There were scenarios in between these two extremes, of course, but all Lance could seem to focus on was the image of himself lying facedown on the asphalt with nail holes in his head.
Which was why, when he did grip the door’s push bar and ease it down, slowly inching the door open bit by bit and peering out, his mind completely froze.
He was convinced he was seeing himself, just as he’d imagined it, except he was on his back on the asphalt, just beside a large dumpster, his nightmare come true. He was so distracted by this impossible reality that he pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped outside, letting the door slam closed behind him.
He found himself standing in a large alley between the bus station and what appeared to be some sort of small warehouse on the opposite side of the open space. Empty, dark, quiet. A lone overhead light mounted above the bus station’s door cast an ugly yellow tint in a circle of light several feet around him. The body, which he’d at first thought to be himself—though he knew that couldn’t be, not really—was half in this circle of light, and half-hidden in the shadow of the Dumpster. Lance took two steps forward and stopped. Closer now, he recognized the boots, noticed the blue work pants. His heart sped up, his mind chased it. More confused now than ever, Lance hurried his way the last few feet to the body, stepping around it and coming up to the side, crouching down to see the face in the darkness.
It was Jerry the janitor.
Lance could see no visible wounds and no signs of external distress, but it was clear the man was dead. He wasn’t breathing, and Lance was certain that if he were to risk feeling for a pulse, he wouldn’t find one. The man had one eye open and the other closed, the white of the opened one bloodshot and dark. His mouth was frozen in a half-open scream.
But … how? He was alive less than a minute ago.
And as if his confusion were not crippling enough at that point, when a shadow shifted in Lance’s peripheral vision, and he quickly stood and looked to the right of the dumpster, he officially thought he’d lost his mind when a shape emerged from the darkness and stepped closer toward the circle of light.
It was Jerry the janitor. Upright. Moving. Alive.
Lance stepped back but found himself unable to turn around completely and run away. He forced himself to stay put, his head bouncing up and down, back and forth between the dead Jerry on the ground and the alive Jerry walking toward him.
Twins? Lance thought. Are they twins?
It was the only rational thought he could muster. The only logical thing that would allow Lance’s mind to accept what he was seeing.
Or it’s a fake, he tried. A dummy, a decoy. Like a movie prop.
The Jerry the janitor that was alive and moving was taking slow steps toward Lance now, and Lance began to match the man step for step, only moving backward, keeping his distance. He searched the man’s face for some sort of explanation, waited for a him to say something.
The man said nothing.
But he didn’t have to.
And that was when Lance felt it, the grim grip of what he suddenly knew could be the only other explanation. Something that he wouldn’t have been prepared for—not fully—if he hadn’t already seen it. Once before. Back in Hillston. The night everything had changed.
Lance took one last step backward and then felt himself bump against something low and solid behind him. He stumbled, caught his balance, and then turned around to find a car parked in the alley. He’d not seen it when he’d come through the bus station’s door, as he’d been too distracted by the body by the dumpster. It was a boxy midsize SUV. In the dark it looked green in color, or maybe blue. Maybe a mix of both. Honda emblem on the front. The front passenger door opened, and a tall, lean figure got out.
Lance felt his entire body go cold with fear, his blood turning to ice water. His heart felt as if somebody had cranked the dial from one to a hundred.
The tall figure took one step closer, its features now just visible in the glow of the light.
“Hello, Lance,” the Reverend said.
Lance turned his head, slowly, looking over his shoulder.
Instead of Jerry the janitor, the Surfer stood silently, his arms crossed and his long hair twitching in the breeze.
Lance stayed still, his head half-turned over his shoulder, allowing himself to keep both the Reverend and the Surfer in his peripheral vision. But he looked at neither of them, not really. His eyes looked straight, his mind so flooded with emotion at the sight of them—the two who he’d been trying so hard to avoid, the last people on earth he’d ever wanted to see again, yet also the two people that he’d vowed to himself he’d make them pay for what they’d done if he ever did see them again—that his body was locked in a state of indecision. Run or fight?
Could he ever get revenge for what they’d done? Could he ever bring his mother back?
The answer was no.
Did he understand enough about what these two really were to have a chance at besting them?
Another no, he regretted to admit.
And Lance had to keep going. Sugar Beach wasn’t his last stop on this journey he’d been forced into. He knew it wasn’t enough, what he’d accomplished so far. Nowhere near enough to feel as though he’d honored his mother’s sacrifice. And honestly, would anything he’d do ever be enough?
Another no. But he knew, deep down, he was meant for more.
And there was someone else, too.
(“Play smart, okay?”)
There was no way he was going to let the last conversation he’d had with Leah be the final one. No, another part of him—a new part that was only a seedling and steadily starting to grow—had come to realize that the two of them might just be getting started, and he was so eager to see what they would become.
The Reverend, patient and collected, spoke: “Let’s go for a ride, Lance. I think you’ll be interested to hear what I have to say.”
And that was when the Surfer, who’d somehow managed to silently close the gap between himself and Lance in a half-blink of an eye, wrapped his tanned and weathered arms around Lance in a bear hug, and Lance felt as though he were suddenly falling down a deep, dark well, his energy draining as the ground rushed toward him.
He’s so cold, was the last thought Lance had before there was nothing.
* * *
But the nothing did not last long. Lance came to a moment later, seated in the backseat of the Honda with his seat belt securely fastened. The Reverend sat in front of him, the Surfer driving slowly toward the mouth of the alley and making a left to return to the front of the bus station and the road beyond.
In his semi-groggy state, as if he’d just woken from a long nap or come out from under anesthesia, Lance could only muster one thought: I’ve lost.
As they rounded the corner and drove by the front of the bus station, Lance caught a glimpse of a woman leaning against the wall near the entrance, emblazoned by the neon signage. She was smoking a cigarette and talking on her cell phone.
It was the woman from earlier who’d been waiting inside the bus station. The one Lance thought had let her eyes linger too long on his party.
She was staring now, too, as the vehicle drove by, and her eyes seemed to seek Lance out in the backseat.
She started talking faster into her phone.
The Surfer pulled out onto the main road and started heading back toward the heart of Sugar Beach, toward the diner and Sand Dollar Road. Back the way Lance had just run from.
29
The effects of the Surfer’s grip on Lance—What did he do to me?—had almost completely worn off by the time the bus station’s neon signage had faded away in the Honda’s rearview. With his head feeling less full of cotton, Lance sat up straighter in the seat, something bulky digging into his back. He looked down and saw the straps of his backpack over his shoulders. When he’d blacked out as the Surfer had grabbed him from behind, they must have put him into the vehicle as quickly as possible, not even bothering to remove his bag
before they’d tossed him into the seat. They had managed to throw the seat belt across his torso and buckle it. Safety first, apparently, even during an abduction.
He shifted in the seat, trying to adjust the bag so it was no longer poking into his kidneys. He looked down to his hands and feet, found them free. The Reverend and the Surfer hadn’t taken the time to bind him, or make any effort to keep him from running away from them. Lance looked out the window at the passing expanse of land and then up at the car’s speedometer. Even at their current speed of forty-five miles per hour, risking jumping out of a moving vehicle would likely be a recipe for broken bones and sprained joints and surly a few deep scrapes and gashes. The Reverend and the Surfer would simply stop the car and reload him into the back like a bag of garbage that had fallen off a truck on the way to the dump.
He could try attacking them. Reach up and wrap his hands around the Reverend’s throat and squeeze until the man’s eyes popped free from their sockets. But the Surfer…
Lance remembered that awful moment back in the alley when the man—he’s not a man—had enveloped Lance in his arms and squeezed with strength that seemed so … wrong. And the coldness, both physically and the drowning sense of fading away Lance had felt … it was as if the Surfer possessed inside him the opposite of whatever creates life. He held in his hands whatever destroyed it.
Lance could not fight them both. If he went after the Reverend, the Surfer might simply reach out with one hand and grab Lance’s wrist and toss him right back into the blackness.
So Lance’s options were … limited. He tried to stay calm. Had to be patient and wait for an opportunity. Had to have faith that an opportunity would show itself.
And then he remembered the body—Jerry the janitor lying dead in alley. What had they done to him? Why had they—
“I think that somebody with your notion for helping people would not be too upset about the janitor’s abrupt end,” the Reverend said, only the words were not coming from his mouth, they were coming from inside Lance’s head. Lance’s stomach dropped and his heart rate spiked for a moment, fear and adrenaline surging again. He’d forgotten. It’d seemed like an eternity since those few days in Hillston where he’d first seen the Reverend and the Surfer, had learned how powerful they were. The Reverend could get inside his head. Lance didn’t know to what extent—if the man could actually dig through his memories like a file cabinet, or if he could only monitor Lance’s thoughts in real time. Either way, it was disturbing and humiliating.
Ahead, the diner came into view, lights bouncing off its shiny exterior.
“I just want you to know,” the Reverend said, aloud this time, “it was never our intention for your mother to lose her life that night.”
And his voice cut through the car’s silence and sliced at Lance.
“Don’t you ever talk to me about my mother,” Lance said through gritted teeth. “You killed her. Both of you.”
The Reverend sighed and signaled for the Surfer to take the right turn onto Sand Dollar Road once they’d reached the diner, saying, “We’ll hit the highway.” Then he turned to Lance and said, “The way I recall the events, your mother was the one who jumped in front of our vehicle. Some might say she was responsible for her own death, don’t you think?”
Lance said nothing. Swallowed down rage that was hot like a coal in his throat.
“I will give her credit where credit is due,” the Reverend said. “She did manage to slow us down. Alas”—he turned around in the front seat and looked at Lance for the first time, holding up his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture—“here we are, together again.”
The Reverend turned back around, and Lance found himself balling his hands into fists.
“It’s a shame, really,” the Reverend said. “She would have gone on without you, you know? She could have continued once you’d moved on. And we were always going to get you, Lance. You must have realized that by now. Always. So in the end … she just wasted what life she had left to live.”
Something wet dripped down onto Lance’s shorts, and he looked down, startled. Another drop followed, and he was even more surprised to find that he’d started to cry, warm tears making their way slowly down his cheeks.
Lance Brody did not cry often. Almost never. He cleared his throat and wiped his face with the back of his hands and steeled himself against what he now recognized as the Reverend playing some sort of psychological game with him. He stayed quiet, collecting his thoughts. Looked out the window and saw the donut shop as they passed by. The outside was dark, but there were a few lights on inside, back in the kitchen. He saw a figure walk by the cash register, thought it might be April.
There was really only one thing Lance was sure of at this point: the Reverend and the Surfer did not seem to want to kill him, or do him any immediate major harm. Otherwise, they’d have done so already. They wanted him for something more. His own abilities, Lance could only assume. For what reason, he did not know. But if they’d chased him this far … maybe it was more than them simply wanting him.
Maybe they needed him.
This thought alone gave Lance a new boost of energy, a sudden surge in confidence that maybe, just maybe, he might actually be more in control of his own fate here than he’d realized in the beginning.
These two terrified him, each in their own unique way, but at that moment Lance understood that they would not end his life. But he might have to fight to keep it from becoming theirs.
“Is this a sex thing?” Lance asked.
And now it was the Reverend who sat silently for a moment before asking, “What do you mean?”
Lance shrugged, “Oh, maybe it’s nothing. I just know that your kind—you know, men of the cloth—sometimes you like fool around with young boys. I know I’m a little older than that, but maybe you don’t really mind. Is that what this is all about?”
A stoplight turned red and the Surfer brought the car to a stop, his face stoic and seemingly uncaring about anything happening around him. The Reverend said, “I understand what you’re doing. You’re attempting to use humor to make yourself feel better, or maybe try to get a rise out of me for reasons that will benefit your situation.”
“Sort of like you were doing by talking about my mother?” Lance volleyed back.
The Reverend shook his head. “On the contrary. I was merely stating a fact. Your own emotional connection to your mother impaired your judgment of the situation.”
“You talk like a robot.”
“I speak truthfully.”
“And your friend talks like he’s a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.”
Nobody seemed to know what to say after this.
The light turned green and the Surfer drove on. They were approaching the expensive rental houses now. Those giant beach sentinels where a few happy families were currently sleeping after a long day of fun in the sun and sand. No idea what Evil was passing by on the street, just outside their windows.
Because despite what little Lance knew about these two, he knew that they were on the opposite side. Lance fought the battle for the good in the world. These two sought to destroy it.
Lance sighed, feigning as though he’d grown quite bored. “You know, you could make this a lot less dramatic if you’d just tell me what it is you want from me. How about we try that and speed this whole thing along?”
Instead of an answer, the Reverend asked a question of his own. “Have you ever wondered if there are others like you, Lance?”
Lance had been ready for a quick retort, something just to keep the man talking, but the question stopped him in his tracks. Derailed his train of thought. Because of course he had. He’d wondered about this his entire life. Wondered if he were truly as alone as he felt.
“There are others, Lance. We’ve found them. Just like we found you.”
Lance said nothing. Was both stunned by this revelation and also torn between accepting it as truth or rejecting it as just another tactic the Reverend was using to try and du
pe him into complying.
“You’ll join them,” the Reverend said. “And with you … together we’ll—”
Something big and fast-moving jutted into Lance’s peripheral vision, and the Surfer made a noise that sounded like a growl as he stood on the Honda’s brakes, causing tires to scream on the asphalt as the vehicle skidded to a stop.
But it wasn’t fast enough. They’d slowed enough so that the collision would be minimal, but the impact was still enough for Lance to get thrown forward before his seat belt caught and threw him back against his seat, the fabric digging deeply across his shoulder and chest, his world temporarily bouncing back and forth. The front airbags had deployed, exploding with white puffs into the Reverend and the Surfer’s faces, and the two clawed at them frantically.
As things settled, and Lance took inventory of himself and found that he was unhurt, there was a tap-tap-tap on the driver’s-side window. All three of them looked toward the noise. Outside, standing on the street with a gun pointed directly at the Surfer’s head, was one of the largest men Lance had ever seen. The man motioned with the gun for the Surfer to step out of the vehicle.
Lance looked through the windshield and wasn’t completely surprised at what he saw.
The black Ford Excursion.
Somebody else had found him.
THEM
(IV)
The tap-tap-tap came again on the window, this time with more authority, the barrel of the sleek handgun echoing loudly in the Element’s cabin.
“Out. Now!” The man waving the gun had a voice like he could get the part of Darth Vader the next time they made a Star Wars sequel. It was impactful. Punched you in the gut. The Surfer turned his head slowly and looked at the Reverend, awaiting instructions. The Reverend looked over the deflated airbags, through the windshield and across the crumpled hood. A large black SUV was in the middle of the road, perpendicular to them. Blocking their way. It was what they’d crashed into. He looked again at the crumpled hood, a steady stream of steam puffing from one of the panel gaps, then he turned in his seat and looked back to Lance—their captive. Though the Reverend didn’t like that word. If the boy only knew what we could do together…
The Lance Brody Series: Books 3 and 4 Page 18