Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
Blake
Blake and his Mommy had had a great weekend, but he was excited about going back to school. He’d brought the sketch he’d completed yesterday while his Mommy made supper. He was anxious to show it to his friends and to start filling it in with colored pencils. When it was finished, it would join all the other ones the Littles had been working on to hang in the hallway as decorations for Halloween. His might even be chosen to hang in the lobby, but if not, it didn’t matter because he loved drawing and everything about Halloween. From the costumes to the trick-or-treating, from the spooky stories being told around the fire to the ghost-shaped marshmallows they’d roast before smushing them between graham crackers. He could practically taste the melting chocolate bar in the middle of the s’mores they’d stuff themselves with.
The door opened to the Butterfly Room, and he saw his teacher, Miss Price, stepping out into the hall just as he heard his name being called.
“Blake!”
He turned and grinned at the sight of a group of Littles at the entrance to the Littles’ Wing. His sketch in hand, he waved and started back in the direction he’d come in order to meet up with his friends.
“Hi, Sadie!” he called but was pretty sure she hadn’t heard because at that moment the sound of the bell ringing filled the hallway.
He’d already been late a couple of times and his Mommy had informed him a third tardy would result in him facing the corner to contemplate his behavior while sitting in his naughty-boy chair on his bare, very hot bottom. He’d just turned back to return to his class at the same time the Littles still caught in the hall began to run down it. Seeing the Caterpillar room door opening and Nanny J stepping out, he picked up his own pace.
“No running!”
Though he was looking at his teacher, it hadn’t been her voice he’d heard. Neither was it his Mommy’s or even Nanny J’s. It hadn’t been any woman’s at all. It was the same voice he’d heard in the grocery store.
Stumbling to a stop, Blake turned around, no longer seeing Sadie or their friends. Instead, his eyes locked on those of a man whose height allowed him to look over the heads of everyone in the hallway.
It was him.
The man in his nightmare.
Memories slammed into Blake as the Little group split, one stopping in her tracks while Sadie and the others ran ahead. Blake’s heart raced, his blood pounding so loudly in his ears it was all he could hear.
He looked from the girl in the pink-and-white dress and then back to the man and back again.
It was her.
But it couldn’t be. It was impossible, and yet, despite the distance between them, when the Little’s eyes widened, Blake’s heart skipped. Their green depths were exactly the same as he’d seen that night. Even during the horror engulfing him, he’d instantly thought of emeralds when she’d opened her eyes for the briefest of moments before she reached up to touch his cheek and then…
“No!”
Unaware that he’d shouted, not hearing the concerned voices of teachers or friends, all Blake heard was the voice in his head telling him to run. He tore down the hall, dropping the sketch he still held, not seeing it flutter to the floor. Blake slammed against the door at the end of the hall, giving another cry until he managed to tear it open and leap outside. He ran. He ran past the sandbox… past the jungle gym… past the slide. Running between the swings, his arm got caught. His cry was a strangled scream as he fought against the hold. He didn’t see a chain, he saw razor-sharp talons curled into claws. Not feeling the tear of his skin, he ripped his arm free, setting both swings swaying in his wake as he ran. He had no destination in mind, wasn’t thinking of anything but putting as much distance between himself and the stuff of his nightmares.
Blake ran until he could run no further. Tears streamed down his face at the unfairness of it all as he looked toward the sky and screamed, “I tried! I swear I tried!” Stumbling, he didn’t bother trying to break his fall. Flashes of memory flooded through him as he rolled down a hill, never feeling the scratch of branches as he crashed through them. When he came to a stop, he curled up as tightly as he could.
The annoyed chatter of a squirrel became the sounds of sirens and garbled orders being shouted by so many that none were clear. The smell of the earth beneath his cheek was exchanged with the smell of smoke, of ash… of death. The tears running over his lips tasted not of salt, but of the copper of spilled blood.
But those were not the things that haunted him. What had broken his soul was the last thing he’d seen that night. A vision that had seared itself into his consciousness so deeply he’d never forget. An image that had destroyed the one thing that had kept him…
Kept him digging through lifeless arms and legs.
Kept him muttering they were safe, that he’d help them even though not a single voice answered.
Kept him from total despair at the sight of the slight movement of a hand as he carefully pulled debris and yet another lost soul off to find a young woman, her face smeared with a mixture of black and red.
When her eyelids fluttered before they lifted, and their gazes met, hope flared brightly within him.
“I promise you’re going to be okay,” he said softly.
As she lifted her hand toward him, he bent closer, not wanting her to further injure herself. “Don’t move. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
“Pro… promise?”
Blake nodded, placing his hand over the one she’d pressed to his cheek, guiding it down to gently lay across her chest. “I promise. I’m going to get you out of here. You’re going to be just fine.”
An entire lifetime passed in a mere moment as he watched the green of the emeralds dim when the light within them faded before they closed.
Blake didn’t remember how he got back to the opening in the truck, had no memory of screaming so loudly for help that his throat was raw for a week. All he could remember was placing her body on a gurney, begging God to do what he’d been unable to do and save her. Instead, he watched her arm fall from the gurney, the hand she’d curled into his completely lifeless.
That was the moment the flame of hope that had carried him through the worst night of his life died.
The story had been on every network, every newspaper in print and on-line. Turning off his television, shutting down his laptop and ignoring the updates on his phone hadn’t helped. As a first responder on the scene, he’d filed reports, made statements, forcing himself to go on, though he did so as a zombie. He barely ate, his sleep was interrupted by nightmares every night. He no longer cared what happened to him, he kept going for one reason and one reason alone.
While hope had died that night…
The need for justice had been born.
He felt like he was only half living until the day two years later, when Blake had donned his uniform and entered the courtroom. When he was called, he gave his testimony in a voice that never wavered. As he answered every question, the flame he’d not experienced since that night so long ago fluttered in his chest.
Blake saw something in the gray-blue depths of the prosecutor's eyes.
A promise.
A promise that the ones responsible for kidnapping, snatching, and transporting young women and men to a destination worse than hell itself would pay the ultimate price.
A promise that Blake wore like armor against the knowledge that while the two men on trial gave no consideration to the nearly one hundred lives they’d taken, the assistant district attorney would remind them that their victims were not cargo… were not just inventory. Each one had been a human being. Every person inside that truck had left behind someone who’d known them, who’d laughed with them, who’d fought with and forgiven them, who’d held them, loved them, and would forever grieve for them.
A promise that would release Blake from the grip of despair he’d lived with ever since the night when he’d learned that the devil wasn’t some evil creature with horns on their head and a pitchfork as their weapon. No, evil grinned and looked out from behind masks of so many who walked undetected among the innocents here on earth. They wore everything from jeans and sandals to bespoke Armani suits and Italian loafers. They had many occupations and none at all. Their weapons were more powerful than any and yet took no materials to create and cost not a penny.
Weapons that existed when people replaced their souls with a total disregard for the sanctity of their fellow human beings’ lives.
Blake had spent hundreds of hours torn between wondering if what so many people said was true. That as appalling as it had been, perhaps the accident had been a blessing because those who died were spared the hell the traffickers would have sold them into. No one would ever know how many of the victims had died within hours of the truck skidding on the slick pavement of a dark, seldom-traveled back road before jackknifing. They’d never understand the terror the victims felt as the trailer fell on its side, dragging the cab with it before it broke away to roll over and over, tearing limbs off trees, digging huge divots in the earth before coming to rest among the rocks in a ditch twenty feet below the road’s surface. Never be able to imagine how those not instantly killed had felt when they realized they were trapped, that water was coming inside when the door had skewed slightly.
Perhaps it had been a blessing for those who’d died quickly.
But all Blake could think about was the one who’d fought with all she had to live, who’d refused to surrender to those who’d cared nothing for her.
The one who’d still be alive if a passing car could have seen the carnage just out of sight, or if the cyclist who’d had to stop to repair a hole in his tire had decided to take their ride only a day or two earlier and had found the truck sooner. If it hadn’t taken hours to get the proper equipment to the scene to pry the mangled doors open enough for Blake to squeeze through.
If he’d reached her just a few minutes earlier.
If he’d been able to keep the promise he’d made.
No… it certainly hadn’t been a blessing for the girl with the emerald eyes.
All he could do now was listen as the assistant district attorney turned over the case to twelve people. And as Blake watched each member of the jury file out of the courtroom, all he could do was pray that the flutter of hope he felt for the first time in a long time, wouldn’t betray him yet again.
It took three days before the jury returned. Once again, Blake was in the gallery when the foreman rose from his chair. It wasn’t the words being read that Blake would remember hearing first—it was the sound of laughter. It felt as if time had stopped as he turned his gaze from the jury box to the table where the defendants had sat with total boredom on their faces for weeks, only to find them standing, smiling, laughing, and high-fiving each other while Blake and every other person in the room sat stunned and silent.
Time did not begin again until Blake turned his head and met the ADA’s eyes once more.
He didn’t care that the man looked as broken as Blake felt.
He didn’t care about the dozen people who declared they were deadlocked.
He didn’t care about the judge who looked solemn as he slammed his gavel onto its base demanding order when his courtroom erupted in chaos at the reprehensible conclusion of the trial.
Didn’t care that reporters shouted into their phones, letting the world know no justice had been served. The jury was hung. A mistrial declared.
All Blake cared about was that yet another promise had been broken.
All Blake cared about was that he’d failed the girl…
Again.