No no no . . . My heart starts thudding faster, adrenaline kicks in, and I dig my shoulders back into the splintery wood and slither up, trying desperately to make it out of the box . . .

A Taser slams lightning through me, and I drop.

I barely feel the sting of the needle.

By the time the box closes again, I’m slipping away on a dark tide, and the last memories I hold on to, the only ones that matter, are faces.

My daughter. My son.

If they’re the last things I ever see, maybe that’s enough.

 

 

23

LANNY

I’m in the dark, and for a second when I wake up, I think I’m back in that cramped little cell in the basement of Officer Graham’s mountain cabin. I reach out for my brother.

Connor isn’t here.

My head is pounding, a sick, purple-red pulse that makes my stomach twist. I don’t remember what happened. I remember seeing Brady fighting with a man, and running to save him, and then . . .

Then what? I can’t grab the thought. It slips away. I remember the man shocking me, finally. And then hitting me because I kept trying to get up.

Brady! Is he okay? No, I remember, I can’t call him that. His name is Connor. Did I call him Brady when I was yelling for him? I think I remember that.

Someone else was there . . .

Kezia. I do remember that, all in a rush. The car jerking to a stop, me flinging open the door and running for my brother. Kezia—Kezia had her gun out.

I ran in front of Kezia’s gun. Mom’s going to kill me; she’s always taught me not to do something stupid like that. I realize with a sick surge that I want my mommy right now. I want her to hold me and tell me it’s okay, I’ll be okay.

Because I realize now that I’m inside of a big metal space that’s jolting and swaying back and forth. I can hear engine and road noise, and my head keeps banging painfully into metal. I try edging a hand forward to cushion it, but that hurts, too, when my skull crushes down into my knuckles. I’m afraid to let him—whoever he is—know that I’m awake, so I open my eyes just a little, just enough to see a vague, blurry outline of where I am.

I’m in the back of a van. There’s some carpet on the floor, and an old fleece blanket. There are also chains welded into the side. Every bump he hits—and there are a lot of them—the chains fly up and clank down with a rattle.

I’m not chained down. I test that by moving my arms and legs. Maybe he didn’t have time. Maybe he’s scared of getting caught.

I’m here. Connor isn’t. That means he got away. He’s safe. I’m scared—scared to death—but I’m fiercely proud that I fought for him. If anything happens to me, I didn’t let Connor down. Nobody can take that away from me.

I hear the man who’s driving, muttering. He’s talking to someone on a cell phone. “I’m telling you, it didn’t go the way you said! . . . Yeah, the dog was a goddamn problem! And then the kid didn’t want to go, not like you thought. And then the girl, and the cop—I didn’t sign up, you know. I’m just in the business of transport. That’s all. I’m not going down with this . . . No! You can fuck right off with your damn bonus!”

We’re heading uphill, on a rough road. A mountain trail, I think. Something like that. We can’t be too far from Norton, but there are hundreds of miles of wilderness out here, and if he managed to slide out of Stillhouse Lake before they had roadblocks up . . .

He’s talking on a cell phone. That means something. My sluggish, hurting brain finally reminds me why that’s important: because I have one, too. I slowly slip my left hand down, down, all the way to the pocket of my coat.

My own phone is gone.

I try the right pocket, in case I’ve forgotten where I put it. No phone. He must have ditched it. That’s Abductor 101, I remind myself. I’ve studied all this stuff. I wanted to know it, in case Dad ever came for us. First, they ditch cell phones so we can’t be tracked. Next . . .

I try not to think about next.

Who’s he talking to? That’s a question that trickles in, and I realize that it’s important. What I find out now could matter a lot. This man isn’t my boogeyman father, he’s . . . just some random creeper. Strong, fast, but a creeper. Mom would outsmart him. Dad would chop his head off and not slow down. I am the child of two scary, scary people, and I have to remember that now. I have power.

I just have to figure out how to use it.

You’re a kid, something scoffs at the back of my head. You don’t have any power. You’re going to die. That voice. It’s the same one that tells me I’ll fail the next test, or that I’m not pretty enough, or that I’ll never be happy and I should just give up. I’ve listened to it sometimes. I sat in the bathtub with a bottle of pills one time, counting them out, thinking, It would be better if . . . but I knew it wouldn’t be. My life is worth something. I shut the voice up that day in the bathroom, and I’m shutting it up now.

I’m going to live.

“Listen, I’m not in this for your goddamn revenge, you owe me, and you’d better get these cops off my ass right now, because if they get me, I am going to tell them every goddamn thing, and you’d best believe that’s enough to—” He stops talking for a second. I feel the van slow down, as if he’s taken his foot off the gas a little. “Uh—no, no, Jesus, I don’t want her, what the hell would I do with her? I’m not one of those freaks, okay?”

I’m trying to file away everything he says. I wish he’d say a name. Any name.

And then he kind of does. “No way. I’m damn sure not taking the chance on driving her all the way to Atlanta, so she goes in the pit. I don’t care what the old bastard wants.”

He’s just hung up the phone. I hear him drop it on the seat next to him. There’s a thick metal screen separating me from the front of the van, so there’s no chance I can lean over and grab it. I’m going to have to get out and run for it.

The van’s still going uphill. I start sliding myself back, hoping that it looks like it’s just the vibration and momentum moving me. I keep my head down, turned sideways, in case he looks in the rearview mirror. He’s muttering under his breath, but I only catch one word in ten . . . stupid . . . prison . . . Atlanta. He wasn’t talking about my full name—Atlanta Proctor. He meant the city.