DEMONS (SURVIVOR - WEEK 3)

Baltimore, Maryland. Fall 2004.

Coltrane sat in a plastic chair in the administration office, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands, dreads swaying every time he turned his head to check the door. Teachers walked past. Some knew him. Some had just heard about him. Either way, nobody stopped.

Until Mrs. Jacobson, his English teacher, sat down next to him.

"Good weekend?"

"Sure."

"When you meet with Principal Richards, keep an open mind. You're capable of a lot more than what you're doing with it."

Coltrane smiled without meaning it. "You know these streets. Odds of getting out of here are a million to one. What's the point writing papers for you, memorizing facts they tell us happened instead of what actually happened? I'm exactly where the world wants me."

"That's a myopic view of the world."

"Give me a bigger one."

She stood. "Make one." Then she was gone, and he was back to waiting, which for a man his size, with his motor running the way it always ran, felt like having his skin peeled off an inch at a time.

"Mr. Anderson."

He looked up. Richards. Tall, unhurried, already walking. "Follow me."

The office overlooked the courtyard. Richards sat behind the desk and gestured at the chair across from him. Coltrane leaned against the doorframe instead.

"So be it," Richards said. "Good weekend, I trust."

"As good as one gets in inner-city Baltimore."

"Sixteen years old and already this jaded."

"Byproduct of watching gangs shoot each other up. Having a bastard for a father. Knowing tomorrow's never promised."

"None of that's on you at all?"

"Pretty sure I didn't force my father to fuck my mother."

"Language."

"Apologies."

Richards leaned back. "I hear things, you know. I know you're not exactly innocent out there. Know you have certain… allegiances… with one of these gangs out here."

Coltrane said nothing.

"I'm not calling BPD. I do that, I lose half my student body in a day, and that's hell on funding, on the staff who show up every day, on the kids who actually want to be here."

"So why am I in this chair?"

"Because I think you want to be here too. Forget your general outlook on life. You show up every day. You're on the football team. So explain the grades. You don't strike me as somebody who's not smart."

Coltrane shrugged.

"Grades don't improve, you're off the team."

"Respectfully, sir, I'm fine with that."

Richards looked down at something on his desk, his transcript probably. "Your teachers say you talk circles around the material in class. Just won't turn in the homework, won't sit for the tests. Why."

"Already told you. What's that going to do for me out there? Get me the discount mechanic job on the corner, hoping my shit doesn't get robbed?"

"Language."

"These streets don't care about language. Tell me what minding it in this room does for my future."

"Respect gets you further than you think."

Coltrane tilted his head back. "What do you want from me?"

"To fulfill your potential, Mr. Anderson."

"Sure."

"You're getting a tutor. Already arranged. You show up, you try, I keep your grades where they need to be. Your mother expects that diploma, I'm guessing."

"She'll whip my ass if I don't get it."

Richards almost laughed. "Then let that be your motivation, because I've met your mother. Quarter your size. I'd still bet every dollar of my paycheck on her."

"That's the smart bet."

"Good. Let's go meet your tutor."

They walked a few hallways down into the library, toward the back, past shelves Coltrane had never once had a reason to visit. Richards knocked on a table to get the attention of the girl sitting there, headphones on, head down.

She looked up. Brushed brown hair behind her ear. Green eyes, soft, landing right on him.

Coltrane had been looked at by plenty of women. Some twice his age, plenty forward about it. None of it had ever done what this did, make something in his stomach turn over that he didn't have a name for yet.

She pulled the headphones off.

"Miss Jackson, this is Coltrane. The project I told you about."

She stood, hand out.

"Hi. I'm Alex."

Baltimore, Maryland. July 30, 2026.

Tape screeched off the roll somewhere behind her. Alex wiped a bead of sweat off her brow, lifted a box off the floor, and carried it out to the living room, where movers were working through a maze of identical boxes like they'd done this a thousand times. They probably had.

She went back for more. A knock came at the bedroom door.

"What's up, Jamie?" She turned. It wasn't Jamie.

"How about your lovable sister-in-law instead?" MacKenzie stood there with two coffees. "Had to stop your daughter from confiscating both of these. She's not subtle about it."

"Sounds about right. Caffeine fiend, just like her mother." Alex closed the gap, hugged her, took the coffee. "What brings you by?"

"Moving day. Figured I'd lend a hand. Or supervise the movers. Or both. Not picky."

Alex sipped her latte and shook her head. "Always on the prowl. Hope Cole doesn't catch wind of that."

"I hide it well. Let him think I'm celibate. Keep dropping hints I'm considering a convent. He keeps offering to drive me up there."

"He's protective like that."

"Tell me about it. Number of boyfriends I've lost because they were scared of Cole."

"Protective. Overbearing. Thin line."

"I've had a few I wouldn't even call boyfriends and had to sneak them in and out of my own house, just in case Coltrane's got somebody watching, or he's in the area."

A smile crossed MacKenzie's face despite herself.

"You secretly love that he cares that much," Alex said.

"Yeah. That make me weird?"

"Not even a little. It's how he shows it. Never came easy to him. He just gives and gives. Gruff, cranky, all of it, that's the cover. Of course, if we ever showed him that much care and concern, he'd push us away."

There was an edge in it. MacKenzie caught it. Alex turned away, annoyed at herself for letting it slip out.

"Alex."

"It's nothing." MacKenzie closed the distance anyway, saw the tears before Alex could wipe them off, and wrapped her arms around her.

"What's going on?"

Alex shook her head, working hard to make the tears stop on command.

"It's stupid."

"Nothing's stupid."

"I'm just… really worried. About the next challenge. You know, with his past history."

MacKenzie's face went blank.

"Oh no." It landed for Alex all at once. "You don't know."

"Know what?"

"Fuck me." Alex pulled away, furious at herself. She turned back around and knew, from the look on MacKenzie's face, that this wasn't going anywhere until she said it.

"Cole's gonna kill me," she said, leaning back against the wall.

Cumberland, Maryland. North Branch Correctional Institution. August 1, 2026.

The yard at North Branch was smaller than people expected. Reggie had done time in three facilities across two states and it never stopped feeling that way. An hour outside, fenced on every side, felt less like freedom and more like somebody letting you stand in their driveway to remind you it wasn't yours.

He kept to the fence line, out of the tower's easiest sightline, though there wasn't really such a thing here. Two guards up top had a view of the whole yard at once, every angle, all day. Reggie had heard they could see a man drop something from forty feet off. He'd never tested it. Didn't plan to.

Bzzt.

Reggie paused.

"You good?" Marcus asked. Marcus had eleven years left on a stretch that started when Reggie still had hair, and mostly kept to himself, which made him decent company. Guys who talked too much in here were usually working an angle. Marcus wasn't working anything. He just liked somebody to stand next to.

"I'm good."

He wasn't. He had a phone in his sock that wasn't supposed to exist, paid for the same way everything got paid for in here, a guard with a mortgage and bad judgment, three hundred dollars a month wired to an account that traced back to nobody. He'd had it four months. Used it twice a week, never longer than ninety seconds, never near a camera, never near anybody who might ask questions later.

Today was a using day.

He waited until the yard filled up more. More bodies, more noise, less chance any one conversation stood out. He then peeled off toward the far corner where the fence met a maintenance shed nobody bothered checking twice a shift.

The phone came out of his sock in one motion, screen already lit. A text message.

They moved. New place. Nice one. Federal Hill, harbor view, the whole thing.

Reggie tucked the phone back into the sock, and walked back toward the middle of the yard like he'd never left it. Marcus hadn't moved. Hadn't noticed. That was the whole point of Marcus.

The whistle blew. Forty men, one hour, done.

Chicago, Illinois. August 2, 2026.

Coltrane lay on the couch in the Airbnb, a headache building at the edges of his skull. Getting to Chicago early had turned into evenings with Henry Keyes, Scott Hunter, and Nathan Lake. Late evenings that turned into mornings. A nap seemed like the right call, all things considered.

Life had other plans.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

He sat up, rubbed his temples, and made his way to the door, half expecting Ivan or the Anglo Luchador (who never took the mask off, even off-camera) to be standing on the other side. Instead:

"MacKenzie?" Last person he expected. "How the hell did you get this address?"

"Connections on top of connections. We need to talk. Now."

He stepped aside and let her in, led her down the hall to the room he'd claimed for himself, shut the door.

"What's going on? Everything okay?"

She put her hands on her hips. "I don't know. You tell me."

"You're going to need to use those words of yours."

"I went over to help Alex pack. She broke down in front of me."

He sighed. "Didn't realize the move was hitting her that hard."

"No, dumbass. She wasn't crying about the apartment. She's scared. About your next challenge."

He should've seen that coming. He'd been trying to keep this whole thing professional, not personal. Failing, apparently.

"Right." He leaned into the wall. "What'd she tell you?"

"That you have a problem. She thought I already knew. Had to remind her that my brother compartmentalizes everything, which basically means nobody ever knows anything."

"What do you want me to do?"

"You've been clean fifteen years. I want you to walk away from this and take care of your sobriety. And her. Whatever she is to you. Your baby mama."

"Don't call her that. I hate that."

Her eyes narrowed. "Not the time. Focus. She's scared you're turning back into who you were. Judging by the red in your eyes, I think she might be right."

"I haven't been drinking."

MacKenzie gave him a look that didn't buy it.

"I haven't. I went out the last couple nights. Paid the bartenders to swap my drinks for water or something close enough."

She softened, slightly. "And Friday?"

"I'll figure it out then."

"Cole."

"Mac. What do you want from me? I made it this far. I want to make it to the end."

She sat on the edge of the bed.

"Yeah," he said. "I had a problem. Fifteen years ago. Trying to drown some things. Being on the road, doing this the first time around, and it was different then. Night after night, town to town, putting on a show, nagging injuries, finding an hour somewhere to work out. That, plus everything else."

"Everything else."

"I had a kid. A woman I wanted to marry. A father who wasn't exactly kind to me. A mother working herself to death. A sister getting more attention from boys than I liked."

MacKenzie nodded. "Darius."

"Yeah. All of it, at once. The drink and the pills, that was how I stopped it from festering."

"You think you can drink now without going back down that road?"

He shrugged. "Have to figure it out if I want to make the next round."

"That's worth it to you?"

"Giving Alex and Jamie the life they deserve? I'd do anything. I'm not that guy anymore."

"I know you're not. But do you get why she's scared? Why I am now too?"

He understood. It wasn't simple, but he understood. "It's the only thought I've had all week. Not losing myself."

"Better not. Figure out a plan, pay off every bartender in the city, I don't care what it takes. After Friday, I'm going to be here. And if something looks off to me, I will pull the plug on all of it."

"Mac—"

"No. I've never seen Alex that emotional. Scared the shit out of me. Don't put her through that again."

He nodded. "Fair enough."

A pause.

"Is Henry Keyes as cute in person as he looks on TV?"

"Mac."

Cumberland, Maryland. North Branch Correctional Institution. August 3, 2026.

Rec time again, same yard, same tower doing the same math on everybody in it. Reggie found the man he answered to near the weight rack, which was really just three benches and a rack of dumbbells bolted to the concrete so nobody could turn them into anything worse.

The man wasn't lifting. He rarely did. He just liked standing near people who were.

"Got something," Reggie said, low, close enough that only he would catch it under the noise of plates hitting concrete.

He didn't look over. "Walk with me."

They walked the long way around the yard, the way men in here walked when they wanted a conversation the cameras could see but nobody could hear.

"Cole's baby mama and the kid moved," Reggie said. "Confirmed yesterday. Nice building. Water view. Looks like that new contract of his has got some money on it."

"I figured if he's popping his head up again."

"He's been quiet like we told him to for the past fifteen years. Why is he out there again?"

He kept walking, hands in his pockets, face doing nothing at all. "Got too comfortable. Think he's safe."

"You want to go to the next step?"

"Take your time on that part. I want it right, not fast."

Reggie glanced over. In seventeen years he'd learned exactly one thing about this man that never changed, the quieter he got, the more he actually cared about whatever he was quiet about.

"Why do you care? Or I'm just supposed to keep collecting and not ask?"

He stopped walking. Looked out past the fence at the hills, green and pointless and going on forever, the same way he looked at them every single day like they owed him something.

"He's got somewhere warm to land," the man said. "Family. Money. Whole life waiting on the other side of a TV screen."

"And?"

"And I'm still here." He started walking again. "Man builds a whole new life out of the sacrifice I made for him and never once picks up a phone to say thank you. That's fine. He doesn't owe me a call."

"But."

"But I'd like him to remember, one day, exactly whose hands built the foundation he's standing on." He said it flat, no heat in it at all, which was somehow worse than if there had been. "Keep watching the house. Keep watching the kid's school once you got it. Don't get seen. Don't do anything. Just watch."

"That's it? Just watch?"

He almost smiled. "For now. Make sure everyone is ready for the next step."

The whistle blew. Neither of them hurried toward it.

Reggie watched him walk off toward the door, unbothered, unhurried, the same way he'd walked everything his whole life, like the world owed him the patience it took to wait for it.

Darius Young. Still building soldiers. Still keeping himself as removed from the process as possible while calling the shots.