Stolen Lives : The Lives Trilogy Book 1 (21 page)

“That hurts!” 

“Sorry, I’ll go softer,” Brett apologized. 

Brett finished wiping Tim off, threw the wipes into the waste basket and then stepped over to the man on the floor and said, “You like the nightstick, don’t you, Fuck Head?”

The cop glared at him but made no sound.

“I’m going to come back, and we’ll see how much you like it.”

He stood, looked at Pete and said, “We have to get the rest of the guys safe before the guards wake up.”

“How do you want to do this?” Jamie asked Pete.

“Skip gets the kids; you and I watch the doors.”

“I’ll get the guys because they don’t know you.  You two watch the doors.  That other guy looks scared,” Brett said.

“We’re all nervous, Kid,” Jamie said.  “Foolish not to be.”

“Do either of you have clothes or something to put on?” Pete asked.

Brett glared at him.  “Well gees . . . I guess we forgot to put on our fuckin’ tuxedos!” Tears spilled out of his eyes. “You think I like runnin’ around like this?  What do you think I’ve been doing for the last two years . . . Fuck Head!”  The boy angrily wiped tears out of his eyes.  “You think we
like
this?”

“Kid, I’m sorry.  I just . . .” Pete apologized.

“Shut the fuck up, Asshole, and do your job.  We wanna go home.”

“Brett, they’re trying to help,” Tim said softly, wiping some tears from his own eyes.

Ignoring the two officers, Brett asked, “Timmy, can you walk?”

Tim pushed himself off the bed and stiffly moved first one leg, then the other off the bed and stood, leaning with his hands on the nightstand.  Brett stepped over and took one of Tim’s arms and laid it across his shoulder, holding around the waist to help him walk.

“Bring the key and follow me,” Brett said to the two officers.  “But first, lock this asshole in.  Make sure Butch is locked up too,” he said already moving out of the room and down the hall with Tim leaning on him.

“Put me in Ian’s room,” Tim said.  “Get all the other guys except Johnny and the new kid, Stephen.  Get them last.”

“You mean the other new kid, Mike.”

“No.  You’ll need Stephen to get Mike.  Mike won’t know you, but he’ll recognize Stephen.  That way, he’ll go with you.”

*                                                        *                                                        *

“Ronnie, we’re missing a guard,” Albrecht said.

“I heard.  You want me there or here?”

“There, but be ready.”

Moving low, away from the door, Albrecht moved to the window and peered out.  He tried looking as far left and right as he could.

“Paul, stay low and get to the window.  What do you see?”

Just as Albrecht had done, Gates moved to the window, moved the curtain, and that’s when a gun barked, and the window shattered.

*                                                        *                                                        *

Pete stood guard at the back door, while Jamie watched the front.  Skip Dahlke went into the control room and videotaped everything he could.  He found recording equipment and DVDs – dozens of them.  He catalogued them, gave each of them a number and placed them into paper bags and then stored them in the black duffle bag he had brought along.

After he did all he could in the control room, he went back into Tim’s room and began collecting DNA traces from the filthy sheets and the soiled wipes from the garbage can, cataloguing them as he had done with the DVDs in the control room.

Brett ran from room to room waking the other boys and escorting them to Ian’s room where they would stay until they left the building.  Some sat on the bed, while others sat leaning against the wall.  They were confused and scared, but hopeful.  The only two boys left were Johnny Vega and Mike Erickson.  Brett went to Johnny’s room and woke him up gently.

“Johnny, we’re going home.  You need to get up and come with me, but we have to be quiet, and you have to come now.”

Johnny raised himself up, tried to smile and began to cough.  He was pale, sweaty and very weak.  In fact, he looked worse than he had in the past few days.  Unless they got him out today, Brett didn’t know if he’d make it.

“Johnny, we have to move . . . now!  The guards will be up soon,” Brett said.

Johnny pushed himself up off the bed, and with Brett’s help, moved slowly down the hall to Ian’s room.  When they reached the room, Brett lowered him to a position next to Tim, who took him into his arms and held him.  Johnny laid his head on Tim’s shoulder, and together, they wept.  Brett took a look at him and Tim and at the other boys who stared back at him.  A few were crying.  All were scared.

“Guys, we’re going home.”  But even as he said it, he didn’t know if he believed it.  “Stephen, I need your help.  Let’s get Mike.”

Stephen got up, and the two boys ran on tiptoes down to the end of the hallway.  Pete saw them coming and met them before they got there.

“Is Mike in the last room,” he turned and pointed, “There?”

Brett nodded suspiciously.  “Why?”

“Because I don’t think he’s alone.”

*                                                        *                                                        *

“Paul’s down . . . Paul’s down,” Nathan yelled.  “Head shot!”

“Fuck!” Albrecht swore.  “Ronnie, the shot came from one o’clock from my position.  Circle from behind, from opposite the courtyard.”

“On my way,” Desotel said breathlessly.

Albrecht pulled out his cell and dialed up Chet in Chicago.

“Get the cavalry moving . . . now!  Paul Gates was shot.  Head wound.  Don’t know his status.”

He didn’t wait for an answer but closed the cell and went back to the window.  A shot broke glass and splintered the back wall behind him.  The walls were thin, the doors cheap, and for all he knew, the bullet was still traveling.

“Ronnie, what’s your twenty?” Albrecht asked.

No answer, which meant that Desotel was close to the target, looking for the shooter.  To help him out, Albrecht tossed the curtain near the window without getting up.  Just like that, a shot rang out throwing the curtain up in the air and piercing the back wall.

“Drop it!” Albrecht heard Desotel shout.

Two shots rang out in rapid succession.

“Shit . . . I’m hit . . . I think I got him, but I’m hit,” Ronnie said.

“How bad?” Albrecht asked.

“I spun him, and he’s down . . . can’t see him . . . I’m down.”

“Ronnie, how bad?” Kaupert asked.

“Bleeding . . . hurts like a whore!”

Coffey moved to the window opposite Albrecht and peered out.  No shots were fired.

“Gotta take a chance, Tom,” Earl said. “Man down.”

Albrecht knew he was right, especially not knowing how badly Ronnie was shot.  Somehow, he . . . they had to get out of the room and to Desotel without getting shot.  That is, if Ronnie didn’t finish him off.

“Nathan, can you get out of your room and go left away from the shooter?”

“Yeah . . . can do,” Kaupert said, more determined than scared.

“I’m going to go right,” Albrecht said.  “Earl, lay down cover fire if you need to.  Any movement, fire!”

Albrecht breathed slowly in, then slowly out gathering his thoughts, getting ready.

“Nathan, on my count . . . one . . . two . . . now!”

As Coffey leveled his semi-automatic rifle out of what was left of the window, Nathan and Albrecht sprinted from their rooms.  Nothing or no one moved.

*                                                        *                                                        *

“Stephen, go back to the room and shut the door.  Don’t say anything to the guys,” Brett said.

“You’re going with him,” Pete said.

“Listen to me.  We don’t have time.  The other guards will be here soon,” Brett said, watching Stephen’s bare butt disappear down the hall.

Pete began to swear at the boy, but Brett interrupted him.

“Listen, just listen,” Brett said urgently, but quietly.  “Mike wasn’t the one they wanted.  It was Stephen.  Guards aren’t allowed to use us.  We’re just for the men.  So sometimes, they get a kid like Mike and use him for a couple of days.”

He stopped and pointed to the bloody wall where empty chains and handcuffs hung from the ceiling, and the small grill that was filled with cold ashes and a branding iron.

“After they’re done with the kid, they whip the shit out of him, sometimes brand him, and then if he’s still alive, they kill him.  This is done in front of us to teach us a lesson.”

Pete put his hand up to his face, rubbed his jaw, and then looked back at Brett.

“We need to do this my way, and we need to do it quick before the rest of the guards come, or no one will leave here alive,” Brett said.

Pete looked at Jamie at the far end of the hallway.  His expression was unreadable.  He looked at Skip Dahlke and got the same expression, which was nothing at all.

“Keep the gun in your back.  Unbutton your shirt about halfway down and pull out one side.  Unzip your pants,” Brett said yanking out Pete’s shirt.  “You have to make it look like you and I just . . . you know.”

“Fuck no!”

Brett didn’t listen to him.  Instead, he picked up Pete’s hand and put it on top of his head, closing it into a fist.

“Grab a handful of my hair.  When we get into the room, throw me on the bed.  That way, I’m out of the way, and I can protect Mike.  You tell the shithead in there that you wanted to get rough with me, but Butch wouldn’t let you.  You tell him that Butch said you can do anything you want with Mike.  You tell the guard that if he wants, he can have me.  When he makes his move, you have the gun.”

Pete dropped his hand to his side and shook his head slowly, first looking at Brett and then at Jamie.

“This isn’t going to work,” Pete said.

Brett grabbed his hand again, placed it on his head, crying now.

“Please, we don’t have time!  Trust me!”

“Jesus Christ Almighty!” Pete said.

“He hasn’t been here in a long time.  He’s packed up and moved away.  We have you, me, Jamie and that other guy.  That’s it.”

Pete clenched his teeth and grabbed a fistful of hair.

“You forgot your zipper.  Pull it down.  You have to act.  It’s our only chance.  Honest!”

Pete took one last look at Jamie, shook his head and lowered his zipper.  Then, playing the part of pervert, he yanked Brett down the hall towards the room and instead of using the key, knocked on the door.

“Give me a minute,” a voice said from the other side.

Pete heard the door unlocking and it opened.  The first thing he saw was a .45 pointed at him.

“Hey, hey, hey . . . lower it, Man.  Butch said I could have some time with that kid in there.  You know . . . kind of rough.  He said I can’t be rough with this kid.”

He shook Brett by the hair, lifting him off his feet.  Brett reached up and slapped at Pete’s hand.  The door opened wider and the man stepped to the side to let them enter.

“Kid, you know better than to hit a client,” the skinny man with long red hair said, lowering his gun.

Pete threw Brett onto the bed, and the man with red hair turned to watch him land, almost but not quite on top of Mike.  Brett scrambled to a position covering the other boy, cradling his head in his arms.  As the man turned to watch the two boys, Pete grabbed the wrist and arm of the younger man and slammed his hand on the door frame once . . . twice . . . three times and the gun dropped to the floor.  As Pete twisted the man’s arm behind his back, his right foot kicked the gun out into the hallway, while his left foot and leg kicked the man’s left leg out to the side, sending the man to the floor with Pete on top of him.

Pete saw movement behind him and felt a hand reaching for his gun, but he couldn’t go after the gun or the hand because to do so, would be to lose his advantage over the younger man.  He heard the gun cock.  It was loud.  Far louder than it should have been.  Perhaps he only imagined how loud it was.

“Stop moving or I’ll shoot.”

Pete and the younger man stopped wrestling, though Pete still had a good, solid hold on him.  He turned and saw Brett holding the gun in a classic shooter’s crouch: both hands on the gun, legs spread at shoulder width.

“Cuff him,” Brett said.

The man with long red hair smirked and said, “Like, you’re gonna shoot me.”

Then he laughed.

“I’m holding a .45 Beretta.  It carries eight rounds in a cartridge in the handle.  Let’s pretend it’s loaded with hollow points.  If I cluster three shots center mass, they’ll enter your scrawny ass about the size of a quarter and come out the other side the size of a baseball.  You don’t have a chance.”

He paused to let that sink in.