“You know what they do at this place? Yuri tell you that?” Paul asks as he drives through rural Durham, North Carolina.
Falon is in the passenger’s seat and she nods while she looks at the scenery passing by through the window. Adam and Manuel are asleep in the backseat.
“They make monsters,” she says flatly.
“That’s probably what’s going on with your Daddy. He couldn’t have survived that house, and if he is somehow still alive, he’s a puppet now, a zombie.”
“You saying all that because you want to prepare me to kill my daddy if we find him foaming at the mouth? That won’t be a problem, old man. My daddy wasn’t the best parent.”
“You sure did a lot to track him down. Why you work so hard?”
“He would do the same for me,” Falon says. She looks at Paul driving and she wonders if it’s worth it to trust him with her real story. But if all the warnings were correct, she could die at the CZS and become a mindless zombie, it wouldn’t matter at all if she opened up to him and dropped all of her disguises.
“My daddy raised me by himself,” Falon continues. “My mama died before I could remember her and I lived at my grandma house while Phil did what he did to pay for everything. He was around when I was a kid, he wanted to make sure he raised me to survive in this world that he thought was a big scam. It’s all a game, he said, like we all just pieces that rich people use to make more money. He didn’t want me to grow up being ok with getting used by other people.”
Paul nods, understanding the desire to equip your daughter with the tools to protect themselves.
“When I was young, I used to go off by myself a lot and my grandma lived in the middle of nowhere. There was this big tree close to her house that looked like a big wooden hand in the woods, and it had moss in the part that looked like the palm. I used to climb up there like it was my treehouse and never told anybody about it because it was my special place. I fell asleep out there one afternoon, and I didn’t wake up until the sun had set. I knew I would worry my grandma and I ran all the way back to the house. When I got there, there were so many cars, all these people, and when my daddy saw me, he ran for me and picked me up. He hugged me hard and I heard him crying like a little boy for the first time. I kept apologizing to him, I didn’t even know he would be home, I thought he was somewhere making his money. He was, he was two towns over taking all the money from this poker game, but my grandma got in touch when I didn’t come home and he raced back, called everybody he knew to go out looking for me.”
Falon is quiet. Paul wants to say something, but doesn’t, and after a few minutes Falon speaks again.
“Even if he ain’t the most moral man, and I definitely had better role models, I know he cared about me. I know if it was me in that house, he would make sure he buried my body. And I intend to do the same for him. I get that he probably died a while ago. I want to lay him to rest like he deserve, so I can talk to him when I need to. And if they desecrated my daddy, Paul, I’m gonna help Manuel burn this place to the ground.”
“Yeah, I think we all agree on that.”
They have been driving for hours and Paul is happy that Manuel and Adam are able to rest. He wanted them to stay longer at the hospital, but both were eager to get back to North Carolina after they talked to their loved ones. Paul’s heart broke hearing the grown men crying and apologizing sincerely for actions that weren’t their own. He wanted to take them both to their families so they could forget the trauma they’d suffered as prisoners of the CZS, but he knows, like they do, that unless someone stops them, everyone is in danger of suffering the same thing.
He stops the car at a distance from the CZS campus and he notices another car parked there. He and Falon get out and stand next to his car looking at the empty one.
“I guess there are other people sneaking up on this place,” Falon says, and then she startles and pushes Paul.
“Who are you?” she screams.
Paul is confused. She stands next to him and talks as though someone is standing in front of her.
“He wants to find his friends, Ivan and Clay, and I’m looking for my daddy.”
Paul watches the one sided conversation in silence and eventually Falon turns to him.
“Can you see her?” Falon asks and Paul shakes his head slowly. “She says her name is Stephanie. She’s a ghost. And her friend Wendy is trying to help Ivan and Clay too.”
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