I silently mock him as he turns around, and I’m probably lucky Everett was able to keep his responding laughter just as quiet.
I follow the two men down to the warehouse and toward what I assume to be our "room of the day." I could seriously use some more answers to "why-the-hell" and "what-the-hell" we're doing. Is this it? They just fuck with people's heads every day? There has to be a reason for their actions.
"What's the story, boys?" I ask.
"Angie Broadmeadow murdered every member of her family—her husband and two kids," Axel says.
"So, what's she doing here?"
"Her husband was the chief scientist at a very secret and unofficial underground nuclear facility in Texas. We're here to get answers."
"Why us?" I ask Axel.
"We don't use the word, ‘why." He unlocks the door and shoves me inside. "Have at her!"
After regaining my footing, I look back at Axel with a questioning, annoyed expression. "Get answers," he mouths.
"What are the fucking questions?" I mouth back.
He just smiles at me. That's what he does. He smiles like that's supposed to give me all the answers in the world.
A decrepit-looking woman is seated on a chair in the corner of the room. Her legs are parallel to the legs of the chair and her plastic zip-tied hands are hanging between her legs.
Axel stomps his foot once, and the surrounding area echoes with a thud. Her head snaps up and a dazed look coats her face. "Where the hell am I?" she asks as her dull, greasy dark hair falls over her face.
"What are you doing here?" I ask her, trying to sound confused.
"You fucking brought me here," she hisses.
I glance around the room in thought for a moment. "But I've never seen you before in my life," I tell her, walking closer. What the hell am I supposed to ask her?
"Don't try and screw with my head, little girl," she tells me. Little girl? She can't be more than ten years older than I am.
I shrug. "I wouldn't know how to mess with you," I explain.
"I'm supposed to be electrocuted today and I'm going to be electrocuted today without offering your pretty boyfriend back there any of the answers he's looking for." Oh, she's good, trying to get under my skin. This woman must think she’s skilled in holding information hostage.
Nuke facility. "They found it. They know what you've been hiding—what your husband was hiding. So, we're not trying to extract information from you. We just want to know why he did it?"
"You don't know shit," she tells me.
"You're right," I tell her.
I turn to Axel, who doesn't look as confident as he has the last couple of times we've been in this situation. "It's a lost cause," I tell him. "Can I have that spare phone? We can leave her with a little music while we talk in the hallway." I turn back to the woman. "I'd hate for this nice woman to hear anything we're saying."
Axel tosses the phone and headphones to me, and I set up the YouTube video. She thrashes as I set the headphones in place, but with her hands tied up, she can't do much about it. I turn up the volume to a level above comfort and place the phone on the nearby table as Axel opens the door for us to leave.
"That's it?" Axel asks as he closes us out of the room.
"What?"
"Explain where you got this knowledge from." He paces in front of me with his hands in his jacket pockets. I don't know what he's looking for me to say beyond what I've already told him.
"What more of an explanation do you want? It's called Google."
"You learned this shit from Google while you were living on the street?" he asks.
"I wasn't living on the street, so why would you assume that?" I ask him, curious as to how much he really knows about me. It's true. I was hours away from finding a nice street corner, but it didn't happen.
"No," he says, shaking his head. "You don't learn that shit from Google, and why would you be Googling that anyway?"
For the first time in two days my heart is beating a little faster. He's getting better at causing me tension.
I do my best to come up with a quick answer, but he's staring me down and I've lost some of my ability to push people like him away.
"I had to write a paper on it for a class I took," I tell him.
"What class," he presses.
"Why does it matter?"
"Just curious," he says.
"Sociology," I lie.
"Hmm," he says.
Axel continues pacing, lost in a thought I want to extract from his brain.
"Who do you work for?" I ask again, knowing I'm likely no closer to getting an answer from him this time than the last time I asked about his business.
"Myself," he says.
"I'm not buying it," I reply.
"That's your choice."
"Where are these inmates coming from?" I ask.
"Prison," he says quickly.
"So, you just walk into whatever prison they're coming from and tell them your name is Axel and you run your own company. Then, the guards just hand over the biggest asshole they have so you can brainwash them for no reason?" Except, I know he has a reason. The man he brainwashed yesterday confessed to a crime he didn't commit, which means he does have a boss.
"Exactly," he says.
"I don't think this is going to work out," I tell him. I’m beyond frustrated that I don’t have a choice on whether I stay or go. I’m homeless the second I leave Axel’s side, but I don't trust him and I don't know who the hell he's working for, which scares me even more.
"I don't think this is going to work out either," he says.
"I'll just show myself out then."
"No, I'll escort you out."
"Why? You don't want me to see something I shouldn't see?" I ask, keeping my reactions monotone.
As our back and forth comes to an end, some piercing shrill echoes from other side of the door. Axel glances at his watch, and I peer over to see how long it's been, knowing it hasn't been nearly enough time for that stupid music to do much of anything except irritate the hell out of her.
Axel opens the door and we walk in. I can’t help but recoil from the scream that feels like a knife running down the back of my spine.
While keeping a distance, I bring myself close enough to see that her pupils are dilated, taking up most of the brown in her eyes. Her head is bouncing around and her breaths are erratic. I'm confused by her behavior since I haven’t seen this reaction before.
I move around her and turn the music off before kneeling in front of the chair she's seated on. "In Texas, underground, your husband had a lab. The town of —"
"St—st," she stutters. If Axel doesn't work for anyone, why would he want the information for an unofficial nuke plant in Texas?
"Never mind," I tell her.
"What the hell are you doing?" Axel asks, pushing me out of the way.
"Where is the lab?" Axel growls.
The woman stares through him as if he were a glass window before closing her eyes.
"Fuck!" he shouts. Racing around me to the side table, he turns the music back on and rushes toward me, grabbing me by the arm. "What the hell was that? She was talking!"
"You could be a terrorist for all I know. I'm done," I tell Axel.
"She could be a fucking terrorist," he snaps back.
The screaming commences, bringing our attention back to Angie.
Her bloodshot eyes dart toward me and her right wrist tears at the plastic zip tie that’s holding her hands together.
The next six seconds become a blur as blows from her knuckles hit my face.
Blood is dripping down my throat, and my head is spinning at an alarmingly fast rate. When I force my eyes back open, Axel has already knocked her out cold, trying to yell something at me, but all I hear is a muffled, echoing ring. My vision is fuzzy, but I see Everett now too and they're dragging the woman out of the room. I feel helpless as if I can't move. I can't move.
I close my eyes, and it feels like hours before I'm lifted from the ground and set down on a table.
14
Axel