“Yes.”
“For the record, I think this a terrible idea. But Holly clearly trusted you, so you have that going for you. Plus, Holly’s family consists of her mother and her sister’s family. Which means if they are being watched, we could use as many eyes as possible. Understood?”
“Yes.”
The man holstered the gun and held out his hand to help Erik up.
“The name’s Nova. That’s James.”
The man’s grip was strong. Erik got to his feet and nodded at the thin man named James before he turned his attention back to the man named Nova.
“Her name’s Holly?”
“Yes.”
“Who is she?”
“We can discuss that later.”
Erik looked around the dark apartment, suddenly lost.
“I get going to D.C. if that’s where her family is, but shouldn’t we be trying to find out what happened to her?”
“Atticus is working on it right now.”
“Who’s Atticus?”
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is we need to leave.”
Erik nodded, but still felt lost.
“Holly must be in danger.”
Nova said, “That’s right, she is. But she should be okay.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Trust me, chief. Holly knows how to take care of herself.”
Twenty-Six
A low, distant buzzing, like a pulsing swarm of bees.
A quiet buzz buzz buzz that increases by the second.
The bees are out there, somewhere in the darkness. Only—it isn’t darkness, is it?
I open my eyes. Stare up at my bedroom ceiling. The buzzing is coming from my right, on the nightstand. The alarm clock.
It’s only as I reach over to silence the clock that I remember the nightstand sits to the left of my bed, and I sit up suddenly, realizing this isn’t my bedroom at all.
The room is tiny and bare, just the bed and the nightstand and a door and an open doorway. Through the open doorway is the bathroom. From where I’m sitting on the bed, I can see a toilet and sink.
The alarm clock is still buzzing, the incessant noise having built a hive between my ears, and I reach over and smack it hard enough to crack the top, but at least it does the trick and the buzzing stops.
I take another moment to scan the room, noting the chipped plaster on the walls and the small security camera in the corner of the ceiling right above the closed door. I stare at the camera for a couple seconds before I notice the tightness around my neck.
I gently probe what’s around my neck—what I quickly realize is a leather collar.
My hands scramble to find the clasp, but in my panic I can’t find it at first—it’s like the collar has been melded to my skin—and I start tugging at it, intent on ripping it apart.
That’s when a bolt of electricity shoots through my body.
I go still all at once, my muscles tightening, but my body continues to shake for the second or two it takes before the bolt of electricity stops, and then I sit there motionless, catching my breath, my thoughts momentarily scrambled.
The door opens, and a tall man with a shaved head steps inside. He holds a Glock 17 in his right hand, a small black fob in his left.
He says, “Don’t mess with your collar again. That was just a warning zap. An actual zap will knock your ass out.”
Your collar. I don’t like the sound of that. It’s one thing to think it, but an entirely other thing to hear somebody else say it.
“Where the fuck am I?”
The man’s face remains expressionless, his eyes dark.
“I wouldn’t worry about it. You won’t be here long.”
“Where am I going?”
“That’s something Mr. Hayward will explain.”
“Who’s Mr. Hayward?”
The man steps back, waiting for somebody else to enter the room. I expect it to be this elusive Mr. Hayward, so it’s a bit of a shock when a girl appears. She can’t be more than eight years old, small and petite with long black hair, and she keeps her eyes cast down as she approaches me, carrying clothing in her arms.
Around her neck, too, is a collar.
The girl comes to a stop beside the bed. She doesn’t look at me. I realize she’s waiting for me to take the clothes, and even though her eyes are focused on the floor, I can sense the anguish in her face, the hopelessness, and it both saddens and enrages me at the same time.
I look past the girl at the man standing in the doorway, and all I want to do is spring up from the bed and charge at the man, strip him of his pistol and shoot him in the head. But I know that’s not possible, at least not right now—I’ll get another zap if I try to attack him, one which will put me down—so I’ll have to save that plan for later.
I take the clothing—a bundle of pants, shirts, underwear and socks with a pair of brand-new sneakers on top—and smile at her.
“Thank you.”
The girl barely acknowledges me. She turns away and exits the room without a sound.
The man clears his throat.
“Mr. Hayward didn’t want us to change you while you were unconscious. Those will be your clothes for tonight. There isn’t a camera in the bathroom, so if you’d like to take a shower you can expect privacy, but the collar won’t come off, and if you do try to take it off, just remember that your family won’t appreciate your insubordination.”
The man pauses, waiting to see if I have any reaction to him threatening my family. I stare back at him, giving him nothing.
He says, “Any requests for dinner?”
Because I can’t help but be a smart-ass, even at a time like this, I say the first thing that comes to mind.
“I’ll have a rib eye steak and a lobster tail with garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus. Oh, and a big piece of chocolate cake with a glass of milk to wash it down. Fat-free milk, if you have it.”
The man doesn’t blink.
“I’ll run it by the kitchen. You have fifteen minutes before I return. Feel free to take a shower, but make it quick. If you aren’t ready in exactly fifteen minutes, the next zap you feel will be much worse. Do you understand?”
I don’t answer.
The man’s eyes harden, and his voice lowers.
“I get that you think you’re tough. I respect that. You wouldn’t be here if Mr. Hayward didn’t think you were tough. But understand right now you have zero choice in the matter. You do what you’re told or you suffer the consequences, plain and simple. So I’ll ask it again, now that you have fourteen minutes until I return. Do you understand?”
I swallow and nod, and speak in a quiet voice.
“Yes.”
The man points at the alarm clock on the nightstand.
“The time is currently eleven twenty-seven. See you in thirteen minutes.”
He closes the door, and I quickly stand with the clothes in my arms and hurry toward the bathroom.
Twenty-Seven
The man returns at exactly 11:40. He doesn’t knock. He simply opens the door.
I’m sitting on the bed. I decided not to shower because I didn’t have the time. I’ve changed into the clothes—all of them my size—and as soon as the door opens I stand up.
The man has the Glock holstered but keeps the black fob in his hand. This, I understand, is the trigger for my collar.
He says, “Follow me.”
I follow him out into the hallway. We pass a couple closed doors, and then we come to a door that leads outside.
The sky is dark and clear, but the moon and stars are bright. Cicadas fill the night with their song.
We leave one building and head to another. I quickly scan the area. It appears like we’re out in the middle of nowhere. Three large buildings are positioned in a U formation. A shed—much like the one in that oil field—sits off near the base of a hill. A few vehicles are parked around the buildings—mostly SUVs, a few pickup trucks. One green Jetta with a missing hubcap.
I spot two men walking the perimeter, both with rifles slung over their shoulders.
The man leads me to the middle building. While the other two buildings are two stories tall, this one is three stories. Looks to have maybe a dozen rooms. The man doesn’t seem to worry about me trailing him. I could rush him, grab the gun from its holster, but he knows I won’t. Not with the collar around my neck.
Inside, I follow the man down a polished wooden floor to a large dining room. A middle-aged bald man with wire-frame glasses sits at the head of the table. As soon as we enter, he rises to his feet and does a half bow.
“Welcome to Neverland, Ms. Lin. My name is Oliver Hayward. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Louis, please get Ms. Lin’s chair.”
The man pulls out the chair at the other end of the table. I sit down on the chair, because I know that’s what’s expected of me, and Louis pushes me forward just a bit before he moves to stand with his back against the wall.
Oliver Hayward places his elbows on the table, folds his hands, and studies me.
“I understand Louis needed to zap you earlier. It’s unfortunate, but sometimes these things happen. I do hope the rest of the time you’re with us Louis won’t need to repeat that action. Of course, that all depends on your behavior moving forward.”
A candle flickers in the middle of the table, the room dimly lit. It’s almost intimate, and I start to have a bad feeling where this may be going, but then a door at the other end of the room opens and the woman I only know as Leila Simmons appears.
Hayward rises to his feet again.
“Ah, my love. Thank you for joining us. You know Ms. Lin, of course.”
The woman barely acknowledges me. Her hair is curly again, and she isn’t wearing glasses. She sits down in a chair at the corner near Hayward.
“Just so you know, I already ate.”
“What?”
“I had a sandwich.”
“But our guest!”
She looks at me now, a quick dismissive glance, and sighs again.
“It’s almost midnight. I told you I wasn’t going to eat this late.”
Hayward sighs himself, only his is more disappointed. He’s a peculiar man, nothing at all what I expected based on Louis. Louis is the type of man who looks like he’s spent a couple years in the military. Oliver Hayward, on the other hand, looks like a college professor who yet hasn’t become completely jaded.
“Be that as it may, Carla”—Hayward leaning toward the woman, reaching out to hold her hand—“thank you for joining us. I know it’s late, but I thought our guest could use a familiar face. It might make her feel more at home.”
Carla doesn’t say anything to this. She lets Hayward hold her hand while she uses her other hand to look at something on her cell phone.
The same door Carla came through opens again, and a boy enters. The boy is no more than ten years old. He carries a tray with a glass of water and two glasses of wine on top. A man with a gun holstered to his hip follows him, a black fob in his hand.
The boy pauses first beside Hayward and Carla. He tries to balance the tray with one hand, reach for the wine glasses with his other hand, but it’s clear he’s worried the tray may flip so he sets the tray on the table long enough to set the wine glasses in front of Hayward and Carla before picking up the tray again and walking it down the table toward me. Now with only the glass of water he’s able to balance the tray without trouble, and he sets the glass down in front of me before promptly turning and heading back toward the door he entered through.
Before the boy pushes the door open, Oliver Hayward clears his throat.
“Jose.”
The boy pauses and slowly turns, his face tilted down.
Hayward says, “How many times must you be told never to place your tray on the table?”
The boy doesn’t answer. He keeps his face tilted down, but his body has started to shake.
“I expect an answer, Jose.”
Jose wets his lips. Swallows. Answers in a soft voice.
“Too many.”
“Yes, Jose. Too many times. And quite frankly, I am beginning to tire of reminding you of such a simple command.”
Before Jose can answer again, his body suddenly goes rigid. His head starts to shake. And like that, he’s down on the floor, writhing in pain, the tray having fallen from his fingers and his hands now balled into fists. He doesn’t cry out, though he issues an anguished moaning, and I don’t realize I’ve stood up until Hayward speaks suddenly.
“Sit down, Ms. Lin.”
I don’t sit down, but I don’t move forward either. I just stand there and watch the boy as he continues to writhe on the floor.
Hayward ignores the boy, watching me.
“The moment you sit back down, Ms. Lin, Jose’s pain will stop.”
As Jose writhes on the floor, Carla sits calmly in her chair. One hand still holding Hayward’s while another continues to access her cell phone. Like it’s no big thing the boy is being tortured. Like it happens all the time.
I sit back down, and the man standing over Jose disengages the fob.
Jose’s body stops shaking almost at once. He lies on the floor for a couple of seconds, tears in his eyes, and then he quickly gets to feet, grabs the tray, and hurries out of the room, the man following him.
I decide at that moment when I kill Oliver Hayward he’ll suffer greatly.
Hayward takes his hand back from Carla, folds his hands again with his elbows on the table as he studies me.
“You don’t approve of our form of conditioning. It’s understandable. You were raised to believe children should have positive reinforcement, yes? That they should be encouraged to do well, and that they should be praised for when they do well so that they continue to do well. It’s a nice concept in theory, but that’s all it merely is, a theory. Here at Neverland, we’ve come to find children are best reinforced with pain. If they do something they shouldn’t do, they are zapped. If they look at somebody the wrong way, they are zapped. If they say something they shouldn’t, they are zapped.”
Carla seems to be off in a world of her own, both hands now tapping away at her cell phone.
Hayward notices this but keeps his eyes on me as he continues.
“My love shared with me what she spoke to you about earlier. She said she went over the basics. How we’ve been watching you for a while. How we knew we would someday come to need your services but weren’t sure when that day would come. It was Carla’s idea for you to eliminate those ICE agents. For many months they’ve become a thorn in our side. I respect greed as much as the next person, but there comes a point when greed becomes problematic. Those men needed to be eliminated. Killing them ourselves would have been easy—we hire freelancers all the time—but when you’re killing two federal agents, it’s best if somebody’s face is associated with the crime. Otherwise faceless killings always turn into too much drama. It is always preferable to give the authorities and news media a villain.”
He looks at the woman with adoration.
“Carla sensed you were the kind of person who would not let sleeping dogs lie, so to speak. She knew if Juana approached you covered in blood, gave you a duffel bag with a baby inside, and then you witnessed Juana murdered by those ICE agents … you would not let those men’s crimes go unpunished.”
He shoots me a grin.
“By the way, what did you think of the pinkie finger? That was my idea. I thought it added a nice touch.”
He chuckles, realizes that Carla is still staring at her phone, and quickly composes himself.
“The agents believed Juana was delivering them money. She had been instructed to throw herself in front of their car. She knew she would die that evening, Ms. Lin, and yet she still went through with it. That is what I call ultimate compliance, though I suppose the real reason is love. Juana loved her child so much she was willing to die. She believed if she went through with what we asked, we would spare her child.”
Hayward
pauses to pick up his wine glass.
“Juana, as it turned out, was not very smart.”
He takes a sip of his wine, sets the glass back down.
“Once we knew you would go out to the shed in the oil field, we contacted the agents to let them know we had left a girl there for them to, well, play with. Both men had a fetish for pregnant girls.”
I remember how Mulkey and Kyer approached the shed like they had never been there before, jiggling the lock on the main door, and how the cowboy had been surprised that the girl was in fact there.
I stare back at Hayward across the table and speak in a calm, measured voice.
“I’m guessing the men from the highway were freelancers.”
“Yes.”
“They killed two U.S. Marshals.”
“Yes.”
“Won’t that cause drama, too?”
“Certainly. And I should note it is a shame one of those men was killed in the operation, but the risk comes with the job. Anyway, all of that will be associated with you. Obviously the authorities know you couldn’t have taken out the Marshals yourself, but it’s doesn’t matter. It’s another point in your timeline for this week. First the ICE agents, then the Marshals, and then …”
He pauses again, a grin now lighting on his face.
“Love, do you think I should tell her the target now or wait for later?”
Her focus glued to her phone, Carla absently reaches out to pick up her wine glass.
Hayward tries again, much more forceful this time.
“Love.”
She pauses, glances at him.
“What?”
“Should I tell her the target now or wait for later?”
Carla shoots me an indifferent glance before shrugging.
“I don’t care.”
For the first time, Hayward looks irritated.
“If you’re not going to participate in our conversation, you might as well leave.”
Carla doesn’t need to be told twice. She immediately pushes back the chair and stands up.
“Fine. I’ve had a long day as it is, and as I told you, I’ve already eaten.”
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