Driggs, and the armed men with him, left without a word; other prisoners shouted curses at them as they walked by.
I was surrounded by cages. Up and down the narrow walkway, and on both sides, two dozen of them lined neatly against the baby-blue brick wall. At one end of the room there was a steel door with a little box window; above it, in white letters on a red background a sign read: Employees Only.
I threw my head back and laughed so hard and so loud my voice echoed off the walls.
“What’s so fucking funny?” a voice from the cage on my left asked.
“Yeah—why don’t you shut the fuck up?” said the one to my right.
A flurry of other voices rose over my laughter then, most expressing irritation, a few with questions of the world beyond their prisons.
“Where’d you come from?” said one man in a kennel across from me. “I have family in Frankfort—is it still standing?”
“Were you the one who gave Driggs that shiner?” asked a woman in a cage next to the man. “I hope so—I hate that red-headed piece of shit!”
My laughter continued until there were tears in my eyes and I could barely breathe.
The man across from me, with stringy yellow hair and pale blue eyes, watched me with curiosity for a moment. "I laughed like that once,” he said, “fifteen minutes after my son died. Because ten minutes before that my wife had died. And a day before she died, my daughter had died. By then, all you really can do is laugh, I guess.”
Sitting on the floor with my back against the brick wall, I looked through the links in the door at the man.
“I worked at a Humane Society when I was seventeen,” I said, more to myself, really. “It looked just like this place. I only lasted a month. Watched too many animals get put down, and I quit.” I laughed shortly, shook my head. “It’s only fair I end up exactly where they used to be.”
“I understand,” the man said.
“No. You don’t,” I put in, and then I fell silent.
I had wanted to also say that because I didn’t stop the workers from euthanizing those animals was the reason I was here now; I had wanted to explain that because I sat back, with a heavy heart but not heavy enough to do anything about it, and watched it happen, that I was being punished. I had wanted to say that because I was a coward and didn’t stand up for what I believed wrong, it was what led me to this moment. But I didn’t say any of this, instead, I rested the back of my head against the brick and shut my eyes so I could suffer the moment in silence.
“Atticus?” a familiar voice spoke up, and in an instant my eyes sprang open. “Am I hearing things, or is that really you?”
Not believing my own ears, but determined to find out the truth, I pushed away from the wall and scrambled over to the chain-link door. I grabbed it and pressed my face against it so that the cool metal made an indention in my cheek, and I tried to place the face with the voice, but I couldn’t see the man two kennels down on the same row as me.
“Peter?” I asked with disbelief. “Is that you?”
“Holy shit!” Peter said, and I could hear the chain-link door rattling as he also pressed himself against it trying to see out. “Where the hell have you been, man? All hell broke loose in Lexington when you skipped out and took that girl; they’ve been looking for you.”
“I used to live in Lexington City,” the woman across the hall from me said. “Same as this hell-hole really—except I never hated any man in Lexington as much as I hate Driggs.” She spit on the floor.
Peter Whitman? I never imagined I’d see him again. Or Evelyn Bouchard.
“Is Evelyn all right?” I asked the moment I’d thought about her.
Peter was slow to answer, giving me the worst feeling.
“She’s dead,” Peter finally said, and my breath fell as heavily as my heart. “It was really fucked up. They thought she knew something about where you’d gone. They tortured her for information before they finally killed her.” Peter sighed again. “Either that woman was crazy-loyal to you, man, or she didn’t know shit.”
“She didn’t know anything,” I confirmed and lowered my head thinking about Evelyn, regretting that it was my fault she was dead.
I sat back down on the stained concrete floor, this time with my back against the chain-link door.
“Seriously—where have you been?” Peter asked. “What happened to the girl?”
I’d been trying not to think about where Thais was and what might’ve happened to her because I needed to focus on getting out this place first. But not thinking about her more than anything else, was impossible.
Instead of answering Peter’s questions—I didn’t entirely trust him, regardless of our friendship—I needed many of my own questions answered first. Starting with the most obvious.
“Everybody knew you and I were close,” I said. “So why didn’t they torture and kill you too?”
“Because I did what I told you I’d do—pretended to have it out for you. At first, they didn’t believe me, but I’m a good liar.” There was laughter in his voice.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I volunteered to go with Marion to find you,” Peter explained. “Convinced him and Rafe that I knew you better than anyone, and that I hated you more than anyone”—he laughed again—“I don’t know whether to be proud I was so convincing, or ashamed I’m that good at looking like a jealous douchebag.”
This information—if it was true—triggered hope in me. Because Peter was here without Marion and his men, did that mean they were dead? Did that mean Thais and I were no longer being followed?
I turned around and took a greater interest in those locked in the other cages, and I looked at each face I could see across from me. None looked familiar, not even the woman who’d claimed she’d lived in Lexington City.
“Where is Marion now?” I asked.
“No idea,” Peter answered. “Three weeks ago, our camp was attacked and I bolted into the woods. I went back the next morning, and when I got there, Marion and some of his men were gone. The rest of them were laying there dead, their hands had been cut off. I took off into the woods again, and then a few days later these perfect gentlemen found me, bound my hands and gagged me, and now here I am!” I could picture Peter’s arms out wide at his sides, a sarcastic smile spread across his face.
“So Rafe didn’t go with you?” I asked, though I already knew that he hadn’t.