Desolation (16 page)

A
MBER WOKE, FULLY AWARE
of where she was without having to open her eyes. The cell was dark, but not cold. She turned over, the thin blanket slipping from her shoulders as her horns scraped the wall. She jerked her head back, annoyed. It wasn’t easy to sleep with horns. She turned again, growing increasingly frustrated with the blanket, and finally she opened her eyes.

Someone was standing over her.

She roared and kicked out, shock turning instantly to fear-fuelled aggression. The black shape melted into the gloom of the cell as she jumped from the cot, and then she was flinging the blanket ahead of her. It settled on to someone, a person-shaped thing in the darkness, and Amber dived at it. Her hands grew claws and she ignored the pain as she tore through the blanket, but there was nothing beneath, and she was suddenly on her knees, snarling, her skin tightening as black scales spread outwards from the nape of her neck.

“Amber?” Milo said from the cell next to her.

She didn’t answer. There was still someone in here with her. She couldn’t make him out, but she could feel him. Then her eyes moved to the corner of the cell like they were iron filings drawn to a magnet, and she saw him, his shape, standing there. She locked on to his outline and got up, not blinking, not letting him melt away for a second time. With some part of her aware of how animalistic she sounded, she closed in. The figure didn’t move. When she was close enough, she lunged, grabbed clothing, forced him backwards to the bars. Then he was gone, nothing but smoke, and her arms passed between the bars and her horns smacked off them and the smoke became a person again, this time standing outside the cell, Amber’s fists still bunched in his shirt.

Glen looked at her with empty eyes, and Amber felt the aggression leave her like some invisible sluice gate had been opened. Her scales retracted.

“Amber,” Milo said. “Get away from him.”

Too late did she realise her arms were still extended through the bars. Glen’s cold hands encircled her wrists before she could pull them back in. His grip was strong. Too strong to break.

“Let go of me,” Amber said, keeping her voice calm.

Glen’s blank expression didn’t change, and he didn’t answer.

“What are you after, Glen?” Milo asked. He was standing by the door of his cell. “We’ve got nothing to offer you. Do you understand that? We don’t know what you want and we don’t know why you’ve been following Amber. You should go back to Cascade Falls. You should stay with your own kind.”

There was no indication that Milo’s words even registered.

“I’m sorry,” Amber whispered. “I should have been there to save you and I wasn’t. I’m truly sorry about that. Can we help you? Is there something we can do to help you?”

The thing with the cold hands wore Glen’s face like it was its own, but behind it there was a vast emptiness as unknowable as it was chilling. How much of the real Glen remained, Amber couldn’t guess. The eyes were dull, the features slack. There was not a flicker of interest, not even when he parted her arms. The backs of her elbows came to rest against the bars, and still Glen slowly pushed. Amber gritted her teeth, squirmed, tried to pull herself free, tried to turn her wrists, but Glen’s strength was immense. He was going to break her arms. He was going to snap her elbows. Black scales rose to the surface of her skin, but there was nothing they could do to prevent what was about to happen.

Her fingers turned to claws once again, and her claws scraped deep, bloodless furrows through his hands, but he didn’t once flinch. His expression didn’t change. He wasn’t even doing her the courtesy of looking angry.

The overhead lights flickered suddenly to life, casting their harsh glare over Glen’s pale skin, his sunken cheekbones, his dead eyes. The sight of him in the light was as shocking to Amber as the sight of him in the dark. Elsewhere, a heavy door was unlocked with a
click
. She heard voices, getting closer.

Glen released her and immediately Amber pulled her arms in, curling them into her chest to ease the pain. Glen took one step back and turned to smoke, and the smoke whirled and fled upwards to the air vent. Not one wisp was left when the new prisoners were escorted in.

Amber remembered herself just in time, and reverted a heartbeat before they came into view.

The guy was in his early twenties. Square-jawed and good-looking, African-American with a tight haircut, he was placed in the cell opposite Milo’s by the same cop who had come in to remove Daggett’s body. The cop was big, with a few extra pounds that threatened the integrity of his uniform, but looked strong. Healthy.

The girl was a striking redhead with sharp cheekbones and tattoos on her bare arms. She looked nineteen or twenty, and she was slim, her chest small, but those arms were toned, like she spent a good portion of her spare time lifting weights or punching bags. From the way she carried herself, Amber figured it was probably the latter. She looked like a fighter, albeit a relaxed, friendly one, as she walked into the cell opposite. The cop who locked the door was a woman in her thirties, her blonde hair pulled back into a severe bun.

Amber glanced at Milo, but he was already returning to his bunk.

“Do we get a phone call?” the guy asked.

“It’s late,” the female cop replied. “Everyone’s asleep. The Chief’ll talk to you in the morning.”

The cops walked out, and the guy sat down, but the redhead stayed standing. She smiled at Amber.

“Howdy,” she said.

“Hi,” Amber responded.

“Nice town.”

“It isn’t ours. What are, um, what are you in for?”

The redhead laughed. “Aw, man, I wanted to say that. How many times in your life do you get the chance to say something like that?”

“Judging by how unlucky we’ve been with the law lately,” said her friend, “you’ll probably get another chance to say it before too long.”

The redhead moved to the bars, put her hands through, resting her elbows on the horizontal slat. “We’re here because we were involved in an activity that could have been misconstrued as destruction of public property,” she explained. “What about you?”

“I’m not really sure,” said Amber. “I think we just annoyed the wrong people.”

The redhead glanced at Milo, then back to Amber. “You two together?”

“He’s my uncle,” Amber said, a little too quickly.

“Hey,” said the redhead, “I’m not judging. My name’s Kelly. My friend here is Ronnie.”

“I’m Amber. This is Milo.”

“Very pleased to meet you both,” said Kelly. She had a beautiful smile. “How long you been in town?”

“A few days,” Amber replied. “Just passing through.”

“Yeah?” said Kelly. “You just stumbled across the place? That’s funny. We actually intended to come here, and we had the maps and we had the GPS, but we must have driven around this part of the state for two, three hours before we found the road that led us here. It’s almost as if the town doesn’t want to be found. But you two just stumbled across it, huh?”

Amber hesitated. “Yep.”

“Well, isn’t that something?” Kelly said, in a tone that teased.

“What, um, what brought you here, then?” Amber asked.

The lights went out and they were plunged into darkness.

“Oooh,” said Kelly. “Cosy.”

Amber shifted at once, relaxing into it. Her eyes were sharper like this, and she could pick out Kelly’s outline in the gloom. She backed up to her bunk and sat so that her own silhouette wouldn’t give her away.

“Sorry?” Kelly said from the darkness. “What was your question?”

“What brings you here?” Amber asked.

“Business, of a sort,” said Kelly. “We’d heard about Desolation Hill for years, or at least heard whispers about it, so we could hardly pass up the opportunity to come here and see it for ourselves. Kind of an odd town, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I do,” said Amber. “I’m not the biggest fan of its police force, though.”

“Me neither. I find they tend to arrest the wrong people.”

“I’ve found that, too.”

“Where you from, Amber?”

“Florida.”

“Wow. You’re a long way from Disney World. I’m from California myself. Venice Beach. You ever been?”

“Can’t say that I have. Are you enjoying the cold?”

Kelly laughed. “No,” she said. “I was born for the sun, honestly. Alaska is beautiful, and I appreciate beautiful things, but I’m a girl who needs a lot of heat, you know what I’m saying?”

“And yet here you are,” said Amber.

“Here we are …”

“You have any more friends?” Amber asked.

Kelly’s tone changed slightly. “That’s a peculiar question.”

“Is it? Oh, I’m sorry.” Amber ran her tongue over her sharp teeth. “It’s just that I met someone this afternoon who wasn’t very nice to me. I was wondering if you knew him. Phil Daggett?”

“Not a friend of ours,” said Kelly. “What did he do that wasn’t so nice?”

Amber shrugged to the darkness. “He had some pretty demeaning things to say about women.”

“Well, there you go,” said Kelly. “I wouldn’t hang out with anyone like that. I only hang out with cool people. You a cool person, Amber?”

Amber bared her fangs. “Sometimes.”

“You sound like a cool person. I can tell. I’m very in tune with coolness.”

“I saw your tattoos.”

“I have more,” said Kelly. “I’ll show them to you later, if you like. You have any?”

“No,” said Amber. “My parents never approved.”

“Squares.”

Amber’s smile widened. “Yeah. Squares. Do your parents approve of yours?”

“Don’t have any,” Kelly said. “Parents, that is. They died when I was a kid.”

“I’m sorry,” said Amber, when really she meant
I’m jealous
.

“It’s cool,” Kelly said. “What are your folks like? Apart from square.”

Amber thought about this. After a while, she said, “They’re perfect.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I hate them.”

Kelly laughed because she thought it was a joke. Amber didn’t laugh because she didn’t know if that was actually the truth.

“Might I suggest we all stop sharing private information and go to sleep?” Milo said from his bunk.

“What’s wrong?” said Kelly, amused. “You don’t trust me with your personal details?”

“Not at all,” said Milo. “But in a modern, high-tech facility such as this one, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that every word spoken in these cells was recorded and listened to by the fine law enforcement officers who keep this town safe from the likes of us.”

“Huh,” said Kelly. “I guess you have a point. What do you think, Ronnie? Think these walls have ears? Ronnie?” Amber watched Kelly’s shape move to the bars separating her from her friend. “Oh, for God’s sake, he’s asleep already.”

“That’s my cue,” said Milo, and turned over in his bunk.

Amber watched Kelly stand there and sigh. She muttered something to herself and went to her bunk. The moment she sat, her outline was swallowed by the gloom, and Amber listened to her take off her boots and lie down.

“Goodnight,” Kelly said.

No one answered except Amber. “Night.”

T
HE SUN WAS PALE
and weak and it was a cold morning. They had the heater on in Virgil’s Sienna as they sat there, staking out Oscar Moreno’s house and trying to look inconspicuous.

“Are we doing it right?” Javier asked.

“Of course we’re doing it right,” said Virgil. “This is the only way to do it.”

“We could be hiding.”

“This is hiding.”

Javier made a show of looking around at the residential street they were parked on. “I don’t feel very hidden.”

“We’re hiding in plain sight.”

“Or just hiding in sight, really. We should be in a different car, at least.”

“This is the only car I have.”

“It’s a minivan,” Javier said. “It can fit eight. How many people were you expecting to carry when you bought it? We are two old men sitting in a car designed for eight with the engine running. I think we stand out.”

“We do not. And we need the engine running to get the heater going.”

“We don’t even know if he’s home. Should we knock?”

“That doesn’t sound very stealthy.”

“But at least we’d know.”

Movement caught Virgil’s eye. A heavyset woman, walking their way. She hadn’t seen them yet. “Oh hell.”

Javier stiffened. “What? Did he see us? Where is he?”

“Not him,” said Virgil. “Her. Duck down. Quickly!”

He tried to squirm lower, but his seat belt was on and his hips were old. Beside him, Javier wriggled in place, then tried leaning forward and sideways a little. It wasn’t working, and their movements had attracted her attention so Virgil straightened up.

“Act cool,” he said.

“I am cool,” Javier replied, wheezing from all the effort.

Virgil lowered the window.

“Mr Abernathy!” said Martha Galloway. “Good morning! I was just about to call by your place and check up on you!”

Virgil gave her a tight smile. “How good of you. It’s really not necessary, though.”

“Nonsense, nonsense!” she said, waving her hand. “Checking up on the elderly in the community is a privilege, not a burden. Oh! And you have a friend!” She leaned in to smile at Javier. “And what’s your name?”