Status: Rewritten and Complete
Renegade
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I never get a chance to learn the names of the volunteer nurses who jump in to help out for the day. Mae sends a few from the hospital to hang here on days when we have assignments. The nurse tending to me today has been here before, but I still don't know her name. She looks discouraged as she shuffles through her medical bag not finding the correct equipment she needs to bandage me up. She sighs softly seeming like she might give up.
Another volunteer nurse rushes to the door on my right and I see Lia fumble in looking terrible. I'm not sure if it's safe to say she looks worse than I feel, but I can tell from where I'm sitting that the gash on her head is going to need stitches. My attention is drawn back to the claws picking away at my side. Tender touch is far from what this woman has. She growls at me when I start fusing and tells me to suck it up. I watch her soak a gauze pad full of rubbing alcohol and that's my cue to run. I use whatever strength I have left from the assignment today to get the hell out of there. She stares at me dumbfounded as I escape into the hall.
I don't make it far since Logan is waiting right outside like he anticipated this happening. He gives me a stern look and turns me back around into medical. The nurse waits patiently for me to sit back down so she can tend to the wound on my side. Logan sits me down in the chair and holds me there. The nurse lifts my shirt and begins to pat the soaked gauze along the gash. I grit my teeth releasing a shriek as the stinging intensifies. She looks disappointed and coats another pad in rubbing alcohol. I roll my eyes hoping she's joking with me, but to my dismay she goes back to work on my side.
She sits back and I sigh thinking the worst is over until she says I may need a couple stitches just to make sure it heals properly. I give her a snarl until she leans in to give me a shot of Novocaine. Logan gives me a tap on the shoulder and has a seat behind me. I lie down using his lap as my pillow. He finger combs my hair out of my face which is relaxing and keeps me distracted from the rough handed nurse sowing my skin together.
"Where the hell is she?" A yell comes from the plant. I turn my head to the doorway as Quela storms in. "YOU!" She points at Lia and charges toward her. She grips onto the blonde and pulls her up from her seat. "They say you came back alone." My eyes widen. "That true?" I've never seen Quela like this. She's always smiling, optimistic, and bubbly, but right now I wouldn't want to be Lia. "SPEAK!" She shouts when she sees Lia hesitating.
"Yes." She shrieks. I can see the steam coming from Quela.
"Where is he?" She enunciates slowly. Lia starts crying, but Quela doesn't show sympathy. "What the hell happened to him?" She grips onto Lia tighter.
"I don't know." Lia cries.
"What do you mean you don't know?" Quela's voice shakes slightly, but her anger is still present.
"We were ambushed and," Lia whimpers as Quela shakes her broken body, "he was taken away."
"And you didn't do anything to stop them? You didn't go after them? You didn't try to save him?" I hear her anger fading as the worry and sadness replace it.
"I was knocked unconscious. When I woke up, they were gone and there was nothing for me to do." She weeps.
Quela drops her and leaves the room in a hurry. Logan slips out from underneath me and runs after her. The nurse wraps up my side and slides my shirt down. She gives me a pat letting me know she's done. She hands me some pain relievers to help take care of any discomfort I'll have. I thank her and slowly but surely follow after Quela and Logan.
I hear Quela's voice coming from the rooms down the hall. I drag my tired feet toward her voice until I can make out what she's saying.
"Don't stop me." She huffs.
"Que, just calm down for a second." Logan says in a gentle voice.
"I can't calm down. Somebody has a hold of Hunter and I'm not going to let them do anything to him. Not again." She breaks down. I inch a little closer to listen in. "I was there the last time and there was nothing I could do for him. I had to sit there and listen to him be in pain." She tries to catch her breath in between sobs. "I'm trained for this. He made me stronger and I'm not going to just sit around. I'm going to find him."
"You're forgetting I was there, too. I know this is --"
"No, you don't know!" She barks. "Phoenix is here. Sure, she's beaten up a little, but you know she's safe. I don't know if he's okay or even," she pauses, "alive." Logan sighs. "If the situation were reversed, you would be doing the same thing as me."
"You're right." He admits. "I would which is why I'm going with you. You need a seeing eye dog anyway."
"I'll go, too." I chime in.
"Are you insane?" Quela lashes. "I'm not sure you're even aware of your current condition and that you look dead tired."
"Quela's right." Logan turns to face me. "Rest up here for a little and if we don't get back until later, just take my car back to the house. You need to sleep tonight." Quela shoots me a disappointed look.
"You're still not sleeping?" She rolls her eyes. "We'll talk about that later. We got to go." She latches onto Logan and drags him to the door. Logan throws me his keys before they venture outside.
I tuck his keys away in my pocket and wander toward the plant. I feel exhausted, but I can't force myself to sleep. I throw myself into my desk chair and shove earphones into my ears. I pull up our search engine and find myself searching for any locals with the name Casandra. I'm not sure why I feel so drawn to knowing about her, but I am.
I then remember a small detail Logan mentioned earlier. I add "obituary" to my search which gets me the result I was looking for. I click on the first link leading me to a newspaper article from almost four years ago.
Benjamin Reed, age 27, was found dead last Thursday by a local policeman. Police speculate Reed took his own life after murdering Casandra Biggs, age 23. Biggs was shot in the stomach twice and died from blood loss. Reed then proceeded to take his own life dying minutes after Biggs. This is the fourth murder-suicide case this month.
There's a picture of both of them posted below the article. I stare at the cheeky grin she has on her face. She has a pair of red glasses plastered on her face and her hair is secured in a bun. Their addresses are listed on the side to send flowers and cards. I copy it down and rise from my desk. I slip it in my pocket next to my lighter. I head toward the door feeling like I'm in some sort of trance.
I quickly cross the street to the garage and hop in Logan's car. Her home is about ten minutes from here. I'm not sure what I'm doing, but I don't give a fuck. If I want to know anything about her, her house would be the first place to go.
It's a small house in a quaint neighbourhood. The grass is tall enough to tickle your kneecaps and looks like it has been abandoned and not cared for in years. The mailbox is smashed on the sidewalk with the word lunatic spray painted on the side. The baby blue shutters are barely attached to the house and the front door looks busted. I let myself in which to my surprise, the inside is in great condition. Everything is in order and clean and operational.
I take a walk through the house. It looks bigger on the inside than the outside. I wander into the side room next to the living room. It appears to be a study with hundreds of books lined up on the bookshelves. I run my finger along the spines until I come across a binder with Traitors written on the side. I remove it and open it on the desk. Inside are typed pages of what appears to be a diary, but instead of delightful details of an outing or gossip about a friend, it reads descriptions of different methods of torture.
I step away from the binder for a second to get a grip. I didn't expect to see this. I flip through the pages just scanning the contents. Nothing pops up about Logan, Quela, Hunter, or Gabe. I'm not sure if I should feel relieved or not. I close the binder to go put it back, but a disk falls out of it and onto the floor. I pick it up and feel my heart stop. Fierce sessions 14-20
I reach into my pocket and grab the paper with her address written on it. I snatch my lighter and ignite the paper. I fling lighted paper toward the books and quickly exit the house with the disk. I leap into the car and drive off in a flash before the flames can expand. I come to a traffic light and stare at the disk sitting where I normally do. I look in the rear view and finally see small streams of smoke emerging from the direction I'm coming from. I shake my head finally realizing what I just did and how all of this is going to come back at me somehow.
It takes awhile before I manage to build up enough courage to see what actually is on the disk. I slide it into my laptop and wait for it to load. The video feed starts up with whom I assume must be Casandra. She's pacing in a gray looking room holding a tape recorder up to her mouth. She waltzes toward a person lying on the floor.
"Hour three and Fierce finally gave up. I'm surprised to be honest. I knew he was special, but I didn't think he was THIS special. The other three can't even handle the amount I dish out at them. His body can handle so much. He's been unconscious for only a few minutes, but I'm sure he'll come to in a couple seconds. He's been giving me the silent treatment for a week and I'm going to see if I can change that."
She shuts off the recorder and puts it down on the table replacing it with a water bottle. She walks over to Logan and pushes him onto his back. He's far away from the camera so I can't see him very well, but what I can see is how worn out and bloody his body is. She dumps the water directly onto Logan's facing forcing him awake. He shoots up gagging and coughing out water from his mouth. She bends down next to him grabbing his soaked face with her hand.
"Hey there, cutie. Welcome back. I lost you for a few seconds." She forces his head to move in her hand. "Why don't you come have a seat over here with me?" She snaps her fingers. "Benji! Help him!" She marches closer to the camera and sits down.
A muscular man walks into the frame grabbing Logan under his arms and dragging him across the floor. He lifts him into the chair adjacent Casandra. Logan looks so defeated and tired that he doesn't fight them as they strap him to the arms of the chair.
"Alright cutie, we're going to play a game. I think you'll really like it. I'm going to ask you a question and all you have to do is answer it. If you don't answer, I'm going to give you a little shock. You'll barely feel it." She gives him a kiss on the cheek. "Okay, first question. It's an easy one. What's your middle name?"
Logan doesn't move or say a word. Casandra sighs putting her head down reaching over with some sort of device in her hand. She presses it onto his skin and he lets out a blood curdling scream. My heart sinks into my stomach. She moves her arm away and he sits there panting lightly.
"See? It's nothing, right?" He moves his head toward her slightly giving her a dirty look. "You didn't like that one, so let me try a different one. What's your favourite colour?" He turns away from her and I silently swear at him. She moves her arm back and he begins to scream again. "Why won't you talk to me?" She stands pressing the device harder onto his skin which makes him scream louder which is when I shut the video off. I slam the laptop screen down throwing myself away from it.
I curl up next to Kyra on the couch as she lethargically lifts her head to look at me. Her head plops back down as she quickly falls back to sleep. I can't help but envy her at this moment. I peek up at the clock on the wall as it reads just after two in the morning. I give my tired eyes a rub before leaning back on the couch. I shake my head letting everything hit me at once. That was session fourteen meaning there were thirteen more before it and that disk went to twenty. She really was as crazy as everyone had said she was.
Kyra's head shoots up as she leaps off the couch and gallops toward the front door. I whip my head around as the door opens and I hear Logan's voice whisper to her. I hear Kyra's giant paws bouncing around on the floor in excitement as Logan walks in. He peeks around the corner and sees me sitting on the couch still awake. He looks just as exhausted as I feel. He sits down next to me wrapping his arm behind me pulling me into him. I rest my head on his shoulder.
"We didn't find him." He sighs sounding defeated. "We're going to keep looking, but we just called it a night for now." He kisses the top of my head. "What'd you do tonight? Did you sleep?" I sigh.
"No," I plainly say, "I found Casandra's house, broke in, stole a video similar to what your dad saw, and burned down her house."
I lean forward pulling the disk out of the laptop and hand it to him. I rise from the couch not looking back at his stunned face. I walk into the kitchen to grab a glass of water, but I'm stopped.
"You went to her house?" He asks sounding terribly confused. "You stole that disk and then you --"
"Burned that cunt's house to the ground." I add in. Logan leans on the counter with his head in his hands.
"Why?" He shakes his head. "Why would you do this? Why do you continue to be so reckless?"
"I don't know." I shrug. "Maybe because you won't tell me anything from before you recruited me. Maybe because you and Quela are treating me like a wounded bird since the fire. Maybe because I'm so fucking tired, but can't sleep." I lash out breaking the glass in my hand on the floor.
"Talking about Casandra is difficult for me. In case you haven't noticed Phoenix, none of us talk about it for a reason. We can't." His voice rises to match mine. "And yeah so what if we are? I know your memory can be hazy but that was the second fire you almost died in."
"But that's the essence of our job." I point out. "Gabe hired me on because I'm a pyromaniac. I'm useful, most of the time. I'm good at what I do and keeping me caged up for months isn't doing me any good. I need to be out there doing my job. Not some stupid retrieval assignments just to keep me occupied." His phone starts ringing in his pocket. "Answer it." I demand, but he shakes his head. I roll my eyes reaching into his pocket and answering his phone for him. "What?" I hiss thinking it's Gabe.
"Phoe?" It's Mae crying into the phone. "Can you tell Logan something for me?"
Another volunteer nurse rushes to the door on my right and I see Lia fumble in looking terrible. I'm not sure if it's safe to say she looks worse than I feel, but I can tell from where I'm sitting that the gash on her head is going to need stitches. My attention is drawn back to the claws picking away at my side. Tender touch is far from what this woman has. She growls at me when I start fusing and tells me to suck it up. I watch her soak a gauze pad full of rubbing alcohol and that's my cue to run. I use whatever strength I have left from the assignment today to get the hell out of there. She stares at me dumbfounded as I escape into the hall.
I don't make it far since Logan is waiting right outside like he anticipated this happening. He gives me a stern look and turns me back around into medical. The nurse waits patiently for me to sit back down so she can tend to the wound on my side. Logan sits me down in the chair and holds me there. The nurse lifts my shirt and begins to pat the soaked gauze along the gash. I grit my teeth releasing a shriek as the stinging intensifies. She looks disappointed and coats another pad in rubbing alcohol. I roll my eyes hoping she's joking with me, but to my dismay she goes back to work on my side.
She sits back and I sigh thinking the worst is over until she says I may need a couple stitches just to make sure it heals properly. I give her a snarl until she leans in to give me a shot of Novocaine. Logan gives me a tap on the shoulder and has a seat behind me. I lie down using his lap as my pillow. He finger combs my hair out of my face which is relaxing and keeps me distracted from the rough handed nurse sowing my skin together.
"Where the hell is she?" A yell comes from the plant. I turn my head to the doorway as Quela storms in. "YOU!" She points at Lia and charges toward her. She grips onto the blonde and pulls her up from her seat. "They say you came back alone." My eyes widen. "That true?" I've never seen Quela like this. She's always smiling, optimistic, and bubbly, but right now I wouldn't want to be Lia. "SPEAK!" She shouts when she sees Lia hesitating.
"Yes." She shrieks. I can see the steam coming from Quela.
"Where is he?" She enunciates slowly. Lia starts crying, but Quela doesn't show sympathy. "What the hell happened to him?" She grips onto Lia tighter.
"I don't know." Lia cries.
"What do you mean you don't know?" Quela's voice shakes slightly, but her anger is still present.
"We were ambushed and," Lia whimpers as Quela shakes her broken body, "he was taken away."
"And you didn't do anything to stop them? You didn't go after them? You didn't try to save him?" I hear her anger fading as the worry and sadness replace it.
"I was knocked unconscious. When I woke up, they were gone and there was nothing for me to do." She weeps.
Quela drops her and leaves the room in a hurry. Logan slips out from underneath me and runs after her. The nurse wraps up my side and slides my shirt down. She gives me a pat letting me know she's done. She hands me some pain relievers to help take care of any discomfort I'll have. I thank her and slowly but surely follow after Quela and Logan.
I hear Quela's voice coming from the rooms down the hall. I drag my tired feet toward her voice until I can make out what she's saying.
"Don't stop me." She huffs.
"Que, just calm down for a second." Logan says in a gentle voice.
"I can't calm down. Somebody has a hold of Hunter and I'm not going to let them do anything to him. Not again." She breaks down. I inch a little closer to listen in. "I was there the last time and there was nothing I could do for him. I had to sit there and listen to him be in pain." She tries to catch her breath in between sobs. "I'm trained for this. He made me stronger and I'm not going to just sit around. I'm going to find him."
"You're forgetting I was there, too. I know this is --"
"No, you don't know!" She barks. "Phoenix is here. Sure, she's beaten up a little, but you know she's safe. I don't know if he's okay or even," she pauses, "alive." Logan sighs. "If the situation were reversed, you would be doing the same thing as me."
"You're right." He admits. "I would which is why I'm going with you. You need a seeing eye dog anyway."
"I'll go, too." I chime in.
"Are you insane?" Quela lashes. "I'm not sure you're even aware of your current condition and that you look dead tired."
"Quela's right." Logan turns to face me. "Rest up here for a little and if we don't get back until later, just take my car back to the house. You need to sleep tonight." Quela shoots me a disappointed look.
"You're still not sleeping?" She rolls her eyes. "We'll talk about that later. We got to go." She latches onto Logan and drags him to the door. Logan throws me his keys before they venture outside.
I tuck his keys away in my pocket and wander toward the plant. I feel exhausted, but I can't force myself to sleep. I throw myself into my desk chair and shove earphones into my ears. I pull up our search engine and find myself searching for any locals with the name Casandra. I'm not sure why I feel so drawn to knowing about her, but I am.
I then remember a small detail Logan mentioned earlier. I add "obituary" to my search which gets me the result I was looking for. I click on the first link leading me to a newspaper article from almost four years ago.
Benjamin Reed, age 27, was found dead last Thursday by a local policeman. Police speculate Reed took his own life after murdering Casandra Biggs, age 23. Biggs was shot in the stomach twice and died from blood loss. Reed then proceeded to take his own life dying minutes after Biggs. This is the fourth murder-suicide case this month.
There's a picture of both of them posted below the article. I stare at the cheeky grin she has on her face. She has a pair of red glasses plastered on her face and her hair is secured in a bun. Their addresses are listed on the side to send flowers and cards. I copy it down and rise from my desk. I slip it in my pocket next to my lighter. I head toward the door feeling like I'm in some sort of trance.
I quickly cross the street to the garage and hop in Logan's car. Her home is about ten minutes from here. I'm not sure what I'm doing, but I don't give a fuck. If I want to know anything about her, her house would be the first place to go.
It's a small house in a quaint neighbourhood. The grass is tall enough to tickle your kneecaps and looks like it has been abandoned and not cared for in years. The mailbox is smashed on the sidewalk with the word lunatic spray painted on the side. The baby blue shutters are barely attached to the house and the front door looks busted. I let myself in which to my surprise, the inside is in great condition. Everything is in order and clean and operational.
I take a walk through the house. It looks bigger on the inside than the outside. I wander into the side room next to the living room. It appears to be a study with hundreds of books lined up on the bookshelves. I run my finger along the spines until I come across a binder with Traitors written on the side. I remove it and open it on the desk. Inside are typed pages of what appears to be a diary, but instead of delightful details of an outing or gossip about a friend, it reads descriptions of different methods of torture.
I step away from the binder for a second to get a grip. I didn't expect to see this. I flip through the pages just scanning the contents. Nothing pops up about Logan, Quela, Hunter, or Gabe. I'm not sure if I should feel relieved or not. I close the binder to go put it back, but a disk falls out of it and onto the floor. I pick it up and feel my heart stop. Fierce sessions 14-20
I reach into my pocket and grab the paper with her address written on it. I snatch my lighter and ignite the paper. I fling lighted paper toward the books and quickly exit the house with the disk. I leap into the car and drive off in a flash before the flames can expand. I come to a traffic light and stare at the disk sitting where I normally do. I look in the rear view and finally see small streams of smoke emerging from the direction I'm coming from. I shake my head finally realizing what I just did and how all of this is going to come back at me somehow.
It takes awhile before I manage to build up enough courage to see what actually is on the disk. I slide it into my laptop and wait for it to load. The video feed starts up with whom I assume must be Casandra. She's pacing in a gray looking room holding a tape recorder up to her mouth. She waltzes toward a person lying on the floor.
"Hour three and Fierce finally gave up. I'm surprised to be honest. I knew he was special, but I didn't think he was THIS special. The other three can't even handle the amount I dish out at them. His body can handle so much. He's been unconscious for only a few minutes, but I'm sure he'll come to in a couple seconds. He's been giving me the silent treatment for a week and I'm going to see if I can change that."
She shuts off the recorder and puts it down on the table replacing it with a water bottle. She walks over to Logan and pushes him onto his back. He's far away from the camera so I can't see him very well, but what I can see is how worn out and bloody his body is. She dumps the water directly onto Logan's facing forcing him awake. He shoots up gagging and coughing out water from his mouth. She bends down next to him grabbing his soaked face with her hand.
"Hey there, cutie. Welcome back. I lost you for a few seconds." She forces his head to move in her hand. "Why don't you come have a seat over here with me?" She snaps her fingers. "Benji! Help him!" She marches closer to the camera and sits down.
A muscular man walks into the frame grabbing Logan under his arms and dragging him across the floor. He lifts him into the chair adjacent Casandra. Logan looks so defeated and tired that he doesn't fight them as they strap him to the arms of the chair.
"Alright cutie, we're going to play a game. I think you'll really like it. I'm going to ask you a question and all you have to do is answer it. If you don't answer, I'm going to give you a little shock. You'll barely feel it." She gives him a kiss on the cheek. "Okay, first question. It's an easy one. What's your middle name?"
Logan doesn't move or say a word. Casandra sighs putting her head down reaching over with some sort of device in her hand. She presses it onto his skin and he lets out a blood curdling scream. My heart sinks into my stomach. She moves her arm away and he sits there panting lightly.
"See? It's nothing, right?" He moves his head toward her slightly giving her a dirty look. "You didn't like that one, so let me try a different one. What's your favourite colour?" He turns away from her and I silently swear at him. She moves her arm back and he begins to scream again. "Why won't you talk to me?" She stands pressing the device harder onto his skin which makes him scream louder which is when I shut the video off. I slam the laptop screen down throwing myself away from it.
I curl up next to Kyra on the couch as she lethargically lifts her head to look at me. Her head plops back down as she quickly falls back to sleep. I can't help but envy her at this moment. I peek up at the clock on the wall as it reads just after two in the morning. I give my tired eyes a rub before leaning back on the couch. I shake my head letting everything hit me at once. That was session fourteen meaning there were thirteen more before it and that disk went to twenty. She really was as crazy as everyone had said she was.
Kyra's head shoots up as she leaps off the couch and gallops toward the front door. I whip my head around as the door opens and I hear Logan's voice whisper to her. I hear Kyra's giant paws bouncing around on the floor in excitement as Logan walks in. He peeks around the corner and sees me sitting on the couch still awake. He looks just as exhausted as I feel. He sits down next to me wrapping his arm behind me pulling me into him. I rest my head on his shoulder.
"We didn't find him." He sighs sounding defeated. "We're going to keep looking, but we just called it a night for now." He kisses the top of my head. "What'd you do tonight? Did you sleep?" I sigh.
"No," I plainly say, "I found Casandra's house, broke in, stole a video similar to what your dad saw, and burned down her house."
I lean forward pulling the disk out of the laptop and hand it to him. I rise from the couch not looking back at his stunned face. I walk into the kitchen to grab a glass of water, but I'm stopped.
"You went to her house?" He asks sounding terribly confused. "You stole that disk and then you --"
"Burned that cunt's house to the ground." I add in. Logan leans on the counter with his head in his hands.
"Why?" He shakes his head. "Why would you do this? Why do you continue to be so reckless?"
"I don't know." I shrug. "Maybe because you won't tell me anything from before you recruited me. Maybe because you and Quela are treating me like a wounded bird since the fire. Maybe because I'm so fucking tired, but can't sleep." I lash out breaking the glass in my hand on the floor.
"Talking about Casandra is difficult for me. In case you haven't noticed Phoenix, none of us talk about it for a reason. We can't." His voice rises to match mine. "And yeah so what if we are? I know your memory can be hazy but that was the second fire you almost died in."
"But that's the essence of our job." I point out. "Gabe hired me on because I'm a pyromaniac. I'm useful, most of the time. I'm good at what I do and keeping me caged up for months isn't doing me any good. I need to be out there doing my job. Not some stupid retrieval assignments just to keep me occupied." His phone starts ringing in his pocket. "Answer it." I demand, but he shakes his head. I roll my eyes reaching into his pocket and answering his phone for him. "What?" I hiss thinking it's Gabe.
"Phoe?" It's Mae crying into the phone. "Can you tell Logan something for me?"