The Altruism Effect: Book One (Mastermind Murderers Series 1) Page 3

  Just when the isolation set in her bones once more, she saw his fingers stick out by the edge of their cages.

  “Shush, it’ll be all right. It’ll pass.”

  “How can you be so calm? Does this happen often?” she yelled over the sound of the clanging.

  “Often? I don’t know. It’s sporadic. I think they do it to keep us awake. Sleep deprive us. Torture.”

  Raine moved closer to the corner of her cage to hear his voice better.

  “Though some just sleep through the alarm now too. It’ll be something new, next.”

  “How many… people are here?” she asked, trying to remember what she saw as she walked through the warehouse.

  “I don’t know. Can’t be more than twenty? Some of the cages are empty. But that’s just a guess. We don’t interact very often.”

  The alarm diminished, though the tail end of the noise echoed off the ceiling rafters to the other side of the warehouse. Rigid stillness replaced it.

  “Arie are you… are you a murderer?”

  He slowly retracted his fingers. A silence hung between them, and Raine felt it despite the horrifying clanging of the alarm still ringing in her ears.

  “Are you?” he asked back.

  She slumped down in her cage. “I feel responsible for the loss of a life. Yes.” She couldn’t tell whether or not he heard her soft reply. He didn’t respond, which could mean that he did or didn’t hear her, either way.

  The door to the warehouse creaked open and four men wearing bulletproof vests marched in and opened several cages, dragging the people to their feet. It happened faster than she had time to think.

  She thought about calling out to them, asking why she was here and why they were taking only certain people, but fear froze her. She remembered Arie saying there was no use trying to get them to answer you. She watched as one by one, people were taken from their cages. She scooted into the back of her cage and hid. She thought they were getting ready to leave, but then the sounds drew closer.

  They weren’t coming for her. She saw Arie jerked into the view in front of her cage by the hand of a guard.

  A chill jolted up her spine and wrapped around her neck as she caught a glimpse of his face. His ash brown hair framed his forehead, but his features were calm, though he had dark circles under his eyes. As his arm was twisted and he was yanked down to the concrete, he turned and looked directly into her cage.

  “Arie!” she shouted and scrambled to the front of her cage as quick as her jelly legs would allow. She wanted to help him. Frustration gripped her and her fingers wrapped around the bars as she yanked on them and shouted, “Take me too!”

  Arie’s eyelashes fluttered and she thought she saw him shake his head slightly at her. He wasn’t resisting, he couldn’t resist. She remembered the syringe, the kind of leverage these people had. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen years old.

  She watched them take him. And she wondered if it would be the only time she’d ever see him.

  FIVE

  The longer Arie was gone from the warehouse, the more time she had to think about what horrible things could be happening to him. Her thoughts drifted from the cage to waking up in the intake room. Before she was even admitted, stripped, and forced into this gown, she’d woken up sore. Every muscle in her body had ached and throbbed.

  She moved her wrists back and forth, and stretched her legs out in front of her. Clearly nothing was broken, but she definitely had aches and bruises from an event she couldn’t remember. She pulled her arm through the hole and into the gown, fingering her ribcage where she had seen the purple bruising. Nothing bothered her more than the time that was gone from her memory. The moments that led her to where she was now.

  There was one other time in her life that she remembered blacking out, apart from this. Raine had been at a bar with her friends, dancing the night away to celebrate a promotion. Just remembering her friends, with the colored strobe lights across their faces and the taste of cranberries with vodka on her tongue, brought her out of the confines of the cage.

  Though the blackout from the bar incident had been different. She’d woken up in the bathroom of one of her girlfriends’ apartment in downtown San Francisco. She’d gulped orange juice and aspirin as her friend recounted all the things she had done that night that she found hilarious, things Raine knew she would never do sober.

  After she’d seen the evidence of the night before in the toilet she was draped over, she’d made a vow to never allow herself to get to that point again. She’d hated the idea of not having control over her own body or mind. It had become almost an obsession for her, an extreme to the point where she practiced methods of bringing her consciousness to a heightened state, through meditation or hypnosis.

  She brought her attention back to the stillness of the warehouse. Her eyelids were heavy and her lashes closed over her eyes like a curtain. It’s my job to counsel families and relationships that are in turmoil—to be their guide into the light at the end of the tunnel, not to be in turmoil myself.

  The clunky metal door to the warehouse screeched open.

  A sobbing girl with dirty blond hair emerged from behind the door with one of the muscle men behind her, guiding her by her ponytail. He yanked her hair to the left and forced her into one of the cages. Just behind her was another guard, this time dragging Arie in his wake.

  Horrified, Raine covered her mouth. Arie’s head hung, and he looked small and weak, dragged behind the large man. As he was about to be placed back into his cage next to Raine’s, he lashed out and put up a fight. The guard brought his fist down hard on Arie’s face. Arie swung back.

  Raine pushed herself to the back of her cage again. Every muscle in her body tensed up.

  During the commotion, the other guard used his keys to open her cage.

  Her legs shook uncontrollably. He has no idea he’s putting Arie in my cage!

  The guard shoved Arie into her cage and slammed the door. Arie had clawed the man’s face pretty badly, and it looked as though he was having difficulty seeing.

  The heavy lock clicked and the guard rushed out of the warehouse, cursing as he went.

  Raine held onto her knees in the fetal position, just inches away from Arie. “Holy shit, are you all right?” she whispered, and reached her hand out to him.

  He looked up at her. He had a deep purple and blue bruise on his cheekbone, circling above to his brow. “I… I,” He collapsed.

  She reached out and shifted his body the best she could, so his head was in her lap.

  He was out cold.

  She was drifting. Raine snapped her head back up, and rubbed at her eyes. She looked around, realizing she was still in the cage with Arie. The warehouse was nearly pitch black, with a few bare bulbs along the wall by the door. She calculated it must be nighttime, but she couldn’t be sure. Her internal clock was definitely telling her it was time for her body to rest, but she felt as though she didn’t want to. It was as if by closing her eyes, she might miss out on some major clue that would answer all of her questions.

  In the dim light, Raine traced the lines on Arie’s face with her fingers. He was attractive, in a humble sort of way. He had a long nose, with high cheekbones. When she reached his eye, she lifted her fingers, remembering the skin was torn open and swollen.

  Must have been from when he was whacked in the face by the guard, she thought as her stomach squirmed at the thought of the pain he must have felt. He was younger than her, probably around the age of her little sister, she imagined. When she first saw him, she thought maybe seventeen or eighteen, but now that he lay in her lap, she thought him to be a little older. He must have been in his early twenties, probably around twenty-two. His limbs were long and lanky, and underneath the gown that he wore, she imagined she’d be able to see the definition of his ribcage and hipbones.

  Ar
ie moaned, and turned his body to get up.

  “Shh.” Raine soothed him and stroked his hair.

  He shuddered at her touch and opened his eyes wide. “How did I… ?” It was as if it were painful for him to talk.

  She leaned into him. “Shh, it’s okay. I don’t think they know they put you in here with me. The guard was in such a hurry to get rid of you and leave, that he just picked the first cage.” She spoke at just above a whisper. “You put up a pretty good fight.”

  He shuffled awkwardly in her lap and put his hands on the floor to push himself upright. “Yeah but now it’ll be worse… for me. Next time.” He groaned. “Night guard is a douche.”

  She laughed under her breath. “Is the one you decked the douche?”

  “He takes the power trip a little too seriously, so I stuck it to him.”

  Raine moved closer to the front of the cage to give him more room in the little space they had. She looked out to see if anybody was watching them from the other cages. She leaned forward and whispered to him, “Why not just… comply? That was my plan.”

  “Well, that may work for you.”

  She smoothed the gown over her legs. “What happened to you when they took you?” she asked.

  Arie sighed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

  “They just brought me into a small room and played mind tricks.”

  “Mind tricks?”

  “Well yeah. Make me repeat numbers over and over. Strap me to a chair and hit me when I don’t listen. Do push-ups. Any kind of stuff they can think of to break me down.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s awful.”

  “They’re trying to disorient us.” He shuffled next to her.

  “I’m scared.”

  “Well, turn that fear into a solution. I have a plan to escape,” he whispered.

  His warm breath fogged her ear and she straightened as she caught up with his words. “You do? How?” she asked.

  “Megan. She’ll help us. She has connections.”

  “Megan? Who’s that?” she whispered.

  “She’s like me and you. Well, kind of. She was brought here, only she’s sort of like a favorite for the guards. She gets special privileges and things.”

  “How do you know you can trust her?” she asked as she listened intently.

  “She’s one of us, Raine. She used to sleep in one of these cages herself. She understands what it feels like to be locked up and not know why or what their purpose is. Now the authorities here trust her.”

  “But how do you know she’s not just trying to convince you she’s trustworthy to figure out what your escape is, so she can tell the guards?”

  “She hates it here. She’s… I think she’s given up a part of herself to survive in here. We’ve gotten pretty close since I’ve been here. I just know… I trust her.” Arie said.

  Raine felt a twinge of jealousy. It surprised her. She looked away from him and furrowed her brow.

  He reached for her hand. He picked it up and put his other hand on top.

  She felt the comfort of his touch, but a part of her was nervous so close to him. She thought of her damp and clammy hands, something he didn’t seem to care about at all.

  Jealousy is an emotion that never gives, it only takes, she thought. Her irrational jealousy over Arie’s connection with Megan, a girl who’d had to give herself to survive, was replaced by guilt. She didn’t even know this guy so close to her. He’d been the first being in this environment that comforted her, and she had latched on in desperation.

  What about Marcus back home? Marcus… Where was he? Did he know she had been brought here? Was he even looking for her? The thoughts seemed to bog her down in confusion even more so than before. “How come she’s given in? Why has she given a part of herself to survive?”

  Arie sniffled in the low light. “She complied.” He dropped her hand and turned his head away from her.

  The word sent chills across her. She slumped as she looked down into her lap. “What are we supposed to do?”

  “Well, Meg has seen more of the prison than a lot of us. She says if you follow the hallway all the way down to the end, you run into a set of stairs that go down. She thinks the only way out is down.”

  “Have you ever been up?”

  “Yeah. The guards call it “yard time,” time for us to stretch our legs and get some air. It’s been a while since I’ve been up there.”

  “Up there?”

  “Yeah, I think the yard is on the roof of where we are now. Every time I’ve been up there, it’s been foggy as all hell. Meg’s had more yard time than any of us. But I tell you, there’s no way we’d get away by going up.”

  He seemed so clear, so sure of it, that she didn’t question him. He’d been here longer than her. He knew things she didn’t.

  “So our job is to find a way out of these locked cages. How do you propose we do that?” she asked.

  “Well, I think—” He coughed, hacking up blood into his hand. He turned away from her again.

  “Hey… they got you pretty bad?”

  “A few—” he coughed again, “kicks in the internal organs oughta do it.” He spoke between coughs. “It’s gross. I’m sorry.” He wiped his hand on his gown.

  She furrowed her brow once more and raged inside that she couldn’t help him. Can’t believe there are people in this world that would do this!

  “I think we just need to wait for another guard to come get us, and then we attack them,” he said.

  She thought about it a moment. “What if they come prepared?”

  “There will be two of us this time, not just me or you. We can take a guard, the two of us.”

  She hesitated a moment. “Well then, it’s crazy, but it sounds like we have the beginning of a plan.” Raine breathed deeply.

  “But before we can try to take out a guard, we need to get our rest. So try your hardest to get some sleep. I know you haven’t slept since you got here.”

  She peered into the shadow over his face as he spoke to her, with just the light from down the row of cages shining dimly across them. His eyes wore a look of concern. This young man, who had just been beaten to a pulp, still cared about her well being. He had the virtue of a protector inside him. It was comforting to have a comrade in this environment.

  She turned her head to look at him. “How would you know if I hadn’t slept yet, unless you haven’t been sleeping either?”

  She hadn’t slept well since she awoke in the intake room, and she’d already lost track of the time spent inside her cage.

  Arie moved towards her.

  She wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing. She sat still as he adjusted himself next to her, shoulder to shoulder.

  He reached over and gently placed his hand on the side of her head and brought it toward him.

  She laid her head on his shoulder. In the dark of the cage, they sat together, the motion of their breathing moving in sync. Her eyes fluttered closed.

  She drifted.

  SIX

  Raine woke, and snapped her head up. She oriented herself in the cage once more. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this, she thought, as she looked out of the cage at the others across from them. Part of her felt like the others weren’t even human. She never talked to them. They never talked to her. From the moment she was thrown into her own cage, she saw them as murderers. And she did not classify herself as one of them.

  But she wasn’t alone. Arie was there too. Was he like the others? No. He couldn’t be. Arie was like her, thrown in here by mistake. Treated like dogs. Worse than dogs.

  She looked over at him and saw his eyes were wide open. He raised his index finger to his lips to shush her.

  The door to the warehouse opened, and pounding footsteps echoed
off the walls.

  Her fear flooded through her chest. The guard was headed in their direction.

  “You got this.” Arie whispered to her. The words rolled off his lips so softly that she couldn’t even hear his breath between words.

  Just like textbook, the guard bent down and squinted into the cage. He reached for his belt.

  Raine held her breath. A bright light illuminated their faces. She reached up and shielded her eyes with the back of her hand.

  The guard grunted as he clicked his key into the steel lock and turned it.

  Arie moved forward and used his arm to push Raine to the back of the cage.

  She looked straight past Arie and into the eyes of the guard.

  He stared straight back at her.

  There was no turning back now.

  The guard reached out and grabbed for Arie’s throat, but the boy was quicker. He leaped out and tucked the man’s head in a headlock.

  Without thinking twice, Raine worked her way out of the cage, struggling with the fabric of her gown.

  Everything was a blur. In her peripheral vision, she saw other inmates squirming. The faint sound of screaming, yelling out, and rattling the metal cages threatened to distract her as she tried to concentrate. She focused on this man that was keeping them locked up and doing terrible things for reasons she couldn’t fathom.

  Arie needs me!

  While Arie was choking him, the guard had one arm clutching Arie’s, with the other by his side.

  She was about to leap forward onto the guard, when she caught a glimpse of the baton from his hip as he whipped it out with his free hand.

  “No!” Raine shouted as the guard brought the baton upward and smashed it on Arie’s forehead. She saw Arie’s eyes roll up into the back of his head and he dropped to the floor.

  She fell to her knees.

  The guard transferred the baton to his other hand and swiftly locked it back on his belt, pulling something else out.

  A gun.

  “Don’t move.”