The Broken Ones (Book 1) Read online

  Golem was rewarded with both of them gulping, though he could see the jab at them had angered them. “Yes. Our apologies.” The second clone began to dress at this point, wearing the same outfit as her counterpart. In his mind, Golem found that to be an over the top cliché for him.

  “Whatever,” he said, stepping back. “Are you ready to hear the plan now?”

  The first clone spoke up, now official spokesperson for the duo. “First, we discuss payment. We get half of your original score, right?”

  Golem knew what had gone on and he had no patience for it. “First, we discuss if you could get a hold of the weapon I requested, and are you as good with it as you say you are?"

  "I won't miss," promised Clone One.

  "We got it," added Clone Two.

  "Good. I assume that sometime soon that she will have to be brought before the judge at the courthouse. That’s when we will make our move."

  "And the score?" Clone One was back on point.

  "You get one fourth of the score," Golem lied. He had told them that the job at the mall was their second heist together, and that the first one had gone off without a hitch. "You get half of mine if she dies. If she lives, you have my permission to extort as much of hers as you want." He suspected that Miss Fire wouldn't respond well to being extorted. He may not have to explain to this weird woman– these women– that there was no money to be had. It was a risky gamble, but at this point, he was already in the hole way too much to worry about it. This was for all the marbles.

  "So, you’re trying to motivate us to keep her alive?" Clone One seemed perplexed by the concept.

  "I want her free or dead." He would prefer her alive as he found he was attracted to the woman, but in the end, his creation was right. There was a good chance this would only be resolved with death.

  "You are one cold-blooded man,” Clone Two frowned at him.

  "I’m the villain," Golem admitted. "It's what we do."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sarah ran her now-free hands over the smooth oak of the desk, feeling the ridgelines of the rings that could still be seen under the clear lacquer. She didn't care for the feel of wood, but after having her hands bound in such a manner for so long, she welcomed the feel of anything tangible in her hands. She scooped up a round glass sphere that was reminiscent of a crystal ball, but this one with more of a marble feel and look to it. Black with white marble striping it felt cool to the touch. As she rotated the ball around her hands, feeling the weight shift from one hand to the other, she glanced around the room with more intent than the last time she was here.

  Plaques and awards hung along one wall, all having the name Rebecca A. Landers. A doctorate degree for a psychologist as well as several recommendations from a prestigious school where she had apparently earned herself honorary titles and degrees. Out of all the degrees and medical accolades, hung next to her doctorate was a degree from a creative arts school in regards to special effects and costume design. It was only a bachelors, but still it hung with just as much prominent placing as the rest of the much higher awards.

  Doctor Landers entered her office, sliding the door closed behind her. "I am glad to see you decided to return," she smiled as she spoke, and the truth of it seemed to touch her eyes. Dressed in a slimming business suit of blue with white pinstripes, her blonde hair done up, she looked every bit as professional as the wall of accolades would indicate.

  Yet Sarah's gaze drifted back to the special effects degree.

  Doctor Landers took a seat in her brown high-back leather chair and grinned at Sarah. "I like it when people notice that degree," she confessed. "It means they are paying attention, and I believe more receptive. It stops becoming a wall of books and papers and people genuinely start to open up themselves. That degree was my first. When I was a little girl I wanted to work with George Lucas, helping him make the next alien for the Star Wars series. I wanted it so badly that I remained focus on it until I turned 22. Bachelors in hand I started to question what I was doing and why. All of my friends would come to me for advice, and yet here I was wanting to design the next movie monster. Then one day it occurred to me that I had a stronger gift. One for helping people find their own true purpose. I framed that document and immediately went to get my first degree in psychology."

  Sarah nodded, smiling back, though she could feel it was a weak one. Not fake, but just not felt from the depths of her. "It's a good story."

  Doctor Landers smiled again, "And one with a point. You are never too far along on your own path to change directions completely."

  "That is why I am here," Sarah admitted.

  "Great,” Doctor Landers clasped her hands in front of her, and a serious look came across her face. "But before we get started, there are two things I feel I must tell you. First is that I have no intentions of assisting you in building a case for an insanity defense. Too many people come into my office thinking I am going to teach them the ways to fool the system and to get a posh little padded room instead of a harsh six by six cell. Am I understood?"

  Sarah nodded, "I have no intentions of trying to plea insanity for my defense."

  "Truly?"

  "Truly," Sarah nodded, setting the marble sphere down on her desk. "And the second thing?"

  Doctor Landers nodded, her face become a wall of no emotion. "The second thing is more superficially for you in particular. I am here to help. Anything you say in this room will remain between you and me. I will go to jail myself before I reveal anything you say to me, apart from one caveat. If you make any credible threats against myself, yourself or anyone, I am required by law to alert the authorities. And with you in particular, and your unique ability, any threat you give me I will consider credible. Am I understood?"

  Sarah nodded, head bowed this time. Doctor Landers had a point. The last time they had met, Sarah had threatened to set her and this small room on fire. "I completely understand, Doctor, and I apologize for my outburst last time. I won't make excuses, but I promise that I won't do it again."

  "Good. Now that we have that out of our way, how can I help you today, Ms. Givens?"

  Sarah leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes for a moment as she tried to collect her thoughts. The last couple of days was unnerving for her, and she was at the point where she knew she needed to seek help or else wind up like her cellmate kept teasing her about, taking her life in some manner. "My cellmate calls this place Haunted Hill, and tells me that almost every inmate has seen a ghost of some sort. What do you know about this places history?"

  Doctor Landers leaned back, tapping a pen to her thin pale pink lips, her blue eyes watching Sarah as she spoke. "I have heard of people calling Mercy Hill, Haunted Hill. Incidentally, I took some time to look up the history of this place. Before this place was Mercy Hill Correctional Facility, it was Mercy Hill Asylums. This was way back before the Reagan Administration, and was at the height of when psychological treatments were the stuff of nightmares and horror stories. Learned doctors tried to cure mental illness with everything from drilling holes in people's heads to hooking them up to actual car batteries and shocking them repeatedly. Now, while electroshock therapy does have its merits, not in the manner in which it was being applied all those years ago. Couple that with the fact that the staff generated part of its revenues by allowing socialites to come through and watch the treatments purely for educational purposes, of course, they would say, this place was a monstrosity that did more damage than good. Though the world is in a worse place for having shut down its asylums and let the mentally ill wander the streets, this place closing down was one of the few places that needed to be shut down. And before it was a mental institute, it was a rehabilitation camp for offenders. This was in the late eighteen hundreds when capital punishment was the going rate, and society couldn't get enough of its public executions. From the little material still available, I gathered that a large number of executions took place in what is now the Yard. Anything from hanging to firing squad, and even a cou
ple with an actual ax." Doctor Landers shivered at that last.

  "Wow."

  "Yeah," Doctor Landers agreed, "This place has been the epicenter of violence for as long as it has been around. I would not be surprised that if we were able to find a Native American account of this place before all that, that we might find it held a similar bloody history with them. Why do you ask?"

  Sarah wasn't quite sure she was ready to admit what brought her here. "Tell me, Doctor, do you believe in ghosts?"

  Doctor Landers’ eyes widened. "Ghosts?" She seemed to ponder the question. "I am not going to lie to you, Ms. Givens, you are not the first person to ask me that. Having been asked as many times as I have, I have begun to allow myself some room to question my previous beliefs. As a person of science, I find it hard to fathom the existence of ghosts or other supernatural entities, but until last week, I would have scoffed at the notion of people conjuring fire with their minds or monsters made of dirt. So, skeptic though I may be, I think I would be remiss if I did not allow some room for the possibility. Are you saying that you have seen a ghost?"

  Sarah remained quiet, trying to determine how best to answer. After a while, "I have seen two," she admitted.

  "Two?" Doctor Landers leaned forward, setting the pen aside and tilting her head. "You have seen two ghosts here? Do you feel comfortable telling me about these experiences?"

  Sarah nodded. "The first one I saw was after I saw you last. I was back at my cell alone when I saw one of the cops I had murdered."

  "Policemen," Doctor Landers corrected. "Let's afford them the respect they deserve, shall we?"

  Sarah stared at her for a moment, caught off guard. She wasn't sure what the difference was between calling a police officer a cop or police, but Doctor Landers spoke with such casual authority it somehow made sense. She nodded and continued. "The first time was of a police officer I had killed. Shrapnel had taken a piece of his skull and you could see what lay underneath. He was outside my cell slamming on the bars trying to get in. I just knew that if he did, I would die. Do you think that is possible?"

  "That the police officer's ghost could have killed you?"

  "Yeah."

  "That is an interesting question. I am not sure I believe in ghosts as I have said earlier, but what I do believe in is the human mind, and its capacity for wondrous and terrible things. Mercy Hill is not without its rash of suicides. I believe that perhaps in your mind, you have would have believed it was the ghost killing you, but in reality it might have been you doing it all along. This is something like a psychotic break, and I think with this particular scenario, whether or not the ghost was real, the threat was. What happened to this ghost? How did you escape it?"

  "My cellmate showed up right as I screamed, and I am ashamed to say that I closed my eyes there at the end. When I opened it, he was gone."

  Doctor Landers nodded, picking up the pen to write something down in her notepad. "And you said there was a second one? Was it another police officer?"

  Sarah nodded. "It was this morning. I woke up and she was standing outside the cell just stain at me. She was wearing her uniform, but it was covered in blood."

  Doctor Landers continued to write, "And did this one try to attack you?"

  "No, she just stood there, smiling at me. It was as if she knew she didn't have to get through the bars. It was only a matter of time and she would have me."

  "Did you recognize the officer?"

  "No," Sarah replied in shame, "how sad is it that I killed this woman, and never once looked her in the eyes? Never even knew who she was. I know it was me that killed her because they were talking about her on the evening news the night before. She had also taken shrapnel from one of the explosions I had cause, and she had spent two days in agony at the local hospital before she died. She left behind a husband and two-year-old son,” Tears formed in Sarah's eyes. "What I don't understand is that if this place is haunted, why isn't it with the ghost of people that have died here? Not the ones I have killed."

  Doctor Landers tapped the pen to her lips again, taking a few moments to think. "Well, allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment. Let's say for a moment that ghosts are real, and they seek redress for the wrongs done to them. It could be that this place has seen so much needless death and retribution that the link between the worlds is weakest or strongest here, depending on how you look at it. It could be that because of this place's foul history, that the new grievous dead have an easier time passing through the veil in this location."

  "If that is the case, I don't want to be here anymore. This place is literally killing me."

  "That may be more true than you think, Ms. Givens. Allow me to give you my own thoughts on this. These ghosts may or may not be real, but they are to you, and that is a very important distinction. To me, that means that behind your rough exterior you do have a conscience, and it has begun to manifest itself a very powerful way. I think that these visions of yours are your own mind trying to make you face the reality of what you have done."

  "You think my mind wants me to kill myself?" The idea had occurred to Sarah, but she was not sure she was equipped to handle the possibility.

  "No, I think most of us are hardwired to be self-preservationist. In psychology there is this theory that we have this vision of who we are. When we do something that is contrary to what we think of ourselves, our mind must then begin to work overtime to justify our actions versus our self-image. I think you have done something so far outside your self-image that your mind is conjuring up horror stories in an attempt to regulate that difference."

  "So, what do you suggest I do?"

  "I am glad you asked because that is what I am here to do. I think for you, the first step has already been reached. That you have begun to internally begun to accept what you have done. I think this is relevant in regards to the first ghost coming after you, and the second one just smiling at you. I think that represents a shift in your internal conflict. I believe that the way to rid yourself of these ghosts is to continue to own up to what you have done, and begin to make amends."

  Sarah nodded, seeing that the Doctors words did have a feel of truth to them. She wanted any excuse to believe that one night she wouldn't hang herself in her cell. "How do you suggest I do that?"

  "The first step is going to be very hard. You have to discover the names of the people you killed and how. I suspect that this will mean that you may see more ghosts, be they real or imagined. You might even think about writing apology letters to the families of those officers slain."

  "But wouldn't that be used against me in court? Sort of like confessing that I did it?"

  The doctor frowned and with it the weight of disapproval settled heavy on Sarah. "Were you planning on pleading anything but guilty once you went before the judge? Because I am here to tell you that there are so many dash cams and cell phones that recorded the events, you wouldn't stand a chance. And as I have said earlier, an insanity defense would fail in this instance. Were I you, I would be prepared to plead guilty when asked."

  Sarah thought about this, and knew deep down that the Doctor was right. There was no way she could try to talk her way out of this one. "But what about the death penalty? I know they are discussing it."

  "Right now, they are discussing of you fall under the heading of a terrorist and the government is trying to call dibs on you. I suspect that if they win, you may wish you had gotten the death penalty. I do not imagine your stay with the government will be an enjoyable one."

  "I don't want to die," Sarah began to cry. "What if those ghosts are waiting for me on the other side?"

  Doctor Landers walked around the desk to place a reassuring hand on Sarah's shoulder. "I think if ghosts are real, their malice ends when your life does. Justice will have been served. But I wouldn't worry about that just yet. Even if you do get the death penalty, the likelihood is with appeals and such, you will die of old age in prison. Instead, I think you should focus on what you can do while you are alive that
can help your fellow man."

  "What could I possibly do?"

  "Well, I know that the FBI routinely wants to interview people about why they do the crimes they do. Sadly, too many people are more concerned with trying to maintain their innocence they don't want to talk to the FBI. Perhaps you could allow them to interview you. You might further their behavior sciences, and as you so aptly pointed out earlier, you are one of a kind. There are no books chronicling the supernaturally gifted. Your insight might be enough to keep another woman just like you from becoming another statistic in this system,” Doctor Landon smiled down at her. "You aren't at the end of your life just yet. You can still change degrees."

  Sarah smiled and nodded, though she still couldn't stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks. "Thank you. Maybe I will offer to let the government experiment on me. Maybe they could determine why this happened to me."

  "Oh, I would avoid the government if I were you."

  "Why is that? Don't you work for the government here?"

  Doctor Landers let out a soft laugh. "No, my dear. I work for you. I just let the government pick up the tab for you. I do not think that the government needs the ability to create fire with its mind. In fact, I am sure they don't need that ability. Maybe you can stick with trying to help those who are trying to make the world a better place. Sound reasonable?"

  "It does," Sarah admitted. "Do you think you could make arrangements with someone from the FBI to come interview me?"

  "Of course,. I know just the guy for it too. Let's get you through your court date on Tuesday and we will go from there. I will tentatively put you down for another meeting Tuesday afternoon, after you hearing and we can discuss events and make plans. How does that sound?"

  "That sounds great." Sarah stood up, careful not to startle the doctor. "Thank you so much, doctor. I feel so much better."

  Doctor Landers smiled a winning smile that lit up her face. "I am glad I could help. Truly. You just keep on focusing on coming to term with what you have done, and you and I will set you back on the path to hopefully avoiding the appearances of any more ghosts."