She began to tremble and then her entire body began to convulse with sobs. She grasped at him weakly and tried to pull herself into him. Instead, she pulled herself into his chest and began heaving sobs into his shirt. And he let her do so until she was done—until she had it all out. She was just the first of many to seek comfort from him, their great hero.
“Thank you,” she rasped. “Thank you.”
She made a few tentative steps, found her feet, and walked out the door with Patton following.
“Ma’am?” he said, lightly touching her shoulder.
She turned. Her eyes were tired now, but not sad.
“Yes?”
He cleared his throat, almost not wanting to know the answer to his question.
“Do you know Jennifer Larsen?”
She slumped. Her body language told him that his worst fears were going to be realized.
“She’s…” She gestured with her head and pointed. “She’s back there,” she said, a look of pain on her face.
“Do you know her?”
The woman nodded.
“We were in ‘C’ together when she first got here. Then they brought her here before I came over here. She… she acted out and they put her into the ‘Box’.”
Patton had a good idea of what the Box could be, but he wanted the woman to explain before he made his way out there.
“The Box?”
She nodded. “It’s solitary. They… at least I heard this… they roughed her up pretty good, you being her husband and all.” She dropped her head and when she raised it, he was astonished. She was smiling. Tears were running down her face and she almost began to sob again.
“She used to talk about you all the time,” the woman said dreamily. “She always used to say ‘Patton is going to come and get us all out of here’. She was right,” she said, beaming widely at him.
It was dark in the hallway and she was over ten feet away so she couldn’t see him blush.
“I just hope it’s not too late,” he said, his voice nearly breaking.
The woman walked towards him and put her hand on his shoulder. Her touch was warm.
“I saw her two or three days ago,” she rasped. “I could hear her yelling as they were taking her down the hall. She hasn’t been in there long.”
Patton nodded and turned to look out the back door. He called and told Wildcat to remove the remaining prisoners.
“Thank you,” he said, feeling a surge of confidence. He turned away again and walked towards the back door.
Jennifer Larsen held the pose of a child who’d been sent to her room to await her punishment. She was on her bed, curled up, afraid of the commotion she’d been hearing since earlier that afternoon. She was shivering under her thin sheet and worn blanket. She wasn’t cold, necessarily, but she’d had such little water that she was almost completely dehydrated—barely able to produce enough saliva to swallow. Part of her just wanted it all to be over with. Some days she just wanted a guard to come out here and put a merciful bullet in her head.
She actually laughed at that. After all this. All the beatings and everything else that had been done to her. Jennifer was a strong woman and she’d gotten used to the beatings and the long, useless interrogations. What bothered her most was the fact that she’d been pregnant when she was first arrested. That hadn’t lasted past the first beating. She was glad that she hadn’t told Patton. She wanted to make sure that she was going to get through the first couple of months—the period where most miscarriages occurred. She started bleeding that night and knew that the pregnancy was over. The worst part was that she wasn’t sure if she’d ever get the chance to have a child with Patton. She didn’t even know if her husband was alive.
That had been one of the cruelest tricks the guards played on her. They would walk by her cell and talk about how Patton Larsen had finally been caught and shot in the town square. Part of her believed it, but her most hopeful and optimistic part hung on. She had to. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t be here now. A lesser woman would have given in and begged to be killed.
She heard a loud sound that sounded like a gunshot. ‘They’re shooting prisoners,’ she thought. She started to ask Theresa if she’d heard it too but then she remembered that they’d taken her out that morning. She pulled the ratty blanket up to her shoulders and shuddered again. Gunshots could mean two things—either there was a rescue going on and the guards were ordered to kill the prisoners, or a rescue was going on and the guards themselves were being killed. Either way, she was sure that Governor Asher would not let her survive any rescue attempt. She was certain a guard was tasked to come out here and kill her.
And rather than be strong and face her executioner with a defiant pose, she would lie here instead, and accept her miserable fate.
Patton took slow and measured steps towards the wooden shed. It looked to be well built. There were large U-shaped handles on both doors. A large chain was wrapped through both. A large, sturdy looking lock held the chain together. The crunch of gravel was loud in his ears. He felt like he was floating. The dread was intense.
He forced himself to breathe. Whatever was behind this door, he would accept it. If she was dead, he would somehow get over it… someday, that is. If she was alive but broken mentally and physically, he would nurse her back to health, no matter how long it took. If she was alive and still the strong, stubborn woman he had married, he would take her home and they could move on and build the life they’d wanted since they’d met.
He took another deep breath and lifted the ten-pound sledge hammer over his shoulder.
BOOM!
The entire structure rattled around her. It felt like a mortar shell had landed just outside the Box. Jennifer shuddered and screamed, raising her hands to her face.
BOOM!
There was another boom and she started to claw at her hair and skin. ‘Stop! Just stop!’ she wanted to yell. The words just wouldn’t travel from her brain to her mouth. There was another boom, but this time she heard a piece of metal fall to the ground. There was a rattle of the chains and then the doors began to shake.
‘Finally,’ Patton thought, exasperated, breathing heavily now. Sweat was pouring down his face and he could feel the inside of his clothes getting damp. The handle he’d been banging on finally broke off and the chain went with it. He pulled at the handle but the door only came towards him a little bit. He looked up at the top and at the bottom and realized there were metal bolts that held the doors to the frame. He reached up and released both of the latches at the top and then did the same at the bottom. He pulled the door again and it swung open.
There was the sound of metal scraping. She recognized it from when the guards would come to get her for a shower or for another “interrogation.” She pulled herself into the corner as far as she could, thinking the boogeyman would just go away if she could get small enough. Suddenly the door flew open. There was only a single silhouette in the doorway. It wasn’t a prison guard or soldier or policeman because he had none of the accoutrements that Asher’s men wore. Still, she had no reason to trust whoever this was… until she heard the voice.
“Jennifer?”
He could see this tiny shape in the corner, trying to hide from him. Patton decided he couldn’t blame her. He’d just made a horrible racket. Well, if it was Jennifer, she was alive. He could see the shape quivering with cold or fright or something else, he didn’t know.