White Space Season 1

trunk of his car for something he could either pick or break the lock with.
    The bright beam of a flashlight suddenly blinded him. Jon felt exposed as the light drew closer, and whoever held it remained obscured. Jon’s hand gripped the tire iron, just in case.
    And then, as the light grew closer, he could see who was holding it — a Paladin guard.
    “Can I help you?” Jon said, noticing that the guard was on foot, without a vehicle in sight.
    The guard replied, “I was about to ask you the same question. What in the hell do you think you’re doing out here?”
    “I’m trying to get to the cove, but someone put up a damned fence,” Jon said, letting go of the crowbar and pointing at the fence. “You got keys? Maybe you can unlock it for me?”
    The guard looked Jon up and down, no recognition in his eyes, surprising given that the Conways paid for the security force. “I’m going to need to see your license and registration,” he said, unnecessarily rude.
    Jon shook his head. “No, you don’t. My name is Jon Conway. Of The Conways … you know, the people who pay your salary. The people who own this land. So I need you to step off right now like you never saw me.”
    The rent-a-cop pulled a gun, then aimed it at Jon and said, “I’m serious as a stroke, mister. I need to see your license and registration now.”
    Despite the gun aimed directly at his chest, Jon took a step closer. No way was this clown going to shoot him.
    “Is there something about ‘I own this land’ that you didn’t understand?” Jon shoved his finger in the rent-a-cop’s chest.
    The guard lowered his gun, but grabbed Jon’s finger, giving Jon the excuse he’d been looking for. He slapped the guard’s hand, then punched him in the face, hard. A spray of blood flew from his nose and coated Jon’s knuckles.
    The rent-a-cop fell to the ground, just as a second guard appeared from nowhere. Jon saw the gun a second before its trigger was pulled.
    The dart slapped him in the shoulder. He swayed on his feet for a second before falling on his face. The second rent-a-cop cuffed him as the first stood from the dirt.
    “You’re under arrest,” he said.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 6 — Cassidy Hughes

    Wednesday
    September 6
    8:42 p.m.

    Cassidy sat on the couch, flipping through channels as Emma curled up beside her.
    “Are we going to watch something, or are you gonna keep going too fast to see what’s on?” Emma asked.
    “I’m gonna keep going too fast to see.” Cassidy said. “What do you want to watch?”
    Emma said nothing. But then again, what else was there to say? They’d both exhausted themselves, talking and crying, then talking some more. Cassidy had done everything she could to comfort her niece; swearing that everything would be okay, and giving her hope and comfort in the way her sister would have wanted, rather than the angry death rattle coming from Vivian.
    Fortunately, Vivian was in the other room, sleeping off her countless glasses of wine.
    It must’ve been especially confusing for Emma, losing her mother, then staying with someone who looked so much like her. Genetics made them identical, though life and their ages made it easy to tell them apart. Sarah had softened edges, while Cassidy’s years of hard living were clear from the lines under her eyes to the matching faded pink scars lining both her wrists.
    Cassidy found an episode of SpongeBob Squarepants , and left it on. She wasn’t sure if Emma even liked the show, but at least she could be certain that Nickelodeon wouldn’t break into programming with pictures of Sarah and news footage of bodies in black bags outside of the school.
    “Are we going to stay at Gram’s forever?” Emma asked, nudging herself closer.
    Cassidy wished she knew, for herself and for Emma. But it wasn’t as though Sarah’s death had been marked on the calendar. There was no contingency plan, just a drunken promise two years earlier when Sarah made Cassidy swear on her life that she would take Emma if anything happened to her, since their mother was too “batshit crazy” and unreliable to be trusted for the job.
    And sure, their mom may have been crazy, but that didn’t mean Cassidy was any better suited for the job. At least their mom had raised children before; two of them. And she’d done a good job with at least one.
    What in the fuck did Cassidy know about raising a child?
    She shouldn’t have to deal with raising a child, but then again, what choice did she