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A woman.
Chained to the wall, her greasy hair draped across her face. The woman’s clothing looked grimy and unwashed. The woman herself matched. She was shivering where she leaned back against the wall, her mouth moving in some silent prayer. A repeated mantra…not pleading, though.
As Cora drew closer, she heard the prayer.
“Thank you for your kindness. For your goodness. Thank you, Lord.”
It was such a strange image it caused Cora to stop where she stood. This small, desperate woman—chained to a bare, concrete wall, and trapped for who knew how long—was murmuring gratitude?
By the look of things, the woman hadn’t yet spotted Cora, either.
The ex-FBI agent slipped through the ribs formed by two-by-fours, stepping towards where the young woman continued to murmur silently. She thought of her own parents, of their rigidity in such things. Cora’s last experience at a church had involved a smoke break out on the steps where she’d met the grieving sister of her old friend. A friend who’d killed herself.
The murmur in the moldy basement from those two parched lips was an odd thing, and Cora glanced towards the stairs, searching for any sign of the man above.
And then, she whispered, “Psst. Hey!”
The woman’s eyes snapped open instantly. Terrified, frightened eyes. The murmur on the lips turned instantly to silence.
Cora pointed at the chain. “He has the key?” she whispered.
The woman was blinking now, as if not quite sure what she was seeing. With her one free hand, she used the knuckles to rub at her eyes, clearing the sleep. “Are you...an angel?” the woman said in a timid voice.
It was such an amusing thing to hear. Cora almost snorted in laughter. She would have found the comment comical if not for the horrible situation in which it was uttered.
Two other things struck her, though. Her parents had often seen Cora as...a rebel. As a danger. As someone who simply wouldn’t submit. Someone to be broken. To be dragged back into some form of distant repentance to an even more distant deity.
But to this woman...A devout woman by the look and sound of things—praising in this hellhole—Cora was an angelic figure.
She used guns, violence, and dogged determination. And yet to this righteous thing,Corawasn’t someone to be scorned, corrected, or rebuked.
But to be thanked.
She didn’t quite know what to make of this. Cora shook her head. “Nope,” she whispered. “Just a lawbreaker here to help. Mitchell did this?”
The woman glanced at the chain around her wrist, then back at Cora and nodded. The woman’s frail skin beneath the chain had bruised and rubbed her skin raw. Cora reached forward, delicately, and the woman withdrew.
“It’s fine,” Cora whispered.Be ye not afraid,she thought, still finding the dark humor of the situation. But cautiously, she pulled the woman’s sleeve around the cuff, helping the chaffing. Cora pointed at the woman. “Think you can sit still for a bit? I’ll grab the key.”
The woman stared at Cora, swallowed. Then whispered, “Are...are you going to kill him?”
Cora shrugged. She hadn’t given it much thought. First of all, she needed to find Johnny’s sister. And if this was the guy who’d done something to Janice, she needed to know. The details? She’d killed better men for less.
“Would you like me to?” Cora asked, raising an eyebrow.
The woman chained to the wall hesitated. “I should say no...” she whispered.
“Why?”
“Because it’s the right thing...”
Cora nodded. “Not what I asked. Would you like me to?”
The woman blushed. She didn’t nod.
But she certainly didn’t shake her head. She just hung her head, as if somehow ashamed of herself. As ifshewas to blame for this.
Cora felt a jolt of rage. She tapped the woman on her grimy shoulder. “I’ll be back. Stay here. You’re safe.” Cora looked the woman in her frightened eyes. “I swear it. You’re safe. I promise. Alright?”
