Endangered Species Endangered Species (Time Served #1) - Onley James Page 0,2
wiggle through. He tried to walk to the tree branch that laid over the tiles but tripped on the vent, landing on his chest before rolling off the roof and landing hard enough to rip the air from his lungs. He stared up at the night sky, trying to drag in a breath, but it was like his lungs had stopped working. His eyes watered, and he wanted to hit his chest, his insides burning like they were on fire.
Just when he thought he would die there, it was like his lungs remembered their job, and he began to gulp in much needed air. When he could, he jumped to his feet, skipping the gravel driveway and diving into the cornfield that separated his house from Ms. Sheila’s. His lungs and muscles burned, but he kept running. The roots and jagged castoffs of the corn stalks tore at his bare feet, but he pushed ahead. No matter how much it hurt or how bad he was bleeding, he just kept going until he all but collapsed on the neighbor’s porch, resting his head against the wooden planks of her house, looking back towards his own home, convinced his mama would be right behind him. He didn’t knock, just began to press the doorbell. Once he started, he couldn’t stop. Even when Ms. Sheila and her husband answered the door. Even when she tried to talk to him. His finger just spasmed against the doorbell.
“Nicholas?” Ms. Sheila gasped. “Good lord, child. What happened to you?”
Nicky shook his head, pointing with his other hand toward the house, but no words would come.
Herald grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him. “Nicholas, what’s wrong? Is that your blood? Nicholas? Nicky? Answer me, boy. Whose blood is that?”
“Call the police. My family’s in big trouble,” was all he could think to say.
“Herald, call the police. Right now.”
A blanket came around his shoulders, but he didn’t acknowledge it. He didn’t acknowledge anything. He just stood and stared at his house across the cornfield. Was Cy dead? Was Phoebe? What would happen to him now? What would happen to Cy?
He slid down the wall, clutching the blanket tighter over his slight shoulders, pulling his knees to his chest, letting all thoughts disappear until everything seemed far away and hazy. Nicky didn’t want to think anymore. So, he didn’t.
Nicholas Webster flinched as an alarm blared air horn loud, and then the door buzzed, signaling it was unlocked. The guard pushed Webster through the steel barred doors, almost causing him to trip. He hated this place. Jail was a never-ending cacophony of noises. Men shouting, people fighting, metal doors slamming, whispered murmurs, and the slapping of skin on skin behind the makeshift curtains that separated the bathroom from the front of the cells.
It wasn’t just the noise; the fluorescent lighting hurt his eyes. They’d ‘accidentally’ broken his glasses when they arrested him, and without the coating on the lenses to block some of the light, his migraines were back. He’d tried to tell them this was all some misunderstanding. He’d asked to make his one phone call, which they’d eventually allowed twenty-four hours later, but only after he’d been strip-searched and thrown into an ugly pair of navy scrubs stamped with DOJ on the back.
Webster didn’t know what was happening, but with each passing minute, it was becoming clearer that these people thought he was somebody he wasn’t. He wasn’t imagining their hostility. People were overtly aggressive at every turn, stopping just short of actual violence, unless he counted the man who’d done his strip search. He certainly hadn’t been gentle.
When they reached a solid metal door almost at the end of the long bright hallway, the guard used his set of keys to open it and guided Webster inside. The lights were dimmer in the room with its dirty gray walls, peeling linoleum, and solid steel table bolted to the floor. Relief flooded Webster’s system as he saw his boss, Lincoln Hudson, and a woman in a jacket the same gray as the rest of the room, her hair pulled up into a tight bun that seemed like it would hurt.
The guard shoved him forward, unhooking the cuff on his left wrist and threading it through a metal loop on the table before reattaching the shackle to Webster once more, this time, tighter than before.
“Why do I feel like you’re not here to take me home, man?” Webster asked, looking at the haggard face of his employer.