Chapter Text
CHAPTER SIX
Every Claim You Stake
This story and its subsequent follow-ons are a work of pure fiction. This is merely a story and should be treated as such.
(Danny)
I wasn’t about to lose Jenna due to some past mistake. I wouldn’t. That was clear. What was less so was who or what mistake exactly had led to this.
We’d been given the address along with directions and instructions. I no longer had the upper hand, or maybe I never did? Somehow, whoever this was, he had been watching us. For how long? I was scared to even think it. We were in the car before I knew it and heading for the location. But my mind wouldn’t rest.
I took out my phone and dialed my son hoping he had been smart and kept his phone charged as I had always warned. It rang. Bzz. Bzzz. He picked up on the first ring.
“Dad?”
“T… Are you alright?”
“Dad? Is that you?”
“T… T… Are you alright?”
“Yeah… yeah dad. I’m fine. What… what's up?”
“You’re alright?”
“Yes. Dad… what’s up? You’re starting to scare me.”
“I… I…” I looked over to Peter who was warning me by shaking his head. “It’s nothing. Just… birthday jitters I guess.”
“Oh… okay?” I could immediately tell in his voice he wasn’t convinced.
“You know how it is… getting older and everything. Kinda scary.”
“Dad?”
“It's nothing son. I promise.”
“Okay well… I’ll be there in like a week. We can talk then?”
“Yeah T… and…” My voice fell off at the end as I jerked a tear.
“Dad… Everything will be alright. Okay.”
“Thanks son.” I sniffed doing my best to hide my shakey emotions.
“I mean it. Everything will be alright.”
“I love you, alright. I love you.”
“Love you too Dad.”
We both sat on the line a further minute before either of us had the courage to hang up. “Be safe.” I said, before hanging up the line. Be safe.
Peter looked at me for reassurance. “It’s better he not know.”
“Okay.”
I took out my phone again to ring Lucy. Bzz. Bzzz.
“D, our son is on the other line. He said you freaked him out. What’s going on?”
“Lucy, I need to know that you are alright?”
“D?”
“Luce, I don’t have time to explain. Just… are you alright?”
“D, you’re scaring me.”
“I need you to go now. Take your hubby, our son and Madi. Don’t go home till I call you. Okay.”
There was a pause before she returned with an answer. “Purple Unicorn.”
“Purple Unicorn.” I repeated.
She hung up.
I shot off a text to a contact of mine named; Purple Unicorn.
I love the sun in April.
They replied a moment later.
I love the rain in June.
Codes from when we were kids. But they still bonded us. I knew deep down, despite our differences, my brother would always come through when I needed him. One day I promise I’ll explain. Everyone I loved was safe, my focus now needed to be with her, with Jenna. She was more than just some girl I was with, she was my family. And I always protected my family.
I had put on my phone earlier a timer with the hours ticking away. I had been warned not to be late. As much as I hated this demented demon of a man, I didn’t for a second doubt his conviction. To go this far… for something so shallow as a petty revenge plot. It was like I was in a cheap eighties thriller or something. I was still unsure of his identity with no clues to it or even to suggest a hint. The lack of information was almost as urksome as the smart son of a bitch himself.
We must have been driving a while because the sun had dropped and the air had turned significantly more sour. Sour? Why had he capitalised it?
I looked over the message again having missed the seemingly random capitalization earlier. “Pen… pen… I need a…”
Peter was focused on the road as I searched through his cab. I found what was a blunted razor. It would have to do. I took it to my arm and began scrawling out the letters.
S-I-M-O…
“What the f*ck are you doing?”
…N-S-A-Y-S…
“Have you f*cking lost it?”
“Simon Says… it spells… Simon Says…”
“What are you…?”
I took the phone and waved it at him. “The message. The message. It reads, "Simon Says.”
“And that means…?”
“It means… I do what he says… or I lose.”
“What the f*ck are you talking about? Daniel, your f*cking losing it.”
I steadied myself and calmed my voice. “Peter, pull over.”
“What… no, we’re almost there.”
“Peter… I said, pull over.” I was running with adrenaline, the drug of passion fueling my every thought. I had reached down between the seat and unco*cked his service pistol.
“Are… you are f*cking crazy…” He said looking down the barrel of his own gun. “Think about what you’re doing Daniel. Think very f*cking carefully here.”
“I… I am…” I had a small moment of waver but I controlled it and studied myself.
He pulled over to the curb slowly with one eye on me and the other on the road. “I am an officer of the LAPD…”
“I know…”
“I will arrest you.”
“I know…”
“Then why are you…?”
“This is the only way… the only way we get her back…”
“You don’t know…”
“I DO. I DO.”
I got out keeping the gun trained on him as I walked around the bonnet toward the driver's side.
“You’re doing the wrong thing here Danny.”
“No I’m not.” I said, reaching for the keys. “I’m so sorry about this.”
“About what?”
I took the keys and tossed them high into the dark of the night landing somewhere in the alley beyond.
“And this.”
“And what?”
I took the butt of the gun and struck him in the head leaving him unconscious. I locked the inner door and closed it before ringing it in anonymously and heading off to find this son of a bitch… and my Jenna.
**********
I followed the directions, given in co-ordinates rather than actual directions because… why the f*ck not. I was able to follow them however to a large run down warehouse of sorts. It was a dilapidated red brick monolith barely able to support itself any longer. It had a broken sheath of crime tape stripped from presumably the double door entrance. Sets of footprints disturbed the dust in a pattern, unlikely to be the son of a bitch with my girl. From the footprints alone, I could tell it was teens, maybe homeless standing around a hastily made fire. There was ash amongst the dust to confirm my suspicions.
I followed my nose round a corner, cautious of any noise or disturbance. A large jungle green transformer hummed round the edge of the building hiding anything that would surprise me. I took an extra wide berth to avoid it.
There was a strange smell of cinnamon and honey. Not likely in the area I was. It had a strange sense of a trap, but I had no choice but to approach. Caution be damned, I was getting closer, I knew it. I don’t know how, but I did. I’m coming, Jenna.
I was in a maze of broken down buildings looking more like New York than the heart of LA. Every turn found another and every building looked like the last. The one to my left looked just like the one to my right and further the one in front. I was lost, having to use my instincts over anything else. I closed my eyes, sat upon the cold damp concrete and took in my surroundings. The sounds of distant traffic, the echoes of voices like they had been stretched through Seran wrap. The feel of a lite rain drizzling down on me. The brush of a hot wind that dried the sweat of my brow. The whisper of light peeking around the corner. The scent of flowers, subtle but tainting what would otherwise be a soot stained alley. It struck me as odd.
I took the next right, using my nose as my guiding key.
I had walked a distance before it struck me, but the path held a memory, one deep down I wasn’t able to immediately conjure but it was breaking through the fog. I walked some more with the beginning of the memory forcing its way in.
I was on the phone to Tommy.
Why was that part of it?
I kept moving, my legs taking over as the memory became more prominent. I was talking to my son… but it wasn’t recently. It had been some time ago. I remember because he had one of those dopey stretcher things in his ears. I remember because I had told him he looked like one of those women from the cover of National Geographic with the long ears from some tribe in Africa. He had asked what the heck that was and we both laughed.
It was becoming clearer, but I needed more.
I rounded a corner, but it wasn’t like the others. It opened up to a large rectangular slab of newly poured cement. A parking lot if I had to guess. A few sets of either broken or unfinished lamps stood like sentinels over the area. I walked into the centre, turning back to face the labyrinth of buildings. A side door stood beside a massive roller door large enough for a semi.
My memory had eluded me leaving me standing before it for any clue but I was lost. “AGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!” I shouted into the depths of the night waiting for whatever deity be true to strike me down.
Instead… I was answered with the cruel sting of silence.
“FUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK!”
My echo stretched out across the car lot bouncing of the empty buildings and reflecting my solidarity. I was alone. Lost. And worse I was about to lose her. What could I do? I was just one me, I had no clues, and time wa running out.
A sudden reminder of my failings arrived in the form of another taunting poem.
And so must you sink
Down, down, down
The rabbit hole
You’re late, you’re late
“FUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKK YOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUU!” I yelled finding peace in the quiet. “f*ck YOU!”
The echoes stretched back to me bathing me in the soundscape from the surrounding shockwave.
I lay down in the cold letting the rain strike me for all I was worth. The stinging nettles struck my skin reminding me of every taunt and whisper woe launched at me my entire life.
You’re a disappointment.
I don’t love you anymore.
You are nothing.
Be grateful your mother is dead. She would hate you.
Pathetic.
Loser.
c*nt.
I knew them by heart, I felt them in my chest. It was like breathing. It was a part of me, a part of me that I would die with, a sour part, but a part nonetheless.
As I wallowed in a puddle of failures, I saw her face, Jenna’s. As clear as a morning sun. It broke my vision, her cold stare, frightened and alone as that f*cker hurt her. The way she pleaded with me with her emotive eyes across the screen. The photo of my girl, hurting and broken…
PHOTO #01 Jenna
Get the f*ck up you useless piece of sh*t. Jenna needs you. As I snapped to, I rose from the puddle and co*cked the gun. I removed the safety and prepared for what was to come. I knew it could only end one way. Him or me.
I went to sit up when I found a poster that had come free from one of the many buildings landed on my lap. I turned the page around.
It was old, years by the look. I knew it, yet couldn’t place it… and then I did. I co*cked the gun, safety off. I knew who this son of a bitch was. And then… BANG!
TO BE CONTINUED…
