Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MORGAN
Morgan made it all the way to the apartment parking lot before she realized that she’d left her grading book behind in her classroom.
She had a box in the backseat of her CAMO car, full to the brim with papers to grade, but she needed her book to mark things down. The school was promising to have a computer program implemented by the end of the year to allow them to add grades in over the internet, but the funding was stalled in some kind of committee and really, it was just easier to go back to school and get the book instead of transferring grades from a scrap piece of paper.
When she arrived back at the school, she was relieved to see the parking lot empty.
She really didn’t want to run into Officer Munder.
Sure, she doubted that he’d be there since working24/7didn’t seem like something he’d do, but she really didn’t need a run in with the man.
As she pulled into her customary spot, she smiled.
Officer Munder had mentioned her truck when he’d been in the lounge. Maybe he didn’t know that her car was really the CAMO car.
He probably hadn’t noticed her parking it in the corner of the lot since the spot she used was all but shrouded by an overhanging oak tree that hadn’t been cut back in ages.
Her tiny car was the only one that fit under the branches and she didn’t care if her paint was scratched up a little.
She walked quickly around the outside of the buildings and made it to the Social Studies building without seeing anyone.
Just as she let out a sigh of relief she turned the corner and came to an abrupt stop.
A ground floor room in the chemistry building was lit up and she could see some people inside.
Okay, breathe.
Morgan covered her pocket where she’d dropped her cell phone, wondering if she could make a call to 911.
But she held back.
If it was the chemistry teacher in his classroom and she called the police on him, that wasn’t a really good way to make friends at the school.
There was a decent amount of open grass area between her building and the other one, but it wasn’t a crazy amount of distance.
A quick look from one side to the other told her that there was no one around, at least someone she could see. She picked her way across the grass and tilted her head toward the windows as she moved closer to the classroom.
Morgan saw a few people in the room. By their size there were a few students and one adult.
She leaned over to look into the window, but darted out of sight when someone turned in her direction.
“What was that?” The voice was softer than she would expect from an adult. More likely a student.
“What was what?” That. That was the voice of an adult.
“I thought I saw something outside.” The same voice as the first.
“You always see shit outside, Jeff. You’re too fuckin’ nervous.” Another voice… likely a student.
So far, nothing too strange, but she had to wonder why they were all at the school after hours.
Especially given Officer Munder’s rules.
Then again, she was new. Maybe it was just for people like her or maybe they were starting to loosen the rules since there hadn’t been another shooting or even a theft on campus since before she’d arrived.
“Just do your work, Jeff.” That same adult voice.
“Dude. I’m tired. Do we have to do this all tonight?”
“Damnit, Jeff. We’ve had to cut down on the nights we work because of that shit Benji pulled.”
Benji?
Morgan’s heart started beating like crazy.
What did Benji have to do with this?
RHETT
The truck made it back to Station Seven in a decent amount of time, but it wasn’t until they walked in the door that he saw Benji at one of the tables, arranging some sandwiches on a tray.
The young man looked up and looked relieved to see Rhett and the others walking in the door.
“Umm… Miss Kylie and I made sandwiches for you guys.”
Rhett smiled and Benji looked almost relieved. “I’m going to wash up and be right back.”
Benji nodded and went back to arranging the platter for the firefighters.
As he walked out of the room, he saw Peace rush across the room to give his wife a kiss.
A kiss she playfully tried to avoid. “You’re covered in soot!”
When he came back in, Rhett put a sandwich on a plate and grabbed a bottle of water before he sat next to Benji at one of the small side tables.
“Thanks for waiting. Are your parents okay with you coming by the station?”
Benji directed his gaze at the plate and swallowed hard.
“They… they don’t know I’m here.”
Rhett felt his own stomach sour.
He took out his phone. “What’s their number?”
Benji wouldn’t look at him. “You don’t need to call, man, they don’t care.”
Rhett shook his head. “Your mom was really upset at the hospital.”
“She’s always upset when she thinks I’m causing problems. Getting top grades in chemistry? Nothing. Radio silence. But if she thinks I’m in trouble she just hauls off and-”
He clamped his lips together and stared down at his plate as if the food was covered in slime.
“She doesn’t really care, man. Not the way she should.”
Rhett felthis heart clench in his chest. “Benji-”
“Benjamin.” His voice was soft. Almost a whisper. “My name is Benjamin, like my granddad. My m- She calls me Benji.”
“Benjamin,” Rhett repeated. “Does your mother hurt you?”
The whole room seemed to go silent. The other firefighters had lowered their voices and the room seemed to be filled with worry.
“She used to, until I got taller than she is. Now she just tells me how worthless I am. I think,” he chuckled but it was more of a scoff, “she’s kind of afraid of me.”
“We can get you help, Benjamin.”
Rhett saw Cowboy nodding out of the corner of his eye and Peace pulled Kylie down into his lap to give her a hug.
Rhett understood the feeling. He wanted his arms around Morgan at that moment, too.
“I’m more concerned about Miss Rafferty than me, you know?”
Rhett’s whole mood changed.
Now, he was on full alert.
“What about Morgan, Benjamin?”
“She’s going to get herself in trouble if she keeps rubbing Munder the wrong way.”
That name he knew. “Officer Munder? What kind of danger would he put Morgan in?”
Benjamin lifted his arm in its sling. “He’s the reason I’m like this.”
MORGAN
“Benji used to do all the cooking, man. I hate this stuff, it smells like shit.”
Easing forward, Morgan saw the chemistry set up in the room. She couldn’t see the faces of the people in the room, she almost didn’t want to.
She’d learned in the theater class that her high school made her take that if you could see them… they could see you.
The chemistry set up wasn’t anything she recognized from labs in her high school.
And the smell, when it reached her nose, made her want to gag.
“Well, Benji burned himself so he can’t do the cooking anymore. You’re the next volunteer.” She really didn’t know anyone in the science building, certainly not enough to recognize him by voice and she didn’t know who this classroom was assigned to.
Hindsight being twenty/twenty and all, she knew she should have learned more about the other teachers and buildings.
“Well, I don’t want to do this. It’s fucking dangerous!”
“Dude,” another student, “what do you think Munder is going to do to us if we don’t have the product ready for sale?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be selling this stuff? It’s not going to be worth the money if-”
“You wanna end up like that other teacher?” Morgan had heard that voice before in the lounge. She just didn’t know who it had belonged to.
“Really, Mister Christwell? He wouldn’t do that to you? You’re helping him.”
“Again, man.” The other student. “You’ve seen what he did to Benji’s arm.”
“Benji burned his own stupid arm!”
“To get away from doing this!”
The students were arguing and under it all she could hear the other teacher.
It physically hurt to hear what they were talking about.
The school resource officer was making the kids make drugs?
How was that possible? Why would he do that?
Morgan turned away from the window and pulled her phone out of her pocket, but before she could lift it up to unlock the screen a hand clamped down on her wrist.
“You don’t need that, Morgan.”
She swallowed hard. “Officer Munder.”
“Call me John, Morgan.”
“Officer is fine with me.” She cringed. Her mouth was going to get her into trouble.
He stepped in closer until she could smell his breath and whatever product he put in his hair. None of it was good.
“You and I need to come to an understanding, Morgan.”
She barely kept silent.
“I know your background,” he smiled and looked down at her, almost licking his lips. “Your brother’s in law enforcement. You know how it goes. People will listen to me. They’ll believe me.”
Morgan wanted to argue with him, but she bit the inside of her cheek to keep silent.
“If you choose to be a problem, I don’t want to have another shooting on my hands. That doesn’t leave a lot of options for me. After all, you’re new here. So I have a few things I could do if you don’t choose to fall into line. You don’t want people to think you were the wrong choice for a teacher when they find your body in a bad part of town.”
No, she shook her head. That wasn’t going to happen.
But she wasn’t going to make things easy for him.
“So, you can choose to keep your pretty mouth shut or I can make sure that you don’t talk at all. Got it?”
Oh, she got it.
She wasn’t sure that he understood what she was willing to do to get away from him.
“I need an answer, Morgan.”
He tried to pull her closer to him, but she pulled back, bracing her feet shoulder-width apart.
“Don’t be a pain in my ass,” he warned her. “I wouldn’t mind breaking you before I drop your body somewhere.”
She was pissed. She was livid. But she tried to keep that anger out of her eyes for just another moment or two.
“I think it would be fun to put you on your knees where you belong if you want to be difficult.” She heard the cold jingle of metal in the darkness. “I have my cuffs if you want to play.”
His grip eased on her wrist and that’s what she’d been waiting for.
Turning her wrist so that the narrowest part of it slipped free of his fingers, she put her hands on his shoulders and pulled him down so that his belly met her knee.
With a painful groan, Officer Munder went down hard.
Losing hold of her bag and her cell phone, Morgan turned and ran for the parking lot using shadows to hide herself.
She knew that having her phone would have been better, but it was somewhere under the officer or well within his reach.
The last place she wanted to be was within his reach ever again.
RHETT
Rhett looked at the young man and struggled to find his normal calm demeanor. “What happened to your arm?”
“I burned it myself to get out of what Officer Munder was making us do.” Benjamin diverted his gaze from the others as if they would judge him. “I couldn’t do it anymore. Not after… not after he shot that teacher.”
Rhett felt his stomach turn in his chest.
He heard Cowboy get up from the table. “I’m going to call the sheriff’s office.”
Benjamin froze up and started to lurch out of his chair.
“Hey, hey…” Rook put up his hands and spoke to Benjamin with a kind and gentle voice. “We work with members of the Sheriff’s department all the time. When our lieutenant says he’s calling someone, you can bet that whoever is coming here to help is going to be one of the good guys.”
Benjamin looked back and forth between Rhett and Rook. “You promise?”
Rook nodded. “Absolutely. We wouldn’t ever let anyone hurt you.”
Benjamin looked at his arm before looking back at Rook. “I wish I’d met y’all before I did this to myself.” He turned his head to the side and looked at Rhett. “But if I had, Miss Rafferty wouldn’t have come to the school.” His shoulders dropped and he sighed. “Then I guess it was a good thing. At the time I thought it was the only way to get out of making those drugs.”
Rhett wanted to put his hands around the officer’s throat and any adult who was involved in this. He couldn’t believe how much stress they’d put Benjamin under. And the pressure they must have put on him where he felt the only way to get out from under their thumb was to physically hurt himself.
Cowboy stepped up to the table. “I got through to Hayden Hatcher, she’s going to come by and talk to you, Benjamin. She’s one of the best deputies in the Sheriff’s department. You can trust her.”
Benjamin looked at Rhett and Rhett didn’t delay at all in agreeing with Cowboy.
“She’s awesome.”
Benjamin nodded solemnly. “Okay. I trust, y’all.”
Rhett drew in a lung-filling breath. That meant something and he knew that they were responsible for not only his health and well-being, they were responsible for that trust.
Rhett was going to move heaven and earth to make sure that they didn’t drop that particular ball. “I want you to know how proud I am of you for coming to us for help.”
Benjamin’s expression dulled, but the look in his eyes sharpened. “I didn’t come for me, man. I can handle this okay. I came to help Miss Rafferty. I don’t think she’s safe.”