Locked Doors (Andrew Z. Thomas/Luther Kite Series 2)

Violet had been thrown in a corner onto a pile of sawdust, hands bound with duct tape, another strip across her mouth, tears streaming down her face as she watched me through horrified eyes.

The Kites operated in a tizzy of movement all around me—Maxine cinching the leather ankle restraints, Luther tightening the chest strap, Rufus pressing my head against the tall chairback. He pulled a leather strap flush against my forehead, ran it through the buckle, and said, “Best be pulling these straps tight as can be, cause he’s gonna jerk like the dickens.”

As all six leather restraints were buckled and viciously tightened, I noticed the copper wire running from the chair into a generator.

“What are you gonna do to me?” I asked, my throat tight with dehydration and fear.

“Boy, we’re gonna run electricity through your body until you are dead,” Maxine said, coming forward in a daisy print housedress, her jaw swollen, bright black eyes shining.

“Why?”

The old woman knelt at my feet, and with a pair of rusty scissors, began cutting away my fleece pants below the knee, the backs of my legs pressed against the cold plates of copper. Then she trimmed the sleeves of my shirt below the elbows so my bare forearms made contact with the electrodes on the armrests.

“Why are you doing this?” I failed to hide the tremor in my voice.

“Because we can, my boy, because we can.” Maxine chuckled.

In the corner opposite Violet, Rufus poured a big bag of seasalt into a basin of water while Luther vigorously stirred the saline solution with a wooden spoon.

“Luther,” I said. “Luther, you look at me and tell me why—”

“Where’s that razor, Sweet-Sweet?” Maxine asked.

Rufus pulled a razor from the pocket of his tattered leather jacket and handed it to his wife. She walked behind the chair and I felt the blade scraping across my skull as she shaved a ragged circle on the crown of my head.

Logic told me to shut the f**k up, that nothing I said would make any difference. But I wasn’t operating on logic now.

I saw Maxine reach behind the generator and lift a Carolina Tarheels baseball cap, juryrigged with a chinstrap and a long copper wire curving out of the top.

“Please listen,” I said as she walked over to the basin and dipped the underside of the hat in the saltwater, letting the sponge affixed to the inside saturate. “Look, I’ve done terrible things. I understand how a person comes to be that way, but you don’t have to do this. Let’s find a way to—”

Rivulets of lukewarm water ran down my face, salting my lips as she fitted the skullcap onto my head. She fastened the chinstrap, moved out of the way as Luther and Rufus approached bearing dripping sponges.

“Luther, I apologize. I feel terrible about what happened. You have to believe that. I’m so sorry I left you—”

“To freeze and bleed to death in the desert. I’m sure you are now. But aren’t you curious?”

“About what?”

“How I escaped.”

“Oh, well yes—”

“It was the damnedest thing, Andrew. One of the Maddings’ ranch hands showed up on a snowmobile about an hour after you left. Young man saved my life. Took my place on the porch. If it wasn’t for him, I guess you’d be doing a lot better right now.”

They began to rub my legs and forearms with a peculiar solemnity, sousing with warm saltwater wherever my skin touched the copper plating.

Don’t you dare beg these monsters for your life. It’s what they get off on.

“Maxine, please look at me.”

She looked at me.

“What if it were Luther sitting here? Wouldn’t you want someone to show your son a little mercy?” On “mercy” my voice broke. “I’m someone’s son, too.”

“Not anymore,” Luther said.

There was a can of unleaded gasoline sitting next to a circular saw. Rufus picked it up, unscrewed the gas cap on the generator, and topped off the tank.

“Beautiful, would you christen the chair?”

The old woman picked up a bottle of Cook’s from behind a stack of unused lumber, stepped toward me, and swung the bottle into the chairback. It broke off at the neck, soaking my lap with warm fizzing spumante.

Maxine said, “And we’re operational.”

The Kites applauded, hugs all around.

“Remember, son,” Rufus said, “we don’t have all night. Keep in mind we’re not safe here anymore. We need to be on the first ferry of the morning. Now, Andrew, don’t you worry about little Violet. She’s coming with us. I think my boy has a crush.”

Maxine and Rufus stepped back, standing arm-in-arm in a corner as Luther approached the generator.

“No,” I said, “please don’t do that, Luther just wait a—”

When he gripped the pullstring I raged against the restraints.

To my surprise, Luther waited, watching me with a sort of perverse patience, allowing me to exhaust myself, making sure I knew I wasn’t leaving his chair under my own strength.

I quit struggling.

Nothing left.

Hyperventilating dizzy black stars.

I looked at Luther.

Looked at Rufus and Maxine.

At Violet.

She was sitting up now, her eyes closed, lips moving.

Are you praying for my soul?

Luther yanked the pullstring and the generator roared to life, flooding the small stone room with the stench of gasoline and a growling lawnmower-like clatter.

He squeezed his hands into a pair of rubber gloves and spit out the white pit of a Lemonhead, looming before me now, one hand grasping the skullcap wire, the other holding a wire sticking out of the vibrating generator.

All they had to do was touch.

He adjusted his grip, the ends just inches apart.

I haven’t made peace with anything.

And the circuit closed, a blue stream of electrons arcing between the wires, sparks flying, the generator sputtering, a sharp coldness spreading from my head through my knees to the ends of my toes, the current glutting me with its boundless ache.

Then came a lightning slideshow of last images:

Smoke rising from my arms—my body shaking—the Kites’ fixation on my pain—Violet slipping out of the room—my world detonating into pure and blinding white.

64

THE generator shuddered to a halt.

Andrew Thomas sat motionless in the chair, candy-scented smoke rising from his arms and legs, bellowing out of the skullcap.

In the new silence, soft sizzles could be heard emanating from his body.