Fault Line [Completed]

Chapter Eight

I pace my cell, thinking of yet another attempt for an escape plan. Giving up, I sit down on my bed, angry with myself. I'll never get out of here.

I close my eyes. Something Lizzy taught me. To close out the world, and listen to yourself.

My cell door opens after at least an hour later. I open my eyes and notice a guard entering my cell.

"Come with me." He says. He sounds different than the guards here.

I stand cautiously, walking over to where the guard is. We exit my cell and he leads me down the long hallways. We walk for what seems like forever and I realize that we're at a different section of the facility.

We turn left and reach a hallway that, at the end, has doors. We walk down the last hallway and exit through the double doors.

Multiple vans, that I rode in before on the way here, are parked all in a line. At the head of the line, a man holding a clipboard thick with paper stands with a line of other prisoners like me, all waiting to get taken away.

The guard takes me to the back of the line and there we wait. I guess I'm being transferred.

After ten or so minutes of waiting in line, it's our turn.

"Name." The man with the clipboard states.

"Jane Carter. FBI headquarters." The guard replies.

"Why do they want her there?"

Yes, why do they want me there?

"They just gave me the orders. Now can we go?" The guard motions to the last van.

The man studies us but then quickly nods once. We move to the van and he pushes me into the back. I sit where I sat last time. On the left side, not looking at where I imagine Lizzy would sit if she were here. But she's dead now. There's nothing I can do about that.

But what if she wasn't? What if she was still alive? Agent Smith could have lied to me. Lizzy could still be alive, and well. Maybe she's just healing from the gunshot. Maybe . . . she's not dead.

I'm probably just wishfully thinking. Imagining that she's still alive. Making false fantasies. She's dead. I know it. She wouldn't put me through this if she was alive. She's dead. And that is all there is to it.

**************

About an hour or two later, the van stops. Quite abruptly too. The doors open and I'm slightly blinded by the sun.

"You can come out now. You're safe."

I slowly get out of the van and look at him curiously. He's just smiling to himself like he accomplished something.

"What do you mean 'I'm safe'?"

"You're no longer a prisoner or whatever it was you were." The guard dismisses the thought with a wave of his hand.

"But you were taking me to the FBI headquarters. Why am I here in the middle of no where in . . . who knows where?"

"You're in Mississippi. The people at that place you were in, they think that you're going to FBI headquarters in Washington. You have a couple of days to run." The guard begins to leave.

I grab his arm, stopping him. "But don't you work for them? Why are you helping me?"

"No to the first. Because Lizzy told me to for the second."

"How do you know Lizzy?"

The guard smirks. "I'm Richie."

"Richie? As in 'I can get us fake id's' Richie?"

He holds his hands up in innocence. "The one and only."

"What . . . how? How did Lizzy contact you?"

"Ah. That. Well, after she was shot, she was taken to the hospital wing where she was kept. Unfortunately, she didn't make it. But before she left this world, she contacted me and came up with a plan to get you out of there. She must really care for you."

"We actually just met not too long ago. I guess she kind of understood me."

A long while of silence passed over us.

Richie starts to leave again.

I call out, "Wait, Richie!"

He turns around, clearly annoyed. "Yes?"

"Did she really kill someone?" I ask.

He walks back over to me. "It's a long story, I mean I should know . . . I was there." He sits on the back of the van. "I had gotten us all fake id's. We were going out to a bar to drink. It was stupid, yes, I know. But we were all stupid teens, all five of us.

"Afterwards, we all got into Tom's car and we drove off. After a while . . . we crashed. We hit a car. Tom and Emily were killed on impact. Liz, Maddie and I survived. After the police came, Liz woke up and she ran. Me, I was already long gone. I wasn't really there in the police's eyes. Maddie didn't remember anything, Liz was knocked out and then she ran. The other two were dead.

"I never did get to find out who we hit. I guess I don't really want to know. It wasn't Liz's fault that some guy died. It was all of ours." He looks down, sadness in his eyes.

"It wasn't just some guy. It was my father."

He looks up at me. Without a moment's notice, he has me in his arms, hugging me like I was going to disappear the next second.

"I'm so sorry. I am so sorry."

He releases me and I lower my head. The pain rises quickly and I feel like breaking down right here and right now. He raises my chin with my his hand, a small smile on his face.

"Cheer up, it always works for me with the pain." He slips something into my coat pocket. "If you ever need help, just give me a call."

I nod. "Goodbye Richie."

"Goodbye Jane Carter. And I wish you the best of luck." And with that, he takes off in the dark gray van.

I turn on my heel and take off in the other direction. I'm free from their grasp now. And I will never go back there or anywhere else like that ever again.