Page 3 of Girl, Unmasked
‘I know, but nothing about this meeting is following protocol.I don’t want anyone hearing this conversation.’
The guard glanced at Huskins, who took a moment and then nodded.‘If you insist, Miss Dark, but I’ll need guards stationed outside this door, okay?’
‘Fine.’
Ella did insist, because Creed was more likely to open up one-on-one.If there was an audience, he’d play to them.Huskins gave the guard the signal, and then she left, but not without dragging her feet.She kept glancing back like she was missing out on the gossip of the century.She positioned herself outside the door, but Huskins made her move a few feet further away.
‘I’ll go get Creed.He’ll be escorted by five guards, and he’ll be handcuffed.We can fetter him too if you wish.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’Ella wanted Austin Creed free, because the more limbs he had use of, the more excuse she might have to do what she planned to do.
‘Certainly.Remember that this room is sound-proof.No one outside these walls will hear a thing.There’s a panic button beneath the table.Hit that and the guards will intercept immediately.’
‘That also won’t be necessary.’
‘Very well.Consider it a last resort.’
Huskins spun on his heel, but before he crossed the threshold, Ella said, ‘You know, warden, you didn’t search me for weapons before I came in here.’
‘No?’
‘No.Pretty strange for a maximum security prison.’
A moment of silence, then, ‘I may have spoken to Director Edis recently, and let’s just say I trust him and he trusts you.’
‘Yes he does.’
‘Well, then.Like I said, very few inmates go the way of Jeffery Dahmer.Creed will be here shortly.’
Another Herculean effort from Huskins and the door closed, leaving Ella alone in the meeting room.Dahmer had been beaten to death with a metal bar by a fellow inmate.Everyone knew it was coming.The guards had looked the other way.
In a few minutes, Austin Creed would walk through that door.The man who'd started all this.
And if he’d started it, he could end it too.
***
The lock clicked.And then again.
Ella’s heart rate doubled in speed as the door cracked open, then wider.The prison guards formed a human tunnel, and from the middle emerged a man in chains and an orange jumpsuit.
Time folded in on itself.Two years collapsed into nothing, and Ella was suddenly back in that women’s shelter where the man in front of her had planned to kill five women in one night.Ella remembered hiding under those the bedsheets, pretending to be a potential victim, then blindsiding Creed and getting into the first real fight of her life.They’d fought throughout the building, tore it down, and ended up rolling down the stairs together.Ella still felt the phantom sting of his punches now, but she mostly remembered slamming the door of the squad car on him and leaving him to his new life in jail.
‘Hello,’ Creed said.The voice hadn’t changed, even if the body had.Creed was much skinnier now, with a gaunt face and chasms below his eyes.His brown hair touched his shoulders, which helped hide his dissolving hairline.The guards surrounded him like he was carrying the plague, but Creed only had eyes for Ella.
‘Hello, Austin.Take a seat.’
The guards positioned him in the chair across from her.His hands were cuffed, but in front of him.One of them asked, ‘You need us to stay, ma’am?’
‘No.Thank you.’
The man hesitated.‘We’ll be outside if you need us.’
The guards exchanged looks but filed out.The door sealed with another click.
And then it was just the two of them.
‘Hope I didn’t interrupt your busy day,’ Ella said.
