White Space Season 2

behind her sister’s lips, falling to the cold concrete floor. She felt the hard chill in her knees, even though the morgue was likely thousands of miles below her.
    Jon reached out to Cassidy/Sarah, sobbing with her hand over her mouth, wanting to scream, though she was unable to make a sound. She waved Jon off as she found the strength to stand.
    “It’s her,” Jon said, then closed his eyes, reaching for Emma.
    Sarah screamed, suddenly back in her body, back in her room, “Someone needs to come in my room! Now!”
    When no one answered, Sarah started throwing things. Her plate, her fork, her knife. Another minute of silence sent her deeper into fury. She wanted to break something, starting with her dresser mirror.
    Sarah took her chair and hurled it at the glass. She grabbed a shard, held it to her flesh, and pressed it into her skin, drawing a line of wet crimson across it.
    “COME on,” she screamed. “I know you’re watching!”
    The door opened, as Sarah somehow knew it would. In rushed a doctor — not the tall skinny one with the bright white coat — this one didn’t really look so much like a doctor at all. He wore all black and held something that looked mostly like a gun.
    He took one second to aim, then pulled the trigger.
    Sarah felt something horrible, followed by something else, deliriously happy. Then she fell to the ground and saw nothing but black.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 9 — Don Bellows

    Don had no idea how long it had been since Kaiser left him to marinate. It felt like hours, and might have been a full day. When he finally reappeared, Don was hungry, thirsty, and not sure how much longer he could hold out. His throat was raw, and the roof of his mouth coated with the copper taste of blood.
    He was ready to tell Kaiser anything and everything. They had won. He was broken; unsure if Kaiser was telling the truth — that Lucinda really had taken the boys and run off — or if it was an elaborate part of the conspiracy. Everything was fuzzy, and Don no longer knew if he could trust himself to mine nuggets of fact from a river of fiction.
    Kaiser came in, and Don spilled his guts, telling him everything he knew, suspected, or theorized. He admitted he had jack shit from Heller, and never saw the flash drive. He admitted that he and Milo were trying to retrieve it from the empty Heller house earlier, and also explained that Milo shouldn’t be held accountable since the boy was merely a means to an end. He also told them about the list Milo found. Judging from Kaiser’s human eye, that bit of news was a surprise.
    “He’s a good kid. He didn’t know anything. After losing his girlfriend, best friend, and then that thing with his stepmom, he was looking for answers, like me. I used him to try and figure more of the truth, but we both had shit together.”
    “And what about Mr. Houser?” Kaiser asked. “What did you tell him?”
    “Same as I’m telling you. Hell, I figured he might be working for Conway, anyway. But yeah, I told him the same thing — the truth.” Don wasn’t sure what he’d had time to tell Houser, but figured that Milo must’ve told him everything in their time together, so Don may as well cop to it and maybe spare Milo some trouble.
    Kaiser looked at Don, almost sympathetically, then stood from his chair. “Thirsty, Mr. Bellows?”
    “God, yes,” Don said.
    Kaiser left the room. Don was amazed by how quickly his resolve and anger toward Kaiser had crumbled — his hate now in pieces too tiny to gather. All he wanted was a drink of water, and, hopefully, release. Then he could piece life back together, maybe talk to the chief, see if there was a way he could see his family again, prove he wasn’t nuts, or any sort of serious threat.
    Kaiser came back and unscrewed the plastic cap of the bottle of water.
    Don apologized, tears streaming down his face, feeling an overwhelming and sudden gratitude towards Kaiser that further proved the speed and strength of his break. But he didn’t care. All he wanted was his old life back. “I would never hurt my kids. I swear.”
    “I know,” Kaiser said, voice calm and reassuring, smile less threatening. Don wondered if he’d misinterpreted the man from the start.
    Don swallowed the water in small gulps, a sudden cool burning the parch in his throat.
    “Take it slow,” Kaiser said. “You don’t want to puke it all up.”
    Don did as instructed, drinking the water, allowing it to rehydrate his throat.
    Kaiser pulled