Ghost Hand (#Wattys2016)

Chapter 26, Interrogating Mike

Mike Palmer didn't look so good in the morning light. He was bruised and swollen, and crusty with dried blood, his body sagging against the ropes the guys had used to tie him to a tree. The bandages I had applied the night before were pushed up on his forehead so he could see, but his eyes were vacant. They didn't track me, didn't even register my existence, as I entered his field of vision. And he smelled bad, really bad. That was when I realized that the dark marks near the crotch of his pants weren't mud or blood.

Yale was sitting guard duty, leaning against a nearby tree upwind, but he stood when the rest of us entered the small clearing.

The breeze picked up, thrusting the full force of Palmer's stench upon us, and I was afraid we were all going to revisit my breakfast. I took a few deep breaths and thought of Emma instead. Mike Palmer didn't know we'd lost her. He had no idea that she was, at that moment, in the hands of his comrades, a hostage at the mercy of desperate and determined captors just like he was. And the last thing we needed was for him to find out. After all he had done, he deserved what he was about to get. This is what I told myself.

Nose took out Palmer's gun and handed it to Jason.

Jason hefted it in his hand, and the Fire Chief's eyes moved for the first time since we'd approached him, looking at the gun, looking at Jason, then back at the gun.

Jason stepped forward and ripped the duct tape off Palmer's mouth in one savage yank.

"Fuck you," Palmer said, his lips cracked and bleeding.

"Looks like you're the one who's fucked," Jason said, tossing the tape aside. "Went and got yourself caught by a little girl, and now your CAMFer pals don't even give a shit."

"Fuck that bitch too," Palmer said, looking at me with absolute hatred in his eyes. "She's a freak. A mutant that needs to be put down. All you freaks need to die."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I had known this man for years, had said hello to him in the supermarket. I had attended the same back yard barbeques and local sporting events he had. I'd even headed up a Fireman's fundraiser in middle school and presented this very man with the proceeds in front of a class of seventh graders, handed it to him with my own ghost hand. And all this time he'd hated me simply because of the way I'd been born, for something completely outside of my control. How many other people felt that way? My teachers? My classmates? The new neighbors who had moved in next door, and then suddenly moved out two weeks later without any explanation?

"You keep your mouth shut," Jason said, striding forward and pressing the gun to Palmer's forehead. "You don't talk unless we ask you something. You don't breathe unless we tell you to. You don't piss yourself till we say so. You got that?"

I glanced at Marcus. Was it really a good idea to start this interrogation with Jason holding a gun to Palmer's head? We needed that head, or at least we needed the information inside of it. But Marcus wasn't looking at me. He was staring at Palmer. Palmer. When had I started thinking of him by his last name? Was it easier to dehumanize people when you did that? Probably. It certainly seemed to work for coaches and gym teachers.

"What are you gonna do, kill me?" Palmer asked, looking past Jason and the gun to Marcus; he knew who was really in charge. "Go ahead. Doesn't matter. Whatever you do, I'm not gonna tell you anything."

"Naw, we're not gonna kill you," Jason said, pulling the gun away. "We're gonna do something worse."

Marcus looked at me and nodded.

I could feel all their eyes on me as I stepped forward past Jason, trying not to inhale too deeply. I stared down at Palmer, and everything seemed to recede into the background but him and me. He was my enemy. He had tried to destroy me, end me. He was the door that led to Emma, and I was the key.