Out of Como and into the Labrynth

“I want you to get me the hell out of here!” the voice still echoed in her head as she quickly walked back out of the prison. The hoots and catcalls followed Bethany, but she paid them no mind. Only the dark voice that haunted her footsteps had power over her.

But why?

What made him so strong?

                Never let your guard down. That’s the lesson she learned from growing up in Como. You had to fight to get what you want and you had to fight even harder to keep it. These thugs in here were nothing. But the man in the hospital was different. He sent chills down her spine that even her Daddy couldn’t do. And that piece of trash labored continuously to try and scare her back into the hood. But this man, he seemed to strike fear effortlessly. He was very pleasant, yes; but there was darkness in his voice that crawled under your skin and wrapped itself around your bones. A darkness that couldn’t be masked.

She nodded to the guard that let her out of the prison and she stepped out into the sun.

Thankfully the press wasn’t here today.

If what she learned from Mr. Brooks… she paused. Her client. Her first client.

If what she learned from him today was anywhere near the truth, everyone had gotten it wrong.

This was big.

She crossed the street to the police station, where the psychologist worked.

                “He has an office on the top floor, “ the voice had told her.

She looked up at the four story building. How was she supposed to get all the way up there to see him? Does he have a secretary that she would need to go through? Would they even let her off of the first floor? Calm down, girl. You’re over reacting. She felt her fingers go cold and she needed to pee. There was no way she was going to be able to handle this.

                “You are dispensable, my dear,” haunted the voice in her head. “You have simple task. If you fail me, I will get another one, just like you, and when I am free, I’m going to hunt you down.”

                She clutched her briefcase tightly with her left hand. She didn’t have a choice. It’s like her Mama always said, “Time you put your apron on and put up with the heat, you aint got nowheres to go, child.”

                Mama was the reason she became a lawyer. After that slimeball of a father beat her to death, the family couldn’t afford a good lawyer to get that monster in jail. She swore that day, the day that he walked free just after his arrest, that she would never leave a family in the position that they were left with, ever. Even if she didn’t have to charge the family. Monsters belonged in stories and behind bar, not in the home.

                Bethany pushed through the doors of the police station and squared off her shoulders, that’s what her Mama would do when Daddy came home. She would tell her, “It’s a lot easier to push over a sack of potatoes than a brick wall.”

                The building inside was a cluttered mess of desks, filing cabinets, whiteboards on rollers, and people all bustling around in some sort of bad parade. She walked past the front desk, towards the elevator sign in the back. She didn’t even look at the young woman at the desk, with just one glance she could tell that it didn’t matter what she did, Bethany wasn’t going to run into any problems from her. The girl was leaning back with a compact mirror in her hand, plucking at her eyebrows. Her long blonde hair was in a messy side braid that seemed to pour over her shoulder and into her lap bellow. She didn’t even look up at Bethany as she past. What a trashy white girl, thought Bethany. She smiled to herself, she probably wouldn’t know what to do if a black person were to suddenly start talking to her. Ah, Texas.

                Bethany weaved her way around the different desks and people. Only a couple looked up at her briefly, but no one spoke to her, or asked what she needed. She guessed that’s what happens when you look professional and walk in like you own the place. She had no trouble making it to the elevator, she pressed the button and the doors opened conveniently for her. She stepped in quickly and pressed the button with the Roman numeral for four printed on it. The doors closed and she let out a deep breath. This was crazy. Absolutely crazy.

                It took only moments for the door to chime and the electric, female voice to say, “The fourth floor, watch your step!” The doors slid open again and she walked into a totally different atmosphere. She stood at the intersection of two hallways. A dark red carpet lay at her feet and the walls were divided in décor with a top half and a bottom, separated by a crown molding that had been painted a similar shade as the carpet. The bottom half of the walls were painted solid black and the top half were alternating stripes of dark and light grey. It was very aggressive, she thought.

                She stepped off the elevator and it closed quietly behind her. She looked down each of the hallways, not really sure where to go now. The voice hadn’t given her a name of this psychologist, he just kept repeating, “That damn shrink!” She assumed that he was some sort of court psychologist, otherwise, why would he have an office in the police station?

                She walked up to the first door and examined the gold name plate that had been screwed into the dark wood. It read, “Stacy Mattus: Deputy Police Captain” Thank God, she thought to herself, at least the name badges had their title written on them. She would just have to walk up and down the hallways until she found the shrink.

               

                She looked behind her, towards the elevator, this was going to take a while. She had no idea how large this floor was. It could take up a whole block for all she knew! She crept over to the next door, trying not to interrupt the eerie silence that the hallways had created for themselves. The next door was for some sort of judge. It was going to take a miracle to find this place before dark.