Brain Storm by Cat Gilbert (ebook reader computer .txt) 📕
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- Author: Cat Gilbert
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“Did you have to set it on fire?” I asked quietly, not wanting my voice to carry to other groups huddled nearby. “All these people. What if someone’s still in there?”
“I didn’t.” His words were quiet, but his voice was tight. I had felt the jerk that had gone through him at my words and the tension that still remained there. “The fire was well under way when we got back to your place. We did pull the alarms though and helped get people out. That’s what took so long.”
He was acting as if I’d insulted him and maybe I had. So far, all he’d done was risk his life to help us, carry me out of the building, drag me through the parking lot, and was standing here now holding me up, so I didn’t fall on my face, but that didn’t automatically make him my new best friend. I believed him, though. First because he did seem hurt that I thought he had done it, and second, because Jonas had been with him and I knew Jonas would have stopped him from risking so many lives.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, feeling maybe I owed him that much.
“It’s all right,” came the whisper in my ear. “Can you move now?”
I nodded, and he lowered me slowly until my full weight was back on my feet and surprisingly, they held. I took a tentative step and then another. If we moved slow, I was fairly certain I could manage. He kept an arm around me, and we started off again.
Jonas and Trinity had waited for us, and we joined them, moving as a group away from the fire and the light it gave off. As the darkness closed around us, I had the fleeting idea that this must have been what Lot and his family felt like as they fled the city of Gomorrah in the Old Testament. But unlike Lot’s wife, I accepted my fate. Life had changed in an instant, just as I had feared.
It happened because of me and what I was, but I was not the one who had done this tonight. I kept reminding myself of that as we made our way to the van. I was not the guilty party, but someone out there was. The need for justice that had always guided my life guided me now. The guilty were out there. I would find them, and they would pay. It was what I did. It was who I was. So I kept my eyes forward and kept walking.
ONE OF THE great things about Little Rock is that you can be out of the city within minutes and out in the middle of nowhere before you realize it. As modern as the city is, the backwoods are never far away. As soon as we had settled in the van, we headed west, and within minutes, we had left the lights of Little Rock behind.
The ride had been quiet, everyone entrenched in their own thoughts, as we made our way around the winding hills and back country roads. No one had appeared to notice us as we made our escape, as I thought of it, for lack of a better term or explanation, all attention being focused on the fire.
Trinity was asleep on the seat next to me. She had pretty much collapsed by the time we got to the van, shock having set in completely. Jonas had wrapped her in the blankets and secured her with the seatbelt. The shivering that had gripped her stopped, and she appeared to be sleeping peacefully, which I was extremely grateful for. My mind was reeling with the impact that tonight’s events would have on everyone’s life, including my own. I was anxious to sit down with our rescuer, as I now referred to him, deciding he had graduated from my first impression as an abductor and find out exactly what he knew. It was obvious, he knew more than we did and frankly, I found the fact somewhat scary.
Watching him as he drove, I still had no idea who he was or what he looked like. Having seen him only in the dark and the shadows, I only had the suggestion of size, and features. Nothing solid. Jonas was giving him the once over too, and the tension between them radiated through the van. Jonas may have played along with our new friend’s suggestions, but he didn’t trust him.
I could barely look at Jonas without my heart tearing in two. The implications of what he had done tonight were horrible. There were dead people back there, police work to be done. Jonas had inside knowledge of what had happened and yet he was here with us. He had turned his back on his profession and his oath to uphold the law. Maybe the police didn’t know he was involved. Didn’t know he’d been at the condo. But I was afraid it really wouldn’t matter in the long run. Jonas knew he had been there. He knew he had left the scene and covered up evidence. Being a man of integrity, I had no idea how Jonas was going to reconcile things, or even if he could. I just knew that when I looked at him, my soul bled, because what he had done, he had done for me. So many lives changed and for what? I turned my head to stare into the darkness outside the window. It was easier than looking at these people, whose lives I had just ruined.
* * *
THE VAN SLOWED, and we pulled onto a dirt track. As we bounced over the ruts and dips, I looked out the back window to see curtains of tree branches swing back into place, effectively hiding our passage. As we rolled to a stop, the dark outline of a house was just barely visible through the van window.
“Take the women inside,” the driver ordered Jonas. “I’ll move the van into the barn.”
The hair stood up on the back of my neck as the tension between them escalated, and I held my breath as Jonas weighed his options, ready to move quickly, should he decide to take charge.
“Is there a problem?” It wasn’t a question. It was a challenge. I braced myself as I looked to Jonas for some clue as how to proceed. Seconds ticked by as they sized each other up. Finally, Jonas made his decision.
“No problem,” he said, never losing eye contact with the other man.
“I thought you had sorted this out earlier tonight. Before it was too late,” the driver said, as Jonas opened his door and got out.
“Let’s get something straight,” Jonas said, as he leaned back into the van. “Should I decide differently, it will never be too late.”
The driver nodded slowly at Jonas. “Understood.”
Jonas softly closed the door and made his way around the van to get Trinity. I reached over and unbuckled her as the side door slid open. I helped him slide her out and then, still moving slowly, managed to get out my own door. We stumbled up the dark, rickety steps as the van sped off behind us.
The main door didn’t open directly into the cabin. Instead, we found ourselves standing in a small, apparently windowless room, as it went pitch black when I closed the creaky door behind us.
“Huh,” Jonas grunted. “Taylor, feel around and find the other door. I can pretty much guarantee it’s not on the wall opposite the one we just came through.”
I groped my way along the wall from the door I had just closed and sure enough, found another door handle on the adjoining wall. It turned easily and opened quietly into the cabin, which was dimly lit. We passed through, and Jonas kicked the door shut with one foot while shifting Trinity in his arms. I found a light switch and flicked it on, flooding the main room with bright light.
Jonas deposited Trinity on the sofa, and she immediately curled into the fetal position still sound asleep. He reached over and took her pulse, nodding to me when he had finished that she was okay.
“What was that business with the door?” I asked as he came to his feet. I’d seen similar entrances at gun ranges, to keep the noise level down, but this was no gun range and the area between the doors much larger than the simple setup at the range.
“Double door, keeps the light from escaping. You always have one door closed before you open the other. Plenty of room to defend from. Windows are blacked out too,” he
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