Ransom X

  Chapter 27 Kick Rocks

  Blue sat in the rec room at the complex. It was a stained, pegboard lined open area, where children used to play church dodge ball – and have nightly bible story readings. Now it was an Orwellian version of hell, over a hundred mismatched TV screens lined the long wall, stacked with the kind of care that most people reserve for their high school yearbooks or office policy handbooks.

  Dust collected in the musty corners, particles weighed down by thick billowing cigarette smoke. Blue scanned the images, all obscured with snowy interference. This is what Mac had been talking about; the TV distribution amplifier was on the fritz. He couldn’t get a good image unless he turned off all but one set. What good was one TV set to Blue? His mind worked too quickly for one story, or one input of any kind.

  He tried closing his eyes and turning up the audio on multiple channels, but that was filled with static and crackle. This was no good at all. He found himself impatient for Mac to return. Then he could blanket his mind with images and ward off that headache that always seemed to come when there was no avalanche of other stimuli. He could feel it pounding beneath his temples already- it may have been the reminder of the heart that caused him pain.

  What he could not see would have fed the pain until it became razor sharp retribution. Police surrounding the biker bar in the Dakota’s, near the drop point he’d carefully planned for young Tracy. The event went totally unnoticed, or he would have been waiting for Mac’s return with a knife in his hand. Instead, he turned his attention back to the closed circuit feed of Laura. In his boredom, he’d been merciless with the sessions, scheduling them one after another. He’d given permission and strict instructions on how to pierce her nipples on camera; the second one was almost complete when he turned his attention toward her eyes. She watched the fishhook barb go through the hole and Blue saw the recognition of what it would take to get it out again. It was a fleeting moment, a flutter of her eyes before locking out her emotions again. She was a challenge like none of the other girls had presented – the other girls were like drilling teeth, the minute Blue got beneath the surface there was pain. Laura was killing off her senses one by one. She was dying in front of the lens, piece by piece. Finding a pocket of life was like tapping cold blue water beneath an ancient sun baked desert. Her eyes were deep wells, still full beneath the surface. She was beyond beautiful.