Friday, November 13, 1998

The prisoner transport ferry moved across the choppy surface of the Serpent Sea with the grace of a stumbling drunk. Bitter wind swept through David Corbin’s hair, chilling his neck, sweeping into the sleeves of his black hoodie. His leather jacket would have kept him fairly warm in a place such as this, but he had lost it during the chaotic events of the past few days.

David forced enough will into his neck to lift his head and look out on the ocean water. The dark fluid moved with a strange slithering motion that made his stomach ill. In the near distance, the Galtaia Penitentiary rose into the cloudy night sky like a black pillar. His final destination.

David hung his head back down as he sat cross-legged near the edge of the ferry, metal cuffs locking his hands behind his back. His chin stung from the wound Jerad’s cane had inflicted on it, and his shoulder ached from the gunshot wound he received back in North Ryshard.

What pained him the most, though, was that he knew this road led to his end. Carrie Green was dead. With her death went all the strands of hope he had been holding onto. All the drive, all the rush, all the determination to reach his goal of finding and rescuing Carrie were gone. The void her demise left in his soul filled with bitterness and the beginnings of insanity.

Nothing mattered at this point. Nobody escaped Galtaia. Neither did David have any inclination to escape. Veronica was already in the penitentiary or following behind them on another ferry. He accepted his fate—death at the hands of his enemies or at the whim of whatever diseases swarmed through the facility, if he lived long enough to get a disease.

Agent Ruinstar Parks— the man responsible for David’s capture—stood behind him, eating a chili dog. The smell swept across David’s nose every now and then, overriding the aroma of ocean water. His stomach grumbled. He hadn’t eaten since…he couldn’t remember. Maybe since the diner in North Ryshard?

David heard Parks crumple the wrapper from the chili dog and felt the balled-up trash hit him in the back of the head.

“Not the best chili dog I’ve ever had, but satisfying. Too bad they only had one of them, huh? Otherwise I would have gotten you something to eat.”

David ignored the snide comment. He tried his best to ignore everything that came out of Parks’s mouth. The hour it had taken them to get to this point across the ocean had been riddled here and there with Parks’s witty comments on the cold weather, the irony of how David was about to be placed in the lion’s den of criminals he had put away, and other noteworthy anecdotes from Parks’s litany of criticism toward David’s time as a hero.

If he cared to live, David would have made a compelling argument to Parks about how according to Anaisha’s laws, Parks couldn’t just take David to a prison facility for questioning or imprisonment without a fair trial in a court of law. But Parks was a crooked and despicable officer of the law, so what else could be expected from him? The only time David knew that this law had been breeched was in the case of Mr. Big’s apprehension months ago. Until his capture, Mr. Big had been labeled a terrorist according to Enera’s and Anaisha’s laws. His swift punishment was a life sentence in the Galtaia Penitentiary.

The place David was going to die.

Not only was Mr. Big there, but so were a dozen or so other big-name criminals David and his friends had put away during the last few years. David had only been to Galtaia one other time before, about six months earlier, to help escort Mr. Big there. Returning under these circumstances was a death order. He wouldn’t survive one night in there.

The tall prison pillar towered over them as the ferry drew closer to the dock. Guards in thick black armor stood at attention, waiting for the ferry’s passengers. David wondered if they had been signaled ahead of time by Parks. A small hope sparked in him that maybe someone in the place would stand up for the laws that were being broken. That hope dashed on the rocks of the shore when David realized that he didn’t really want to escape. Carrie was dead. He would rather face his own death than have to face hers.

The ferry slammed against the rickety wooden dock, causing the wood to creak and splinter. One of the guards tied some rope to the ferry, keeping it in place as Parks tapped David’s back with his shoe.

“Get up. Time to see your new home.”

David willed himself to stand, fighting the fleeting thought that he could put himself out of the coming misery simply by jumping off the vessel. The serpents would make quick work of him.

Parks shoved him off the ferry and onto the dock.

“State your reason for arriving here,” one of the guards demanded. His eyes wandered to Parks’s tie, which had been cut in half by Veronica’s blade back in the stalus only hours earlier.

Parks ignored the man’s stare and pulled a folded piece of paper from his suit jacket, handing it to the man. “Orders from the President of Enera. David Corbin is to be put under full guard.”

The guard—a short and very stocky man, especially in the layers of armor he wore—took the paper and unfolded it. His eyes scanned the document while David wondered where in the world Parks could have gotten anything from the President issuing David’s demise in Galtaia Penitentiary. The President had once been a good friend of David’s. To his knowledge, that hadn’t changed.

With a heavy sigh, the guard handed the paper to the female guard on his left. “Check the authenticity of this, will you? I doubt the President of Enera would issue David Corbin’s detainment here.”

“Doubt it all you want,” Parks snapped. “That’s an official seal from the Office of the President.”

The female guard looked over the document and then nodded, handing it back to the first guard. “He’s right, that’s an official seal as far as I can tell.”

The man handed the paper back to Parks. “Very well, we’ll take him in.”

“Not so fast.” Parks waved the paper at the man. “This states I have full jurisdiction over the prisoner. Means I’m in charge of him until I decide to put him in your custody.”

The guard appeared at a loss for words. He looked David in the eyes, as if apologizing. “Very well.”

Parks shoved David across the dock, moving him in between the standing guards toward the steel door of the prison tower. “Bet you didn’t think I could get the President to pass off on this, did you?”

“You didn’t,” David whispered.

“Oh, but I did. You underestimate my sphere of influence.”

David turned back toward the ocean to see if he could spot Veronica, but only found murk and waves.

“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll see Veronica soon enough. I promise you that.”

They approached the large steel door and waited as the guard standing to the left of the entrance punched in a code in the green glowing control panel near the door. With a hiss and a stream of clicks and clacks, the steel door began sliding up, opening to David’s personal abyss.

“Take a deep breath of the fresh air out here, David. This is the last time you’re going to breathe it in. You played a fine game, but in the end, I am the winner and you are the loser.”

With the door opened wide, a tall and broad corridor stretched before David and Agent Parks. They started down it, toward a chain-link gate at the very end. David noticed splattered blood on the concrete walls and floors. Up on the top of the walls stood guards every few feet, rifles poised on the two men entering the facility. David had always admired whoever had designed the penitentiary. Escape was nearly impossible. Even if someone managed to get as far as this hallway, he—or she—was a fish in a barrel.

When they reached the gate, Parks approached a small window where a guard sat behind a computer terminal.

“State the name of the prisoner.”

Parks grinned. “David Corbin.”

“Did you say David Corbin?”

“I didn’t stutter.”

The man looked at David through the bullet-proof glass and shook his head. “What’s this world coming to?” he mumbled. “All right, drug him up and we’ll take him back.”

David had done his best not to think about this part on the way here. Every prisoner brought into Galtaia was drugged before being taken back into the main facility. This was to prevent him from memorizing the path, making escape even more difficult. The guard slid a small syringe through a sliding metal delivery drawer.

Parks took it, a wide and evil grin on his face. “This is my favorite part, David. Just relax, close your eyes and enjoy the ride.”

David did close his eyes. Carrie’s death flashed in his mind. Something pricked his neck. All consciousness slipped away from him.

***

Across the way, back in South Ryshard where David’s nightmares had come true only hours earlier, Sandra Meldramine and Kimberly Sebastien both waited in separate jail cells. After their arrest at the Prestige Hotel in South Ryshard, they had been taken by Anaishan Sentries to the Second Street jail and told simply to await Agent Ruinstar Parks’s return before they would discover their ultimate fate. Sandra had been stripped of her badge and uniform, leaving her in black khakis and a white T-shirt—not an ideal wardrobe for winter.

Sandra stared through the bars into the cell next to hers. Kimberly lay on the stone bench, apparently sleeping, her blonde hair draped over her face like beaded curtains hiding an ancient gypsy. The girl’s face looked so worn and weary from the conflicts of the last couple days. Sandra regretted her own part in the games that Parks had decided to play on the poor teens but felt some relief in her decision to side with the teens in the end, before her own capture.

On the other side of the room, a man with long brown hair that resembled a horse’s mane stood against the bars of his cell, staring at Sandra. His eyes, narrow and beady, seemed to be focused solely on her. She only looked at him briefly, afraid he was someone she had put away in the past. Although this jail center was only used to contain those who were to go on to trial and possibly Galtaia Penitentiary, many returned here numerous times because of a pattern of crime and violence.

Sandra stared at the floor of her cell, curious about what would happen to her and Kimberly. Parks was out of control and would no doubt make sure Sandra paid for her betrayal. Kimberly was collateral damage. And Sandra’s son, whom Parks had evidence against, was sure to wind up in prison—or dead—in the very near future. How a man like Parks had gained so much control over so many lives remained a mystery to Sandra.

What she did understand was that she had to get out of here. She had to escape, find Parks and make sure he didn’t hurt her son. While she was at it, she would have to make sure he didn’t go after the teens anymore. Sandra had no clue where David and Veronica were. Did they stop the wedding? Did David save the day like he had so many times in the past?

“Hey!”

Sandra looked up at the beady-eyed man. She didn’t answer him, just watched as he stuck his arm through the bars of his cell and pointed at her.

“Hey! Hey, I’m talking to you!”

Sandra glanced over to Kimberly, who shifted around on the stone bench. She didn’t look like she was waking, just tossing and turning from more nightmares. Sandra heard her talking in her sleep earlier, something about a pair of red eyes. Who knew what abysses were swirling around in the girl’s mind?

“I know you,” the beady-eyed man said.

Sandra glanced at him.

“Yeah, I know you. I know who you are.”

“You don’t know anything,” Sandra retorted.

“Yeah, I do. I know you. I know who you are. You put me away a while ago.”

“So what?”

“So what?! So what? You put me away and they took my kid from me. My kid!”

Sandra stood to her feet and moved near the bars that separated her cell and Kimberly’s. She turned her back to the man, hoping he would stop talking to her.

“You turn your back on me, you pig? You’re on my turf now. You’re in my house, and in my house, we do things my way.”

Last I checked, you were behind bars, Sandra thought to herself.

“Kimberly Sebastien.”

Sandra turned in time to see two people enter the room from the main hallway—an Anaishan Sentry in trademark blue armor and an old woman dressed in a white blouse and long black skirt that almost touched the floor. As they both approached Kimberly’s cell, the sentry used a set of keys to unlock the door.

“What are you doing?” Sandra asked.

The old woman turned toward her. “Mind your own business.”

The sentry walked into Kimberly’s cell and grabbed the sleeping girl by the hair, pulling her off the bench. She was pushed against the wall before she had time to awaken properly from her nightmares. The old woman stepped into the cell, sliding her bifocals from the tip of her nose back up to the bridge. With hands clasped behind her back, she stood and studied Kimberly for a few moments.

Sandra suddenly realized who the old woman was. Madame Nightshade, operator of the Nightshade Orphanage.

“Ms. Sebastien,” Madame Nightshade said, “under orders from the city of South Ryshard, you are being transferred into my care.”

“What? What are you talking about? What’s going on?”

The sentry grabbed Kimberly by the arm. “Kimberly Sebastien, you are hereby ordered into the custody of Madame Nightshade and the Nightshade Orphanage.”

Madame Nightshade scanned Kimberly’s attire, shaking her head. “We will of course need to dress you in more adequate clothing.”

“You leave her alone!” Sandra shouted.

The old woman approached the bars between the two cells. “Officer Sandra Meldramine. How good to see you again. I find it interesting, though somewhat unsurprising, to see you on the other side of these bars. I always knew it would only be a matter of time before the consequences of your despicable actions caught up with you.”

“You don’t need Kimberly. Leave her here, with me.”

Madame Nightshade laughed. “You must be joking. You are in a jail cell, by no means in a state fit enough to take care of a young girl such as Kimberly. No. She will be given shelter at Nightshade, where she will be raised, educated, until the day of her eighteenth birthday, at which time she will be released back into the world with the skills necessary to succeed.”

“Home? Your little establishment is simply an asylum for your sick and twisted minions.”

Madame Nightshade touched her hand to her chest and gasped. “Asylum? Asylum, no. A place of learning, yes. A place of refuge from the cold, dark world of Anaisha, yes.”

The sentry pulled Kimberly out of the cell by her arm and started moving her toward the hallway.

“Sandra! Sandra, help! I don’t want to go with them! I don’t want to go with them!”

The sentry and Kimberly disappeared into the hallway, Kimberly’s screams eventually dying out in the distance.

Madame Nightshade stared into Sandra’s eyes. The old woman’s hair was crafted into a ratty nest, the black metal of bobby pins revealing themselves in random areas like leeches. “You take care of yourself, Officer Meldramine. I hope—and warn you—that this is the last time we see each other.”

“It won’t be.”

Madame Nightshade smiled and left the room.

The beady-eyed man across the way grinned. “Now it’s just you and me, officer.”

***

When David opened his eyes, the bright lights shining directly in his face made his headache even worse. His face felt somewhat flush, and his muscles ached. Reality swept in like a flood, reminding him where he was. Blinking rapidly, he managed to purge the blur from his vision enough to tell that he was in an interrogation room of some sort. The walls were black, as was the floor. The aluminum table in front of him took him back to the detention facility in Tindall, and he actually wondered for a brief moment if he had traveled back in time. No, he answered himself. No, those days are long gone.

He struggled with the handcuffs, squeezing his wrists together behind the chair, but it was no use. He knew he couldn’t break out of the cuffs to begin with, and with his sore muscles, he knew he would only bring himself more pain by trying.

He found the silence in the room comforting. With all of the chaos the week had imposed, with the run-ins from other-worldly creatures, the near-death experiences and the seemingly unending journey that ended with the death of a loved one, he relished the quiet. Maybe he could even find a little bit of peace with it, at least enough to carry him to his own end.

David closed his eyes and bowed his head toward the floor, soaking in the silence, soaking in his solitary condition. The door opened and slammed shut. The noise did nothing to jar David from his meditation. He knew it was Parks who walked in, knew it like he knew Veronica was in the penitentiary somewhere.

“Mr. Corbin.” He felt Parks grab a chunk of his hair and lift his head up. David’s eyes opened slowly. Warm breath fell on his right ear. “Now you have no choice but to listen to me when I talk to you.” Parks let go of David’s hair and walked around to the other side of the table. “This isn’t like before. I’m through playing games with you.” The man threw a manila folder down on the table and smirked. “This isn’t Tindall. Inside this envelope are the papers I need to make this place your permanent home. I know you were out of it when I brought you back here, but some of your old friends already know of your presence here. It’s starting quite a ruckus throughout the facility.”

David sat silently, staring blankly at the agent.

“See, in the room next door to me, I have Veronica restrained just like you. She has no way of fighting back, no way of causing me any trouble. This gives me the perfect opportunity to return to the issue of the necklace. You’re going to tell me where that necklace is, or I’m going to hurt Veronica.”

David kept silent. He had no doubt Veronica was indeed in the room next to his. He could do nothing for her, though. She would have to accept the fact, like he had, that this was the end of things.

Parks rushed around the table and grabbed David by the front of his hoodie, lifting him from the chair and slamming him into the wall. “Do you wanna play more games? I know you love Veronica, if not as a girlfriend, then as a sister.” Parks pulled him from the wall and slammed him against it again, this time with more force. Pain resonated through David’s back, leaking down into his tailbone and up into his collarbone. He endured it, allowing his rage for Parks’s actions to build up into something he could use. If he was going to die in this place, he would die trying to kill this man for stealing his freedom.

Agent Parks moved his face close to David’s, his nose almost touching the young man’s. His slanted eyes stared into David’s weary pupils, possibly searching for some remnant of fear or shock. “Don’t you understand what I’m saying?” Spit splattered across David’s face as the man’s yellow teeth grinned before him. “I’m going to hurt her. She may die unless I get the location of that blasted necklace from you! Where did you put it? Where did you put that cursed necklace?!”

David bit his tongue as the man thrashed him against the wall over and over again. David’s muscles screamed in pain. His stomach soured, and his throat tickled with the onset of vomit.

“You’ll regret your silence!” Parks released him and turned his back while he ran his hand through his short black hair. “You want me to believe you’re a tough nut to crack, huh? You probably think I’ll back down if you call my bluff. You believe this is a game you have any chance of winning? What you don’t get is that you’ve already lost.”

Parks turned around to face David. “You’re at your limit. Your friends are scattered. I have you cornered. And the woman you loved is dead. Dead. Don’t you understand that? Don’t you grasp the concept? Her body, her heart has stopped functioning. Those eyes of hers won’t look upon you ever again, those lips…I wish I could have—”

Before Parks had a chance to blink, David’s head was in the man’s chest with such force it sent Parks backward over the table. The man’s head slammed into the concrete floor on the other side.

His back on the floor, Parks took a deep breath and clutched his chest. “G—”

David wasted no time leaping across the table and slamming his knees down into the man’s chest.

“Ahh!”

“If you ever talk about her like that again…”

“Guar—” Parks gasped for air.

David pressed his knees harder into the man’s chest. “…I’ll kill you.”

“Guards!”

David turned as the door swung open and two guards rushed in. They pulled him up by the arms while Parks slowly wobbled to his feet, grasping his chest with his right hand. He pointed his left hand at David as the guards held him in the doorway. “Take him…eh…take him to…” He took another deep breath, squeezing his eyes in pain. “Take him to the cell I assigned for him and bring me the girl. Now!”

The guards pulled David through the doorway and down a dimly lit corridor to a secured steel door at the end. Waving a pass card at the small box to the side of the door and submitting to a retinal scan, the guards opened the door and led David down another hallway, this one lit up with bright fluorescent lighting from the ceiling. David squinted at the harsh illumination, wishing he could just crawl into a hole and die.

Administrative rooms lined the hallway on both sides. David peered into each one he passed, wondering if he would find a familiar face that would speak up about the injustice of his presence here in the first place. He only caught sidelong glances from officers and staff who were on phone calls or shuffling through paperwork or typing in computers. Nobody said a thing.

David recognized one woman in a business suit. She was on a phone call and turned her gaze away from David when she spotted him in the hallway. When David had come to this place to escort Mr. Big to his cell, that woman—Anita Gray—had been the one responsible for taking care of the paperwork overriding the Anaisha law that required a fair trial. She had worked with David to make sure Big stayed behind bars for the rest of his life.

And now she ignored him. Did anyone question why David was in Anaisha’s most notorious prison? Apparently it didn’t matter to these people. David figured they were either paid to keep quiet, threatened to stand down or were just concerned with nothing more than themselves.

A door at the end of the hallway led to another hallway, and another hallway and another hallway. The administrative rooms tapered off to hallways that were just that—hallways. No rooms. No doors. Just corridor after corridor of black concrete walls and black concrete flooring. The guards said nothing, did nothing but restrain David by the arms and escort him through the facility. David had never been aware there were so many corridors, so much nothingness in the penitentiary.

Eventually, they approached a steel door with two eye scanners. Both guards escorting David followed their routine with the eye scans and pass cards and then opened the door to a room with no lighting. They threw David into the wall and slammed the door shut.

He fell to the floor, lying on his side as the darkness swallowed his mind and with it, the last spark of hope that someone might attempt to defend him like he had defended so much of Anaisha in the past.

But nobody came to his rescue. Nobody offered a gentle hand to help him to his feet. He lay against the cold concrete, his spirit weary, his soul crushed.

“Hello, David,” a voice came over a speaker in the room.

That voice.

“It’s been a while.”

David sat up and leaned his back against the wall. He saw nothing in the darkness. But that voice…

“I see Parks granted my request to have words with you. I doubted I would ever get the chance to speak to you again, but here you are.”

Mr. Big. David waited a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but he still saw nobody in the empty room.

“I’m on the other side of the wall, David, in case you were wondering. I know the darkness can confuse many great heroes.”

“Tria’na,” David cursed. The language, the word, was one he learned years earlier when he and his friends traveled halfway across Anaisha to put a stop to one of Mr. Big’s artifices. The people of the Crysin Forest used the language to speak to one another, yet the very language itself had never really been spoken outside their lands. Loosely translated, the word described a mentally challenged bastard child, but the accent David threw into his pronunciation gave it a much deeper, much more crude definition.

“That’s not how gentlemen speak to each other, David. I would like to think that after all this time, maybe you and I could finally be friends. We’ve always had so much in common but never really stopped to recognize what.”

“I have nothing in common with you.”

“Is that so? We both want the same thing—the world. We both want admiration and adoration from those around us. We both once loved the same person, only in different ways. Or have you already blinded yourself to the past?”

Jennifer.

David had never forgotten Jennifer. She ran so long ago, at least it seemed so long ago. Ran away to find her parents in Crystal City, leaving him behind in the dust in different ways than Carrie had left him.

“David, I want to talk to you about the season of change of which we are on the cusp. I know you and I didn’t really get along in the past. What hurt me the most was that you wouldn’t even agree to disagree. We both are men of vision. Neither of us can deny that fact. We both have different ways of looking at the world, of seeing how it can be shaped to our own visions of what we think it should be.

“I come to you asking if you would like to ally yourself with me. We can both work together to get out of this wretched place, and then maybe our new partnership could extend outside these grimy walls. What do you say? Can you forgive a man his past mistakes and give him another chance, a chance to prove his real worth to a world that discarded him long ago?”

“Partnering with you is the very last thing I would ever do.”

Silence. In the darkness, David could now make out a discolored surface on the wall to his right. One-way glass.

“You and I clashed to the very end, and you won. You obtained the victory. When the day was done and you went to sleep in your bed at night, I came out the loser, ending up in this disease-filled dump. And now the world has discarded you in the same place. Why wouldn’t we come together for a unified purpose? Do you disagree that Agent Parks is a corrupt man? Do you disagree that he has taken your most valuable possession from you—your freedom?”

“Your words may work on others, Big, but they won’t work on me. I’m done with you, and I’m done with Parks. I’m done with this whole world. Just let me be.”

“Let you be? Yes, I suppose that would be the humane thing to do for a fallen hero. Let him be. Well, regardless of your decision, the winds are blowing. They are blowing change our way, change for Enera, for all of Anaisha. This is our chance to bring down Anaisha’s true threats, to reconstruct this world into what it was always meant to be.”

“Never,” David said as he lay back down on the floor. “I’ll never side with you. You are Anaisha’s true threat.”

Mr. Big laughed. “Spoken like a true hero. All the evil in the world must always fall on one man’s—or woman’s—shoulders. You would rather me be your enemy than your friend. I get that. It was great talking to you again, old nemesis of mine. I’m sure I’ll see you again shortly. Just a warning, though, I’m not the only one who begged Agent Parks to visit with you.”

David closed his eyes to the darkness and dreamed of death and dragons.

Sandra sat on the stone bench, staring out across the room at the man with the horse mane hair. He stood against the bars, staring back at her. Sandra wracked her brain over and over again, trying to remember what she had put him away for. He said earlier he had lost his kid because she put him away. Was he arrested for domestic violence?

More importantly, Sandra wondered, what is Madame Nightshade’s interest in Kimberly? Sandra knew she would have to get out of here somehow and pull Kimberly out of that malicious woman’s grasp. The things Sandra heard about the Nightshade Orphanage made her ill. She had visited the place numerous times, to escort young orphans there per the government’s orders and to retrieve the corpses of children who died in Madame Nightshade’s care due to “suspicious circumstances.”

“I’m tired of waiting.” The man fell to the floor and began screaming, thrashing his body across the ground like a fish taken out of water.

Moments later, a police officer came into the room, his hand on the gun at his side. “What’s going on in here?”

“Pain! Pain in my stomach! Pain in my stomach!”

The officer pulled out a ring of keys and shoved one into the lock.

Sandra bound to her cell door. “Don’t go in there! He’s tricking you!”

The officer turned halfway, waving his hand at her. “You just stay put in your cell and keep that fat mouth of yours shut.”

As soon as the cell door was unlocked, the man with the horse mane shot to his feet and slammed his weight into the door, knocking the officer down. Then he leapt on the officer, stripping him of his gun, and fired a shot into the officer’s head, splattering blood across the floor.

“Dear gods,” Sandra whispered.

The man looked up at Sandra as he pulled the keys out of the cell door and made his way across the mess to her. Sandra stepped back against the wall as the man reached her door, unlocking it with the keys.

“You see how easy that was? He didn’t even hear your warning. Your warning! Aha-ha-ha-ha! True irony.” He opened Sandra’s cell door and stood there, staring at her for a moment. “You and I are going to have some fun before I blow your brains out. You took my son from me. You took my child from my arms, and now I’m going to take something from you that you cherish, make you feel what I felt.”

Sandra lunged at the man, knocking him to the floor as she struggled with the gun in his hand. Two more officers suddenly showed up in the room, one of them pulling at Sandra, the other going for the gun in the crazed man’s hand.

Sandra knew this was her chance. She slid her fingers between the hand with the gun and the officer’s knee, which was pressed against it, and found the trigger of the weapon. She pulled on it, firing a bullet toward the wall of one of the cells, carving a path along the officer’s leg. He yelped and tumbled off the weapon as Sandra slipped from the other officer’s grip and fell on the gun, using all of her might to rip it out of the man’s hand.

When she had the gun, she sprung to her feet and dashed out of the room, hoping the weapon held enough bullets to get her out of here. The hallway stretched into an admin area where she knew the doors to the outside had to be. She hadn’t ever been in this station before, but she knew that most of the stations in Enera were all modeled roughly the same.

“Hey!”

She ignored the shout and plowed through a secretary and a man in a suit who were talking at a desk. Sandra found the exit and burst through the door. Nearly tripping down the steps of the station, she decided to head north, toward a friend’s house, where she could find shelter and rest until she figured out her next move. She would have to get a hold of her son first, make sure he was safe from Parks. Then she could see what she could do for Kimberly, maybe even hunt down David and Veronica, find out what happened after they went to the stalus to stop the wedding.

The city, lit up in neon and buzzing with nightlife, seemed not to notice her running down its street, fleeing from the law. A glance back told her nobody was pursuing her, but that could just be her wishful thinking. A cramp ballooned in her side, and she realized she wouldn’t be able to run all the way to her friend’s apartment.

Sandra eyed a taxi cab cruising lazily down the street in her direction. She waited until it drew close and then leapt into the middle of the street, pointing her gun at the driver. “Get out!”

The driver, a short bald man with thick glasses, scrambled out of the vehicle and fell to the asphalt, locking his hands together behind his head. Sandra stepped over him and into the vehicle, slamming the door shut while she stomped on the gas.

She drove the taxi cab a few miles and then ditched it on the side of the road, just a half mile from her destination. While she traveled from alley to alley, she spotted police cruisers scouring the streets, no doubt for her.

She wondered what became of the man with the horse-mane hair. On her way to the apartment, she managed to dig up the memory of who he was. Crow. That was his full name—supposedly. Sandra had arrested him for child abuse, catching him in the act of beating his own son. The kid was only six at the time. Sandra’s evidence brought Crow to justice and put him behind bars, stripping him of his parental rights to his child.

An eight-story apartment building towered over her as she stood in the middle of a darkened alley. She grabbed hold of the bottom rung of the fire escape ladder, pulled herself up to the first set of stairs, and made her way up the zigzag of metal until she reached the eighth floor. She found the first window that faced the fire escape opened, overlooking a small pot of Black Knight flowers growing in a bed of moist soil.

“Brian,” she whispered. Waiting for an answer, she reached down to one of the exotic black flowers and felt the velvety texture of the petals between her fingers.

After waiting approximately three minutes, she rapped lightly on the glass of the open window. The soil in the pot was wet, meaning someone had watered the plants recently. He had to be here. He rarely ever went out at night, and if he did, he didn’t leave his window open.

Sandra shuffled her body through the window, setting her feet down gently on the kitchen tile.

“’bout time.”

Sandra jerked and stumbled over a chair, catching herself on the table.

“Whoa, whoa. Careful there, ‘officer.’”

Sandra took a seat in the chair she tripped over and let out a sigh. Across from her, in the dark booth, sat Brian, lighting up a cigarette.

“You could answer back when I call your name.”

Brian laughed softly. “It’s more fun when you have to find me.”

“No, it’s not.”

Brian puffed on his cigarette, purposely blowing the smoke across the Black Knights. Sandra knew he did it because the flowers actually fed off the cigarette fumes. They were the only piece of vegetation in all of Anaisha that did that.

“Just relax. You’re safe here. I assume you came here to hide out.”

“I can’t stay.”

“You never could.” The lights outside brought a soft orangey glow to the side of Brian’s face. He hadn’t shaved in at least a week, and his long black hair was tied back in a ponytail. “So, if you didn’t come to stay, what did you come here for?”

“I need to get in touch with my son.”

“Well, that might be a bit difficult.”

“Why?”

“Because I lost track of him a while ago.”

Sandra pounded her fists on the table. “How?!”

He took a long puff off the cigarette and blew it out leisurely across the flowers. “First off, calm down.”

“I’m not going to calm down. I need to find my son!”

“I assume this has something to do with your idiot of a partner, Parks?”

“He had me locked up. I…I escaped.”

Brian’s eyes widened slightly. He dragged on the cigarette and nodded. “The hunter becomes the hunted, huh?”

“I’m in no mood for jokes.”

“I don’t remember when you ever were. And it wasn’t a joke. You set out to put away the criminals, and now the tables are turned. And you turn to good ol’ Brian for help.”

“It’s not like that. I…I don’t have anyone else I can trust right now.”

Brian pointed his cigarette at her. “Parks still has the evidence against your son, doesn’t he?”

She nodded.

“That’s no good.”

Sandra cupped her hands over her face. “I know it’s no good. I need help. That’s why I came here.”

“Yeah, it’s really the only reason you come here now, isn’t it?”

“That’s not fair.”

Brian chuckled. He took another puff from his cigarette and blew the smoke out in dainty-looking O-rings. “Fair? You want to talk about fair? You put me away years ago, Sandra, and I—”

Sandra jolted up from the chair. “If you’re going to keep bringing that crap up, I’m just going to see myself out for good. I didn’t come here to rehash the past. I came here for help. I have the police and Anaishan Sentries bearing down on me while my son is missing, and Parks has evidence to send him to prison for years.”

Brian waved his hand with the cigarette at her. “Sit down. Take a deep breath. I’ll help you, but this time I want something for it.”

Sandra took her seat. She felt the cigarette smoke calming her nerves. She hadn’t had a cigarette in years, but the fumes were making it hard not to want to light up, especially under the circumstances.

“Now,” Brian smashed the spent cigarette in a nearby ashtray and folded his hands on the surface of the table. “I know a few people who may know where your son went. Just because he disappeared off my radar doesn’t mean he’s not on someone else’s. In return for giving you the location of your son—or at least the information I can dig up on where he might be—I want you to give me the location of someone in return.”

“Who?”

“Regina.”

Sandra shook her head. “I can’t do that, Brian. You know I can’t do that.”

He shrugged. “If you can’t help me, I’m not so sure I’m willing to help you.”

“Is that really how it’s going to be?”

He nodded. “Of course. Look, you and I have patched things up. We’re cool. I don’t hate you or have any bitterness for what happened in the past, but because of what happened in the past, I’m forced to draw back into my survivalist mode. I can only give when I receive. I want to know where Regina is.”

“I…I don’t think I even remember where we hid her.”

Brian leaned over his folded hands. “I’m no idiot. I’ve been lying to people since I was a kid, Sandra, and I know when I’m being lied to. Your shaking hands, the way you bite your lip. You make a good cop but a horrible villain.”

“I’m not a villain.”

“Maybe not intentionally.” He sat back in the booth. “But you’ve been hanging around one. I warned you about Parks. I warned you not to hitch your wagon to his. I’ve known crooked cops before, but he’s off-the-charts crazy. Stay away from him if you know what’s good for you.”

“Trust me, I want nothing to do with him.”

“Okay. I believe you’re telling me the truth about that. But you’re lying to me when you tell me you don’t remember where you hid Regina. Give me her location.”

“I can’t. We hid her for a reason, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Yeah, to protect her from me. But never once did I want to hurt her.”

“You did, though.”

Brian turned his face to look at the Black Knights. “I know. I need to talk to her, to remind her why we fell in love in the first place.”

Time is running out, Sandra reminded herself. Parks could already have my son in custody. But am I willing to trade one woman’s safety for the location of my own son?

“Fine.”

Brian nodded, facing her again. “Where is she?”

“Tindall.”

He sighed. “You hid her way out there?”

“It kept you from finding her, didn’t it?”

“Fine.” He reached to his left and grabbed a notepad and pen from the kitchen counter, sliding it on the table in front of her. “Write down her address. If she’s all the way out there, I have to leave right away.”

Sandra took the pen and touched the tip to the lined paper. “Where is my son?” She knew he was lying about not knowing. He didn’t have to contact any associates to find out her child’s location. He knew. He was holding the fact close to his chest so he could get what he wanted.

“Last I heard he was headed to Lysallis.”

“Lysallis? Why?”

Brian shrugged. “Not sure. I tapped his phone, and the last call he made was to someone in Lysallis. Your son told them he was going to meet them there, but I didn’t catch where in Lysallis exactly. After the call, I traced his phone.”

Sandra started writing out the address where Regina was currently hidden. “How am I supposed to find him? It does me no good if I don’t know where in Lysallis he’s going.”

Brian slid his hand across the table. When he lifted his palm, a small cell phone sat before her. “Take it. I’ll keep in touch with you and let you know where his phone leads me. Don’t call him, because then he’ll get spooked and probably change direction. And if you call him, Parks might be able to pick up his signal and get to him before you can.”

Sandra slid the notepad back to him, then took the cell phone and shoved it into her pants pocket. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” he replied. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a trip ahead of me.”

Sandra stood up from the table and nodded to him. “I appreciate your help, Brian.”

He grinned. “I’m always here to help. It’s what I’m good at. And…” he stepped into the living room and came out with a wool coat, “this should keep you warm.”

Sandra took the coat and left Brian’s apartment, grateful for small blessings.