 
Rapture: Where are our Children

(A Serial Novel) Episode 3 0f 9

By Gary Sapp

Copyright 2014 Gary Sapp

Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents:

Our Story so Far

Chris

Roxanne

Xavier

Louis

Roxanne

Angel

Roxanne

Seth

Chris

Louis

Sneak Peak at Past Prologue

Dedication

Nest Egg Publishing Note

Nest Egg Publishing Presents Where are our Children

Where to find this author online
Our Story so Far:

While incarcerated as an inmate at Calhoun State Prison in southwest Georgia, Xavier Prince, the leader of A House in Chains, confronts Michael Davenport; a man that he believes has knowledge of what turns out to be the 411 attacks upstate in Atlanta. Serena Tennyson and her Pandora associates carry out the highly coordinated, highly lethal attacks weeks later against the Andrew Young Youth Center, The Fox Theatre and the mayor of the city itself, Ernestine Johnson. On her deathbed, rotting away from a yet to be identified poison, Mayor Johnson enlist the aid of Thomas Pepper, a freelance reporter, to find out the answers to the three questions that every Person of Color in America wants to know. The FBI recruits a renowned Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Angel Hicks-Dupree to consult on the crisis in Atlanta—and after a confrontation with her husband, Dr. Seth Dupree, she reluctantly agrees to help. Her childhood friend, Special Agent Christopher Prince, turns out to be one of the hostages being held at the Fox Theatre. Meanwhile, his half-brother, Xavier, is confronted with his own problems as a siege breaks out at Calhoun Prison on the eve of his scheduled release. In the meantime, Christopher Prince escapes the theatre alive, but immediately faces a new predicament when he receives a series of text messages that his 20 year old stepdaughter has come up missing.

Roxanne Sanchez, formerly of the FBI's training program, is now a private detective and has been hired by Chris' ex-wife Denise to find her daughter Erica. Roxanne can tell from her conversations with both parents that they are hiding a deep dark secret from their time together as a family. Serena Tennyson show up at Thomas Pepper's townhouse looking to confess on his blog for her role in the deadly 411 attacks as well as present a new warning to a House in Chains and all People of Color: Xavier Prince and his organization is to stand down or face a new round of attacks centered at Atlanta's children. The FBI, led by Agent Prince, capture her, but not before paying a high price in casualties. Xavier learns of a plot to kill him upon his exit from Calhoun Prison as a volatile siege and riot takes place. Serena sees a series of frightening visions including the much prophesized Whirlwind coming to fruition. Yet, it is in real life where she is traumatized after being nearly raped by an APD police officer. After she and Thomas Pepper give separate but hotly contested interviews with the bureau, she escapes in a series of daring synchronized stages that leaves Christopher Prince and the FBI befuddled. After celebrating her freedom with her closest Pandora agents Serena instructs an increasingly fragile Louis Keaton to begin rapturing Atlanta's children.

#  Chris

Denise Prince:

She was a brown skinned Person of Color who had an hour glass shape. She had light hazel eyes, high cheek bones and wore her curly hair weave to her shoulders. He had always loved a how creative his ex-wife could be with her hair. Today she wore streaks of auburn and chestnut tinted strands that highlighted the color in her eyes. She was 35 years old, four years his junior, and was drawing her usual attention from male passerby's, even dressed in hospital fatigues. He watched her slide into one of the last available booths inside Parker's Real Soul Food Restaurant and then sat on the opposite side of her.

40 minutes later Denise was working on her last piece of today's special, baby back ribs which had looked tasty and smelled better. Special Agent Christopher Prince stabbed at the one of his two chunks of grilled chicken from his salad. Parker's had been around since he'd been a kid. No one in the Deep South did soul food better...but grilled chicken salad doesn't quite fit the bill as soul food now does it? If the life and death episodes he'd faced at the Fox Theatre and the high speed car chase in pursuit of what he thought was Serena Tennyson through the streets of Atlanta didn't motivate him to lose the extra pounds, then nothing would.

He had a pain in his gut. Damn. They'd been coming a little too often and to sharp in severity as of late for his liking. He tried to put his best face forward. He didn't want to discuss any of his biological issues with Denise, though the alternative, the reason they had agreed to meet for lunch in the first place, wasn't going to be pleasant either.

"No Pork chops, Chris?" She pointed a greasy finger at his plate before she wiped her hands with the wet naps. It took her several swipes to get her fingers clean for a final time. "Now I truly know the world is coming to an end." Her hazel eyes found his glass of Ginger Ale warming in his hand. "I guess you'll be giving that up next."

He stopped picking at the chicken long enough to look up from his plate and forced himself into a smile. He seemed to always be doing that in the ten years they were married, gritting his teeth and trying to stave off another confrontation. "Just trying to scale back a little bit," Despite his best efforts, he felt himself getting angry. "Why don't we talk about something else?"

"Why don't we?" Denise powdered her nose and cheeks and applied a very light shade of red to her thin lips. She'd gone from nine and a half on the beauty scale to a perfect ten in an instant. An instrumental jazz tune blared through the speakers that Chris knew his brother Xavier would have appreciated it more than he did. But this high paced horn solo with the dark overture served as a perfect theme song for the woman who sat across from him. Yes, you can be jazzy can't you, Denise? "I haven't heard from Roxanne today. It's 12:30pm and so far she's given me a daily report no later than noon. Would you happen to know anything about that, sir?"

Sir was Denise's code word to Chris that she was on the fringes of being particularly irritated or being particularly playful with him. He always braced himself for the former until it was proven otherwise. "I spoke to her this morning." Chris sucked the last of his drink from his glass and sat it down with some emphasis near her hoping that she his subtle message that Roxanne would be going through his channels first, from this point on.

"What do you mean you spoke to her?"

"Yes, I spoke to her." Chris said without hesitation. "I was going to bring that up here, today. I believe that Roxanne should report directly to me twice a day until Eric is found. She'll be calling me again around 10pm tonight. " Denise rolled her hazel eyes at him, but so far all he could hear was Parker's noisy patrons and the Jazz music that had moved on to a piano solo now. "I wrote her a check yesterday. I know you have a lot on your plate that includes a ton of bills. If and when she finds something I'll let you know. I promise."

Something won out inside Denise and her face softened. She nodded her head and rubbed her hands together, silently sending the message to him that he would take his advice and lead in this—at least for right now.

"Does she have your full confidence?"

"Scotty recommended her to you, Denise. Even if I didn't already know her from her stint in the FBI's Training Program, his recommendation alone would be enough for me." Chris said. Benjamin Scott had worked 37 years for various law enforcement agencies. More importantly, he along with Angel's father, Tyler Hicks, was the two men on the planet that Chris' father trusted explicability. "In fact, Roxanne told me that she had scheduled an interview with a source tonight."

Denise sipped at her lemonade through her straw until she found the bottom of her glass at last. Scotty told Chris that Denise didn't give him any particulars about why she needed to hire a private detective when she sought his advice. Whatever the matter was, his mentor and friend had said to him last night, I felt she deserved someone who would work hard for her, who was honest and wouldn't rip her off. And when Chris asked him why he didn't share this information with him after she came to him for the recommendation he smiled tightly and said, because you two are still at point beyond dissolution if I recall. Her business is not your business, Old Man.

When Denise put her glass down at last the room had quieted enough for him to get on with his unpleasant business with her. He had already picked his ex-wife's brain about the when's and the where's of Erica's whereabouts and so far they'd come up empty. Now, he wanted some answers to the next obvious question rattling along in a parent's brain. "Why didn't you come to me directly when you thought Erica turned up missing?"

Denise shrugged her shoulders once. "Look, Chris, I know how you feel about my daughter."

Chris felt a new wave of anger wash over him. "How I feel about her?" Chris exhaled threw his nostrils. "I want you to remember that I felt enough for her to help raise her since she was like six or seven years old, Denise. I care about what happens to her."

"But you don't love her, Chris. You never have loved her."

"Of course I..." Chris' words lost their traction and they fell off a cliff.

"You see what I mean," Denise's laugh held no humor. "You can't even lie to me and say it. Damn you, Chris, Erica didn't mean to hurt you the way she did."

Chris leaned in close. The barbecue sauce on Denise's ribs had been spiced in honey and he could smell it on her breath. "Then what other name would you have for it?" He asked her and noted that they're little exchange had brought on some curious glances from the other the patrons whose tables and booths were closest to theirs. Chris stood up to wave the attention of the teenaged waitress down while flashing his bureau shield bright and shiny to anyone who might pay too much attention to their private conversation. "Check please,"

They walked the half a block necessary to reach their parked cars. A strong gust of smoky, cold wind hit both of them in the face. Chris tried and failed to distinguish whether this particular whiff was from Parker's grill or from one of the dozen forest fires that continued to plague the metro area. No matter what you say, Denise, it took a well thought out process to attempt to pull what that girl—

Denise pressed a breast against his shoulder when they reached her Civic. "I prayed for you the other night."

"Did you?"

Denise frowned and he knew it wasn't because of the smoke or the cold wind. "Why wouldn't I, Chris?" She folded her arms over and planted her butt on the Civics' driver side door. "My God, you work for one of the most high profile agencies in the country, Chris. Between the explosion at the youth center and the hostages being held at the theatre, I knew that you were involved in all that somehow." Denise's gaze softened once again. "Of course, I had no idea you were one of those people being held inside Fox until after it was already over."

"I'm sorry, "Chris put his hands on her shoulders. "I couldn't have been easy for you not knowing where Erica was and then adding all of that madness to your life that involved me as well."

"And we opened the Triage Center at Atlanta General for the first time since the quake happened a month ago. It hit me all at once how serious everything really was. All the RN's were put on 24 hour call, but I never left the hospital once during the whole thing. The first responders kept bringing in bodies from both scenes...and then the nightmare recycled itself again when that crazy woman you arrested set off those bombs on the streets on the other side of town a few days later."

"Yea, it's been crazy..."

Denise had used the opportunity to pull his body closer to her. He got a full feel of her breast as she pushed them against his chest and his manhood responded to the exchange far quicker than he'd expected. He tried to take a half a step in retreat but she smoothly spun and pinned him to her to driver side door. She rested her head on his chest. He could smell her hairspray and perfume.

"I kept praying...hoping that I wouldn't see you carried in on one of those gurneys."

"I know...look, Denise," He tried to peel her off of him and yet the feel of her breast, the smell of her was intoxicating to say the least. In the two years since their divorce Chris had known few women—by his choice. After he and Denise got over the initial furor that all divorces go through, they entered an interesting, if unorthodox phase that led to the present arrangement.

They began to have sex again.

Chris felt that he didn't have the time or energy or interest to pursuit hardcore relationships with other women. Catherine Siegel, he finally learned the family name of the woman who had been his date who died at the Fox Theatre, had only been his fourth or fifth date since their divorce finalized. Denise had been the woman he had fulfilled his sexual needs with for the most part over the last couple of years.

"Denise, listen, I need to go."

"That's cool. Why won't you come over to the apartment for a while after we both get off work tonight?" She asked and released in him just enough so that he could breathe his own air. "You said that Roxanne is supposed to call you around ten. We can be together when she does. You can pack a bag and spend the night—"

Chris was shaking his bald head. "I don't know about that, Denise."

Just as quickly she slid back in his arms again and everything had started all over for him, all the progress he had made a second earlier was gone. "Please Chris; I don't want to be alone tonight." She said, her voice purring with each word. "And it has been a couple of weeks since...since we've been together like that."

Denise's grip increased from a strong attachment to a vice grip and she twisted his head back in her direction to kiss him. She pushed her tongue between his lips, out again, and then nibbled at his ear lobe as she reached and found his fully responsive manhood in his slacks. Her tongue, her hands, all of her so inviting...but...

"Denise," He said. "Stop."

"What's wrong with you, sir," She shot back at him angrily. "Oh, yea, I get it. I fucking get it, Angel's in town and suddenly you can't find the time to spend with me."

Chris raised his voice to meet her tone. "Dr. Hicks-Dupree is here in Atlanta at the request of the FBI." He planted his fist on his hips. She had folded her arms. It was on, just like in the good old days of their marriage. "Besides she is a married woman. And I've told you, I'm telling you again this afternoon, that thing that occurred between us happened only once and it was years before you and I were married. Damn, Denise, we've been over this countless times. I don't understand why can't you get this through you head?"

Denise slammed her hands down on her wide hips. "Oh, I get it alright, sir,"

"Denise..." Chris looked at his watch. He had tons of work to do but no specific place he had to be at the moment, but she didn't know this. "Look, Denise, I need to go."

"Don't run from me, Chris."

"I'm not running." Yet, he was walking as fast as his legs and a stomach full of grilled chicken salad and ginger ale would carry him a half a block over to where his car was parked.

"You know, you're right, baby. I apologize. This really ain't got anything to do with Angel." Denise's angered look had faded into something that looked almost like hurt. Hurt might as well been a foreign film in an American theatre when it came to Agent Christopher Prince's ex-wife Denise Prince. She only seemed to know anger and annoyance and a little furor performances thrown in for good measure. "It's about her isn't it? It's always been about the only woman you've truly ever loved."

Chris ground his teeth together. They'd drawn a small audience of passerby's on the adjacent sidewalk. A driver or two had slowed enough to hear a sentence or two before moving back on to the business of driving. Chris thought he saw a man who looked too young to walk with a cane hide his cell phone from his view when Chris spotted him.

Chris exhaled from his nose again, and knew his skin was far too dark to redden from embarrassment but he was embarrassed for the both of them all the same. Strife between a relatively young man and woman of color in a predominately Black neighborhood in the streets of Atlanta is nothing new or news worthy despite your efforts to change our image in the media, little brother.

"Leave it alone, Denise." Chris said when he thought he had gained enough distance between them. "Leave the dead alone."

But the rage was on her now. This show, friends and neighbors, was just beginning. "Fuck that, it's you that won't leave shit alone, Chris." Denise screamed in his direction. "I could never compete with you dearest Hoshi. I know you, Chris. I know you don't sleep around. In fact, I'll even wager that you'd rather go home tonight and masturbate to one of your drawings of that woman then physically be with me."

"That's enough, Denise."

"Angel Hicks-Dupree...Hoshi Givens...what's her name, the woman you said died in that theatre the other night, yea I guess I don't compare to any of them. I guess my skin is too damned dark for your taste."

"That is enough, Denise." Chris fired back and if bystanders heard the conversation then to hell with them as well.

Denise seemed to shrink a little after he had raised his voice to a near max. She seemed shaken and uncomfortable under his hardened gaze that he usually reserved for the vilest of humanity he'd investigated in his career. But Denise had crossed a line with him mentioning two women who had died so tragically and so young.

He loosed his fist and struggled to regain his sense of calm. This absolutely was the feeling that reminded him of his marriage to this woman who he still occasionally slept with; the one who had decided to keep his name after their divorce. Control, he chided himself silently and he took a deep breath and then another the way that Scotty had always taught him. You must never lose control around Denise or any other woman; because once you cross that threshold you'll never able to be to look at yourself the same again. Scotty had preached to him. And I'm not just talking about the man in you who plays the role of the cop, Old Man.

"I'll be in touch with you tonight, as soon as I speak to Roxanne."

Chris sat in his own BMW afterwards, cracked the windows down half way, and tried to push the last of the heat he was feeling from his latest argument with Denise of its cracks.

Denise, apparently, had other plans for him.

She reached over the top of him and battered the back of his bald head with her fist over and again until he had regained his awareness of time and space, caught her fist and somehow unlatched his self from her assault, opened the card door, and pushed her off of him without injuring her.

He stood just outside of his car door and slammed it shut, rattling the glass, and exhaled loudly through his nostrils in exasperation. He was angry at Denise for sure for an unprovoked attack against him, but was absolutely furious with the FBI Agent inside that should have expected the possibility, knowing this woman's history the way that he knew it.

Denise sat on the pavement and looked towards the heavens and took a few forest fire plagued breaths of her own. When she looked at her ex-husband again there were tears running down both cheeks. Chris took notice. For all of their confrontations of the years, Denise Prince was not a woman who cried easily.

"Why can't you forgive?" She said. He knew from long experience that the forgiveness she referred to was meant for his step daughter Erica Lovings, not for her specifically. Through all of her faults, Denise Prince knew what kind of creature she was. "Why can't you understand that no mother wants to believe that her child is a liar? Please believe me when I say tell you that I didn't want to believe that my little girl was capable of what she tried to do to you. And I don't know what I will do if I lose you both. "

Agent Christopher Prince got back in his BMW, closed the door, and sat back against his head rest for what felt like a long time afterwards.

Denise had returned to his window, calm as an ocean's breeze. He powered the window the rest of the way down, found Denise's hand and squeezed it with genuine affection, politely asked her to step back, and fired up the ignition. He decided right then and right there in Parker's parking lot, that the sexual escapades between him and his ex-wife had run its course and needed to end.

"I'll call you tonight." He said finally. "I'm sure that Roxanne Sanchez will have something meaningful to report."

He put the car in gear, sped off and left her there.

#  Roxanne

She fired a signal rifle round into the ceiling.

Councilwoman Vanessa Davis hopped her big ass off of the face of a white man that Roxanne Sanchez figured was a fellow politician or someone of note who held a lesser post in the Atlanta political scene. Davis nearly toppled over her bed onto the carpet from jumping off her lover so fast.

"What in the hell is going on here?" She asked. She reached for her robe and fastened it in one large bow around her waist. "What are you doing in my house?"

Roxanne, for the moment, ignored Councilman Davis and saved her attention and a taut smile for her guest. "Hi," Roxanne laid the rifle on her shoulder. "You might want to leave us girls alone for a while. We have so much catching up to do. I'm sure you know how it is?"

"Okay," The Naked Man said. "Sure."

He was a butterball of man who wore only his glasses, wedding ring and smelly socks while he had handled his business. He stepped in the right direction but made his first critical error of the evening by reaching for his boxers, which were draped across the chair nearest the king sized bed.

Roxanne fired a second shot into ceiling to remind him of his slip-up.

"What are you doing?" Davis asked her.

Roxanne scratched her forehead. "I guess I'm not making myself clear. I mean for you to get out...right...now."

"Okay," The Naked Man said again. "Sure."

Councilman Davis watched the younger man vacate her bedroom as unclothed as the day he was born. She muttered an apology in his general direction and asked him to call her. A moment later both women listened as he slammed the front door close. Roxanne still held the rifle over her shoulder, but kept the barrel pointed away from the councilwoman's face—for now.

Vanessa Davis:

She was a full figured Black woman in her mid 50's. Underneath the housecoat she'd been dressed in a panty less bustier, garter belt, and heels. She was sliding her panties back on right now and fitting one of her signature wigs on her scalp. She wore large hoop earrings and when she had spoken before it was with a raspy voice. Her teeth were darkened where they had been stained by years of caffeine and nicotine abuse.

She forced herself to sit back against her headboard, cross her legs and relax as much as a woman who had a maniac running around her bedroom with a rifle could.

"Alright, so congratulations, you have my attention, Little Girl." Davis said. "How may I help you?"

Roxanne plopped her butt in a nearby love seat. She was dressed in what amounted to a body fitting cat suit. It was so black and snug that one could barely tell where the shadows ended and Roxanne's curves began.

"You've got it all wrong, councilwoman; I'm here to help you."

"Help me?" Davis thin eyebrows shot up. "How do you mean?"

"I'm going to ask you a series of questions. Trust me when I say that each subsequent question is more important than the one that came before it. You're going to answer my questions, of that I have no doubt. But failure by you to answer them in a timely manner will result in me bashing you upside your head with this." Roxanne emphasized her Smith and Wesson for the other woman to see.

"Alright,"

"Any omission will be considered insufficient. A blatant lie will be considered very insufficient."

"Alright,"

Roxanne had watched Victor use these same techniques down below. Sometimes, Senorita, the mere threat of pain is enough to get the answers that you need. He had taught her well. "It's been my experience that you will bleed a long painful time before you died of these head wounds."

Councilwoman Davis asked and received permission to slowly reach into one of her drawers. Roxanne targeted her forehead with the rifle while she methodically pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and to Roxanne's anguish got one going. Women have vices as well, Victor.

Roxanne laid the rifle across her lap. "I'll take that as if you are ready to begin."

Vanessa Davis nodded as she exhaled.

Roxanne wasted no time. "Where is Erica Lovings?"

"Who?"

Roxanne picked up the rifle and fired a single shot into Councilman Davis' monitor of an old school PC that was resting on a computer stand on the far side of the bedroom.

Davis came unglued. "Stop that, Goddamn you."

"Stop what?" Roxanne asked and laid the hot rifle back in her lap. "Oh, that business with your computer...I want you to think of it as my way of reminding you that we are going to reboot this conversation for the first and last time."

Davis inhaled another hit of her cigarette. "Look, Sweetie, I know Erica Lovings was seen with my son before she went missing. I'm sure somebody, somewhere, told you that, that's why you're here terrorizing my guest and blowing holes in my roof." She said and pointed the ash end of her smoke at Roxanne. "I don't know where she is now."

"Let's say that I believe you," Roxanne leaned forward in the chair. "At least for the time being, I do. Tell me where your son is?"

"He's tucked away where you or no one else will find him, Little Girl." Davis actually smiled. "Ever,"

Roxanne hopped up out of the chair, made her way through a cloud of cigarette smoke towards Davis who looked to hold her ground.

"Let me get this straight," Roxanne said in a low voice. She'd placed the rifle's barrel just below Vanessa Davis' chin. "You sex men who should be home with their families. Even worse, that one particular man belongs to a race that you openly despise, at least in public. You're always rumored to be stealing public funds in some shape, manner, or form. And now you're hiding a killer." Roxanne pushed the gun out of the other woman's face long enough to feign applause. "Well done, Councilwoman Davis, we should display more of your wonderful merits for your followers to see."

It was Davis turn to lean forward with a response. "My supporters are plentiful, rich, and see only what I choose to let them see." Davis allowed her dull smile to showcase itself again. She shifted her wig to a better position on her skull. Nonetheless, Little Girl, you are wrong about one of your accusations. If Xavier Prince's niece is dead, my Trey didn't kill her."

"How do you know that?"

"I just know."

Roxanne eased back and tucked the rifle on her shoulder again. "Sometimes we're blind to the failures of the ones we love the most."

Davis shook her big head and stubbed out her smoke in the ashtray besides the bed. "I ain't blind to shit." She said. "Trey is far from perfect, but he is not some heartless killer."

"Tell me about some of his imperfections."

"He has some convictions. If your car isn't parked in the garage he would steal it. If you tell him not go there he will trespass on it. If you can get high or drunk off of it he will try to sell it to you." Davis rattled them off the top of her brain from memory. She combed her wig with her fingers and then snuffed the half smoked cigarette out in the ashtray next to all the other butts. "But more than any of that, Trey's first love...and first failing, is that he loves a sexy hood rat more than anything else in this world." She leaned in close to Roxanne again, to guarantee the younger woman wouldn't miss what she disclosed next. "But he didn't adore women any more than his running partner...Erica Lovings."

Roxanne cocked a brow.

"Are you telling my Erica was bisexual?"

"Bisexual my ass, she was a stud." Davis said and offered a hoarse laugh that lasted far too long. "My Trey told me he'd never been around a more sexually aggressive person in his whole life, man or woman."

"Alright," Roxanne wondered why either of the Prince's mentioned Erica's sexuality to her. "Okay, so what did go wrong?" Come on Councilwoman Davis, you and your son sound close. He had to tell you something specific?"

Davis slid another cigarette between her lips but had seemed to have misplaced her lighter in her bed covers.

"Maybe," Was all that she offered Roxanne.

Roxanne eased the rifle down some ninety degrees to remind the other woman they were still locked under the terms of their agreement that she'd established earlier.

"Maybe you should finish talking, I'm all ears."

Vanessa Davis cleared her throat. "Like I said, Erica was hyper aggressive towards other females and I just didn't get this info from my son. That girl was the talk of the streets, especially in some of the rougher neighborhoods where she and Trey spent entire days drinking and hoe hopping. Where she may have bitten off more than she could chew though, is when they stepped to some young bitches from Carver."

Shit. "Let me guess, one of these young women was a girlfriend of an Usher." Roxanne didn't grow up in the Carver Housing Projects, but she went to middle and high school with enough of the residents to know the territory and the stories that originated out of that hell hole all too well. Some in the media called Carver the most dangerous complex of its type in America to live in. A man who called himself the Bishop attired himself something that made him look nothing short of a Catholic Priest, ran the place pounding a bible with one hand and holding a gun in the other. He had deployed his lieutenants, his Ushers to establish and then maintain order in the project. The tenants living there were little more than modern day indentured servants. Their belongings, their homes, their very lives were subject to be taken by the Bishop, his Deacon or the Ushers if he were so inclined. It was recently rumored that he had his own harem of young women who were daughters and mothers and wives of other residents that he regularly fathered children with.

"Yep, I knew you were bright Little Girl, she bedded one of his main squeezes and bragged about it to anyone who would listen."

Damn. "So your son believes this Usher killed Erica simply because he felt disrespected or the usual street bullshit young people swear by. Do you know any of this for a fact?"

Davis found her lighter. A fresh stench of cigarette smoke clouded the room. Roxanne shook her head in disgust.

"I only know that my Trey believes this to be true." Davis said. "But sure or not, I couldn't take any chances of any harm coming to my baby. Anyway, like I said before, he didn't have anything positive going on here anyway. If it wasn't this mess with Erica, then he was going to probably end up dead in the streets of Atlanta for something else. I wasn't having that, no way."

Roxanne nodded in understanding. "You could have gone to the police."

Davis stood and pointed at the holes in her ceiling. "And you could have knocked. Anyway, like I said, he was facing other charges, and like you said, I ain't terribly popular downtown. The APD wasn't going to pin this murder on Trey simply because they can't or won't find the real killer. What you know, Little Girl, is what they know as well."

Roxanne watched the other woman make her way over to her massive walk in closet that one end seemed to reach towards Augusta and the other end towards the Alabama state line. She dropped the housecoat and pulled an oversized nightshirt over her head, unhooked her bra and let it fall to the floor and slipped on some pajama pants.

"And anyway, I didn't have a whole lot of choice. The APD was the least of my worries. The Choir Boys may have had Trey on their radar for different reasons. He has had ties to the Black Knights gang on near north side of town as well."

Roxanne shook her head again. As much as she hated to admit it, Councilwoman Davis had done all of the things she would have if their roles were reversed. She didn't know how rotten a kid Trey Davis was at his core, but he apparently was stupid enough to be mixed up in a lot of crap that put his life at risk.

And Roxanne knew all about stashing someone where no one would find them. All the roads seemed to be leading to the dead end which was Carver Street Housing Projects. She turned—

"Do you have any kids?"

"No," Roxanne said and then added, "I don't have anyone."

Davis waved an accusing thick index finger at her. "Then don't ever try to tell me what I should or should not have done when it comes to the safety and well-being of my baby."

Roxanne switched the safety on her rifle and threw its strap over her left shoulder. She stood on the desk that seated the computer, disengages two wires above the window seal, betraying how she managed to get inside this mini mansion in the first place. She began to squeeze her thin frame—

"What are you planning to do with this information I've given you?" Vanessa Davis wanted to know.

"I'm going to Carver." Roxanne said as a matter of fact. "All trails lead me there. I'm going to find Erica Lovings, dead or alive, and bring her home to her mother."

Davis reached into her underwear drawer in the same cautious manner she did before when she found her pack of smokes. Roxanne has already disengaged the safety on the rifle just in case this woman gets stuck on stupid and tried something irrational. Although Roxanne can feel her pulse in her ears, she tells herself that she is calm and in control of this situation.

Roxanne Sanchez is surprised when the older woman draws cocaine from a zip lock bag onto a sheet of paper, and eventually takes a small hit up each nostril.

Roxanne's stomach churned.

"Sweetheart, I'll let you in on another secret besides all of my nasty habits I've displayed for you tonight." Davis said. "You tough and all of that, but the Carver Housing Projects is as about as far from an ideal travel destination as you get in this city...if not this hemisphere right now."

"I'm touched." Roxanne failed to mask her sarcasm. "But I was born and raised in this city. And by all accounts I shouldn't have ever made it back here from Mexico alive. I know the turf. I know how dangerous it can get over there.

"Then you don't know a damned thing. I should show you something."

The older woman had gained enough of Roxanne's attention for her to climb back down to the carpet. Vanessa Davis pulls her blouse back over her head and exposes a heavy breast with Tell me what you see when you visualize our future, tattooed on left boob and I visualize a future filled with misery and pain, inked on the right one. A chain seemingly meant to connect the passages lies on her chest wall in between.

"I saw you at Mayor Ernestine Johnson's press conference on the day that Senator Lavelle announced to the world that she had been a member of A House in Chains." Roxanne tried and failed to keep astonishment out of her tone. "I thought you were playing for the camera. You've taken the mark. You are a member as well."

Councilwoman Davis left her blouse in the floor where it was and reached for the housecoat instead. When she felt it was adequately secured, she opted to return to her stash and took another long whiff of her nose candy. When she raised her head again, blood had begun to trickle down her left nostril. She must have felt it dripping because she wiped the blood and the tears associated from the hit from her left eye as well.

"Listen, sweetheart, any fool with a right hand and a pair of lips can read Isaac Prince's mandates and become a full-fledged member." She said. "But to join the ranks of The Peacekeepers they put you through various mental and physical test and an extensive background check and training period before you are initiated. And to admitted to the Board, well, I'll tell you that the secondary governing body is an honor only bestowed to 12 people nationwide and you must be unanimously be voted in by the Circle."

"And you're on the board?"

"Were would be the more appropriate term for it, Little Girl. It only takes one circle member who can prove you as unworthy to excuse you from the Board and Grace Edwards has her sources and exercised her authority in doing so a couple days ago." They stood in silence a moment. "You see, I suffer in the 'self-respect' part of the mandate, as you probably can tell." Vanessa Davis looked down at herself and then the plate of cocaine. "I'm sure these tattoos will take longer than those same couple of days to scrub off."

"I'm sure recovering from your dependency will take more than a couple of days as well."

"Amen," Councilwoman Davis said gruffly. Her gaze hardened and she looked into the dresser side mirror and her eyes quickly darted away, ashamed at the truths the reflection revealed about her life. For a moment Roxanne felt a tremor of sorrow for her. "Perhaps I'd given myself into the audacity of hope...or whatever that means for me." She refocused with some effort and found Roxanne's dark eyes. "Listen, Little Girl, I know you all grown and have a job to do and all of that, but take this warning from me—you'll want to steer clear of Carver."

Roxanne ejected the rifle's final shells and sat them on the nightstand. She found a spot right in front of Vanessa Davis. Victor Castillo wouldn't have approved.

Someday, when the time is right, Gonzales and I will stop what we are doing here...and find you.

I will see you suffer for what you have done here down below.

I will see you suffer before your end.

But that was her own private apocalypse for another day, her Whirlwind. Tonight, she had needed an opened door when all others were slamming shut. She even had something to report in her phone call to Chris Prince a half an hour from now that she might not have without this conversation having taken place. And if showcasing the smallest bit of respect and pity for this woman was the price she would have to pay—

"Councilwoman, what is going to go down at Carver?" Roxanne asked and when the other woman didn't immediately answer she added: "Please tell me."

Fresh tears misted in Councilwoman Davis' eyes. Roxanne couldn't tell rather they were the result of the potency of the cocaine or from the information about Carver that the woman had learned from her tenure on the Board.

Yet, after a moment, Roxanne Sanchez realized that she'd shed enough of her own to know that these were genuine and true enough.

"Carver is going to experience a tragedy unlike any ever seen before." And then Roxanne watched Davis' face brighten with sudden mix of pride and wonder. "While as the same time Carver is going to experience a rebirth that will be glorious and long overdue." And then Roxanne could not decipher if the hysterical fit that had taken hold of the other woman was laughing or crying. "Now that Xavier Prince is freed from prison, I expect Carver to experience a purging none of us shall ever forget."

#  Xavier

The Circle had scheduled a meeting for 4:30pm sharp.

The President of Morehouse College was wearing a new suit, new loafers but had forgotten to brush his teeth. He shook Xavier Prince's hand for a second time in as minutes when he and his four associates stepped into the school's administrative conference room on the third floor and began to seat themselves at the large spit shined table.

The president's assistant, a gray haired man who had that old eagle eye going audibly objected to the use of this seat of higher learning for A House in Chains affairs. He reminded his boss of the attacks 0f 411 and Pandora's promise of more reprisals if Xavier and his people did not turn themselves over to local authorities immediately.

The president slapped his assistant warmly on the shoulder as if to say that everything would be fine, but never unfastened his gaze off of the One. He explained to his friend and colleague those attacks were perpetrated against People of Color in general and not A House in Chains exclusively.

Outside the room Xavier noticed that the campus was a bustle of activity as the students continued their preparations for graduation ceremonies that were only weeks away. With so many people coming and going about the Peacekeepers will be challenged to secure our place here. Yet, it warmed him to his marrow to see so many people that looked like him succeeding at such a high academic level. No, this wasn't Princeton to be sure, but he wondered if he had missed out on a life experience by not attending a predominately Black school here in the South. Dad, I think you would have been proud of what are people are accomplishing, despite all of the challenges that we continue to face.

Isaac Prince.

Xavier wondered if the dreams that he had been having of his late father, especially in the days since his release from Calhoun State Prison meant anything in the grand scheme of cosmic events.

I'll leave that speculation for another day. We have much business to discuss, the Circle and I, and time is short on so many different fronts.

The president allowed his Second to talk him into only allowing the Circle use of a smaller ready room on the far side of the corridor where they sat now. Quincy Morgan grunted in annoyance but Grace Edwards and the others lifted themselves from their seats and silently began the trek to the reserved area.

It was tight to say the least. The space...or lack thereof, seemed to squeeze them around the collar and the waist with its closeness and stuffiness. Nonetheless, a spectacular mural showcased up on the wall just above their heads was a jewel. The artist was as nearly talented a painter as his brother Chris was at drawing. The mural featured men who had done much to farther the cause of People of Color in America: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Malcolm X, his father Isaac Prince, President Adolphus Sweet...and himself were painted from left to right.

I've done nothing to deserve to be placed on a pedestal with these pioneers in the cause of justice and liberty for our people. He found himself mostly disturbed with the artist rendition that showed him facing out with his palms up in a Jesus like pose. I'll say that I'm closer to the devil with the way I lead my personal life: I smoke too many cigarettes, drink a little much malt liquor, and whore around too often. In fact, after he spent the first 24 hours of his freedom with his boys, he helped escort them both back to their mother' s homes and their lives and school while he returned to the Circle. He spent his second day mostly on his cell conferring with allies, attending press conferences and tending to other Executive matters that concerned A House in Chains.

My nights were far more relaxing though. He had bedded two women...at the same time last night. The thicker of the two seemed particularly eager to please him. She would whisper in his ear as she rode him, what do you see when you visualize our future, baby, and the other woman would respond between sticking her tongue in either of their mouths, I see hours and hours of drawing a line between pleasure...and pain.

He bit back at the self-criticism. The numbers that Grace Edwards provided him from the rise in Black illiteracy rates and the lowering of unwed child births to falling murder rates, drug arrest, felony convictions all told him he had done much in raising his people to new heights of prosperity and perception on his watch. However, our greatest challenges still lie ahead...and so do our greatest opportunities.

He decided—and not for the first time, that the liquidation by any means necessary of his people by Serena Tennyson and Pandora would not stand while he still lived.

The five members of the Circle sat at their cramped table and got to it.

Xavier placed a toothpick in his mouth. "I appreciate everyone's attendance on such short notice—"

"Excuse me, Xavier," Quincy Morgan eyed the entrance from which they had come. Aren't we going to wait for Senator Lavelle to arrive?"

Grace Edwards shook her braided hair and peaked up from over her glasses. "The senator has been...let's say, uninvited from Circle meetings until further notice."

"Who authorized that?" Quincy asked.

"I did." Xavier responded.

Quincy looked at his leader with inquisitive but respectful eyes. "Xavier, Lavelle is a United States Senator. He is an important man to both as an individual and as a front man to our cause."

"And he would probably have been the Democratic Nominee for president two years ago if would stop displaying his faults for the entire world to see. Anyway, he's not an official member of the Circle, and if he isn't careful he'll find himself out on his ass the way we culled Councilwoman Vanessa Davis and her cocaine habits from the Board."

"The senator has no such habits that I'm aware of—"

"I don't like the man, Quincy." Xavier fixed his Sergeant at Arms, and newly positioned number two, with a hard glare. You were a friend and an ally, Ernestine. I will miss you deeply. He asked that they stand up once again to honor the city's former mayor with a moment of silence. When they sat down again Xavier opened his attaché case that he'd brought with him, picked up a stack off of the very top and slid them towards Quincy Morgan. "I have complaint after complaint after complaint from other House staffers and other support parties about how they are spoken to and mistreated by the Senator from Ohio. He is a bully. I won't tolerate his arrogance one second longer in this organization. US Senator or not, Anthony Lavelle better change his spots or he is out." Xavier swung the toothpick around in this mouth from side to side hoping to calm his nerves. "Think of it, Quincy, these same types of questions of character got brought up about Lavelle during the primaries. He was this close to closing in on the nomination. America almost told the world that a second Black man, even one with open ties to our House, could be voted to the most powerful office in the free world. Do you realize what better position we would be in today facing down our enemies if Lavelle were the first or even second in command of the country?" Xavier let out a long, low whistle. "All politicians are rich, Quincy. All politicians lie to some extent or the other. And all of them have dirt under their fingernails. But Lavelle cost himself...cost us a wondrous opportunity because people don't like his personality not his politics. He's a masterful public speaker, though no more so than my brother Chris would have been, but otherwise he has no innate value to our House. So I put his ass on a plane and sent him home to Cleveland or Akron or wherever the hell he's from so he can hope to get his act together before the next election."

Quincy Morgan searched the table for support...or at least a comment to dispute what Xavier had said but found that none was coming.

"Anyway," Xavier Prince continued as if the Lavelle conversation had never taken place. "I want to say how proud of what each and every one of you has accomplished for our House in my absence. You honor yourselves and you honor my father's vision. I am sorry; however, to inform you that this will likely be our final gathering as a governing body until this crisis concerning Pandora has passed." He found Percy Harrison on his far left specifically. "I guess you picked one hell of a time to join our ranks full time."

Percy Harrison laughed:

He was tall but slouched enough even when he was seated that he lost in an inch or so off of his given height. He was dark skinned though not to the brilliant opaque skin coloring that Xavier's brother Chris was shaded with, but dark enough that his thinning mustache and patches and sideburns were almost luminous on his face. Xavier had asked for this man's full inclusion into the Circle after he learned of Ernestine's death. He felt that Grace Edward's background with the FBI, Warren Washington's ties to the sports and entertainment circles, Quincy's controversial but successful run as they leader of The New Black Panther Party and his own background in law gave the Circle the versatility and credibility to command both loyalty from its base and a certain element of fear from its opposition. But you are the Everyman I believe that we've been missing, Percy. He should indeed feel comfortable even in these close surroundings considering he had come up through the education field.

"And at what point will this crisis pass, Xavier?" Quincy asked him.

"Yea," Percy added. "Serena Tennyson is on the street again."

Grace Edwards looked up from her notes. "Her wild escape from the APD and the FBI is a victory for Pandora's moral alright and a devastation for all law enforcement. I wish I could say it any other way."

Grace Edwards: The House in Chains number three was a smaller figured, dark skinned woman in her early 30's who was pretty enough, but far too slender and sweet for Xavier's exotic taste. She had big brown eyes made even larger inside her glasses and wore her hair in dozens upon dozens of small, slim braids. She looked professional, as she always did, in a brown business suit and pumps. Xavier knew that Grace's Intelligence background and her friendship was his biggest assets offsetting the death of Ernestine.

He heard Warren Washington snort and slouch down in his chair as if someone had let air out of his personal balloon.

He was a 6'8" tall former hoops legend, who was high yellow in skin tone, still looked very athletic and had been graced with the sparkling gray eyes that most women could find themselves lost in. Xavier only knew the man had been slow to integrate his father's beliefs as his very own, since he'd come over with Quincy and so many others from the New Black Panther Party.

"The fucking FBI," He finally said. "They are such incompetent bastards."

Quincy snatched a penny from out of his dress pants tossed it at eye level and tossed it again. "I hope you're smarter than that, Warren. Serena escaped without a trace of her whereabouts. I know you don't truly believe that was by mere chance. It was obviously a conspiracy. They were all in on it."

Xavier shot out of his chair and got into Quincy's face.

"So which party does my brother belong to, the incompetent or the conspirators?"

Grace played the part of the diplomat, as she had many times before. "We need to concentrate our efforts and our energies on the issues at hand and we have a host of them to consider, gentlemen. Firstly, we have Serena's not so subtle threats against the children of our communities to consider."

"You're over Intelligence, Grace." Percy said. "You're people must know something about Louis Keaton's whereabouts."

Four sets of eyes bore into Grace. Xavier had to admit he was curious to what Grace knew as well. She had predicted the 411 attacks...at least the substance of some type of attack against Atlanta citizens' weeks before the onslaught on the first day of this month. Evans and other Peacekeepers in Calhoun had fed the data to Xavier and the One did what he could from the inside to gain all the information for a defense...any type of resistance against what eventually struck Atlanta and their House; that's why Julian, myself and his Black Knights approached Michael Davenport in the first place.

He had gambled and loss. Davenport didn't know about the attacks, I'm convinced now—but he did know something, and he was confident enough with the information that he tried to bargain for his life with it.

Xavier wished he had a little more time to drag it out of him.

Grace was saying: "I don't have anything, guys. I'm not picking up the levels of chatter that filtered out of the internet, in phone lines, and word off of the street like I did in the days before 411. And to make it worse, Keaton's disappeared off of the map. Serena has him tucked away somewhere, until she's ready to unleash that pervert again."

"What's your gut tell you, Grace?"

Grace gave her leader and the remainder of the room a once over.

"This so called escalation, where are our children, is no doubt about Keaton kidnapping Black children just like he did 30 years ago when this Caretaker fellow ordered him to do the same." She looked as if she were searching for some specific terminology, and then decided to dumb it down for the boys. "I expect these abductions to be on a smaller scale. The first fireworks have already been lit by 411and then Deliverance when Serena made her epic escape."

"I agree," Xavier made his fingers into a cage and sucked on his toothpick. I need a cigarette. "We don't know that Keaton will be involved at all. She may send an individual—"

"Or a group of individuals," Grace added.

"You're right, Grace, she may send an army of men or women to our neighborhoods trying to abduct of children for ransom...or worse." Xavier finished his thought.

Warren and Percy both nodded in unison. Quincy tossed his penny up higher again and caught it. And what is the symbolism behind the penny, Quincy?

"I have a suggested course of action that I would like us to pursue but I am willing to follow and reasonable idea any of you may have."

Warren slunk further down in his chair. Quincy Morgan squeezed his penny. "I apologize if I offended you before, Number One." He said sardonically. "I didn't mean to suggest—"

Grace intervened smoothly again. "What is done is done. We need to concentrate our efforts on the matters at hand. I'm thinking that with Serena back in the field that Pandora's next attack is days if not hours away. I don't want to be caught completely flatfooted again as we were with the 411 attacks."

"Her escape did serve our cause in a manner of speaking." Quincy pointed out.

"How,"

"Her threats against our children, Percy, caused a huge uptick in applications for admission into A House in Chains in general and the Peacekeepers specifically. We're struggling to process all of the applications and background checks right now."

"That's good," Warren sat up straight. "That means more 'Keepers on the streets."

Grace grunted.

"If you have something to say, Grace—"

She removed her glasses and chewed on the end of one of them. She was looking up, but not at him and it wasn't the first time that Xavier had noticed it today. Something very bad has happened. A House of Chains was blessed to have arguably the finest Intelligence officer in the country seated at this table. She knows something she's not sharing. Xavier made a mental note to ask her about it when the time was right.

"I have no doubt to what the Peacekeepers are capable of." She finally said and looked streamlined at Quincy Morgan when she said it. As the Sargent at Arms, he was directly responsible for the recruiting, training, and day to day operations of the Peacekeepers. No one at this table, save Xavier himself, could override his authority in military matters. "But unless you have a personal escort for the 10's of thousands of school aged children in the Atlanta Metro area then your numbers, no matter how impressive, are ultimately irrelevant."

"But surely a heavier Peacekeeper presence will be a deterrent against Keaton or anyone else from trying to abduct our children?" Quincy said.

Percy looked if he had a point to make as well. "We've also set up hundreds of safe houses as well. These families can be counted on to help any child who runs into unexpected trouble. They've been asked to notify us first even before the police, if they come in contact with a child or a potential abductor."

"These are all wonderful ideas." Grace went back to taking her notes. "I don't believe it will be enough."

Xavier nodded in Grace's direction. "She's right. The safe house idea is a splendid one and I think we should implement it immediately." Xavier found Quincy's gaze. "Expedite the admission policy for a Peacekeeper position in the Atlanta area only. Do not arm these prospects until a full back ground check and gun training are completed as per usual policy. Still, these new recruits can serve us the front line defense against these potential kidnappings in our neighborhoods. Let's hope that the sight of Khaki suits and sneakers will be enough."

Surprisingly, Quincy was nodding in agreement. "I would love the opportunity to use our more seasoned troops in campaign directly against Pandora. I'm sure Grace can supply us with a target or two, a stronghold or a point of interest that we can attack while they are full of themselves and vulnerable."

Warren's face brightened even more as a large smile graced his pink lips.

"Hell yea," Was all he said.

Xavier shook his head.

"And why not," Quincy looked up at the man standing near him. "If these veteran Peacekeepers aren't going to be used to supplement the recruits in the protection of our young—

"You will have your war with Pandora in due time, my friend." Xavier sucked on his toothpick and patted his Sargent at Arms on the shoulder. He leaned down and spoke loud enough for all of them to hear, but his words were specifically spoken for Quincy's ears alone. "I have a little somethin' somethin for your Peacekeepers to handle for me first."

Quincy's eyebrows raised and a light seemed to go on in his eyes. The man's interest had definitely been raised. "I can't wait to hear what you have in mind, Number One."

Xavier stood as large as his petite frame allowed. "I told you when we gathered in here how proud I was of each of you while I was away at Calhoun. I meant every word." He eyed Percy Harrison first and the man seemed to shy away from his gaze. You are indeed a humble man, Percy. "You stepped into your role while I was away, and now you are filling the shoes of a great lady who has passed on to a better eternity than the fate that was given to her in life."

Now he faced down Warren Washington and struggled to keep the sneer of contempt from curling his top lip. As a human being you are not much better than Senator Lavelle. You've been pampered, praised and highly paid your entire life. Still, he had almost single handily brought the Hollywood crowd to their doorstep. Warren had powerful friends with very deep pockets. Xavier lowered his voice a decibel. "You secured our business arraignment with the Liberians, Warren. And I can appreciate how difficult it was for you to keep the millions of dollars off the books."

Warren looked apologetic. "It wasn't good enough, Xavier. The IRS still found the pipeline that led them back to here...back to you."

It did. But in Xavier's eyes, the two years he served for laundering and racketeering money would prove well worth all he had gone through in that hell of a place. Chris, your government friends still haven't figured it out.

And by the time they would it would already be too late.

A House of Chains had latched themselves to the Liberian people, or at least with an ethnic minority in their civil war. The government eventually found the channels that told them that Xavier's people here in the states, were laundering money to buy weapons for this minority to fight their oppressors. Xavier Prince, the true leader that he was, fell on the proverbial sword and pled guilty to all charges and served time at Calhoun for the crimes of his House. But even finding me guilty, your sister agency was still sloppy in their investigation, Chris. They never found these so called millions that a House in Chains had earned for distributing these semi-automatic guns, these explosive devices, these rocket launchers and other weapons of war that the report said was enough hardware to arm a small army.

Your peopled didn't find the money, Chris, because we weren't selling weapons big brother...we were buying them.

"My arrest and incarceration was necessary to stop the investigation before our government found out what we were really up to." Xavier's voice was a whisper.

To Grace Edward he said: "You are the Circle's rock, my lady." She wouldn't hold eye contact with him, but she could not help but blush. "Your efforts are tireless and your professionalism is unmatched of anyone who sits between these walls." He heard his own tone alter to one of reflection. "I wouldn't have survived my visit to Calhoun without you. It was you who kept me informed on what was going on the outside both professionally...and what was going on in my boys' life. It was you who turned me on to the presence of Officer Evans and the other friends of this House who were on the inside. As I've said before, you are the Circle's rock. You are my rock, Grace."

"I am here to serve you, Xavier," She finally looked into his eyes...and for the briefest moment, he thought he saw something there that she had somehow kept buried deep in her soul for no one to see. It can't be. God bless your poor soul if it is. "I live to serve our House."

He peered down at Quincy Morgan...and felt the other man steel himself for whatever words found their way out of his mouth.

"And you, old friend," Xavier grinned and to the shock of all who sat in this room, of all who were members of the Circle, watched as the sitting man grinned as well. "It is not often that you and I see eye to eye is it, Quincy?"

Quincy pulled out his penny again and turned it over in his large hand to that each side of it came into view. "I like to think that we are opposite sides of the same coin, Number One." He said.

"Perhaps," Xavier nodded his head. "But we had a list of campaigns for your Peacekeepers to complete while I was away."

It was Quincy Morgan's turn to nod.

He told Xavier that the Peacekeepers had netted that asshole that was doing those home invasions in predominately Black neighborhoods near Six Flags about six months earlier. They also nabbed the cross dressers who were hitting small business owners and even some churches off of Simpson and Tyler streets.

"They were easy pickings." Warren added.

"We were also able to finally locate the twins as well." Quincy said.

Xavier nodded, remembering the Intel on them when his days sometimes grew particularly long...and lonely in that cage. Twin males who were originally from Jamaica were hiding in parking lots of Mom and Pop establishments and specifically were targeting single black women and the young kids that were riding in cars or walking with them. They would kidnap the women and force the kids, with the threat of murdering all involved, to watch why they raped their mothers. When they were being real nasty, they would shoot the mother anyway, even if she had fully cooperated, leaving these young children to fend for themselves for hours before help arrived.

"The APD wasn't making in ground in their investigations. We found them first." Quincy's smile had gone the way of the telegram. "It was an honor killing them both myself."

Xavier lowered himself in Quincy's private space and said: "There is only one item that your people did not complete to my satisfaction."

"Carver," The other man made the word a statement. He slowly stood to face down his leader. "Forgive me, Number One, but I figured with what was transpiring between our House and Pandora that you had shied away from a campaign that we eat up so many resources, material and manpower. Bishop is not going anywhere. Carver can wait."

Percy rubbed at the hair of his thin mustache. Warren's gray eyes shifted back and forth in anticipation of what might transpire between the two men next. Even Grace had stopped with her note taking and looked as if she were holding her breath.

"Carver will not wait. In fact those poor people have waited far too long already." Xavier pointed at the great men in the mural above the table. He walked over to the other side and stood directly underneath the figurine that had been his father, Isaac Prince. "Read my father's three mandates again." He said to all of them. "If you do you will certainly understand my rationale. We are to respect self, we are to respect family, and we are to respect community," He said at the top of his voice. And when his Circle no longer dared to blink their eyes in his wake he added in a softer tone. "And the people of that community have suffered for years under the rule of hoodlums, the gangs, and lower life's that came before, and those who would eventually displace the Choir Boys some day in the future. We gave our word that someday we would liberate them. I gave my word."

"Respectfully, Number One," Quincy said cautiously. "Pandora is a more immediate threat to the Black community as a whole than these lowlife gang bangers and drug dealers will ever be. If 411 is not evidence of this then I don't know what else is?" Quincy took a few long strides and was standing next to his leader in no time. "We know that some type of provocation is launching soon if not already under way. Serena Tennyson represents a clear and present danger to our people," It was the Sargent at Arms turn to look at each member of the Circle, one and then all. "Ernestine Johnson has already fallen, must we all die before we bring the fight to Pandora's doorstep."

Xavier stepped into the taller man's shadow. Xavier knew that he was unlikely to last long in any physical confrontation with Quincy Morgan but he held his ground and the other man's gaze all the same.

"Are you telling me that I am not performing my duties, Quincy?" Xavier didn't give his Second a chance to respond. "I was an intended target of the 411 attacks as well."

Quincy balled his hand into a fist...but turned away. "And someone is going to pay with their life for that transgression against you." He said. And after a moment of weighted silence he pointed his long index finger at the portrait of Isaac Prince. "When your father founded this House he was the sole ruler, with the Circle and the Board serving under him. You, on the other hand, gave the Circle more discretionary powers on matter of state."

It had been his greatest mistake in the ten years he had been the One. But it was the only way that I could convince The New Black Panther Party to put their outdated mandates and methods aside and join our cause. Xavier had needed their numbers and their money to keep his father's fading dreams alive then. Now was the moment that he would find out if it was all worth the price he paid.

"Alright, Quincy, you've made a fair point." Xavier said.

"I'm not interested in making any points," He made the last word a curse. "I am only interested in the short and long term goals of what is best for People of Color and this House that your father built. That being said, I believe that you are playing this liberation thing with Carver far too politically. This campaign will cost us resources and lives of scores of Peacekeepers for sure."

Xavier took one long and final look at his dad, who sat high, and looked low over them.

"Quincy, what did my father's final mandate say?"

"Number One, please—"

"I want you to tell me what it says."

Quincy Morgan inhaled deeply and then stood as straight as his athletic build allowed. "Your father said that only after the first three mandates are completed may we turn our attention to the Rooster."

Xavier nodded slowly, Quincy's words were like a beautiful musical score playing in his ears, but the One knew he was still far away from celebrating his triumphant victory just yet. "But you have respectfully reminded me of the way that I have chosen to run our House. So I will count your vote as a no to carrying out this campaign against the Choir Boys."

"I know we've spoken of these plans for an incursion in that place time and again before you were locked up and even in the past few weeks with members of the Board—"

"So I will count your vote as no, Old Friend."

"I respectfully submit it as just that, Number One."

Xavier spoke over his shoulder to Percy Harrison without looking at him.

"I am with you, Xavier."

Xavier breathed a sigh of relief. "I've already counted my vote as a yea, which is two votes for the campaign and one against. What say you, Warren?"

"I'll stand with Quincy on this one, Xavier. Your heart is in the right place, but I believe my Second's argument is a more logicality sound one."

"That's two for and two against. Grace, you will cast the deciding vote." Xavier took the time to seek out his Intelligence Officer's face to try to gage where she had stood on the issue. She had always supported him in this manner in the past.

Grace did not hesitate. "We will honor your father's mandate and liberate the tax paying citizens of Carver Housing Projects by bringing those motherfuckers to their knees."

The other four men all gasped at Grace's...colorful choice of an adjective that she chose to express herself, but the tension in the room lessened because of it. And that was probably your intent, Grace.

If Quincy Morgan had been defeated he did not wear it on his sleeve. "If I may be excused, Number One, I need to contact Ronald Broward, he had always been my choice to lead any assault that we had planned on Carver.

Good choice, Xavier thought. The man looked like the type who would take your lunch money and dared you to stop him while he did it. He also had a long scar on each arm that stretched from elbow to his wrist. Xavier wasn't aware of the tale behind his disfigurement, but the man was lucky to be alive if lost that much blood when this accident or this brutality was forced on him.

Yet, despite the man's horrid exterior, he'd proven to Xavier that his business of killing was a trickling of his true personality. He was an engaging gentleman who had two daughters about the same age as Xavier's boys. He wore a locket around his neck at all times with their baby pictures inside. The leader had watched him open the locket up and gently press his big lips on the picture more than once.

Xavier asked Quincy to hold his water for a minute longer. "Grace, are your people still at their post inside Carver?"

"They are."

"Express to them that I appreciate all of their sacrifices, hard work, and most of all—their patience. None of it has been in vain. Tell them to hold on to the audacity of hope. We are on the way. Tell them that A House in Chains is coming to take back what is rightfully ours."

Grace stood up from her chair as if she'd been launched by cannon and blushed for the second time today. "I will, sir." Grace's smile lit up the room. But then she began to gnaw on her glasses again. "If I may have a word with you in private once we are done here? I hope you remember the small matter I needed to cover with you before we left this campus."

A small item she says. He would hate to know what qualified as a cosmic item in Grace Edwards' world. "Gentlemen, if there is nothing more I will leave with this until we are together again. We will accomplish three goals while we carry out this campaign against Bishop and his Choir Boys: We will be keeping to my father's mandates—and just as importantly in my eyes, we will be keeping our word to our followers which is a powerful recruiting tool as we move forward. Secondly, as I've stated countless times before, we will be ridding the citizens of Carver from a cancer. And finally..."

Xavier walked to where Quincy Morgan was standing.

"We will show Serena Tennyson and her Pandora cronies what they are up against if they do not stand down, if they do not disband their ranks, if they do not turn themselves over to local authorities."

He wrapped his arm around Quincy Morgan so that he could face the rest of the Circle.

"Let's show them all who runs this town tonight, tomorrow, and for years to come."

The four of them who were his Circle cheered and whistled and called his name;

And Xavier Prince, the One, the most dangerous man in the world began to stomp and the Circle stomped with him.

"One last thing, Number One," Quincy said before he turned to depart. "A penance must be put in place at Carver when our job there is done."

Xavier peered sharply at the other man as if he'd spit on him.

"Without a penance, Xavier, we are pissing in the wind. We will revisit this road again a year or six months from now. It may be tenement in Chicago or a neighborhood in LA...it may be a return to Carver."

"But the penance guarantees us that there will be no further Carvers." Grace Edwards said in dark voice. "The deterrent will be very real and the mere memory of our response a stark reminder that some things come at too high a price to pay."

Twenty minutes and two cigarettes later he met Grace Edwards on a balcony that overlooked the courtyard that led to the school's auditorium, then out to half of Morehouse's campus. Xavier felt as if this was a piece of the world existed outside of the real planet that they all lived in right now. The garden was full of color, life and fragrance if his nose could be trusted. He had slid his third cigarette out of the pack, but opted not to spoil the scenery or Grace's fresh air with his smoke.

Grace introduced him to a young man and a younger woman who approached from over by the dorms.

Mario Stalls: He was a light skinned Black man who had dimples. He looked as if he could have been of mixed heritage. He wore both his hair and his shorts too long for Xavier Prince's taste.

Tiffany Spores: She was a brown skinned 18 or 19 year old teenager whose body was on the fast track into blossoming into womanhood. She wore a tight shirt, tighter jeans, and had a stud earring in her nose.

Xavier shook the young man's hand. Tiffany wouldn't settle for anything less than a hug from him. He did the political thing and asked how they both were doing and what were their short and long term goals as they reached adult hood.

After the small talk concluded the two youngest of the group trailed off on their own separate paths. Though, Tiffany stole another hug from Xavier before prancing off.

Grace watched them for a long time after they walked away. "I appreciate that, Xavier. Mario just recently got his mark and joined our prospects program. He will be casing the neighborhoods near his house on the eastside. There are two elementary schools and a middle school nearby. Quincy and Warren already have him on their radar to fast track up the Peacekeeper ranks. His dad served two tours each in Iraq and Afghanistan. He understands the...sacrifices the military is often asked to make."

"I understand. What about the girl?"

Grace eyes misted a little. "She has a good heart and a gentle spirit. She doesn't have a ton of family and only a few close friends. She's still a virgin. She told me that herself. No one will ever suspect her. They probably won't suspect the two dozen or more of the others either. But none of the others are as an ideal recruit for what our House needs than she is."

Xavier Prince and Grace Edwards watched the two young people, from two entirely into a crowd filled with youth. The world was so young at heart. Xavier couldn't help but to think of his own boys. Suddenly he felt old and very tired.

Perhaps this is the last generation of color that will know strife like this. He found that he was having an issue steadying his hand at the prospect of what these young people would be asked to do if and when that fateful time came. I could really use that cigarette right now.

"I get the impression that you have something else on your mind." He reminded her of what she said to him as the Circle disbanded for the day. "You didn't want to speak of it in front of the others. I think it's time that you spill it?"

Grace tried to put her best face forward but Xavier saw all of the light disappear from her eyes. "I wish it was that simple."

"It is that simple, Grace. Try the most forward and direct path. It saves a lot of time. And it's what you are best at."

"I'm worried."

"That's understandable." Xavier said. "A strong gust of wind whipped past them both carrying the sweet stench of an area brushfire that somehow ruined the serenity that the moment once had. Xavier lit his Newport and exhaled the smoke as far away from Grace as he could. "Quincy's theoretically correct in his assumptions about Carver. The liberation of its residents is by far less strategically vital to us politically as our coming war with Pandora."

Grace nodded. "I agree with you both, but that's not the worry I was speaking of."

Xavier took one more long last drag and doused the flame with his shoe. "I'm fine, Grace. You don't have to expend any more energy than necessary worrying about me."

Xavier followed Grace's gaze to where Warren Washington had jogged over and was now conversing with a school of Peacekeepers near the basketball courts. He had changed into battle gear: He wore a black hoody, khakis, and black boots.

Grace said: "You won't be fine if this Carver campaign as much as hiccups when the Peacekeepers go in. There is a reason why no one has tried to take Bishop, Deacon and all the rest. The way that place is configured. The locked gate to enter in the front; the way the driving lanes reduce themselves from eight, to four, to two in about half a mile. They have what could double as a prison wall bordering the project from the back. They pitch pigeons and have shooters guarding the top of the buildings 24 hours a day."

Xavier had remembered sitting in some of the tactical meetings with Quincy, Grace and Ronald Broward before he had ended up in Calhoun. But the plan that his second had contrived was technically all-encompassing, strategically sound, bold, daring, and just audacious enough to work. There would be Peacekeeper casualties most certainly. But at the conclusion of the day the ends would definitely justify the means.

"Anyway, whether we succeed or not at Carver I am going to reiterate to you that you must not turn your back on Quincy Morgan or Warren Washington or anyone else closely associated with the former New Black Panther Party."

"I won't."

She wasn't satisfied. There's more isn't it, Grace.

"What else is wrong?"

Grace pushed one of her braids out of her eye. "Your brother's stepdaughter has gone missing."

"Erica? When did this happen?"

"I can't pinpoint a specific day, but it was had to be just before 411 and your release from Calhoun."

Xavier pointed Grace in the direction of an old wooden bench. After they sat down, he smoothed out his slacks.

"There is certainly no love lost between those two. And Denise often complicates things more than making them better." He looked at Grace Edwards. "Is she still alive?"

"I wish I knew for certain, Xavier." Grace said quietly. "Your ex sister in law hired a private detective, a Roxanne Sanchez, to find her daughter. Ms. Sanchez is ruthless. She is efficient. I like her. If Erica Lovings can be found this woman will find her; I'm certain of that."

Xavier stood quickly and fastened the buttons on his jacket. He was struggling with the top button when Grace rose and helped him. She also straightened his tie for him. That look that Xavier saw in her eyes before had returned...and gave him pause.

"If there is anything more, I hope that you will share it with me."

"Julian Moore is dead."

"What," All of the dread Xavier was feeling boiled to the surface. "How...we must not have gotten all of James Carter's men. They must have moved on him after—"

Grace planted a gentle but firm hand on his chest. "No, that's not it at all, Xavier. In his own mind Julian was trying to become a reformed gang banger. He had taken the mark, said the words. He had given you his word to follow your father's mandates as best he could." She said. "But he was still just a gang banger in the eyes of his enemies who shared the same skin color that he did."

"Damn, are you telling me that the Choir Boys got him?"

"They did." She nodded once and again and lowered her head. "You and I have spoken before about our need to rescue the good people who are suffocating under the choke hold of the Bishop and the Choir Boys. But I didn't want to announce Julian's murder in front of the others so they would wrongly think that you were motivated into acting by a sense of loyalty to a man who had protected you more than once while you were at Calhoun."

Grace Edwards was right of course, she was always right when it came to matters of state. Now that Ernestine was gone he would lean on her consultation and her expertise more than ever before. Damn you, Julian, he felt tears sting at the corners of his eyes. They were unexpected and unwanted. He bit them back but Grace had already grabbed him and pulled him into her embrace.

"I appreciate you confidentially." He said in a matter of fact tone and broke her grip. "I'm grateful for everything that you have done here today. You honor your House and you honor me."

They found themselves staring at each other in the minutes that passed. He could see his charcoal colored skin, sideburns and drunkard eyes in the reflection in her eyes. Likewise, he glared at her dark skin, her braids, and the look in her big brown eyes. She was a little slim for his taste and he liked a little red beans with his rice...a little sleek and nasty in his female and he couldn't imagine this woman being like that at all.

Finally, he said: "We are only to unleash this...what is it called... Scar campaign against the Rooster only in retaliation for the imminent threat of this Whirlwind being released on us." He shook his head in mild disgust. "Although, even with all of your skills and resources, we still don't know exactly what this Whirlwind is."

"No," She admitted it to him. "But we only get one chance...and one chance only for Scar to be as effective as it needs to be."

"So it's our only way of winning against Pandora."

Grace's voice took on that dark tone again. "Scar isn't about winning, sir, it's only about giving voice to a message that will be to grave for them to ever ignore our cause ever again."

He exhaled deeply. "What an entangled web Quincy Morgan weaves for us."

"Xavier, Quincy Morgan may has the greatest talent for controlled aggression and violence that I have ever seen. He is also very good for the originality of our campaign's names." She flashed the ever slightest look of pride in her eyes. "But the devil and the details in both our coming operations are all mine."

#  Louis

He watched.

He waited.

Moses Jackson's grandmother dragged the 12 year old boy and his two younger siblings to an old crusty Baptist church early that cool spring morning. The routine hadn't altered much since he'd started scouting this particular boy out about six weeks ago.

Felicia Jackson:

She was a fair skinned black woman in her early 60's. She had dark circles under her eyes and wore her dentures and her stockings everywhere she went.

And the show would always begin as she was leaving the old shot gun house with her grand kids. The older woman saying to her daughter, Moses mother, that someone in this house needed to give God some time back in return for all that he had provided them. Tracy Jackson would argue back that He shouldn't expect a whole lot of visits from her then. She cursed out loud. God or Jesus hadn't provided her with much over the past few years except these begging ass children all ways in the need of something she didn't have. Matter of fact, she yelled as her mother closed the screen door and walked away with the kids, she'd be fuckin impressed if he dropped off a man at her crib who had a good job. That would impress the hell out of her.

By the time that one sided conversation had ended Louis slid back into his Ford. A man is coming into your life, Felicia. And we do have a good job. You'll see. Per usual, Tracy Jackson stormed out of that same screened in porch after her mother and the kids left, and was already out for her daily grind.

Tracy Jackson:

She was a shapely dark skinned Black woman in her early 30's that had straight hair and she dressed the same every day: She wore a cut off shirt at the midriff that highlighted her tattoos and her stomach and lower back, tight enough pants to cause a yeast infection, and shoes bearing a six inch heal. The grind didn't change as she continued her search where she left off from the day before...and the day before that—of a trick and then a hit of some crack or weed.

Sunday mornings were the worse for Tracy. That's probably why she always had such an attitude with her mother before the older woman left for church. Traffic flowing through the neighborhood was the slowest all week on Sunday mornings. And if she did manage to get some guy off and pocket some money, then trying to find one of her dealers took some doing as well. Even the most religious drug pusher had to sleep some time or the other, especially with Friday and Saturday nights being so prosperous and all. And the weather was warming up too which was great for the drug and the skin trade.

Louis knew that Tracy was running low on cash with the days approaching the middle of the month. It didn't take rocket science to figure that between her mother's social security and Tracy's welfare, that money was tight under the most ideal circumstances.

These weren't ideal circumstances.

Louis abandoned his usual routine of following Felicia and the kids and stayed after Tracy this morning. She had walked down one of the alleys and behind the dumpster. The neighborhood was circular by design with rows upon rows of shotgun houses all in some need of work or paint needed on them. Louis had seen men of his color drive down here every so often. Most of these men were legitimate business types: Salesmen, Insurance Brokers, Bails Bondsmen, and even some undercover police. And it amazed Louis that no matter how dangerous the neighborhood was the drug pusher code was the same during the day: Hands off Whitey unless he backs you into a situation where you have no other choice.

Yet, all bets were off when the lights came on. It is the twilight and shadow syndrome. The voice inside him said. Four Pandora agents had to sprint down and rescue him when he got cornered by a group of gang members a week ago. Those young men never knew what hit them when the bullets tore through the soft tissue in the back of their heads. We weren't afraid though. We would have handled ourselves...defended ourselves even if the cavalry hadn't arrived. Louis told himself that the other voice was a liar. He had been scared. He still had the trembling hands, the cotton mouth and the piss on his pants to prove it.

Still, Danielle Rohm offered him a pretty smile...and more importantly a change of clothes as the other Pandora agents dragged the fresh corpses away. Shooter had taken the young men out from at least 200 feet away. Louis was thankful that Serena had put together men and women with such a variance of skills and talents within Pandora. But no one had the lethal range and the means to spout off kills like the little girl dressed in black.

The neighborhoods of downtown Atlanta hadn't changed much since his first round of raptures 30 years earlier. He saw the same trash low income housing areas, the same potholes in the roads, and worst of all the exact same hopelessness imbedded in the faces of the people who lived down here.

One thing had changed though.

He saw young men and several women as well, dressed in khaki suits and sneakers running pockets of drug dealers off of the corners. The confrontations often were no match. The Peacekeepers were always victorious. Some of the residents would actually walk out into the streets and cheer them. One night, several weeks back before 411, he saw a group surround three Peacekeepers and started hopping up and down while they chanted we have a vision, we have a vision...

Louis drove away as fast as the F150 would take him that night.

Yet, he had always come back. He had been given a job to do by Serena Tennyson and it was very unwise to displease the head of Pandora too often. So he got to the business at hand.

He came close to grabbing Moses two days ago as he walked home from middle school. The opportunity was there, but he had blown it. Moses had run straight home as his grandmother had instructed him to. Since Serena's announcement on Thomas Pepper's blog, Felicia Jackson would often leave her home and begin walking towards the school where each child came home from. The walking was difficult for her considering her arthritic hip and other ailments. Also the younger kids got out of school an hour before Moses did and she barely got back home, caught her breath, before it was time to venture out again.

But that day, two days ago, had presented the best opportunity that Louis had yet to grab the boy. Moses best friend had stayed home with a bug. He would be walking alone and even if the old woman started walking to meet him, she would not get to him in time. What did save him is that some neighborhood kids were playing kickball on a side street about four blocks from his home. And no matter how disciplined a 12 year old may be, he was still just 12 years old and the game was too much of a good time to pass up.

The temptation earned Louis a spanking from Felicia that day, arthritis and all.

And it saved you from us...for now.

Tracy Jackson had been waiting all evening for a regular John to show up at the house so she sent Moses, as she often did, to meet her dealer for a rock. Moses had met the young man, who was probably four years older than he was, countless times before and knew right where to go. He had tears in his eyes and hated this task. He knew his grandmother wouldn't allow it, but she had already left for her bible study meeting at the church, and wouldn't be returning until it was late. Tracy knew this as well and that's why she always scheduled these rendezvous at her house through the week on Wednesdays and Fridays. And Tracy could put it on them too. She could satisfy three of four men in the two to two in half hours his grandmother would be out of the house.

The John was driving up now, so Tracy slapped her oldest child upside his head and gave him another slap on his rump, cursed at him to get on his way.

When the screen door closed behind him, Louis vowed that he would at least never have to return to this specific hell again.

If Serena Tennyson and Pandora were going to exploit his talents the way she was exploiting Danielle Rohm and all the others then so be it. He would be happy to use their money and resources so he could engage in the pleasure that he had been born to engage in.

This was no different than when the Caretaker had commanded him to do the same thing 30 years earlier. In both cases, the political and social ideologies were well past his ability to completely understand them all. He did understand what to do with these boys after he had picked them from the streets.

And just as before, Louis Keaton had six of them already of his scope of vision. He had their routines and habits and their family's routines and habits rounded into memory. He had the locations, the point of rapture mapped out and his necessary escape routes available to him whenever he needed to fetch them from thought.

Louis knew, just like years earlier, that he wanted...no, we needed...to capture his General first. He wanted a boy of outstanding character and discipline who would watch over the other boys once he had captured them all. The general would help keep them quiet, calm and safe.

Moses Jackson would be his general for this generation of abducted boys...just as Christopher Prince had been his first general when his first rapture began all those years ago.

When the boy had cleared the first street Louis Keaton made his move.

He waited patiently until Moses made his buy from the drug dealer. Louis needed him to advance quickly out of this little sector of hell and start walking down the block. This street, with its low lighting and narrow streets, actually would have served Louis better to grab the boy unseen but anywhere that significant narcotic activity took place, there was an increased opportunity of Peacekeeper interference. Louis didn't need that kind of headache. He was running low on chances to get this thing started. Serena Tennyson had insisted on the operation beginning now.

Louis knew that snatching the other boys would be a breeze by comparison. It had been three decades since he had tried to hold a group of boys together. He had the pleasure of a single boy here and two brothers there, but not a collection as was needed to satisfy the Dragon Woman and her brood.

Suddenly all of the brief sessions that he had with Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree came back to him. She had asked him how he felt when these urges washed over him. She had instructed him on how he should fight back against them. She had smiled at him with her fake lips and told him that he was no less human for having these feelings, what dehumanized him was his inability to overcome them once he recognized they were on him in full.

Serena, on the other hand, balled up her fist the last time he saw her and told him to embrace his urges. She told the truth about us, Louis. We are a magnificent creature. We are a blunt instrument. But mostly we have been kept at bay for far too long. We need to feed. Dupree-Hicks would bury us forever. She is a fool. We will feed again. Dinner's on.

The good doctor's influence hadn't waned however. In his mind's eyes he could see her pleading with him to return to his F150 and drive away. She yelled at him to remember the dead and the dying that happened because of his miscues last time. She reminded him that he was a molester, a pedophile...a butt fucker, but he was not a killer. And if he took Moses Jackson here and now, he would get his pleasure but he would eventually have to kill them as he had been instructed to kill the other boys before.

Don't listen to Dupree- Hicks. We won't allow the situation to erode like it did the last time. Moses is stronger than Christopher had been. And what saved him...and started the ball of death rolling for the other boys was dumb luck anyway. That ain't happening this time; it just ain't.

Moses Jackson dropped his mother's bag of rock on the ground, gave his dark surroundings a once over and stooped down to scoop it up—

And Louis Keaton was away from his F150 like a blur of light with his phony badge in his hand. He was yelling...but not too loudly about how much trouble the boy was in. Moses tried to drop the baggie again but it was too late for that. The police had seen you with it in your possession. And everyone knew what the police did with 12 year old Black boys who were in possession of rock cocaine. Moses cried and nodded his head. He probably didn't know, but he surely had been taught to always agree with an officer of the law, especially when he caught you with the goods on you.

Moses Jackson was a smart kid; in fact the 12 year old was brilliant. Although he attended a failing school that was short of resources, funds, teachers who gave a damn and mostly illiterate kids he was excelling. And even though he'd been assigned to high school equivalent classes and arguably was the smartest kid in the whole school he allowed himself to get caught doing this.

But after Moses let the moment and his bad situation sink in...some of that intelligence seeped through. He asked Louis if he were a cop where was his gun? He asked why he wasn't calling his back up in. And then he said respectfully, but firmly, why they would put a man as old as he was on such a dangerous beat in a neighborhood like this one.

Louis Keaton found the strength, quickness and resolve that he thought he left behind years earlier to snatch Moses and throw his ass into the passenger side of the truck. He worked quickly but steadily, he gagged Moses and roped his feet and hands together and stuffed him down on the floor board all without drawing any attention.

Louis got himself over to the driver side, closed the heavy door, latched his seat belt on and drove off without speeding. He turned onto one main road, then to another and then another at a moderate rate of acceleration. He checked his rear view mirrors and saw that no one was following him including Pandora agents. Serena had explained to him that they would no longer be sent out with him since the scouting phase had concluded and the rapture phase had begun.

Louis pushed the F150 harder when he drove the truck up on the entrance ramp and eventually onto I 20 heading parallel out of the main part of the city, towards the sanctuary that he had created for Moses and the other children. And He has built many rooms in this mansion. And after the rapture of his flock, they will spend an eternity together.

We've done so well.

Much later, hours after the Pandora agents helped pull a crying Moses Jackson from his truck, Louis Keaton allowed himself a deep exhale of a breath he hadn't known he was holding and threw up. He walked inside the sanctuary. Serena had promised him that her hand full of agents would allow him adequate space to do what needed to be done. And we have held up our end of the bargain and we will make sure the witch of a dragon woman does the same. Serena Tennyson was proving to be as efficient as and even far more ruthless than the Caretaker had been.

And although no one would trade Serena's cold passionless persona for Caretaker's compassion and love of humanity, Louis had to believe that between the two of them that somehow they would be able to pull all of this off without the senseless deaths that occurred the first time around.

Yes, the voice inside said as the first stir of his manhood inside of pants this evening occurred. There would be plenty of time for that soon enough. You are stronger than Chris ever was, Moses. You won't force Serena too command us to kill the other boys who will soon be joining us here.

We've chosen well.

We're sure of it.

#  Roxanne

The liberation of Carver had begun.

And while it wasn't her war per say it would be affecting her if she didn't move out of one its many apartments soon.

At first all she had heard were a few bangs and pops of scattered gunfire. Those sounds were more common around here than the sound of children laughing and playing. This was Carver after all. But then there was the screeching of tires followed by another round of bangs, pops, and cries of men dying. It some odd way it had reminded Roxanne Sanchez of her childhood growing up with Maria and her parents in the old broken down shack that had once been her beloved home a few blocks from here. This evening was like New Year's Eve all over again. The closer to midnight the hour got the louder and more frequent the sounds of New Year's Day drew closer. And that gunfire and the killing is getting closer minute by freaking minute, where is he—

So far Councilwoman's prognosis of the offensive had been on target. The Peacekeepers had engaged in a full-fledged assault that senior militias across the world would have been challenged to mimic. The problem was that she'd been caught behind enemy lines when the campaign had been engaged and it had slowed her investigation to a near stall ever since.

And I was getting closer to some answers. Roxanne slid over to the window of the otherwise empty apartment for a quick look down the street. The usual early evening activities of drug sales, pimping out the younger hoes and maybe even a quick game of craps while you could still see the numbers had ceased to exist. She'd seen a lot of running back and forth. Mothers were grabbing their children and making a break for cover. The dealers were on the phone trying to find out what in the hell was going on up in the front.

And I'm stuck in here, waiting. The Prince family had paid well and on time but they both had been a pain in her ass. First, there was Denise Prince, who had originally hired her. The lady was a head case at best with her moodiness and downright hostility at times, especially around Chris. Her ex-husband was loyal maybe even to a fault to his former family, but it was clear that both of them were hiding a secret that might have been the final nail in the coffin of their marriage. And its and ugly secret too, Roxanne thought and pulled the curtain back further for a larger look see down the street. It was something that nearly destroyed you, Chris, not just your marriage.

And now Xavier Prince, Chris younger brother had deployed this offensive today...right now that made an already difficult search even more dangerous.

She heard the bolt on the lock unlatch on the front door. She brought her Nine up to greet in unwelcome visitor.

Andre Knight opened the door and slid inside. He locked the bottom lock, bolted the middle one and even swung the chain over into place. He was out of breath and looked as if he'd seen the mountain top for himself.

"They're dudes dying out there," He told her between bits of heavy breathing.

Andre Knight:

He was a scrawny dark skinned Black man who had graduated high school a year after she did. He was so long and so lean in fact, that Roxanne would have sworn on a pile of bibles that if he were any skinner she would be able to see behind him. He wore too much grease in his hair and a well-manicured goatee surrounded a mouth full of beaver teeth. He'd acted like a spoiled punk in high school and age hadn't improved his standing with her one bit.

"They'll be one dying in here if you've lied to me." She had 'Dre pinned to that same front door with all of the locks in place with the back of her forearm. She hadn't pointed her gun at him...yet. "Where is this contact you promised me? You said that someone in him saw Erica Prince after the day that most people think she went missing."

"Calm your nerves, Girlfriend." Andre said and pushed himself away from the door and out of her grip in a single motion. "There is a shooting war going down in the hood in case you ain't keeping up with current events. Things like that can add to a man's travel time. I wasn't nowhere near up front and struggled to get here. My man had further to go." He closed the curtains. "He'll be here.

Roxanne rolled her eyes at her old schoolmate and sighed in exasperation. She did not do waiting well. Patience is not a normal human virtue, Senorita. Victor had once told her after he'd made her body tremble with pleasure. You are good at what you do. Yet, you must make patience an ally if you truly want to excel. And her own inner voice countered: And I suspect that you are using that patience right now...in an attempt to find me, Victor.

And so his words that he had text her echoed in her soul;

Someday, when the time is right, Gonzales and I will stop what we are doing here...and find you.

I will see you suffer for what you have done here down below.

Roxanne Sanchez knew she would rather face a thousand Peacekeeper liberations than one Victor Castillo.

That was at least until 'Dre had told her what he'd seen so far.

The Peacekeepers had used two old vans to ram through the check in point at the front gate. Everyone knew that 'security' was bought and paid for by Bishop and his Choir boys. Dre said that one of the fools even had the nerve to go for his pistol but one of the Peacekeepers' riding shot gun in the opposite van shot just above his earlobe killing him on the spot. The other played it smart—at least at first, by hitting a silent alarm that notified the Ushers that they had company.

Dre stopped his tale long enough to pull a brew from his fridge and chugged half of it down in one gulp. Roxanne frowned at him when he dared offer her one. Men and their vices, still she urged him to continue. They might as well do something constructive while they waited on this contact to arrive.

He said that the 'Boys followed procedure...but it didn't help them much. Bishop had prepared himself for the one day that the APD grew a pair and came after him. He would use the narrow streets that went from eight lanes when you entered the complex that reduced themselves to four, two and eventually one for every two blocks of cross streets to his advantage. He also had some Ushers that would climb up to the top of damn near 12 or 15 apartment tops. They would serve two purposes while they were up there: They would pitch pigeons to help blind Ushers on the ground know where the cops were heading...and they could snipe any pig that was traveling by foot.

Roxanne felt a lump in her throat.

"That doesn't sound to promising for anyone trying to flush Bishop out of here?"

"And you would normally be right, Girlfriend," Dre finished his beer and missed the garbage can when he flipped it at the basket adding to the already filthy surroundings. How do you live like this? "But we ain't talking about the APD or even Five-O. Bishop or nobody else ain't ever seen nothing like this."

Four school buses rushed into the open space that the van had created. Two went to the right side while the other two somehow made the curve and headed to the left. One Peacekeeper after the other, after the other...after the other marched off of those buses until, Dre couldn't be sure, but there had to damn well 200 men and women in all were on Carver streets taking cover and taking names. They were dressed in the classic gear that world had come to know them for: khaki pants and black tee shirts or khaki suits. The difference today is that they all wore skeleton mask to protect their identities like they were some real life superheroes or something Dre guessed.

A gunshot fired loud enough that Roxanne jumped and Dre went to the floor. She stayed low enough not to be caught in any direct crossfire and got over to where the host was.

Roxanne, reluctantly, had often turned to this bastard since she'd been back in Hot Atlanta when her cases veered off the linear path. He'd proven useful...especially if your cash flow was right. And 24 hours ago he'd called her and told her that he had a contact who had mentioned Erica's physical description to a tee, knew about her hoeing around with Trey Davis, and even mentioned her possible sexual relationship with a young woman who was hooked up with an Usher. Roxanne had learned that leaning of Andre Knight for information down here usually generated results.

It didn't mean she had to like him.

"As long as you understand one thing," She had forearmed him to his upswept tile this time. The dirt was shining in his greasy head. "If you've betrayed me or wasted my time in any way, I'll make you wish you hadn't lived long enough to regret it."

Dre looked the part of a cockroach that had been flipped on his back. Yet, he had managed to escape her clutches again and had sat himself just under the window sill.

"Betray you." He wiped the dirt off of his too big shirt. His greasy hair might take the rest of the decade so he let it ride for now. "Girlfriend, we go all the way back to elementary school. You wouldn't give a playa the time of day back then but I've always had your back."

"Let me correct you," She crawled to where he was again and sat close enough to smell the booze on his breath. He would not escape her again. "I've know you too long and having my back has always been defined by me either paying you or fucking you. And I'd rob the Bishop himself first before I'd let that latter half happen, Dre."

More shot rang out. Roxanne heard a window shatter. They're getting closer; we are running out of time. Finding Erica and...potentially giving her the justice she deserved was running on fumes as well.

Dre soothed the moment and her nerves over again, if only momentarily when he finished telling his tale. Girlfriend, I ain't got to the good part yet. Two dozen or so Peacekeepers busted through apartment doors and sprayed the inside with gunfire. Pockets of Choir Boys would show up from down the street or around a corner cursing and shooting...but they no match for the semi and fully automatic weapons of the Peacekeepers.

The campaign was far from flawless. One of the buses stalled before it reached its rightful destination and 20 or 30 of Xavier's men had to run half a block to reach the next row of apartments. A couple of Usher's who were still on top the rooftops picked a handful off as they tried to exit the idled bus. There were more than a few hand to hand, and knife to hand battles in the middle of the street, in the dark alleys and in private doorways. A civilian woman, whose weight was all behind her, was shot in the crossfire when she tried to rush what must have been her elderly father to safety. Another man with weenie arms, a beer belly and chicken legs was run over when he stepped out in front of the bus as soon as the driver got it going again.

But then the Peacekeepers took control of those first two sections of Carver. Three Wheelers rolled in by the dozen. There were two riders per vehicle. While one steered the other fired rounds at any and everything that moved that wasn't wearing khakis and black tee shirts. With another wave of Peacekeepers on the ground the snipers were nullified and then eliminated with extreme prejudice. One was shot and Dre said that he fell from the rooftop nearly to the asphalt nearly where he was standing.

"But it didn't stop there, Girlfriend." Dre shook his head. His eyes were two unblinking street lights. For all of the things that Andre Knight was not, Roxanne Sanchez could say that he was cool. The punk in him wasn't faking or fabricating. What he saw in those few minutes before he arrived here and sealed himself inside his apartment had scared the hell out of him.

Dre said that he watched a man bigger than most stand climb atop one of the vans that had crashed through the front gates into the housing project. "He was a pretty big man but that's not what I remember most about him." Dre said trying to mask the fear in his voice. "He was the only one of them wearing a sleeveless black tee shirt that had no ample room for a vest underneath. But Roxanne, he had a long scar on each arm that stretched from his elbow to his wrist. And he..."

"What did he do? Andre?" Roxanne wanted to know.

"He pulled a machete from what seemed out of nowhere. I look up again and there were, I don't know, maybe 20 or 25 others who were carrying machetes too."

Andre Knight said the scarred man pointed at all of those sneakers hanging from the wires marking Choir Boy territory, the way a dog pisses on a bush. And then The Scarred Man said at the top of his voice: Our adversaries proclaim themselves Choir Boys. They have Ushers...they have a Deacon...I even hear that they are blessed with the presence of a Bishop. The Scarred man's words were greeted with laughter from his troops, his Peacekeepers. Well today I have visualized his people's future. And Dre said he heard a single voice...with a woman's tone ask from her skeleton mask: And tell us what do you see, Admiral. The Scarred Man found who had asked the question and his smile threw a shining light on the entire world. I see a day...this day, filled with misery and pain.

And the Peacekeepers one and all...all and one, begin to stomp.

But the Scarred Man was not finished. When his troops had quieted enough to allow him to speak into a setting sun, he said: If there is a Bishop and a Deacon and Ushers and Choir Boys...then this must be Paradise.

Andre Knight watched the Scarred man pull a locket from underneath his tee shirt, kiss it affectionately and say: Then I say that we should storm Heaven.

He hopped effortlessly off of the van and charged up a stairwell with his machete drawn. The others who possessed the blades matched his movement and did the same, pouring into one apartment and it seemed to the storyteller, at random to the next one.

And Andre Knight ran for his life.

That was 30 minutes ago.

What sounded like an explosion rocked the building underneath their feet. Roxanne Sanchez had gathered her druthers first. "What did they do with these machetes, Dre? How did they know what apartments to crash? I know that everyone in this complex is not a dealer or a member of The Choir Boys? Dre, are you even listening to me?"

"Of course I'm hearing you, Girlfriend." Dre dared look out the window. Two Choir Boys darted by...but they were then cut down in a hail of bullets. "Look, I didn't stay around long enough to see the end of the movie. The opening credits were enough for me as it was."

She had enough of this man—so she snatched him by the collar and the skin underneath. He would not escape her this time for sure.

"Damn, Girlfriend, what's happened to you?" He screamed over the gunfire drawing closer and closer still. "Look, Roxanne, we've done business before. You have never been this hard. You are starting to act like that crazy ass sister of yours. Don't act like you don't remember that crazy bitch fighting day in and day out. Anyway, whatever happened—"

Roxanne planted the butt of her Nine against his big lips in a quiet plea for him to be silent. "Look, Dre, we are not going to talk about Maria. We are not going to talk about what you had for breakfast this morning. We're not even going to talk about the Peacekeepers who could knock that door down any moment and kill us both—"

And there was a knock on that exact door.

And the knocking became more persistent—and then desperate.

"Open the door, Dre, it's me." A voice said.

"My man," Andre flashed a million dollar smile.

Roxanne allowed him to get to his feet and it took a minute for him to unlatch the door from all of its locks. He opened up the door...

...and a White man walked through the threshold.

There was a White man walking through the front door at Carver Street Housing Project...here...now.

Roxanne Sanchez said blankly: "You're a White—"

"Champion," And he put his white hand out for Roxanne to shake it. "My name is Joseph Champion actually not White. A dozen rounds of gunfire passed nearby. Roxanne thought that a couple of the bullets struck the front door where this...Joseph Champion had stood only seconds earlier. "Andre was supposed to explain to you who I was."

Joseph Champion:

Roxanne thought that he was average height, weight, but he seemed smaller with his face buried underneath an overabundance of unruly brown hair, bush eyebrows, and a meaty goatee.

"I'm not interested in anything about you beyond what you can tell me about the disappearance of Erica Lovings." She was interested in everything about this man in fact, and how he came to Carver, but she neither had the time or patients to pursue such an investigation.

Two more shots strike the apartment next door to this one. A third shot shattered the glass by the window sill. All three of them duck for cover behind the dining room table, Champion using his wits, turned the table over to shield them better against anymore bullets that could pop through that opened window.

Roxanne stood just enough to see...the three wheelers driving up with the white vans and the school buses slowly bringing up the rear. They're here. She thought nearing panic. She spied the shadows of figures growing larger as they approach their position. The first rider off of a three wheeler was a loan man wearing a black tee shirt and cursed with a long scar running the length of ear arm from the palm of his hand to his elbow.

The Scarred Man had unsheathed his machete.

Champion was still talking. "I might be able to do more than just tell you about Erica Lovings, Roxanne. I may call you, Roxanne?"

"What in the hell are you talking about?"

Before Champion can answer a handful of shots strike the apartment above them. All parties accounted for push their selves as low to the floor as their individual frames allow. She makes herself larger—and more vulnerable to gunfire, so she can scoot over to where her old classmate was covering his greasy head.

"Andre...Andre, I need you to think harder than you ever have before" Roxanne said.

"What?"

"We know that A House in Chains sent the Peacekeepers to root out the Choir Boys. We know that many of them live here in Carver. We also know that many of these units are used in the production of crack cocaine." Roxanne spoke slowly to Andre as if she had grown up but had left him back in elementary school. "There are no fools running the Circle. Just like you told me when you walked in here they are killing people out there. The Peacekeepers must be using some barometer to flag where their enemies are. They knew exactly where the combatants and the crack houses were before they even boarded those buses and crashed through that front gate." Roxanne grabbed Andre Knight one last time. "I need to know what they are using to identify these enemy positions, Dre, and I need to know right now."

Andre looked to the heavens in thought.

He blinked rapidly...his mind processing everything he'd seen...and anything he might have seen.

And then he had her answer.

"I saw red stripes painted on the front doors of the units. I'd never seen them there before." Roxanne got to her feet, danger be damned, and sprinted as fast as her long legs would take her to the window sill. "I thought they were marking them some for a paint job down the road or something."

Something is right, She bent as far as she could...nearly falling out of the window. A bullet sailed by her and struck the wall nearby.

And then Roxanne saw it.

There was a big red slash on the door where the three of them were hiding behind.

She was all the way back inside...and on top of Andre in a flash. She finally had her Nine pointed at him now.

"Andre, why is there a red painted stripe on your door?"

"There isn't one."

She hit him in the chin with the pistol.

"I just looked out of the door, Andre." She said in a voice that far more patient and calm than she felt. She could feel Champion looking on, wanting answers from Andre as well.

"That ain't my door, girlfriend. This ain't my crib."

"What?"

"Man, we were talking about Erica Lovings and her potentially having something to do with an Usher. Everybody down here knows you been asking questions about that girl. I couldn't have anyone seeing you—no matter how fat your ass is—walking out of my place whiles you asking about that dyke. So I stole—I mean, I found this key and used this place only for show, until I could hook you up with old Stoney here."

Roxanne helped him up partially. Then she crawled through the apartment that wasn't Andre's after all, and made it to the bedroom.

One hell of a large crack lab stared back at her.

"Son of a Bitch," She yelled, nearing tears.

Andre Knight and Joseph Champion, thunder and lighting, ran into the room as well.

"I didn't know, Roxanne." Dre said. "I swear I didn't know."

"Let's get the hell out of here." Champion looked at her.

"No," That single word drew both of their silent ire after she said it. "We're not going anywhere yet. Roxanne was hot with Andre, but she at least understood why he did what he did. More shots rang out. Someone sounded as if they were right outside the front door. She drew her Nine on the other man instead. "I take back what I said to you earlier...Joseph Champion is it? Yea, sure, you can call me Roxanne if you like. I do need to know you. I need to know if I can take your word at face value and I need to know right this minute. First, what is your story, Champion? Tell me the extra short version."

There was a cry from someone outside the door for God to save them but two gunshots later left the man heading towards eternity without an answer.

"I may die tonight, Champion." Roxanne choked back tears. If she was going to join the man outside—and the many others who died in Carver today, she damned wouldn't go weeping like bitch in front of a punk like Andre and some stranger who needed a shave and haircut.

"I am with Pandora." His lip quivered beneath the hair. "At least I was."

She cocked the hammer.

"Whoa," Champion put his hands up. "You asked a question and I answered. Roxanne, I was a mole...I am a mole. I'm in hiding from Serena. You won't need that gun...at least for me."

Roxanne processed the information as fast as her brain allowed her to. She considered her limited options. She knew her time was nearly out. "Alright, Champion," Roxanne said, but she kept her Nine trained on his forehead all the same. "If you truly are a mole, I can't think of a better place in the world to hide from everyone...Pandora, A House in Chains and the FBI. I can buy that. I don't buy why you are connected to Erica Lovings."

"I know where she is, Roxanne. I can take you to her." He said. "I'll be straight with you: I didn't have any reason to come forward to you or anyone else with this information before." Champion peered over his shoulder when he heard a voice say, I am an Admiral in the Peacekeepers. In the name of Xavier Prince, I demand that you open this door and admit me...or I will have it torn from its hinges. "But as you can see, I will no longer be able to hide here. Even in the unlikeliness that we survive whatever is on the other side of that door, Carver will be filled with police and FBI and reporters for weeks to come. I will be discovered."

Champion stepped close enough for Roxanne to see that there was plenty of salt to go with the cinnamon in his beard. "Give me your word that you will continue to hide me when we—"Roxanne heard the door knocked down in the front room. "If we survive the night and I will take you to Erica Lovings."

"How do I know I can trust you?"

"How do I know I can trust you, Roxanne?"

Andre Knight kept a small pistol for the times his punk ass mouth wrote checks that his scrawny ass couldn't cash. Roxanne gave Joseph Champion her .22 that she kept strapped to her shin in case she had exhausted her clips for her Nine in a pinch.

She turned towards the living room area again.

The Scarred Man had said at the top of his voice not so long ago: Our adversaries proclaim themselves Choir Boys. They have Ushers...they have a Deacon...I even hear that they are blessed with the presence of a Bishop. And when his troops had quieted enough to allow him to speak into a setting sun, he said: If there is a Bishop and a Deacon and Ushers and Choir Boys...then this must be Paradise.

Then he said that the Peacekeepers should storm Heaven.

Roxanne sprinted around the corner...gun in hand...and rushed to meet him there.

And then she let God have His will.

#  Angel

Make sure you secure the crime scene.

Special Agent Nicholas Sheridan's instructions still resonated inside of Angel's head nearly an hour after he had stated them to Christopher and her before they left the field office for North Desert Drive. Or is it the banging inside your skull from a whopper of a hangover you're really feeling. Angel had retired early last night after some Jack Daniels, or was it that she had passed out?

Anyway, she now threw the newer rental car into park and buried her thoughts into the latest crisis in a series of them since she'd arrived in this city. A local camerawoman using social media had texted that a barrage of reports had flooded her station's office with something big having been discovered in the lower eastside of downtown. Sheridan couldn't or wouldn't elaborate further, but dispatched the old childhood friends to the heavily wooded area they were arriving at now.

Camerawoman huh...maybe...just maybe, Sheridan wasn't quite the Boy Scout who was only married to his work after all. Angel thought.

Christopher had already unbuckled his seatbelt and was preparing to launch himself up out of the seat when she grabbed him by the elbow—

"Ask Sheridan to reassign you." She said. "Please, do it while there is still time."

Christopher's hairless brows shot up on his dark face. "Reassign me? What in the hell are you talking about, Doc?"

Angel nudged her head at the door; he got her silent message and slammed it shut. Uniformed cops had already done their jobs and roped the area off, probably setting the perimeter further out from ground zero more than they needed to. That's a wise move. Civilians, most of them People of Color, were already starting to line up along the boundaries trying to get a closer look at what was on the other side. Angel leaned into her friend. "You should ask to lead the investigations that will wrap up the 411 attacks...anything but this." She looked out of the window towards whatever secrets were hidden beyond those boundaries. "You're not going to want to see what's in there. I don't have to remind you of what happened to you all of those years ago. You're not as prepared as you think you are to deal with what you may see over there."

"Angel, we don't know—"

"We do know, Christopher." She squeezed his wrist harder than she had intended. "We know that Rapture is Serena's attempt to go after the city's Children of Color. She showed Thomas Pepper the yellow rose and we both know all the symbolism and history that goes with that. We also know that she has a major tool in the box in Louis Keaton to pull this off. He's done this before."

Chris nodded slowly. "In speaking of the roses, Sheridan had a forensic team run some test on them. They didn't identify any contraband. Serena probably picked them at random somewhere on the route to Pepper's townhome that day." He gave her a hard look. "But you don't really deal in the substantive do you, Doc? You live and work outside the box. This is about suggestion and inquiry for you?"

A part of her wished that he was being sarcastic, but that wasn't Christopher's nature. He was also dead on. "It's just a theory for me in a roundabout way. I can't prove any of it beyond a reasonable doubt and I know that is the world that you live and work in."

Christopher smiled and it gave her a warm feeling that only the booze usually provided. "You've been on target with everything that's happened so far. Let's hear what you've got."

"I don't have to remind you about the Atlanta Child Murders."

"No," She heard him suck in a breath. "But I'm sure you're going to remind me anyway."

Angel raised her long index finger with a manicured nail at the end of it. "I'm only stressing the point about the yellow rose. The roses and the symbolism as you named it a few minutes ago."

"Alright, Doc," Christopher said patiently. "I was a little occupied at the time, but the city adopted a policy of raising a yellow rose, one for each of the missing victims...that included me."

Angel shook her head and it surprised Christopher. "That's not the whole of it, Christopher. The yellow rose evolved into a symbol of hope for a city that desperately needed it at the time."

"Yea, alright, Doc, but hope against what exactly? We now know, all these years later, that there was more than one kidnapper and more than one motive going on at once. We still aren't sure who followed whom."

Angel acknowledged Christopher's accurate assessment with a curt nod. Louis Keaton told her himself that the Caretaker and a very early rendition of Pandora had recruited him to kidnap and molest Black boys with the intent to incite a race war in the city that would likely spill over into the entire South, and perhaps the total country.

Simultaneous abductions were being perpetrated by Muhammad Clark. He was a troubled young man who was sexually assaulting, just as troubled older teens and young men, and was tried and convicted of killing scores of them and throwing their dead bodies in the Chattahoochee River. Clark was now on the fringes of old age and was still serving time in the Georgia Prison System.

But Angel knew that her theories and innuendoes could wait. Five minutes and twenty feet later, Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree and Special Agent Christopher Prince found out how odd this investigation was going to get.

Agent Willie Collier:

He was a dark haired man who looked to be around 35 years old. He looked as if he'd recently dropped a significant amount of weight and his skin had yet to adjust to his body's new configuration.

A helicopter had taken to the sky. It was close enough for its blades reverberation to be an annoyance, but still far enough away not to disturb her hair. A new truck from the local CBS affiliate had pulled up behind where they had parked earlier. More APD police cars were arriving on the scene and Angel surmised that it was no coincidence that they got here right after the media did. There were going to be a lot of spectators here. Tensions were already high. An increased attendance by the APD may be needed to help curb the tide. Or their presence may make matters worse thanks to the results of Deliverance.

What Angel knew for a near certainty was whatever they found here was going to nearly impossible to hide from the public.

"What in the hell is this?" Christopher asked when he reached ground zero. "Is this some kind of prank?"

Agent Collier held up his hands defensively. "We haven't disturbed a thing, Agent Prince. This is exactly how the two civilians who called this in to that camerawoman at the news station found it."

It was the damned oddest thing that Angel had seen in all the times that she had consulted with the bureau in the past. And she had seen a hell of a lot.

For the lack of a better description, someone, Angel could only guess a single person, had wedged a black doll into the concrete hole in the floor of this particular structure. They'd even taken the painstaking time and effort to place the doll partially inside of it without crushing the toy. They also had troubled themselves into clothing the thing to protect it against the dirt that would strike it because of today's smoky strong winds. Angel pulled at the cuffs of her trousers and then kneeled to get a closer look.

"It's no joke, Christopher," She said. It is more of an illusion though. "Take a closer look at this."

Christopher assumed a Johnny Bench pose of his very own to catch a better glimpse at what she'd detected. He saw it right away too. There were cut marks around the doll's throat and the head had been squeezed so much that the plastic had refused to pop back out into its normal given shape.

"Did you see this, Doc?"

That same someone had presumably left a full sized bullet inside the dolls head. That wasn't all however. A full size rope was tied, without much success, around the doll's tiny legs. Christopher stopped his examination long enough to look at her probably to gage if they were thinking along the same lines or not, which would save a lot of time.

"It's nearly identical to the real early crime scenes the APD found in the fall of 1979," Christopher made his voice of whisper. "This was some of the heavy evidence that the State used in its prosecution of Muhammad Clark."

Agent Collier had heard Christopher after all. "The State...Muhammad Clark, what are you talking about?"

Angel used the explanation to Agent Collier as a tool to refresh herself on what she had studied some years earlier. "The corpse of the 16 year old boy was badly decomposed, but the Medical Examiner was still able to recognize that he had been strangled to death and then shot post mortem."

"Look at here," Christopher had rubbed his thumb over the forehead and hair of the doll. "I believe this model hit the retail market about eight to ten years ago."

"I think you're right, Prince." Agent Collier smiled with a pleasant recollection. "My boy must have been about four or five at the time. He carried that thing around with him everywhere. 'Action Traction' is what I thought the store people called it. I finally had to hide the thing to wean him off of it. He must have cried for days afterwards." His smile soured. "Respectfully, sir, what is the significance of what model the doll is to all of this?"

"The significance," Angel found herself saying evenly. "Is that these dolls went out of circulation two or more years ago. Am I right, Christopher?"

He nodded. "Yea...that means whoever did this has been holding on to this thing for a time or they troubled their selves with E-Bay or some other web site to order it specifically. You don't find black male dolls everywhere. They wanted this scene to be a nearly flawless rendition of the real thing. They wouldn't accept anything less than perfection."

The chatter in the background had increased two fold in the background.

"It's a Goddamn conspiracy." One voice proclaimed.

"Hell yea," A woman's voice added her two cents worth. "We've seen the FBI's handiwork already."

"What do you visualize when you see our people's future?" A third voice asked

"I see a future filled with sadness and pain." A group of people answered in return.

Angel spoke to the two men over the crowds whooping and hollering. "I remember reading that the authorities who first found that young man's corpse they thought that it was a horrible murder, but an isolated case. The prominent media attention, at least what passed as media attention in those days, really didn't jump on board until a couple years later when—"Angel found her friends gaze. She honestly didn't know who or how many agents within the bureau knew about Christopher's abduction by Louis Keaton in the other half of this story. "They really didn't hop on board until Keaton's victims were taken."

Christopher nodded curtly in Angel's choice of discretion. He got back to his feet and brushed the dirt off of his trousers. "Do you think this is an isolated event, Doc, or do you believe that there will be more 'scenes' like this one to be discovered."

Angel shrugged. "I guess are first order of business is to find out what it truly represents. Our answer lies in there somewhere—"

Angel was interrupted when the cries of the dissenting voices grew louder. It took a full unit of uniformed officers to move in to quiet the building ruckus. Two of the cops pulled out their batons and pushed their way on the other side of the dividing tape.

A young woman who Chris believed had been beautiful once, but the stress of adulthood had been most unkind to her face screamed at him. She was wearing the colors of a Peacekeeper. "You need to pick your side, brother. Either you are with us...or you're with them. The Rooster if foul, the Rooster is no damned good."

Christopher had seen and heard enough. "Sargent, get those people back right now. We cannot allow this crime scene to be contaminated."

Angel watched as a mini melee occurred right before her big brown eyes. She couldn't testify exactly who pushed whom and who punched the other first. But three uniformed APD officers had toppled five citizens and were striking them with their batons.

But the men lying on their backs weren't going to have the APD have the last say in the manner. They punched at the officers. They scratched at their eye sockets. The largest of the cops was bitten on the shoulder hard enough to draw blood.

Christopher had lowered into a sprinters stance to intervene when the advantage shifted over to the crowd, but Angel caught him, planted her feet in the dirt, and used all of her strength to hold on to her friend to keep him from diving into the fray. "Don't involve yourself in this, Christopher. It will stabilize itself." Angel spoke loudly so he would hear her and suddenly she was right. "Look for yourself,"

And it had. At least for the time being, cooler heads had prevailed, along with the arrival of a new squadron of officers making their way around the curve from their cars.

"It's all falling apart," Angel said. "This situation is on the verge of exploding into something none of us may be able to pull back from."

Christopher snatched his arm away from her and straightened his shirt and jacket. Angel hadn't realized she still had him in her grasp. "And you seem to always be in tuned with those fools in Pandora's thought processes. Where should we look for clues next, Doctor?"

"Like I said, Christopher, I have theories, nothing more." Angel felt suddenly as if she had taken a defensive stance. "Most of what I feel is based on intuition. I worked with Pandora for a very short time. After you around Serena for a while you can't help but understand some of her thought processes. She's a complicated woman for sure, but she's not impossible to read."

A new voice called up from somewhere behind them. "That's why Sheridan doesn't completely trust you, Doctor, and either should you, Agent Prince." Tabitha Blue said as a means of announcing her arrival.

Angel held her ground. "I'm not keeping anything from you that I'm conscious of, Christopher. I wouldn't lie to you."

Christopher rubbed his jaw and looked as if he couldn't make up his mind about anything at that moment. He caught his breath, introduced Collier to his partner and caught her up on the few things they had learned and theorized from this crime scene.

Blue said: "So this is the escalation...the rapture that Serena Tennyson kept hinting at. I'm not impressed."

"You shouldn't be impressed, Agent Blue." Angel crossed her arms. "But don't be a fool either. This is just the beginning. Of this I have no doubt."

"What in the hell is that supposed to mean?" Blue asked her.

Chris had returned to a state of calm. "It means that the doctor believes that this doll is a representation of a child that has already or will be soon abducted off of the streets of Atlanta. I know Louis Keaton. He is a serial pedophile. And we will have more serial dancing to do to catch him." He finally said. "That child will be left alive as long as Keaton doesn't feel threatened in anyway."

Angel nodded at her friend's input but reserved her statements for the agents Collier and Blue. "And if I had to guess, I would say that he will be abducting at least a half a dozen children or more to join this boy soon."

Christopher's business cell rang.

"Agent Prince," He said into the receiver.

After listening to the party on the other end he sighed long and deep. There is more trouble, Angel thought. What could have possibly gone wrong now? "Yea, thanks, Ricky. I'm glad you called me first."

Blue shifted in her stance, impatient for the news. "What now, Chris? Did someone find another doll? Or is it worse did someone find a real body?"

"Hundreds of bodies have been found." Christopher slapped at the 'off' button feature of his smart phone. He may it his business to lookout at the crowd, chanting and singing, but relatively peaceful for the time being. "We keep asking if things could possibly get worse in this city, well it has expeditiously."

"What is it, Christopher?" Angel felt the need for her first drink of the day. "What has happened?"

"The House in Chains has sent the Peacekeepers to infiltrate the Carver Street Housing Project." He looked to the heavens and then down below. "There are hundreds of casualties."

#  Roxanne

She jerked out a dreamless sleep, disoriented, sweating, and pissed off that strangers saw her in a state like this.

And a little hungry, whatever was cooking in the kitchen had either a wondrous smell to it or she had indeed been starving to death.

Joseph Champion flipped some eggs from one side of the frying pan to another. He waited until she gave him a visual conformation to approach where she had been lying on the couch—

Wait. Something's wrong here.

There had been no couch...no kitchenette...and little else where they were before.

Champion must have read her mind, handed her a biscuit as a peace offering and said, "No Roxanne, we're not in the same apartment before your lights went out." She took the biscuit. "I got some bacon in the stove as well. It will all be ready in a minute, but I'm sure you want some answers."

"I do."

He stepped back over to the stove, as his eggs were on the fringes of burning. "First of all, I should say good morning to you."

She glanced up and quickly out of the window and then sat back on the couch and tried to get her thoughts together. Have I been out all of that time?

"To answer the first of your many questions—this is Andre's place, the real one that he didn't want either of us in. With the Choir Boy threat...neutralized...he no longer felt threatened by having other residents seeing you or me come out of here."

And Roxanne believed it.

It had his style or lack thereof. There were pictures of his mom who Roxanne had remembered meeting or more than one occasion when she had to come down to the middle school for parent-teacher conferences. She had grayed considerably but it was her. A life sized pinup of Beyonce graced one wall, while a Nicki Manji featuring her fake breast in a tight shirt stared at them from another.

"I'm sorry I didn't wake you ...you were sleeping so peacefully, well you were, at least at first." He handed her a plate and a plastic cup with water in it. She reluctantly accepted it. "I wasn't sure how you would react to being awakened by a virtual stranger."

A new question rose to the surface of her brain.

"Where are my—"

Champion pointed to both her guns and the small amount of bullets she had remaining. She put the plate down on the table and gave each weapon a thorough examination until she was positive they hadn't been tampered with.

"Where is Andre?" She asked

"He's around the complex someplace." Champion said between three forkfuls of eggs. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Are you alright, Roxanne? What, if anything, do you remember from last night?"

She flashed him a fake smile. "I'm fine...and not much actually."

She leaned against the window trying to get it together, trying to gather her thoughts into something...anything nearing cohesion. Something was poking her in her pants pocket when she leaned on the wall.

She pulled a locket from inside of her pants.

She opened it and saw the face of two darling little girls.

And it all came back in a rush.

She'd charged around the corner in the apartment with her gun a blazing hitting The Admiral of the Peacekeepers with a shot to his upper chest before his forearm could get in her line for a kill shot to his head. He was close enough to dive on top of her. The landing took her breath away and any advantage she had previously gained.

Champion had stayed back using the bedroom door as a shield and fired hitting one...and then a second...and even a third Peacekeeper who tried to reach them through the narrow doorway. Andre had fired shots all over the place, his accuracy made worse by the punk trying to hold his pistol sideways like a gangster that he would never be.

Roxanne had struggled to breathe. The Scarred Man had bashed her head against the tile with one of his scarred forearms and kept her gun wielding hand at bay with his other.

Roxanne did use his strength against the man though. She used him to aid in her aiming the gun and she squeezed off two rounds killing a couple more Peacekeepers coming through the threshold as Champion had done minutes ago.

She remembered hearing Champion announce that he was out of ammo when he took an apparent stinger to his shoulder blade. Andre had wasted his bullets...and his time and was now involved in a hand to hand duel with... by her curves, what looked like a female Peacekeeper. Roxanne knew, female or not, training or not, Andre's slight frame and fragile psyche wouldn't hold up long in a fight.

Roxanne had used The Scarred man's weight against him again and managed to slip a knee...and then the opposite knee into his groin. It was far from a perfect maneuver, but a man's jewels were a man's jewels. Impressive, Senorita, she recalled hearing Victor's throaty acknowledgment. Now impress the hell out of me and finish him.

Roxanne had regained full control of her pistol but was unsure whether she had any shots left. The Scarred Man was vulnerable, but the clock for her to keep this small advantage counted down with each passing second.

So instead of shooting him, she used the pistol to bash his balls again.

The Scarred Man howled in pain as if he had a new scar in a tender spot to add to his two others. In that split second she could remember yelling, we are not drug dealers or Choir Boys, Admiral. But he lunged at her one last time.

And Roxanne snatched the machete off of the floor and beheaded the man who felt swoop of speed and power.

"You swung so hard that the hilt of the blade struck you in the forehead." She could feel the tender spot and wondered how bad it looked...ever a woman to concern one's self with aesthetics when your life had been on the line. "I don't think that was enough to knock you unconscious, but your head striking the tile probably was."

So Champion finished the tale for her. Andre had won his battle with the female Peacekeeper and had her blood dripping on a steak knife as proof. There was enough of an opening in the crosswalk and enough distraction of the Peacekeepers with the other battles being waged for them to make their escape.

"You weren't light, I'll tell you that." Champion demonstrated the fireman's carry that he used to carry her out and then eventually up the stairs to Dre's place. "You do have the cutest tattoo on your lower back—"

"Zip it, Champion," She cut him off. "I already hate the idea of thanking you as it is."

He smiled when he downed the last of his biscuit. The crumbs were entangled in his goatee. "But you still will thank me, won't you Roxanne?"

"Thank you," She said with as acidly as she could manage.

She finished her food, her pride taking a back seat there as well. After they both had finished she asked: "You didn't run away, Champion?" Her arched eyebrows raised in curiosity. "Why wouldn't you run away?"

"Run where, Roxanne. Just as I told you before the Peacekeepers rudely interrupted our conversation: I have no place to go. I'm the only one in this housing project who is somewhat sad to see the Bishop and his men go."

He beckoned her to sit on the couch with him so he wouldn't have to speak so loud. Thin walls still had thick ears or that was the excuse the man used to have her sit next to him. I think you flatter yourself to much, Roxanne. She thought. She stank of perspiration, gunpowder, and other people's blood.

Champion continued by saying, "I also promised you that I would take you to Erica Lovings in exchange for my safe passage out of Carver. I intend to live up to my end of the agreement."

Roxanne stood back to her full height quickly. She didn't need this stranger who had admitted that he was a Pandora agent to think for a single minute that he was scoring points with her. She had yet to take the mark but she had no love for Pandora or their twisted ideologies. They had killed innocent people. They had killed innocent children. And they had tried to kill the man who was the closest thing to any man that she ever loved—

Andre Knight unlocked the door, entered, and struggled to steady his hand while he put a single lock on the front door. He stood with his back pinned to the door as if he were holding it up. He was sweating in his greasy hair and his arm pits. And he was breathing very hard.

"The cops...Five-0...their working their way back here. They are knocking on every door asking for witnesses and the like. They ain't taking no for an answer. We've got to get out of here now. I can't deal with the APD right now. I'm one or two phone calls from having to stay downtown with them by default."

Roxanne stepped towards Dre. There was more to this than just the police. She looked down at this hands which were both now shaking almost uncontrollably. She squeezed one and then the other.

"Dre, you've been arrested countless times. You know most of those uniformed officers by their first names. You don't want to go downtown because people who get into the foolishness that you do never want to go down there." She squeezed tighter and at least a small sea of calm washed over him. He wouldn't make eye contact with her though, so she used the tip of her index finger to turn his chin until his big eyes were in line with her dark ones. "You've never been afraid to go down there, Andre. What are you so frightened of this morning? What have you seen that has scared you this badly?"

Champion had put his plate down and stood, wanting to know as well.

"Roxanne, have either of you been outside?"

Roxanne remembered what those killing fields in Mexico looked like. She knew Andre had seen a drive by or two, she knew that he had run from a few more, but the human mind may not be able to process the blood and the killing on a massive scale that Peacekeepers and the Choir Boys exhibited just yesterday.

Champion's long legs began to inch him towards the window—

"No," Andre said with a calmness that now began to unnerve her. "The way my place is configured, the view of the outside world is blocked by the rooftops of the other apartments. For you to see what I've seen, you'll need to go out of the front door and then over to the top step."

"What are we looking for, pal?" Champion asked.

Andre looked away. "You'll know when you see it." His head spun about quickly and his voice took on an authoritative tone that she'd never heard before. "It's the only reason why the cops haven't gotten back here already. I'll meet you two at the bottom of the stairs."

Dre left the door open after he had left. Roxanne grabbed her guns, secured them out of sight, looked behind to make sure Champion was still there and walked out.

The smoky haze had lifted a little today and Roxanne took that as a good omen. She took the eight or ten strides that her legs provided for her and reached the top of the steps that Dre had mentioned to them—

And then she saw what had frightened Andre Knight so badly.

For as long as Roxanne could remember The Choir Boys and the many gangs before them had hung pairs of sneakers to the electric wires in a unnecessary...not to mention dangerous way to symbolize to all who walked or drove by that this was their territory. Roxane had seen pairs of sneakers after pair of sneakers...after another pair of sneakers...

Now, for all the days she still had to live, Roxanne Sanchez would remember this morning and that all the many pairs of sneakers had been taken down...and new symbols of ownership and territory had taken their place.

She saw the severed heads of the gang members hanging from the electrical lines. She saw one head after the other...after the other...until these heads were stretched from one end of the project to the other.

Champion lost the breakfast that he'd taken the time and effort to fix. Roxanne could feel her mouth widen into it was a classic O.

In the twenty minutes it took the two of them to gather themselves and reach the asphalt level and catch up to Dre. Roxanne's throat was still dry as she said to Champion: "How far is she?"

Champion stood on his toes and peered over to what Roxanne could only guess was due north. The bureau's training program had always taught her to be aware of her surroundings and have an out navigated ahead of the time. Victor had agreed with the first part, but demanded two potential outs in case something sealed one of them off from her. But neither of those parties has to push their way out of a housing project where every building and street looks the same.

And Roxanne doubted that either had the fresh carnage of urban warfare on an American street embedded in their conscious mind either while they were trying to get out of dodge either.

"Around the next column of buildings," Champion increased his pace. "I think it is at least?"

"You think?"

"Forgive me, Roxanne," Champion sounded irate. "I've only been down this far in this place a couple of times."

Andre added his thoughts: "If he's heading where I think he is, we're looking at 15 minute walk."

And where is that, Dre, a sense of dread fluttering over her again. There was a very important question that every Professional Investigator should ask a potential witness in a missing person's case. And she had not asked Joseph Champion. "Then it should be ten minutes if we hurry. Let's go, gentlemen."

Half way across the courtyard they slowed then stopped for a breather. At least they were beyond the view of most of the severed heads. Roxanne knew that the images that were burned into her head would give her nightmares that would rival the epic final moments of her confrontation at Vargas estate, and the fact that she had her gun trained on two innocent girls who had no means to defend themselves.

"Champion, I want to ask you something about last night?" She was winded but not nearly to the level of the two men who had accompanied her. "You didn't really answer my question to how you ended up in a place like this." Roxanne said, shielding her eyes from bright sunlight that fought through the haze. "You had to have made a previous contact to even dare coming here at all, someone you really trusted."

"Yea, I did. Anyway, Roxanne, it's a long story—"

Roxanne grabbed his wrist when the man tried to move forward. Dre looked aggravated by yet another delay, but had learned by now not to tempt fate by running off at the mouth in Roxanne's wake. "I'm not going anywhere else with you until I at least hear some of this tale. I've gotten this far and this close to finding Erica. I've got a resounding fear that she's not going anywhere."

"You know this tough girl act grows old real fast you know." All of the muscles in Champions face seemed to frown. "Don't act like that shit with those severed heads didn't bother you because I saw the look in your eye. And I also saw the fear on your face when the Peacekeepers were bashing through the door of that first apartment."

Roxanne told her to save his psychological crap of evaluations for someone who actually gave a shit. And then placed her hand on her Nine and said: "Answer my question, Champion, or you are your own. You know what Pandora is capable of. You've seen what a House in Chains will do. And you have the FBI about 200 yards behind us as well." Roxanne's laugh was brief and hard sounding. "Let's see how long you last out there on your own."

Champion sighed. "Like I said it's a long story. Years ago, I did some Intel for a gang task force on activity in this region. Of course, some of Atlanta's gangs like the Black Knights, The Legion of Doom and The Choir Boys came up in my database. Believe it or not I was damned good at my job. I've help put away some high profile drug pushers from here to Texas, Illinois, California, all over the freaking country."

"That's a good start, Champion." Roxanne countered. Obviously something went wrong. What was it?"

"I was born and raised in Houston." Champion sighed again. "I collared what turned out to be a low life looser in that part of the state...or so I thought at first. He turned out to be the state's prized witness against his former employers. My superiors and the District Attorney never seemed to agree on a hell of a lot, but they did come to the conclusion that this gentleman's testimony was far more important to the tax payers of the State of Texas than a long term sentence for the gentleman himself."

Roxanne nodded, wanting him to get on with the story. "They pleaded him out."

"Yea,"

"Our Justice System can suck when it wants to, Champion." And you and I can attest to it can't we, dear sister. "Unfortunately, in high profile investigations these things happen—"

"Don't tell me they just happen," Joseph Champion pointed a finger of discontent at her. You are alive after all, Champion. "My new best friend had been freed. And he wasn't quite in the mood just to be thankful that for not serving hard time." Champion got close to her...real close. "He abducted, tortured and killed my wife four weeks later."

"I'm sorry." Was all Roxanne could say to a man that she had learned had an odd...kinship in their long journey to the end of this courtyard.

"He hacked at her face...her neck and breast...everywhere."

"I'm sorry." Roxanne said again. "Now connect the dots for me of how you ended up here in Carver."

Andre stopped their conversation long enough to remind them about the time, the cops, so Roxanne started walking again and Champion took his strides next to her.

"I guess it was good timing or a blessing I guess."

"How do you mean?"

Champion pointed to the left. He told her Erica was right around the bend. "On my last case with the task force, a Black man who testified against one of these gang bangers was killed when the case resulted in a mistrial. Let's say his wife and I developed a totally plutonic kinship drenched in the blood of our dead spouses. She told me if I ever needed her she was a phone call away. Hard times hit her with her husband's death with little insurance and then the Great Recession stripped her of a job she'd worked for 20 years. So she ended up here...in this God forsaken place."

"Okay, Champion, let's say that I believe half—"

"I don't give a damn whether you believe me or not, Roxanne. What I am telling you line for line is the truth."

Roxanne Sanchez honestly hadn't made up her mind yet and told him so. He could put that in his pipe and smoke it for all she cared. "I'm interested in fast forwarding a bit. Alright, you felt betrayed by our legal system, check. You many have been driven into the waiting arms of Pandora because a man of color tortured and killed your wife, check. Now you are here...and the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle that wins us the prize is what you did to become so unpopular with Pandora. How did you piss Serena Tennyson off?"

"She started me off in surveillance, a little intelligence, cyber technology, and any other grunt work she could find me. I was desperate. I was angry. I was eager to serve...so long as it didn't include murdering anyone." He said. "I wasn't Danielle Rohm or any of the other shooters. I wasn't Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree who was working with that nut Louis Keaton—"

The doctor's name drew Roxanne's attention and ire. "You know the doctor?"

Champion said that he did, that he'd met the good doctor on a couple of occasions. "I was certainly angry that the system cost me my wife, but not upset with the people who still served her. I refused to cross that line into corruption and murder of government employees."

Roxanne thought about his monologue for a few moments and voiced her won conclusion.

"But it wasn't enough to satisfy your boss was it, Champion?" Roxanne asked him. "Tell me, who did you refuse to kill?"

"Serena's consumed with the Circle...and Xavier Prince in particular. He's a cool customer. If I could use one word to describe that little man then cool summarizes him pretty well."

"So she asked you to kill Xavier Prince for her?"

Champion shook his head her, sad that she didn't see as he had laid it out for her. "There have been times in the past that Serena has thought the best way to knock Xavier Prince off his block...is to kill his older brother Christopher."

Roxanne had whipped out her Nine and bashed Champion across his temple with it with ridiculous speed. Andre saw what happened out of the corner of his eye, but Roxanne's hard-edged glare backed him down.

"She wanted you to kill Christopher Prince, huh?" She stood over him. Champion was bleeding from the spot where she had hit him, but he would live...a little while longer. "And we all know that his step daughter's ended up missing, and you seemingly the only one on the planet who knows where she is just one fat coincidence right?"

Champion felt for blood.

"Yea, Roxanne, it is just that, one fat coincidence as you say." Champion got back to his feet and resumed his walk. "Erica made some powerful enemies in here. It's like this place has its own social networking going on. She showed the ultimate disrespect to an individual or individuals who had the means and the will to do something about it. I've been in the business long enough to understand that these neighborhoods administer their own brand of justice. And Xavier sent his 'gang' and administered his too didn't he? Anyway, I want to keep our agreement, Roxanne. I need it. Carver has gone civilized on me. That is wonderful for the good folks who suffered here. It is very bad for me. I need you to take me with you while I figure what my next move is."

Roxanne stood in the bright sunshine, the heat making the smell from a nearby dumpster smell even worse than it normally would.

"Why should I do that, Champion?" She said evenly. "Why should I believe any of this?"

"Because I've done as I said that I would." Joseph Champion pointed at the smelly dumpster without looking at it. "She's in there. Erica's remains are in this dumpster."

Roxanne stared at the body of Erica Lovings for a long time after Champion and Andre unlatched the side opening of the dumpster so that she could walk inside instead of climbing over the top of it.

Erica Lovings:

She had been a petite, light skinned young woman who anyone would have proclaimed as a 'cutie' if not all of the earring holes in her ears and forehead, all of her tattoos that covered both arms and ran up the side of her neck. Her last day on earth she had been dressed in overalls that would have fit a man twice her side and steel toe shoes. Her hair was cropped low. Roxanne was sure that she'd been mistaken for a very small man when people approached her from behind.

Roxanne went for her cell to call 911—

She heard a woman...or perhaps a male child scream from an area that they had just left behind.

Andre...when did he leave us...was holding one of the Choir Boys...a true boy who Dre' seemed to know by name and had probably been a scout before the Peacekeepers had marched on Carver and shown him and his brethren the error of their ways.

Andre smiled at and talked with the bleeding boy as he found the strength to carry the child who probably weighed as much as he did. Dre sat him down as gently as he can as to not rock the boy who has death written all over his face. It is the same look your face has just relinquished, Erica.

The boy died in Andre's arms and to her old school mate's credit, he honored the boy by siting him on the ground as gently as he had sat him in his lap and closed his eyelids for him.

Oh my, God, will this ever end.

The boy had not traveled this lonely road towards death alone. Another child was walking aimlessly...a staggered step to his left...three wobbly strides to the right...

His left arm was missing from the elbow down and he had a river of blood pouring from his nose and both his eyes

And he was carrying a pistol in his other hand.

Andre cried out in a voice that didn't sound a human. Champion had semi blanked out, as if the only way he will survive this day is for his mind to exist far away from the city of Atlanta...far away from the Carver Housing Projects. Roxanne wished she could have joined Champion in that place. She wished it with every fiber of her being.

The boy fell suddenly on his own gun.

And there was a shot fired.

Andre Knight no longer attempted to hide his pain or his grief. And he released both in cry that may have been powerful enough to wake the dead, including Erica. He crawled on his knees towards where the second boy met his end...but either wielded the strength in his knees, or the will to press on had forsaken him forever.

Roxanne gently put Erica's head down, she put all of her burdens down and ran out of the dumpster and carried Councilwoman's prophetic words with her by the time she reached Andre. If you want to see me suffer, come now Victor, come now.

Carver is going to experience a tragedy unlike any ever seen before. The wig wearing woman had said. And Roxanne had remembered the woman's fat face brighten with sudden mix of pride and wonder. While at the same time Carver is going to experience a rebirth that will be glorious and long overdue. And Roxanne had yet to still decipher if the hysterical fit that had taken hold of Vanessa Davis had been a bout of laughter or crying. Carver is going to experience a purging that none of us shall ever forget.

Andre Knight had cried for a long time on the asphalt floor of Carver's Housing Projects.

Roxanne Sanchez wrapped her arm around the waist of her old classmate, held him close...and cried with him.

#  Seth

After an initial hesitation, he had accepted Denise Prince's invitation of dinner, coffee and company at the comforts of her apartment.

Sitting in the soft leather chair, Dr. Seth Dupree hesitated again...and again deciding that a second cup of coffee after a wondrous meal would justify a lengthy drive back to his hotel by the airport if little else. Originally, he had told her that he shouldn't, that the hour was growing late, and he should be turning in to his hotel that was costing him a pretty penny after all.

She smiled but said that she wasn't hearing that. She said they had been working hard for the last couple of days and deserved the chance to relax and let their hair down.

Now he was transferring the warmth of his cup to his lips, down his throat, in little swallows. Well, look at here; he had drained the cup to the bottom again. He uncrossed his legs and sat up as straight the love seat would let him. It was time for him to leave. It was time for him to go—

He heard the emergency vehicle speed by at the same time Denise did. By instinct he looked up at her as she cracked the blind to peer out ten floors down. He saw some of the life drain out of her hazel eyes and her mouth quivered. Erica Lovings, Denise's adult child was missing. It had been one of the talks of the triage center since he'd arrived there. It wasn't the only one, but the gossip about Erica was leading the pack of news items by a nose.

When she found his gaze again, he saw her need for human companionship rise to a new level, almost a palpable hunger. He didn't need his wife's background in Psychology or Sociology to understand that. He allowed himself to sit back until he found that comfortable spot in the chair again.

They had found a professional chemistry almost from their first shift working together. Seth had participated on these specialized emergency responses and trauma teams most of the second half of his career. He though that the cooperation of some of the state's finest medical personnel was not only a good idea, but a necessity after the 911 attacks all of those years earlier. And then centering the state's efforts in and around the capital in Atlanta made even more sense. The city was the home for the country's defense against infectious diseases and likely was the lone target for any foreign terrorist plot they may involve biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons.

Still, no one including Seth could have expected to see what they'd seen happen over the last few days.

A doctor named Greenwood, who had the smell of salami and Italian bread flowing from his pores, had teamed Seth with the head RN over this particular unit which happened to be Denise Prince. She was an excellent nurse, yet, Seth found himself even more impressed with her leadership and organizational skills. And we needed every bit that you could offer. There were the burn victims that were flown in from The Andrew Young Youth Center bombing and the law enforcement personnel that ran over the mines when Serena Tennyson had been apprehended.

Seth had foolishly allowed himself to believe that the hostilities had ended when she was taken downtown. I can finally get on to my business of finding Angel, and trying to rebuild our life together. The Gray man had remembered saying then. He couldn't have been more wrong.

He'd done countless surgeries in the days treating those gunshot wounds. Most of these victims came from the Fox Theatre after the siege there was ended by the FBI and then another round of cops were brought in when Serena made her daring escape during transport out of Atlanta...if the news people could be believed.

And then the impossible happened.

It got worse.

A House of Chains had sent...what they were called...the Peacekeepers into the Carver Housing Projects to attack some area drug dealers. Hundreds of mostly wounded young people were brought to the trauma center. Most never left...at least not alive. And my God, what was the cutting off of the heads about.

Three of his nurses had to be relieved of duty when the first torso's arrived without their owners head. Medical people are trained to see and likewise treat anything.

They had no idea they were operating in the middle of a war zone.

He looked at his cell phone...there were no calls or messages from Angel again today.

But there was a call that he had made. He had almost made it from his home back in Macon but didn't. But he had finally called her after all these years.

She had picked up the line after the house phone had ringed five or six times.

Hello. Hello, is anyone there?

He had only let her hear his breathing.

It's you isn't it. I thought that we agreed that you wouldn't call me again, Seth.

He had finally responded, his breath still heavy in his throat. I'm sorry. I know he'll hurt you if he catches you on the phone—

No, Seth, He'll kill me if he catches me on the phone. Look...listen...I'm going to say this to you again, Seth, and then I'm going to hang up ok?

What? He had wanted to know.

It's not your fault, Seth. You have to let it go. It's not your—

And then he heard what sounded like a door that banged against its hinges. He heard a roar of disapproval from the man who had entered the room.

And then he had heard her scream before the line went dead.

It's not your fault, Seth. You have to let it go.

But she was so wrong...so wrong indeed.

Seth had called the four of them up even after his parents had warned him not too. They didn't mind him having his friends over to the seaside house, but no drinking, no drugs, and definitely no boating was going to be permitted over the weekend while they were out of the country.

By legal standing, he was 19 years old then, an adult, but he still lived under their roof, at least part of the time when he was home from Durham and Duke University. And where were you guys off to that time anyway? He knew his mom's inheritance and his dad's businesses and investments netted them an allotment of about two or three grand trips a year from their home in Savannah to the more exotic ports of London, Paris and Rome.

But they weren't going to tolerate any nonsense from him, especially his love of boating, not with a late season storm brewing in from the Atlantic. Savannah was well in sight for nor'easter like conditions and some beach erosion only if they were lucky.

Seth had even had the audacity to pitch a fit and argue at the old man, even after the poor grades he'd posted his first full year off at school. He had to really buckle down the last six weeks of the semester to pass and advance or he could have kissed his academic scholarship goodbye.

Well, the entire first year at Duke wasn't a total failure.

And when Pam Toliver, Antoinette Burner, Clint Sessions and Sam Casey arrived on his parent's front porch, especially with their boating gear in hand, he knew they were in for a very special weekend, one he didn't plan on forgetting.

The storm rolled in on top of them about four hours later. The weather man had predicted the system would wash up further south nearer to St Simons Island close to the Florida border. When Seth had heard the report, he made an executive decision that the seas would we calm enough for them to sail, especially if they left now. He remembered the wind tossing a twisting the 20 footer and for a brief time Seth wondered if the boat would be cut in half by the gust. In the never ending cloud bank above them he imagined the dark clouds being his father's frowning face and the rain being his mother's tears for her only child.

Antoinette went overboard somewhere in their fifth hour out to sea. The others called for her and looked over the side, Clint nearly spilling over in the Atlantic trying to find his friend. But Sam had great eyes and spotted her not too far out from the boat.

Seth didn't hesitate. He dove in and reached her in a short time. And with the help of his other three friends, the finest people he'd ever known, they got her hauled back into the boat. They pulled Seth back in immediately thereafter.

Antoinette's skin was clammy and she wasn't breathing. Seth looked to his friends for answers. They looked to him for the same. No one knew CPR although Seth had taken some classes...that he had missed some days...and didn't pay attention in others, when he had secured his boating license.

They tried to make it up as they went along...these four soon to be law students trying to emulate a medical procedure, but Antoinette wasn't playing the role of a cooperative practice dummy very well...and died soon after.

"You didn't answer my question, Doctor?" Denise Prince asked him. How long had he been out of it? You've been gone long enough for her to slip out of her work clothes and into a pink housecoat with a neat bow tied her waist. Seth noted that she'd showered, as her light skin had that same clammy appearance that Antoinette's did before she...before you killed her, you moron.

The aroma of meatloaf still hovered in the room. He retreated to the relative safety of food conversation. "The meatloaf and everything else was excellent, thank you, Denise." He raised his empty coffee cup towards where she was standing. "My compliments to the chef," And it was a true compliment at that. Angel cooked meals on a semiannual basis back home.

"You should eat in more," Denise said to him with a smile on her face. Her teeth were perfectly straight and white.

The first night together they had ordered pizza. The 12 and 16 hour days had taken their toll on him. Seth wasn't much on fast food, even when he had been that foolish age when the boating accident happened. So the prospect of yet another meal of burger and fries was massively unappealing to him. Last night she had offered to grill him some chicken breast on one of those name branded grills. Tonight, it had been classic meatloaf and mashed potatoes. But I can tell by your slim enough waistline that it's not about the food, it's about the company...or the lack thereof.

She had been an engaging and thoughtful host. He was being selfish. What harm could come from listening to her. The woman's only child still hadn't been found.

"If you need to talk," He touched his ears to signal to her that he was listening.

Denise sat in the chair across from him and put one leg underneath the other. He tried not to look at the gap that had wedged between her legs. "I guess I probably should, shouldn't I?" She lifted one of the pictures of Erica off of the coffee table and stroked it with two fingers with affection. "I don't quite know what I should or can say. I'm not sure where to begin?"

"I understand." Seth sat next to her to break any further barriers that may have been blocking her from expressing what she felt. Two things happened that disturbed him: He got a clear look at Erica thanks to the LED lighting flowing from the kitchen...my God; I would say that that was a young man if I didn't know better. The second thing got his heart pumping more blood. He got a whiff of her baby oil, and he would have sworn that she smelled even better than Angel did after her showers. Cool it, Seth, the Gray man scolded himself. You just miss your wife is all...but Denise was a beautiful woman as well.

"Tonight must have been especially difficult. I know it was for me. Even with all of our training, we're human first, and I don't think anything can prepare you for what we saw coming through into the triage center. My God, all of those young people, all of their lives thrown away like yesterday's garbage."

Denise nodded slowly. "During the 411 attacks, I kept waiting for my ex-husband to be wheeled in. I thought because of his profession, because of his bloodlines, I just knew that he'd been injured...or worse."

Seth locked his fingers with hers. It was an instant reaction and an unplanned one. "The important thing is that he survived. He is a survivor." And now Dr. Seth Dupree truly knew he was lost...at least in knowing what he wanted to happen to Agent Chris Prince.

He had to admit that a wave of disappointment washed over him when Denise told him the news that her ex-husband had indeed escaped the Fox Theatre alive and mostly unharmed. He'd come to Atlanta hell bent on what...seeing the man suffer for his profession pulling his wife away from him. Was I that simpleminded? Didn't I learn anything from the boating accident all of those years ago?

And for a time, albeit a brief one, he even thought about trying to hurt Agent Prince himself. Now I don't know what to do about any of this?

"And then today," Denise was saying. "Today, I thought it would be Erica brought in on a gurney. Doctor Dupree, I kept seeing her face on all of the bodies of those headless victims...all of them. Roxanne Sanchez, the private investigator I told you about, she told Chris and he told me that Eric's trail seemed to end at Carver Housing Projects."

"Again, the worse scenario didn't play out, Denise." Seth said, and squeezed her soft hand tighter. "And I think it's time that you start calling me Seth."

"Alright, I would like that...Seth."

"I want you to hold on to hope. I want you to take a leap of faith that everything is going to turn out okay."

"I do, Seth." She moved closer to him. "Sometimes hope and faith is all a mother has left to cling to during trying times like this one, especially when you are alone."

Seth looked away.

"What?" Denise asked him. She scooted her butt so that the rest of her body was on the edge of her chair and so that their knees now touched. "I see a question forming on your face, Seth. Ask me anything you might want to know. I don't mind?"

"Your ex-husband is one of the most qualified people in this state to be finding your daughter." Seth said with an edge, the Gray Man getting to his feet, circled the living room, and reserved a spot standing in front of her. "He shouldn't be relying on a stranger to lead this investigation. He should be out there pounding the streets looking for her. She's family."

Denise reached up and patted the knuckles of his balled up fist in reassurance. "He is, Doctor, in his own way. Chris is searching for her."

She warmed up his coffee over his moderate objections and both of them sat back down. Seth picked up Erica's picture and ran his fingers along the smooth wooden frame trying to push how the young woman looked to the back of his mind. Her sexual preferences were irrelevant to the fact that she was missing...or worse. "Angel told me a long time ago that you and Chris met when Erica was a little girl."

Denise cheeks flushed with the warmth of a pleasant memory. "Erica must have been two or three years old. Chris adored her. He took my little girl everywhere he went."

"Erica must have fallen in love with him about the same time you did?"

"No," All of that warmth in Denise's face washed away. She put her back to Seth and stood next to the fireplace. The symbolism was not lost on the Gray Man. "I wish to God that what you just said was the truth but I know that it wasn't. You see, Doctor—Seth, Erica resented Chris presence in our lives almost from the very beginning."

"She resented him," Seth asked. "Why would Erica resent someone who, at least on the surface, made her life better?"

Denise peered over her shoulder just enough for Seth to see one of her hazel eyes. "Understand that up into that point of Erica's life, it had just been the two of us. We struggled financially. I was trying to finish getting my nursing degree, keep food on the table, and raise her alone. But in part, because of those struggles, we developed a very tight bond."

"So in her two year old mind, Chris intruded on that bond."

Denise whipped around, facing him. "In her eyes he severed it beyond repair."

Set sat his cup in the saucer and rubbed his face. "She eventually got used to the idea though? Things between Chris and Erica had to get better with the simple passing of time right?"

"Yea, maybe, for a short time, maybe it did." Denise shook her head in agreement. "I would say that for about four years things went pretty well.

"And then,"

"And then...life happened, Seth. As Erica grew older she began to question me more and more about her biological father. You know how cruel children that age could be. Her classmates teased her about not having a real daddy."

Seth swallowed any potential thought on that, but the look in his gray eyes must have betrayed him.

"Don't be embarrassed, Seth. You were probably going to say something along the lines that most black children don't have their fathers in their day to day lives, or that many Black children don't know who their father is."

"It's not my place to—"

"You may have even gone further and say that many fathers of Black children are in jail...despite what Xavier Prince and a House in Chains has been able to accomplish." She said with some anger...and Seth noticed her eyes tearing up for the first time.

"Tell me about Erica's father. Are you two still one speaking terms?" Seth's mind was racing to find a positive point somewhere to end this conversation on. He hopped out of the chair and handed Erica his cell. "Does the man even know that she's missing? You should call him. Perhaps he could help in the search somehow—"

"I don't know who Erica's father is."

Denise's words struck Seth with a fierceness of finality that he hadn't expected. He felt himself slouch in his stance. This conversation wouldn't end on a positive note after all. "I'm sorry, Denise. I shouldn't have pride in your private affairs." Shit, Seth thought. That wasn't your greatest use of the English language either you moron.

Denise squeezed his wrist and then his hand, her touch wasn't unpleasant and yet he shrank from it all the same. "I was a wild child. It was the spring time back home in Knoxville. I had a spectacular shape that had been hidden under all those heavy coats and sweaters all winter." She laughed then, and Seth wondered how much humor was really in it. He found out quickly as her face became one with frowns. She tried to hide her shame and her tears and failed miserably with both. "It's my fault, Seth. All of this is my fault."

"Don't do this disservice to yourself, Denise." Seth used his free hand to pull her into his embrace. Her breast pushed through the housecoat onto his chest. "We all make mistakes when we are young." You brought a life into the world, Denise, while I took one out.

He tried to apologize for her...for what, Seth Dupree was unsure and she wasn't hearing it anyway. She pulled her head back far enough for him to resume eye contact with him. "Did you and Angel ever want to have kids?"

Seth's smile held very little warmth to it. Despite the mistakes in his past, he always thought he would have made a good father. "We never seemed to get around to it."

Denise grinned at him "Maybe your wife knows what I do: Mother's love their children almost to a fault." She hesitated and added: "I know that we Black women do. Many of us raise our children alone with little or no help from their fathers. We're tired. We're discouraged most of the time. We're angry all of the time. So we focus all of the love that we have inside of us onto them."

A tear chased another down her cheeks.

"Denise don't do this,"

She held him tighter, and he felt a stirring in his slacks. He could feel her warmth. All of the oxygen went out of the room,

She said: "We're so angry at the world for not loving our children the way we do: So, when it comes to our kid's faults and shortcomings, we refuse to see them. Even the ones they inherited from us."

"What are you talking about, Denise?" Seth got another full whiff of her baby oil and whatever she used in her hair. "What did Erica inherit from you?"

Denise pulled him to her with amazing strength and kissed him once softly on the lips. "She has my anger." She parted his lips with her tongue. "She has my aggression."

She must have felt his manhood and rubbed her body up against it. Dr. Seth Dupree had ventured to Atlanta with the goal of retrieving his wife and possibly hurting Chris Prince as a bonus. Angel claims not to love you...she sleeps with other men, you know this, Seth. Why shouldn't he take this moment...and this woman for himself?

Seth found that he was kissing her back, seeing her brown skin against his pale skin hardens him further. He had never experienced—

Finally, he pushed her back, using his height advantage, and her shoulders for leverage. Both marriages still had a chance to be reconciled. This was a...romantic interlude trying to introduce itself where it could only do harm. He won't hurt anyone's chances by not being able to take back what he and Denise may have been engaged in minutes from now.

"I've overstayed my welcome, Denise. I'm sorry."

Denise Prince spun him around, pinning him face forward against the wall. Her housecoat is unbuckled, how and when it got that way he could not say for certain. She caught the slightest glimpse of her clad in a beige bra and matching panties. "Don't be sorry, Seth. Stay as long as you like. Your room is already paid for and will be waiting on you when you return."

"I know that," Denise whirled him back around with the same precision as before. The housecoat was completely gone and her bra straps were falling from over her shoulders. "Denise, we really shouldn't do this."

"We should," She put his hands on her large breast, which felt magnificent absent the bulky housecoat. "Your hands, you have wondrous hands, Doctor, touch me all over."

"I'm a surgeon," He said unnecessarily, when she wasn't drowning him in kisses. "Steady hands are the key to being successful at my profession. They could mean the difference between life and death."

"You're right. They may make the difference tonight."

When she tried to reach for...it he halted her advance with his right hand. He tried to be both soothing but stern all at once. The memories still flashed in his brain of how quickly things spiraled out of control with Angel, especially during the few quite times he'd experienced since he'd been in Atlanta.

"Denise, I'm still a married man." He said. "Despite our difficulties, I want things to work out with Angel. For better or worse, I still love my wife."

"And I still love Christopher Prince." She backed away a half an inch with the admission. Something in her eyes told Seth that it was the first time since their dissolution that she'd told anyone this. Yet, it didn't stop her from using her free hand to break through his defenses...and squeeze him until it hurt...until it felt so right. "It doesn't stop me from having a woman's needs. Please...don't make me beg for it." Denise's tears began to flow again. "That's why I asked you to come over last night...so we could wait for Roxanne's call together."

"Huh? What are you talk—"

She kissed him again on the mouth...and worked her way around his neck and started whispering, barely coherently in his ear. "Is it too much to ask for a little pleasure from you, sir? It's been too long. My little girl may never come home again. A little pleasure that we take from time to time may be all that I have left if you won't come back to me for good."

"Denise...who are you talking to—"

She looked mesmerized. As if she was under the influence of hypnosis or something even stronger. "I still love you...Chris."

"Denise," He used some of his strength reserves to push her to a safe distance but luckily, not to the floor."

She lunged at him—and bit his lip.

He cried out in pain.

But it was her who was enraged as if she'd been attacked and not him.

"Goddamn you," She yelled almost in a masculine tone, and it took all of his remaining strength and determination to restrain her. "Goddamn you, sir. You're so fucking selfish. I'll ask you again, Chris, do I have to beg for it?"

And then she collapsed to her knees as if she had truly been slapped back into this time, this reality. Seth made himself out to be a statue. He truly wished he'd had his wife's expertise on case file like the woman who was kneeling before him.

He snatched a paper towel from the roll of out of the kitchen and dampened it with warm water. It stung when he wiped his bleeding lips, but he would heal in a day or so. But will you heal, Denise? She needed far more than a warmed wet paper towel to heal all of her wounds.

She cried for a long time until she had finally cried out. She was still only dressed in the matching bra and panty so Seth picked up her robe off of the floor and covered her shoulders against the night's chill.

"You've been under a lot of stress, Denise." He spoke to the top of her head, his one hand on her shoulder. "Give yourself some time. I'll see you tomorrow if you show for work. If not, call me...we'll talk. I don't take any of this personally. I promise you that I'll help see you through this."

Denise looked up at Seth and he wiped the last of her tears away. When she stood he tightened the belt around her housecoat. "Take a leap of faith with me, Denise."

And then there was an urgent knocking on her front door. Alarm graced her face, and the Gray Man was sure that he wore a similar look that matched his host.

"Denise...it's me, Chris." The voice on the far side of the door that belonged to Special Agent Christopher Prince said. "I have...I need to speak with you. I know I usually call first before I come over here. I need you...to...I need you to open up...please."

Denise stared at the door for an extended time before she finally said, "Just a minute, Chris. I'm just getting out of the shower...let me put something on."

She sprang into action—which included ushering Seth unceremoniously into her bedroom's walk in closet. "Seth...Doctor, I need you to stay in here for a minute. Don't say a word."

Seth tried to make sense of all of this. One moment this woman is all over him, the next minute she is calling and treating him as if he were her ex-husband...and now she was trying to hide his presence from that same man. The right side of his brain tells him that he should walk out there and let the man see that he'd been alone with his nearly naked ex-wife. Hadn't he accused him and Angel of consorting in the past? The other side, the rational one tells him to calm the hell down and not get stupid in here. Christopher Prince is a highly trained, highly skilled Special Agent of the FBI. And not to mention the man is probably armed none the less.

The coffee cups are still in there, Seth shuddered with his new thought. Both of those cups are still on that table. Prince is also an investigator for God sakes, and an investigator is curious by nature and suspicious by career choice. The longer he hangs around the more likely he would realize that someone had been here. Or is still here, I've got to go—

Denise cried out with a fierceness that made her first scream before her ex-husband arrived pale in comparison. Now he could make out what she was saying. "No, Chris, I don't believe you...nooooooooooo." A new round of cries rushed to greet the first ones. "Oh my God, Chris, not my baby...nonononono," She said until Seth's ears could no longer process the incoherent words falling from Denise's lips.

The muscles in Dr. Seth Dupree's neck grew tense. He'd never know the privileges of parenthood and likely never would.

Buy Seth's Seven year old brother Todd had died in a boating accident when was but five himself.

And he recognized the agonizing cry of a grieving parent when he heard it.

#  Chris

They arrived at the second 'murder' scene in a wooded area off of Red Wine Road, two and a half miles from where the first one had displayed itself to them.

It looked to Special Agent Christopher Prince that although Agent Sheridan was on the site already himself, that the authorities in general, and the FBI specifically hadn't got the tip first.

Two dozen reporters had lined up and leaned over the barricades that separated the vultures from another doll's body. He saw his partner, Tabitha Blue, parked with her arms folded next to Sheridan. Both were standing in the shadow of a huge uniformed cop whose red cheeks looked as if someone had just pinched them.

The day was picturesque, warmer and the shifting wind had blown the smoky haze due west of the city. And here's another good portent...The APD had learned from the near fiasco the other day and had dozens of off duty police officers mingling amongst the gathered crowd on onlookers.

He slammed the passenger side door of Angel's rental and his childhood friend rushing to match his pace from the other side despite her limp. They quickly passed the reporters who were all asking the same type of annoying questions that reporters always asked for which he and Angel both were answering "no comment" until one of them matched them movement for movement behind the barricade with a query that he did not escapade.

"Agent Prince...Agent Prince, would it be fair to question your competency in leading this investigation considering your personal stake in what happened yesterday?" Lucy Burgess, of the Times asked him in her heavily South African accent.

Chris stopped his forward advancement long enough to acknowledge the woman's question and her huge overbite but so far had remained silent.

"After all, the rapid firing events that happened at the Carver Housing Projects were a mixed bag for you: Your half-brother Xavier launches a devastating attack that nets him 61 confirmed Choir Boys although the Bishop and his deacon managed to escape...the executions. Eight Peacekeepers died as well" Lucy said pushing a recorder towards his face. "And yet, your step daughter is one of a hand full of civilians who were also found deceased when the authorities arrived. And although her the certainty behind her death has yet to be determined—"

"No comment," He waved his hand at her and her device.

Angel must have felt his pulse racing in his neck and his ear. She put her small hand in his side and nudged him back in the direction that he had intended to reach before the other woman had distracted him.

"Christopher, calm down," She said barely loud enough above the noise of the crowd. She cut him off so that once again he couldn't get to the actual crime scene until he had. He stopped again, this time resting his hands on his hips and caught his breath. There was an untimely pang in his gut but he dared not reach to soothe it with all of these journalists present. He refused to throw more speculative wood for their fires.

Angel was saying: "Your step daughter's death isn't some nosy reporter's death, I don't care where the body was found—"

"I don't think she was alone." Chris answered an unasked question instead. "I can't shake the feeling that someone else was inside Denise's apartment when I arrived."

Angel cocked a brow in confusion. Chris had tried not to think about the personal implications or Erica's death on him or his ex-wife just now but Lucy Burgess had made that task damn near impossible now. He wanted to drop his professional demeanor and get angry. He wanted to punch something...or somebody for how rough this entire episode was going to be on Denise. He didn't love her now...that time had passed, but he had no desire to see her suffering the way the woman had suffered over the past 24 hours. And yet, I can't help but to feel as if you were hiding something from me the other night.

But there was more than one reason that this case needed him to get his act together and refocus.

At least a second child, 13 year old Mathew Clifton, had joined Moses Jackson in the missing category. He had been outside playing a game of pickup basketball at a local park and had been raptured on his walk back home.

Angel seemed to get his reference was about his ex-wife and not his dead step daughter at last. "Alright, Christopher," She said shrugging her shoulders. She got in his wake so no one else would hear her. "You told me last night that Denise has engaged in a sexual relationship with another woman before. Even though she had come out of that particular closet with you doesn't make her immune from the potential embarrassment about being caught red handed; especially, with her ex-husband calling on her with the worst news imaginable."

"I considered that." He matched her tone and flashed his index finger at Sheridan who looked to be growing impatient with their delay. "Denise told me that it happened about six months after our divorce. And that it was an isolated onetime event and a one sided deal that satisfied her curiosity and another woman's aggressive posturing." I'm likely to have believed that scenario was reversed though, knowing Denise like I do.

"Did you consider that Denise could have been bedding a man that you know?" Angel asked. "Maybe he is a mutual friend of yours and she was trying to save all three of you from embarrassment."

Chris stared off into the bright afternoon sunlight. "I considered that too. I don't know, Doc, but there is something more going on here."

Angel massaged his arm and raised her voice back to a normal pitch. "Alright, enough speculation about Denise's motives for right now. How is she doing?"

"She's doing as well as any woman who's lost her only child could be."

Angel locked her gaze on him and he had known no other choice but to be mesmerized by her big brown eyes. "Would you mind taking some professional advice from an old friend, Christopher?"

"Shoot,"

"Spend some time with her. Regardless to everything that's happened in the past, through all of the muck, the three of you shared a bond. That bond doesn't snap just because you two aren't together anymore. You were family." A smile played on her enhanced lips. "Look, I know that my relationships define the term 'complex', but you may be the only one who can help her through this. She's very vulnerable right now. Don't let anything push her over the edge."

Chris laughed and turned away. "You can't begin to understand the complexity...the volatility of this situation, Doc." He said looked back to where Lucy Burgess and her flock were still standing and he let out a low whistle. "If those reporters ever got wind of what Erica did..."

He turned back to Angel. "In speaking of complex, how's Seth? You've barely mentioned his name since we started working together again."

"What's to mention?" Angel looked uncomfortable...and used the opportunity to get the head start on the final few strides if would take to reach Sheridan and the others. "My husband is an excellent surgeon and an even more caring sensitive man."

"Angel, did your coming here throw some type of wedge between you two?" Chris rubbed at the day old stubble on the top of his head. "Hey, look, now it's my turn to apologize for dipping my nose where it doesn't belong. But you have told me before that Seth was a lot like Denise in that aspect, that he believed our relationship went far beyond a long childhood friendship and an occasional professional one."

"Stop it, Christopher." Angel stopped just short of where he others were and stroked his cheek with some affection. "I'm a difficult woman to live with. I know this. But I'm sure our situation will work itself out in the manner that it was always intended. These things always do."

"You're the Doc."

They joined Sheridan and the others by the crime scene. He caught Sheridan's eye and his boss greeted him and nodded curtly at Angel. He doesn't appreciate being kept waiting but it couldn't be helped. Chris could feel the tension between them. And the aftermath of Xavier's bold decision to take Carver from the Choir Boys hasn't scored any points for the Prince family with authority figures either. Blue flashed a brief, sympathetic smile at him. He knew all of this had been tough on his partner. He appreciated her gesture.

"So it's another doll?"

Sheridan nodded. If there was to be a reprimand coming it would be handled later and in private. "And if I know my history, I would say this one mirrors another episode from the early 1980's."

It was Angel who was nodding. Blue planted her hands on her hips. Chris stooped down for a closer look.

"Has anyone else noticed the texture of this doll's face and hands? And what about the exaggerated length of his extremities...I believe that his arms and legs are far too long to belong to this body."

"Yea, Christopher." Angel agreed. "I did notice."

Blue said, "What about it?"

"I believe that this doll is a representation of a child that is older than the first. And although Mathew Clifton's disappearance doesn't put him officially missing for several more hours we can bet that this doll is a representation of him."

"Interesting," Sheridan got eye level with Chris. "And this texture you mentioned, it's older, it's dirtier. We do know that the Jackson kid was taken first right?"

"He was, Agent Sheridan." Angel said over both their shoulders. "In my time that I spent with Louis Keaton I took him to be very methodical, very organized when it came to his passions. My belief is that although he kidnapped Moses Jackson first, he actually had his eye trained on the Clifton child before he took Moses."

Sheridan nodded at the doctor—and then snapped his fingers in remembrance. "My apologies, Agent Christopher Prince, Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree, this is officer Bucky Branch of the Atlanta Police Department." The big man nodded a hello to the two of them. "Would you mind repeating what your witnesses told you before?"

"Sure," He said and pulled out his notes. "Two of them said they saw a two door pickup, Probably a F150, casing this neighborhood over the past two or three weeks. I don't have to tell you people what goes in the woods around here, especially at night. Both of the witnesses just assumed it was a white guy looking for some crack or some head." His red cheeks reddened further as he peered at the two women who were present. "Sorry."

"A F150, huh," Chris asked and stooped down again. "There were tire tracks to and from the scene. "It's clean. There aren't any oil leaks."

Blue said, "The width of the track would verify a SUV or pickup truck of some type, but probably nothing more than that."

"And since it hasn't rained up here or anywhere else in a year, tracking this makes it even more difficult." Sheridan said. "Are you sure that none of your witnesses saw the perpetrator make his move? We are talking a very high profile case. We are talking the likely involvement of Pandora. Those facts may scare some folks out of fully cooperating if their afraid of some type of reprisal as a result of speaking with the police."

Branch shook his head.

Chris used the silence to say: "Moses was taken in the early evening. Mathew was told to be home just before the street lights came on...and his parents said they noted he hadn't returned about 30 minutes after that."

Sheridan looked as if he were getting a fresh measurement of the scene's perimeter. He looked at his Rolex. "Yea, but as important as those two boys are I'm as interested in when he staged this scene. First, he had to practice over and over again to get it just right. Secondly, once he set this up, he had to escape without being seen." He said. "Another bullet is incased in this dolls head. There is the presence of the rope just like before. This, boys and girls, is not an accident. There is a serpent somewhere in the ruins here. He's telling us something."

"Why are you looking at me like that, Christopher?"

He wasn't actually. He felt a moment of what exactly...déjà vu, vertigo, but for a moment he felt it he were on the outside of himself looking inwards. Now, out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sheridan and Blue fixing their glares on him as well. Officer Branch looked confused.

Angel tried to help. "Now that you've seen both scenes you're convinced that Hugh Keaton is responsible for this.

"Wait a sec," Blue said. "You just called the suspect Hugh. All along we've been addressing as Louis or am I missing something?"

"You're not, Agent Blue. Keaton was burn with his legal name being Hugh. We got some updated information from his file a day or so. That is the name on his social security card and on his birth certificate."

Angel looked at Chris when she said, "Somewhere in the days after he turned 18 he turned in an application for a legal name change...and Louis Keaton was born. I had a half a dozen sessions with him during my stint in Pandora and I never could ascertain the absolute reasoning why he changed it."

Blue snorted. "That's an easy one, Doctor; he was trying to escape his past.

Angel rounded on her. "Or trying to embrace a new future perhaps?"

She must have felt all of their eyes are on her.

"That's my theory." She shrugged. "I don't believe that he was escaping Hugh...he is embracing Louis, whoever that person may have been."

"I would love to catch him and ask him that question, Doctor." Sheridan said.

"But the problem about why we are here comes down to answering two questions?"

Angel asked them for him. "Did Keaton set either of these models up for us to find and just importantly why did he do it?"

Chris squatted down again. "With the notable exception of the local authorities involved, some historians, and a few hard core nutcases out there, no one knows the specifics of this case better than Keaton does."

He felt someone...Angel was standing over him. "You're wrong, Christopher. There is one other person alive who would know, because he's the only living witness left to the first round of these horrible abductions."

Now it was Sheridan's turn to snort and he put his left hand in his pants pocket. "And he's safely locked away down state." Sheridan said, thanked Officer Branch for his time and testimony and dismissed him. The big man looked disappointed that he wouldn't be allowed to hang around with the plain clothed types any longer. "I'll vouch for the doctor on this one...and I know better than anyone what that surveillance around the Andrew Young Center told us on 411. I don't believe Louis Keaton...or whatever we're going to call him...I don't believe that he's a hardened killer."

Blue slammed her hands down on the hips of her tight pants. "That was years ago. I was barely born yet. Who's to say, especially under the influence and guidance of Serena Tennyson what this man is capable of now."

Angel stepped away from Chris and towards the younger woman and fixed her with a stare that he recognized all too well. "I do know, Agent Blue. I supervised his therapy for over 90 days. I had his records in my hands. I studied and compared the notes of other physicians and therapist who treated him for his longings well before I did." She softened her tone and decided that dressing down Agent Blue wasn't really getting the group anywhere. "Louis Keaton is a troubled man. Both of the dolls we've discovered so far have a real bullet lodged into the doll's head and the extremities roped together. I would bet my life on him of not being a direct threat to the boys lives and I don't believe he is strong enough, courageous enough, or organized enough to build these scenes."

"Are you prepared to gamble the life of these boys...and potentially others with your theories and conclusions, Doctor?"

Chris watched Angel look away from Blue and her question. He wanted to help his friend but he would have called himself a liar if he hadn't said that he was thinking along the same lines as his partner. The four of them stood in the awkward silence for a spell, sucking in the dry air, when Sheridan broke the silence at last.

"Doctor, I've studied your notes on Bipolar Disorder and some of the other illnesses of the like. Your opinion seems to fall out of line with most of your colleagues."

Angel nodded.

"You've written that some of the symptoms of Bipolar Disorder include depression, high anxiety, eating disorders and the victim having constant...sometimes recurring nightmares."

"I did."

"But you stated in one of your last papers, that he was as stable as you had witnessed, even when you spoke by phone to him recently. Have you considered the possibility that Keaton has had a major relapse?"

Chris spoke up first. "I've thought about the possibility that he is going through even a further internal conversion."

"I would be irresponsible for ruling anything out at this moment, of course." Angel hugged herself and Chris could tell that her leg was tiring. "I believe the Hugh persona capable of staging all of this. Agent Sheridan you're right, most people in my field disagree with me on Keaton's specifics. Look, the last time I saw him, I treated him as if he were suffering from Dissocialized Identity Disorder. If he were my patient right and now I would continue treating him for the same thing. That's why I believe that he's fully reverted back into his Louis persona."

Sheridan frowned. "Louis?"

Chris knew that Angel was comfortable in her element here. And he could safely assume that she either couldn't or didn't get tore up the night before...and that added to her sharpness.

"It would be easier for you to understand and for me to explain if we back up a step or two." Angel explained patiently like any good teacher would talk to her students. "Agent Sheridan, where I disagree with the other professionals along certain psychological levels is this: DID in theory is a clash between two or more distinct personalities. Each personality has its own patterns and perceptions and more importantly, its own voice. Keaton adapts and interacts within the stimuli he is given in any environment."

"Speak English, Doctor," Blue said with an air of inpatients. "What exactly does any of that psychobabble mean?"

"It means that you've pushed your FBI training away from the social sciences, Agent Blue. It also means that I believe in DID, especially in this case." And since she had all of their attention, she added something more. "I believe that it is the number one rising social disorder or mental defect in this country."

My God, has Denise ever suffered from something like this. He wondered if there was still time to help her. "And is it fair to say that you believe that this DID is often misdiagnosed as Bipolar Disorder?" Chris asked the question that needed to be asked right now.

"I do." Angel's hazel eyes sparkled, ever thankful for his support.

Sheridan said: "And Keaton? This entire equation leads back to him somehow.

"Let's say that in the worst case scenario you're right, Agent Sheridan. Let's say that Serena Tennyson has turned him loose." Angel said and stooped down where he had been before. "I'll reiterate that in my sessions with him, I failed to reach the conclusion to whom or where this Louis persona was or where he came from. I'll repeat that I don't know him to be capable enough for of this type or organization that you see here. And if Serena Tennyson has mistakenly put her faith in him to serve her needs, she is walking around with a grenade with the pin pulled out.

Now it was Chris who took his turn at showing inpatients. "You told me over and over again that trying to reach this Hugh persona was the basis of all your work in Pandora."

"It was and I tried." Angel stood back up, but seemed smaller now. With all of the stress and the pain in your leg, how much will you drink tonight? "Hugh Keaton is the one true personality. He retreats into the Louis personality from time to time and even others, but it never last. Hugh always pushes himself back to the surface. Perhaps...perhaps Serena found an avenue, an opening that I didn't see. She lacks my professional training, but I 've never met anyone more ruthless in the pursuit of her agenda."

Sheridan said, "She was involved in these therapy sessions with you?""

Angel looked Sheridan directly in his eyes. "Serena knows everything that I do." She made her voice gruff. "And she's had more time to steer him towards whatever methodology that she's chosen."

"Great," Blue said.

Sheridan cocked a bushy brow. "Dr. Hicks-Dupree, in your expert medical opinion, are these two boys lives in immediate danger or not? How much time do we actually have to find them?"

Angel shrugged. "That depends on a lot of variables that I can't account for, sir. I don't know how much leverage Serena has gained over him. I'm unaware to how much self-control Hugh has learned since I last saw him. He may possess the power to switch back and forward from personality to personality by now. That ability would make him nearly invulnerable from capture."

Chris made the rounds measuring his coworker's faces after the punch of Angel's last statement landed. Sheridan's blank glare was only broken when his cell rang...and he waved a silent goodbye to the party. Blue trailed off to more comfortable surroundings and conversations by moving to conduct a second interview with one of Officer Branch's witnesses in the only way that Tabitha Blue knew how.

With the scene clearing, Special Agent Christopher Prince resumed his inspection of the scene from his squatted position, getting as close to the data as the space allowed.

An image of a dead Erica...and then one of his 12 year old self flashed one after the other, but with some concentration he chased both of them away. He'd had his own therapy sessions over the years. He could recite those damned steps in the breathing techniques almost verbatim.

"They'll be more kidnappings." He said more to himself than he did to Angel. "One of these two boys will be set up as his general. He'll be responsible for watching over the other captives. He'll be used to help keep the other boys in line. Keaton will need him to help keep them all safe."

He felt both Angel's hands on his shoulder. It was her turn to support him. "Hopefully, one of them will be as strong as you were in their role as the general. None of them will survive the coming days without his courage."

"I know that."

"Well know this as well, Christopher: I'm sure that you, the FBI, and everyone else in the free world are convinced that Keaton is responsible for these probable abductions—"

"As he was responsible for the majority of kidnappings during what became known as the Atlanta Child Murders 30 years ago."

"Alright," She said as Chris stood and turned to face her at last. "Then let's satisfy all of our theories so that we both can move forward. I know a way we can do just that. But I'm sure you're not going to like it."

"These boy's lives are on the line, Angel." He said. "It doesn't mean one hell of a lot what I don't like right now?"

"I only pray that if Keaton is doing this, that he will behave and keep his hands to himself over the next 24 hours while we're gone."

"Gone," Chris asked. "What exactly are you suggesting?"

"You're boss said that the only other one who would know this terrain and detail was safely locked up down state. I think it's time for you and I get the unique perspective of the man serving time for many of the Atlanta Child Murders. I think we should pay him a visit."

"Muhammad Clark." Chris heard the disdain and defeat in his own voice. "You're right, Doc. I don't like your idea one bit."

They needed a fresh prospective of the only other pedophile that had come close to accomplishing what Louis Keaton has accomplished. Angel was right.

And Special Agent Christopher Prince knew it.

#  Louis

Mathew Clifton had tried to kill himself.

Louis had tried to warn Serena's Agents watching them the boy was growing more distant. He attempted it while the idiots stood outside of the bathroom while he supposedly bathed.

The relationship, if it could be called that, between Louis and the guards had been dissolving ever since they arrived at the sanctuary. It was especially bad when the leader of Pandora herself wasn't around. They called him all kind of names and made crude gestures at him.

The bathroom and the shower areas were one of many places where the close circuit cameras were running feeds 24 hours a day. Poor Mathew tried to drown himself in a pool of his own dirty water when Louis pushed himself through the door and pulled him to the surface of the tub. No matter, Hugh reminded him. The Dragon Woman will blame us for this. And then the other's voice in his head became almost a whisper as if outsiders could truly hear him at all. Take the boys and go. Louis refused to listen to voice...he had little choice in hearing him, but listening and doing were different matters all together.

Anyway, Moses and Mathew were safer here. And he had more work to do for both Serena and—

These boys are ours. The Dragon Woman will not claim them as the Caretaker claimed our last feast.

Louis instructed the guards to bring Moses to his room. Louis' room was square shaped windowless chamber with a single king sized bed. It was camera less, or so Louis theorized. He tested that idea last night when he masturbated time and again to see if the guards would add a new name to the list they already referred him by. They had not. Serena knew for him to be truly effective when the time for him...to show his passion for the boys, he would need at least a small essence of privacy.

Moses set as far away from Louis as could manage on the bed. But it wasn't because of the distance that the boy appeared small. Moses had refused to eat anything offered to him so far. He was losing weight rapidly and some of the color was draining out of his face. Louis thought he was the ghostly mirrored image of the way his mother would look after one of his sessions with Uncle Templeton so long ago.

"Moses," Louis sat on the floor to try to make the boy feel more secure. "May I have a few minutes of your time?"

Moses shook his head violently. "No...I don't want to. Please don't—"

Louis raised his hand for calm. "No, no it's not that time—yet, but you can bet your bottom dollar it is coming and soon, my boy. "Don't be afraid, son, I only want to talk to you. I need a favor from you. Will you help me out?"

Perhaps his tone or his words had won out because he seemed to have piqued the boy's interest enough for Moses to look at him at least.

"What do you want from me?"

Louis slid across the floor to meet the child on the other side. "I'm sure you've heard what happened to Mathew the other day. I'm sure he talked to you about it."

Moses nodded.

Louis glanced around the room...at his sanctuary. "My work here is far from finished." He turned his full gaze and his magnificent blue eyes on Moses. "I'm soon to bring more boys here for you and Mathew to play with. I'll be here as often as I can. Those mean guards will be here in shifts, but they will watch us 24 hours a day."

Moses nodded some more.

"I need someone to look over our friends that are still to come. I want you to help me keep them safe from harm. I don't want anything to happen to them...or you. Mathew could have died in that bathtub. And those stupid guards are just imbeciles carrying guns with those same weapons as their only solution for solving problems."

"I've seen them. I've seen those guns you're talking about."

"They can't be trusted." Louis shook his head gravely. "I'm going to appoint you to be in charge of the other boys...the troops when I'm away. I'm looking for a man to be my strong right hand, my general."

"I don't know how."

"You'll learn, Moses. You'll learn what to say them and when you should say it. You'll know how to lead them—"

"Lead them where?"

Louis reached up and ran his fingers across through the boy's close cropped hair on his head. It was intoxicating.

You are so ours, my boy. I can almost taste you already.

Louis shrugged off Hugh. "Darkness is coming to this sanctuary...to this compound like nothing you or I have ever seen. I'll need you to lead the troops. Where you go they are most certain to follow."

"How am I supposed—"

"How are you supposed to know?" Louis asked the question for young Moses. You just will. You are smarter than you know, Moses. You're stronger than you'll ever believe."

Moses slid up the bed and away from Louis and started crying. "I just want to be left alone. I just want to go home to my family."

So do we. "Like I said, Moses, I'll be drafting others. They'll soon be joining us."

"I don't want—"

"Listen," Louis said in an elevated voice. Moses tears had rattled a nerve. "I need your full cooperation, Moses. I cannot accept a refusal. There is no time left for you to say no. Can't you see...can't you see that I won't be able to fight him off much longer?"

"Fight off whom, what are you talking about?"

Louis abruptly got to his feet, smoothed out his jeans, and walked towards the only entrance/exit of the chamber. He turned back to Moses. "These children will cry for their mothers and that's ok. They'll be afraid of course, all new recruits are scared at first—"

Moses said, "I'm afraid too. How can I help them if I'm scared also?"

Louis turned to leave him there, but peeked over his left shoulder at him. "It's ok if they cry sometimes." He said as if Moses hadn't spoken his last words. "There are some things we mustn't allow: There must be no further suicide attempts. You know that suicide is a sin after all. More importantly, Moses is that your brothers in arms must not attempt to escape this place. If you do get outside of this compound nothing but death awaits you, I can promise you that."

Just as Louis opened to the door to the rest of the compound he heard Moses Stand up.

"Why should they listen to me? I'm just a kid like they are."

Louis made himself smaller by placing his hands on his knees. "Because you are the chosen one...my chosen one, you are my General and my right hand. They'll see how much I lean on you. And they'll begin to trust you as you begin to trust me; just like they trusted Christopher Prince before

"Why should I do this?"

"I'll give you my word that if you do cooperate...that I will never touch you." What...what kind of fucking deal is that? You'll be spared what I have in store for the others." Louis held up his fingers like a boy scout.

Moses looked doubtful. "I don't know that you were ever a scout."

Louis couldn't help but to laugh. "You don't actually. That is a fair point." He wiped spittle from his lip. "You only have my word, Moses, man to man. We can't fail here. Failure is not an option from this point forward. The cost to so many would be astronomical."

Moses nodded and Louis knew he had his general at last. "I understand what the word failure means. My nana has apologized to me and my brother and sister more than once. She said that she was a failure for how she raised my mamma. My nana told me that we children were paying a high price everyday of our lives."

And your nana's failures and your mother's drug addiction led you directly into our arms. Her failure may lead you to your death.

Louis tried to tune out Hugh while he listened to this special child that he had chosen so very well. It broke his heart to hear the little man speak like this. He called for the guards to escort him back to the holding area with Mathew. When they were out of site at last he turned around—

And found Serena Tennyson standing not five feet from his position.

He tried to mask the fact that she startled him, but the blotch of urine surely showing on his jeans surely betrayed that fact by now.

She said, "And who will pay the price for my failures I wonder?"

We told you that the Dragon Woman spies on us. She doesn't trust us for one minute. We say that we should kill her...right now. We should kill the Dragon Woman and be done with it.

"Serena," He said aloud in a sheepish tone. "You look well and refreshed. I'm glad that you joined us. Say hello to Moses Jackson."

Serena spoke to the boy without smiling. "He's your general." She waved her hand at the guards just the opposite side of the room from her for them to take the boy back to the holding area.

"How are you today?" She asked when Moses was gone.

"I'm fine." He lied and looked to steer any conversation away from his mental state. "I've chosen each of these children specifically. I did this on my own. Shouldn't I be allowed to speak to speak to them every now and then without disruption?"

Serena smoothed out the pants leg of her suit, sat down, and crossed one leg over the other. "Of course you should communicate with them. I certainly don't have a problem with that." And although she oversaw the construction of this compound she seemed to pay close attention to this particular chamber where Moses had vacated. "You called all of your prospects special children, but I sense something more when you speak about this Moses child."

Louis smiled a little. "He is more than just special, Serena. He is extraordinary."

Serena's brown eyes borrowed into his ocean blues. "Is he as extraordinary as Christopher Prince was?"

"He is a lot like Christopher, yes." He has said neutrally hoping the conversation would end right here.

"He served as your first general?"

"Serena, you know all of this already." He said. She flashed him a look that said, tell me the story again.

Dr. Angel Hicks-Dupree had been more than a competent Psychologist. She probably came the closest of any of the professionals that he'd seen over the many years, who truly understood his nature. Dr. Dupree-Hicks...that rhymes with licks; But Serena Tennyson was beyond methodical in her approach to everything...and that included him. That's we won't truly be safe until the Dragon Woman is a corpse. Do it now, Coward. The guards won't reach this point in time.

"Chris served my needs well, Serena. He kept those children safe...and quiet for the most part. And after what Mathew pulled yesterday...I need him to grow into this roll expeditiously."

"Any yet, after Chris escaped you the rest of if ended poorly." Serena stayed on subject.

Our business usually does, Dragon Woman. You'll find out soon enough if you don't let us alone. "It did." And it comforted him somehow to say it aloud. "Caretaker ordered the other boys killed after Chris escaped. He was frightened that Chris would lead the authorities back to the compound, back to Pandora."

"He could have simply moved the operation."

"The operation was near the bottom of list of concerns. His identity was endangered."

"You're right, of course, Louis." Serena got up off of the bed and ran a smooth palm across his cheek. "You've grown so much since then...since 411 even. I'm more confident than ever that you will persevere." She opened the door and took her turn at exiting—

"Then my I ask why you continue to spy on me?"

"I prefer to call them 'simple observations." Serena replied. "You shouldn't overly concern yourself with it or allow it to affect your work here."

"I call it spying."

"Call it what you will." Serena said in a voice that was ice cold. "As long as you understand that these simple observations will continue from time to time. Caretaker was nearly a god in my eyes. But the one mistake he made was allowing you too much time and space in completing your work. He lost his entire operation over it. The match that started the fire between ours and theirs should have been struck right then. Pandora would have crushed a House in Chains 30 years ago." Serena's tone almost became apologetic. "I won't repeat his mistake here. There is so much more at stake now. There is so much more than you will ever realize. I don't want have to summon up the Whirlwind.

Louis gave up his argument...for now. "As you've said before, I've passed every test so far. And as I've said before, I won't fail you."

"You've succeeded on so many levels, already, Louis. Look at this place: We've engineered this compound based on the specifications of models and designs of your ideas. You chose the location. It's a brilliant sanctuary." Serena said. "You should remain undisturbed from outside forces while you continue your work here. No one will find this location."

"That is why Moses role is so critical. The others must not attempt to escape. It's at least ten miles in any direction towards civilization once you leave this compound. Death awaits them outside these grounds. I need them to remain safe and secluded long after your people leave us after this Whirlwind of yours takes hold. That is why Moses is so important. I don't care what they think about me if they trust Moses, it improves their chances of survival."

Serena smiled at him.

And just as suddenly he began to tear up before the smile faded...possibly forever. Serena flashed him a look of mild concern. He began to feel a trembling in his shoulders...and when she reached for him, he shied away from her touch. We are so weak and pathetic.

"What is it, Louis?" She asked him. "What's wrong?"

Louis got himself together and said: "For a moment, when you smiled, your facial expression reminded me of my mother."

"Really," Serena's new expression showed that she was trapped somewhere between fascination and annoyance. No woman in her 40's, no matter how hard, wants to be compared to nearly 60 year old man's mother. "Why do you say this?"

"It's just a look, a facial expression." Louis said again. "My mother loved me, Serena, of this I have no doubt, but her approval was often difficult to come by. Yet, every so often I would complete a task that pleased her."

Serena took a step closer. She was the leader of Pandora which meant that she knew all of Louis Keaton's dirty little secrets. If she didn't know every detail she had to be aware of the overtures of his life.

"Louis," She said, "Why did you mother allow her brother to molest you?"

So the Dragon Woman does not see and know all. Yet, it was a straightforward enough question. It was one that he knew that this woman and her methodical nature would bring up time and again so why not answer her now. Leave us alone, bitch. Hugh fought reliving this tale again. It was his tale for the most part after all, Louis only had a secondary role...and it came a little later.

"I don't have a simple explanation for it. I'm sure you studied Dr. Angel Hicks-Dupree's notes."

"I have at that. Her notes inform me of how your situation concluded. I've never understood how your life evolved before that point. But this isn't mere curiosity on my part. I want to compete all the work that all of your past doctors, including Angel, who treated you. I want to help you."

No...you want to manipulate us into completing you bidding, you bitch.

"My mother and I were very poor. She had me when she was 15.We traveled from place to place around western Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas never staying in one residence or place for very long. Mom was a border line alcoholic. Either the booze, or showing up late because of the boozing, or not having adequate transportation cost her job after job." Louis was amazed at how it still broke his heart to tell this tale of yesterday. "After many struggles my mother took to shacking up with anyone who would take us in. Like I said, Serena, we were very poor. She didn't have much to offer anyone who we lived with."

"So your mother sold her sex to these men to keep a roof over both of your heads." Serena looked as if she would be ill.

"Yes."

"Go on, Louis, tell me the rest."

Louis exhaled deeply. "A few of the men were pleasant enough. I remember that one or two of them actually treated me with some kindness. They'd take me hunting or fishing or would play baseball with me during the summer months."

"Did any of them touch you?"

"No." Louis said and thought that his revelation surprised her. "It wasn't like that at all...and my mother satisfied their needs well enough."

"What went wrong?"

"Like I've told you, I was treated well for the most part by all these different men." He felt his teeth chattering. "Mom wasn't so fortunate. Several of these men slapped her around pretty good. One man in particular was brutal to her. Every three or four days I would walk home from school and see fresh bruises on her face or arms or on her back. She was a strong woman who rarely showed emotion, even during those difficult times. But there were a couple times that I saw her emotionally break down. I would get angry enough to launch myself at these men and fight them. But I was always too little...to weak and pathetic."

"And this Uncle of yours," Serena wanted to get to the desert without eating the entire meal first. "What finally led you to her brother's place?"

Louis swallowed hard. "We moved in with him just before school started when things went very badly at our previous place. My mom spent three weeks in a county hospital after our last landlord split her head open with a wrench over his dinner being burned."

"Bless the Dragon's flames."

"My Uncle reluctantly took us in. Mom was so happy to be back in her childhood home of Memphis, Tennessee however. And she had learned her lessons about the boozing. She quit drinking and found a job...a good job a few weeks later. The jobsite was actually within walking distance of my Uncle's place. Life was good for a while. I even made a friend. Up into that point, he was the most important person ever to come into my life."

"And then,"

"My Uncle learned what Mom was making down at the factory. He kept raising the cost of our rent until he nearly broke her." Louis said with bitterness. "Mom finally told him that she had nothing else to offer him but he disagreed. He kept gawking at me with a wide grin on his grill when he said this."

Serena wrinkled her nose. "He asked for you as payment."

"That's what he told her. That's what he demanded."

"And your mother just...gave you to him." Serena's disgusted tone had returned in full glory. "She gave you up just like that."

Waterfalls of tears fell from the ocean blues of Louis Keaton's eyes. "Don't you judge her." He pointed his finger at her as he did when he learned actual children of color were in the Andrew Young Center when he detonated the bomb that took so many lives weeks ago now. He did not retract it this time however. "What other choice did she have? She was making good money, but not enough to afford the high priced housing near the plant. Her earlier boozing had cost her any chance of being issued a license to drive ever again. This job was a good one. And she was trying to save for a place of our own, but my Uncle's pillaging of her wages spoiled that—"

"What kind of woman willingly gives her child to a pedophile?"

And so Louis grabbed Serena.

He had her throat in his grip before his conscious mind realized it. He slammed her head against the wall and heard her men enter the area locking their weapons on him. We told you your time was coming bitch. We told you. He'd made such a terrible mistake, but there was no way of backing out of this now. He'd let himself down. But more importantly, he let those two boys down...especially Moses Jackson. Right after Serena's men disposed of him; they would kill both of those boys before his body even cooled.

Serena tried to unhand his fierce grip on her long neck and throat with one hand, while waving her men...away with the other.

"Stand down," She somehow managed. "Everything...is...under control, isn't it, Louis?"

Louis peered back and forward from Serena Tennyson in his grip, to the four semi-automatic weapons trained at his skull, to the room where the two boys were being secured.

He loosened his grip on her neck and said, "My mom had taken care of the two of us long enough, Serena." He continued his story as if it had never been interrupted. "It was simply my turn is all. She could keep her job at the plant. I could stay in a school that I liked. And I could keep my special friend."

He released Serena completely and waited on her men to kill him where he stood. Again, Serena waved them off while she coughed and struggled to catch her breath again. She seemed to get her equilibrium under her at last. Still, Louis began to countdown how many second he had left in his life. He had always heard that people saw flashes of light before they died.

Louis was seeing numbers.

"What did your mother do...while...this payment went on?" Serena said returning to full height. She straightened out her suit. "What did she do when you Uncle molested you?"

Louis Keaton's tears fell readily now. "She made him do it when she was home. I don't know, maybe she felt as if she could monitor it somehow. We never talked about it." Louis paused for a long time and wiped his tears away. "But I do remember that between my uncle's bouts of heavy breathing and grunting that I could hear my Mom's cries that were so loud that it would often drown out my own."

And so Louis told Serena the rest.

He told her about a boy named Louis...how the most important person he'd ever met came into his life—and just as abruptly abandoned it.

He told her about how his fear of helicopters had come.

And when he was done at last he said, "I've never asked anyone to cry for me."

Serena Tennyson did not cry...though that nearly was the case. She got her cell out instead and hit the speed dial of a woman who was always dressed for death and all in black.

"Rohm," Serena said in a commanding tone. "Pack your bags. I have a job for you to do."

End of Episode 3

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Sneak peak at Past Prologue

Coming soon from Nest Egg Publishing

Sometimes the game of future's past is played by bending the rules

But down in Atlanta, Georgia, they've broken them all.

Thomas Pepper draws close, dangerously close to discovering the answers to the three questions that everyone in the country wants to know. Special Agent Christopher Prince and his childhood friend Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree learn that their lies, and worse...all their truths have come back to potentially destroy them. And while one player exits the game forever, another

experiences a rebirth that you will have to see to believe.

Dedication:

As I've said before, this one is for...well, me. This tale has been in my pipeline for a long time.
Nest Egg Publishing Note:

This was a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are use factiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Nest Egg Publishing Presents: Where are our Children

Episode 1: 411 (Available Now!!!)

Episode 2: Deliverance (Available Now!!!)

Episode 4: Past Prologue

Episode 5: Zero Hour

Episode 6: Betrayals

Episode 7: Scar

Episode 8: Tempest Rising

Episode 9: Whirlwind

Available in Trade Paperback through Create Space:

Episode 1: 411

Episode 2: Deliverance

Episode 3: Rapture
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