Page 49 of Shadow Seeking

“Easy, old timer,” Dante said. “We just want to ask a few questions.”

Kelvin stumbled to his feet. I could smell the alcohol from where we were, but he still managed to stand. “Leave me alone,” he said, trying to avoid my gaze.

“Kelvin,” I said, taking a step forward. “We need to ask you some questions about the Supe Community Action?—”

Before I could finish, he shot out of his chair, pulled out a nasty switchblade, and popped open its eight-inch blade.

“Get away from me,” he shouted. His gaze darted wildly between Dante and me. “Get away from me! You want to kill me!”

Crap. I hadn’t expectedthis. I put up my hands and took a step back. “Easy now, Kelvin. We’re not here to hurt you. I promise—we aren’t out to harm you. We want to ask a couple questions?—”

“No!” The panic in his voice was reaching alarming levels. He was one step away from lashing out.

Orik and Dante both moved back as well. “What do we do?” Orik muttered under his breath.

“I’m not sure. We need the cops, though.”

“Let me talk to him,” the elderly woman we had been talking to said. She had followed us over. “He knows me. Call the cops while I give it a try.”

“I don’t want you to put your life in danger,” I said.

“I won’t.”

As Orik put in a call to the police, she stepped forward. “Kelvin, you know me, right?”

He looked at her, confused, then slowly nodded. “You’re Old Sarah.”

“Right, and you know that old Sarah loves you dearly, right?” Her voice was remarkably gentle. “Old Sarah won’t let you down.”

Kelvin slowly lowered the knife. “You’ve never lied to me,” he said.

“And I never will. Now set the knife down. Put it down, Kelvin. You know I don’t like blades and I won’t be able to talk to you as long as you’re holding it.”

As Kelvin lowered the blade to the ground, Sarah slowly reached out and picked it up. She took Kelvin’s hand and led him back to his chair, indicating for him to sit. I watched in silence. If she could make him comfortable enough to sit down, then maybe we could keep him under control until the cops got there.

Sarah turned to me. “What do you want to ask him?”

I lowered my voice, hoping he couldn’t hear me. “We think he may have had a hand in an explosion this morning that killed at least one person.”

Sarah winced. “Oh dear.”

“Does that sound like him? Is that something you think he’s capable of?”

The elderly woman thought for a moment. “I think…under the right circumstances, yes. He’s got a volatile nature. He’ll go through long periods of being fine, then something will set him off and he’s ranting and raving again. I have seen him tear up another veteran before.”

“What do you mean?”

“They got into an ideological argument and he…lost his way and attacked the other man. He almost killed him. But when the police came, Chester never told the police who attacked him. We have a code here, and everybody knows that Kelvin has issues. That Chester provoked him…”

She paused as sirens echoed in the distance. Kelvin didn’t even seem to notice.

“But…” Sarah continued in a soft voice, “if Kelvin took a life…if he hurt someone on the outside. Well now, that’s out of our hands. We rule ourselves, but break the rules outside of camp and we can’t do anything to cover it up.”

I was beginning to get a good look into the way the encampments worked. They were communities within the community. “Yes. And if he’s our man, he injured several other people.”

“They can’t take me,” Kelvin suddenly broke into our conversation, once again wild-eyed and panicked. “I can’t live in a cage!”

He jumped to his feet, but this time, instead of a knife, he withdrew a stick of dynamite. It was prepped and ready, and he held it up with one hand, a lighter in his other hand. “Back away!”

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