“You alright over there?”
Hill slid a look to his right-hand and trusted friend Gibson Kress. Gibson was manning the wheel of the van that was transporting Luke Baker to his next and; quite possibly, final residence.
“Hell Gib, I didn’t know you cared so much about my comfort.”
“Fuck you,” Gib retorted with a grin. “If something happens to the boss, those folks are gonna be lookin’ to me for guidance,” he shuddered as though the idea put him in a state of pure terror.
“Calm down,” Hill chuckled at his friend. “I know how much you like to laze around in the background. I promise to do all I can to make sure you won’t have to work any harder than absolutely necessary.”
“Aw...thanks,” Gib put a hand over his heart, sighed and then laughed along with the man he’d known since they were both kids on an island of lost boys.
Comfortable silence rested between Hill and Gib for a while. When Gib sighed a second time, the gesture harbored a more serious element.
“Hill man I uh-I gotta ask if there’s anything goin’ on? You’re uh...kinda quiet this trip.”
“Hell man, you complaining?”
Gib replied at first with an eye roll. “Hell nah, only I usually can’t get you to shut the fuck up when we’re taking a drive and I...um, well I talked to Cai.”
“Right,” Smiling, Hill set his head against the rest. “Guess my little brother told you I saw Persephone.”
“We weren’t gossiping, man. Cai just thought I should have a little explanation in case you start acting weird.”
“And yet you question my mood anyway.”
“Gotta be tough seein’ her after all this time.”
“Gib…” Hill worked the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger, “the last thing I can handle right now is a Doctor Phil moment in this van with you while we’re transporting that fool to a prison camp.” Hill jerked a thumb across his shoulder to indicate where Luke Baker was confined to an enclosed rear compartment. He returned his head to the rest. “Please man, give me a break. I’m beggin’ you here.”
Gib’s round, weather-beaten face came alive with humor and consideration. He nodded. “Just remember, I’m here if you need to talk about it.”
“I won’t forget,” Hill replied on a slow exhale. “Now can we please change the goddamn subject?”
Gib snorted. “Fuck you. Just take your lovesick ass back to sleep. When you wake up, we’ll be at the Taj Mahal of prisons.”
Both men erupted into raucous laughter. When they were spent, Hill studied his friend somberly.
“Gib man um...what you said about the camp-about the guys looking to you for guidance. I need you to be serious now. Is running it too much when I’m away seeing to everything else I’ve got my hands in?”
Gib flashed Hill a look across the gear console. “You serious?” His coffee brown gaze reflected less humor and more astuteness then.
Hill shrugged, turned to observe the miles of unending desert from the passenger window of the van.
“Hell man,” Gib rolled his eyes again. “You know I was just fuckin’ with you. Being a warden wasn’t exactly something I’d dreamed about as a kid, but what we do there...it means something, you know?”
Hill knew exactly what the man meant. As the Vestige organization had increased in power and accomplishment, so did the numbers it put behind bars. Sadly, many of those numbers often found ways out of the prison systems thanks to the corrupt individuals who occupied posts at various levels of law enforcement and government.
Vestige founder Roman Tesano worked with individuals at varying levels of law enforcement and government who; unlike their corrupt counterparts, had a desire to see real justice done. They came up with a new plan.
Instead of capturing criminals and shuffling them off to be dealt with by the justice system, Roman and his associates wedged in a new twist. Said criminals resided at the organization's ‘camp’ located at an undisclosed spot ‘rumored’ to be in Mexico.
There, said criminals were...encouraged to be more cooperative in sharing all they knew about their associates who had; for the moment, evaded capture. As the location was undisclosed, so was the location of the camp’s residents. Deprived of their ‘rights’ to phone calls as well as council; not to mention the utter barbarism of the place, guests of the camp usually spilled all they knew within a few weeks.
The camp’s guards lived for doling out brutal punishments on those they considered society’s dregs whether they’d been tried in a court of law or not. As far as the guards were concerned, a take down by Vestige was like gold.
In a ploy to keep his brother close, Caiphus had asked Hill to help take off some of the load. As the new head of Vestige, Caiphus Tesano had claimed the camp might not get the attention it deserved with everything else he had on his plate.
Hill knew what his little brother was up to, but he accepted the job without argument. While he felt less than worthy of looking his father in the face, he’d do all he was capable of to ensure the man’s life’s work continued to thrive.
At any rate, Hill discovered he had a special admiration for the place. Uncivilized as it was, there was a simplicity to it that he appreciated. The red tape and bureaucracy of the justice system had no place there. The guilty paid for their crimes, first with the information they always seemed to have while claiming innocence of various dealings. From there, it was off to try their luck in the ‘more civilized’ arena of the court system. Talk about barbaric, Hill thought.
“I still believe in what we do there Gib, but…”
“Ah...I get it,” amusement returned to Gib’s eyes. “We’re gonna discuss Persephone now?”
“Fuck you.” Hill said in the same manner that he might have told someone ‘thank you’. He sighed. “I need some distance from it, G.”
“For her.” Gib said as though Hill’s reasoning was both obvious and logical.
“She’d never ask me to do that if she knew about it. She’d understand what all this is for-what’s at stake.”
“But you don’t want it lingering when you’re with her, right? Close as you are to this, that’d happen without a doubt.”
“Yeah,” Hill rubbed the bridge of his nose again. “Without a doubt.”
“I’m up for this Hill. You gotta know that.” Gib’s tone was all business then.
Hill extended a hand and Gibson clasped it over the gear shift.
