Page 33 of Swerve
The Proprietor
“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.”
—Ernest Hemingway
APPARENTLY, THE GIRL hasn’t spotted the camera tucked behind the air vent in the ceiling.
She stands outside the door and listens to the silence the young girl has forced herself into. She studies her on the small screen attached to the door.
Tough, this one.
She doesn’t mind that. In the long run, the girl will last far beyond those who give in early on. From an investment point of view, this is far preferable.
So much goes into the initial process. The breaking down of the will. Time being the most precious resource, of course. In these first days, the world is still looking for them, tracing every possible clue, connection, lead.
But she’s seen the timeline often enough to know what begins to happen when the connections fall through, the leads don’t pan out.
The girl is right to worry.
Whoever Emory is, whatever role she plays in the girl’s life, her commitment to finding her will start to wilt like cut flowers in a glass vase. No matter how much you replenish the water, place them in a stream of sunlight, the flowers will die. Cut off from their life source, death is inevitable.
And so is the original charge of determination so admirable in the families of the abducted. Hope is their life source, and when that begins to fade, the fire of their commitment reduces from flame to spark to cinder.
But the girl can’t know that. And so she will continue counting on rescue. Holding onto her resistance, as if her family will be able to feel that, to know that she is waiting on them to come for her, that she will never give in to what is expected of her here.
There is a very different truth awaiting her though.
She walks to the end of the hall, stares at the monitor on the door and the very different picture provided to her here.
The other girl is eating from the plate of food brought to her this morning. Two large, glazed donuts and a tall glass of milk. Her expression is one of extreme gratitude, and she can see the girl has already begun the descent into submission.
Very good.
Soon enough, this one will be ready to release from the trap and introduce to her new world.
She glances down the hall at the other door. Her friend will take a bit longer. But she’ll get there. Eventually, they always do.
Knox
“But I do nothing upon myself, and yet I am my own executioner.”
—John Donne
IT’S THE SECOND time he’s been called into Chief Parker’s office in as many days, and no one needs to tell him there’s not going to be a positive outcome.
Knox takes a seat in front of the chief’s desk. “You wanted to see me?”
“I tried,” she says, giving him a long, assessing look. “There’s video, apparently.”
This gets his attention. “What do you mean?”
“There was a camera in the apartment. In the bedroom to be exact. Apparently, Senator Hagan was on to his wife’s philandering.”
He knows this should bother him, wonders why it doesn’t. He weighs how to answer. “And?”
“I was told to fire you. From high enough up that I’m risking my own position to debate that decision.”
“So why would you debate it?” he asks without letting his eyes waver from hers.
