, killing small rodents. He’d strip down and cover himself in their blood, believing it imbued him with some supernatural power. If he’d only had a chance to go through that high school, he would have put a few teachers and students in their place. Maybe now he’d get a chance to go through with it.
Five minutes later, Marko returned, ready to escort them out of the building and down to the gates.
It felt good to be outside, smelling the morning air. “You know these other guys?” Gilbert asked.
“Six of them,” Brock replied as they walked in front of Marko. “A couple are from Gustine, a few from other towns in the area. One of them says they know a guy who’s making waves in the town.”
“Who?”
“Bill Manning. Otherwise known as Spider.”
Sanchez nodded. “So you got family to return to?”
“Me? No. My family died a long while ago, kid.”
“What about you, Deshawn?”
“A brother but he’s in San Francisco.”
“So what are your plans?”
“To get laid, drink, and enjoy my freedom,” Brock said, slapping DeShawn’s back. “How’s that sound?”
“Good to me. Maybe I’ll hook up with this Spider fella. See what his deal is.”
As Gilbert got closer to the gate, the cogs of his mind turned over. He’d always had big ideas but few people to share them with, and those he had, had turned on him. But these guys were different. They didn’t sit in judgment of him. They were cut from the same cloth. They knew that to get what you wanted you had to take it. To get things done you had to take extreme measures. They were not afraid of a little blood nor did they shy from taking risks. In many ways, in his short stint in the facility, he’d found his tribe, the people he belonged to, those who understood even if they did think he was a little strange.
As the gates were opened by guards, Marko gave them their marching orders. “I look forward to seeing you gentlemen back here, real soon, especially you, Sanchez.”
Gilbert turned and threw up the bird at him as soon as he was outside. “Not before I see you. Hey, maybe I’ll visit you. You still live on Fairview Avenue, right?”
Marko sneered. “You little fuck!”
Gilbert laughed as he walked away. The truth was he could drop by his family home if he wanted to and pay him back for that beating he’d given him inside, but he’d save that treat for later. He needed to assess the situation. See what was what in town. Find this Spider fella. But before then, there were others he needed to visit first, one in particular, the one who’d been the sole reason he was inside.
ONE Colby
Merced County, California
Seven days after the event
Colby Riker felt that these were his final breaths. What little energy remained from trying to get free was gone. He was nothing but a lump of meat exposed to the California air. Birds had shit on him. One or two landed and moved down his arms, their tiny claws raking his skin. Some tried to get close to his face and peck out his eyes, but even the slightest movement scared them away.
He groaned.
Now all he felt was pain.
Unbearable agony.
He might have died sooner had it not been for the rain. After two days without water, his tongue was dry and swollen, his lips cracked by the noonday heat. When the first droplets from heaven fell, it was a welcome relief. He’d wanted to lift his head back, but a wooden post was in the way.
Arms outstretched in the cross pose, his wrists, chest, thighs, and ankles were restrained.
He stank to high heaven.
Without food, his bowels had cleared, maybe twenty-four ago; he’d lost count of how long he’d been hanging here. Urine had flowed, trailing down, warming his cold legs. Through swollen eyes, he looked out across the field to a small road that they’d brought him in on. He remembered the tan truck, laughter, the smell of alcohol and fists striking him before being tied to the cross, and being left in deep in the middle of the field, so far out that even if someone was to see him, they wouldn’t look twice.
They’d draped an old coat over him, placed a straw hat on his head, and left him in jeans and boots. Except this method of hiding or humiliating him was what had kept him from dying sooner.
Through daylight hours, he drifted in and out of consciousness. The warmth of the sun keeping him back from the edge of eternity. The nights were awful. The temperature would drop, and after it rained, well, his body hadn’t stopped shivering.
Move. Try to move. He’d told himself this time and time again. His brain, that last piece of a will to survive, never gave up. But he couldn’t escape, the rope was too tight. Painful muscle cramps had set deep into the middle of his shoulders from having his arms stretched apart and unable to move.
Festering sores on his wrists attracted flies.
Tension, aching, it all swirled together, an agonizing cocktail that never ended.
It was strange how the mind worked under duress. Staring down at the soil beneath him, he’d seen worms wiggling in and out of the surface, seemingly growing larger before his very eyes. They weren’t real. It was a hallucination, but he didn’t know it at the time. A lack of food, water, and sleep had crippled common sense. The brain was shutting down, drifting across the
