The Sect (2 page)

On the corner of K and 14
th
Street, a Bentley pulled into the access alley. I stopped walking, calling Jeff’s eye. I had a reason to worry. I’d seen the car many times before in the same area. He was a stranger to me, but he often came around. He usually carried stacks of posters containing my image and affixed them to lampposts and store windows throughout the city. Every week, he’d come around, and every week I’d take the posters down and save them for kindling on colder nights.
 

This time he wasn’t alone.

Dressed in an oxblood red suit, her black hair falling in perfect waves down her shoulders, my mother stepped out of the back of the vehicle. I immediately ducked into the nearest alley, wondering what she was doing here.
 

Jeff broke out of his daze, his eyes darting to mine. “Eh?”

I shook my head with a viscous motion and nodded up the street.

He waved his hand at me, dismissing my fear with a nonchalant attitude that irritated me. “Let them find you. Why do you want to live like this, when you have that?” He pointed to my mother. “That is one mighty fine woman.” He glanced back at me. “What happened to you there? Miss the pretty gene?” He laughed, amused with himself.

His joke was asinine, because I was the spitting image of my mother, having shared very few features with my father.

My eyes widened, pleading with him to help me. I couldn’t go back to her or that life. I couldn’t go back to the reminder of my deferred and destroyed dreams, or the remnants of a tragedy—the agony over what could’ve been.

Jeff ambled down the sidewalk with his cart. I kept my back to the brick exterior wall of the building, discreetly peeking around the bend, and hoped Jeff wouldn’t betray me.
 

“Hey there. What can I do you for?” Jeff spoke to my mother with such a blithe tone it was almost plastic. On a normal basis, the man was severely ornery.

My mother’s warm, light amber complexion greyed slightly as she studied the man before her. She nervously flicked one side of her hair over her shoulder. Her blood red lips curled in disgust. The man beside her held up a poster containing my picture and my name. “Keaton Mara, DOB 1991. Missing Since: July 26, 2015.” Underneath the words was an obscene amount for the reward money. She’d upped the original offering. The offer currently stood at two million.

“Oh, yeah,” Jeff drawled. “Keaton? I’ve seen her before.”

“I know,” my mother stated, her voice clipped. “That’s why we’re here. I’ve had a few people search for her in this area who have said they’ve seen her. I know”—she looked around, but thankfully, her search didn’t land in my direction—“she’s here somewhere.” The catch in her throat was audible; it nearly persuaded me into breaking down.

“She used to stay around here,” Jeff told her, “but she moved onto to…Mt. Vernon Square, I think.”

“Thank you for your time.” My mother nodded and began to leave.

“Hey…uh…don’t I get something for that?”

My mother and the man ignored Jeff, having shut their doors and headed on their way.

I waited until they were out of sight before I approached Jeff.

“You owe me for that one,
Keaton
,” he snarled.

Sighing, I rolled my eyes. I knew exactly what that payback entailed, and it was something I hated doing.

J
EFF
AND
I cased our favorite location for finding white-collar yuppies who were too preoccupied with their phones and tablets to notice someone with nimble fingers had stolen their wallets. On the brink of giving up, Jeff hit me hard on the shoulder and nodded to a blond man with his cell phone close to his ear. Jeff’s touch was never gentle. He defended himself, stating that if he treated me like a “fragile flower” others would become suspicious of my gender.

I shook my head, because something about the situation didn’t feel right, neither did the man. Deep in my gut, I knew he wouldn’t have been the best mark.

 
Obviously not in the mood to be patient, Jeff shoved me forward.
 

Since I didn’t want to ruffle the feathers of a man who—on many occasions—kept me from being physically assaulted, I complied. I approached the stranger from behind as he walked down the street. Keeping my distance, I remained invisible. With his shirt tucked into his slacks, the imprint of his wallet was easily found. I picked up my pace and deftly dug in, slipping his wallet out of his back pocket while crashing against his body. He turned around to scowl at me. I held up my hands in an apology just after shoving his wallet into the pouch of my hoodie. I expected the usual. The cursing or curt looks, but instead, he clamped his hand around my wrist and muttered three words that made me panic. “You’re under arrest.”

The adrenaline kicked in and turned on my survival mode. I stomped on his foot, hard enough to make him loosen his grip on my hand, and ran back to Jeff, but Jeff…no longer stood where I left him. I made a quick right down the alley on the heels of the undercover cop screaming at me to stop.

I never used to be much for athleticism; my mother would never allow it. She thought her only daughter should do pageants and simply accomplish what she thought was enough, an education. Sports equated to injuries and scars. She’d often brush my hair in the mirror and remind me that youth and beauty didn’t last forever; I shouldn’t squander what she gave me. So many things changed once my home became the city streets. Now, escaping and evading became very familiar concepts.

I made a sharp right; a strong pair of arms grabbed me and pulled me into the vestibule of a financial building. My first reaction was to scream, kick, and cry until I took in the man who held me, Jeff.

His dark brown eyes were trained to the window, remaining that way as I searched his face. His unbefitting calm demeanor threw me off. I thought—or assumed—he’d be just as terrified as I was.

When the undercover cop ran right by us, I finally exhaled the breath I’d been holding. Then…came the anger. I stomped my foot, fuming, wanting to shout at Jeff for purposely setting me up.

“Ah, hell.” He dismissively waved at my face and took a few steps back. “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t know the mark was a cop.” He fingered the dirty toothpick in his mouth, crossing one arm in front of his chest. “You ever run track? You’ve got some speed on you, mute.”

Rolling my eyes, I retrieved the wallet from the pouch of my hoodie. Finding it empty, I left the billfold open and showed it Jeff.

He grabbed it from me, wiping the exterior down with the hem of his shirt. Wrapping his grungy plaid shirt around his hand, he removed the credentials, allowing it to all drop to the floor. He pocketed the empty wallet, placing it inside the back pocket of his tattered jeans.

Shrugging while leaving my hands up in the air, I urged him to tell me what we should do next. With the way he glowered at me, it was clear he expected us to rummage through the nearest garbage dumpster.

It would be the third day we would be forced to scavenge for food in the restaurant dumpsters. My stomach couldn’t handle another rotten piece of this or half-eaten piece of that. It was time he set his pride aside and utilized the soup kitchen at the local church. I checked the time through the doors leading to the lobby of building—affixed to an archway that led to the elevators.
 

“No, mute,” Jeff protested, becoming mildly belligerent. “You won’t pay me to go.”

I pointed to myself and shrugged.

His eyes searched mine, appearing to be contemplating whether or not he’d forgo his pride. It was in that moment I saw his face relax from its tense state. I knew he’d realized what I had learned only months earlier; we’d grown to need each other more than either one of us intended to. “All right! All right!” He threw up his hands, his brow furrowing. He raised his hand, shaking a grimy index finger at me. “But the next time you get caught ‘cause you can’t tell a cop from a mark, I’m leaving your ass to work it out with the authorities.”

I furrowed my brow at him, firming my lips in protest.

With a grunt, he brushed past me and nearly allowed the exit door to slam in my face.
 

The line to enter the soup kitchen, in the basement of the church, hadn’t yet gotten out of hand. I spied a woman who I’d met after the first day I’d spent on the streets. Harley was her name and she had more tales to share than Jeff did. She was a drifter because her children put her in a publicly run nursing home. During that time, she was severely mistreated and the son she trusted with her finances had emptied her bank account during her stay.
 

She waved us over, allowing us to cut in line, and presented the butcher knife she stowed underneath her layers of sweaters to anyone who dared to complain. “Never thought that animal would ever allow you here,” she pointedly eyed Jeff with a look of disgust on her face. I never discovered why they hated each other so much. Then again, Jeff wasn’t exactly the model for charm. The first time I’d met him, he had some pretty disparaging things to say to me. Using the knowledge I once deemed as useless when I minored in psychology, I was able to get him to open up and put down his defenses.
 

I nodded to Harley, unable to verbally respond. She nodded back with a knowing smile. After all, it was she who advised me to hide my gender and showed me exactly how to do it successfully.

“You came on the right day. Reven is here.” Her eyes brightened with expectation and wonder.
 

I remembered her stories—and many other women’s tales in passing—when they spoke about a man named Reven. He was supposedly a devout man with a heart of gold who used five-star restaurants to cater food for the soup kitchen on the rare occasion he was in town. I’d never met him, but most people spoke fondly of him. Harley told me that she often sought counsel with him, and his inspirational words were able to lift her out of her emotional hole.
 

Others stated that he chose a select few individuals to live in his sanctuary at a location unknown. It was said that the sanctuary was a place where men and women were rehabilitated to become productive members of society. They were taught skills, provided medical care, food, and shelter during the duration of their stay. At the end of the rehabilitation, they were supposedly given positions in his business or given recommendations to work with other companies. A random woman, who was privy to Harley’s tale, claimed she knew one person who entered the program and made off well; she claimed that it was her good friend Marcia.

 
I couldn’t put much faith into any of the stories about the refuge, because I’d never personally met anyone who returned to deny or confirm any of the details. Nor could anyone else collaborate the story and confirm the name of anyone who was supposedly taken.
 

Most said it was an urban myth and Reven was simply a motivational speaker who traveled across the country, doing his charitable duty to help the less fortunate with his words or good deeds.

Harley believed Reven’s words; that if she continued to carry on, according to his words, she would eventually be selected for the program.

Program. Doctrine. A refuge in a faraway place? It became clear to me what kind of person Reven truly was and what the sanctuary might’ve been. I’d caught glimpses of the pamphlet she carried around with her until the glossy texture of the booklet was worn away. They were musings of a lunatic who took a single passage from the bible and ran with it. I couldn’t be sure, but many of his teachings were entrenched in the idea of carnal pleasure. While the pamphlet was a small sampling of what I assumed was a larger book, I never read far enough to discover if my assumptions were correct.

Harley seemed in a particularly chatty mood while she spoke on and on about Reven. Her praise was often lauded by the other women at our table.
 

Jeff kept his chin to his chest, shoveling food into his mouth with an almost furious gusto. I couldn’t decipher whom he was more upset with, Harley or me.

I cast a passing glance across the basement kitchen. Folding tables were lined up in neat rows and packed with many other people who lived on the street. The meals that were served consisted of: seared seafood, fresh vegetables, and home-style breads. It was either the food or the atmosphere, but either way, there was a spirit of contentment that settled over the crowd. I’d never seen so many smiles or talkative individuals in a soup kitchen before. Everyone was apparently grateful.