Mrs. Foster walked back to us as I tried to get a better look at Shawn. Was he still alive? I couldn’t tell. I closed my eyes again and tried to summon Reyes. Angel. Osh. Anyone. The drugs were blocking me. It had happened before.
“He must be returned to the earth,” she said. “He must learn from his mistakes and be allowed to grow again.”
“You’re going to replant him?”
“And you as well.”
“Can I come back as an azalea?”
“But out of the darkness, brothers and sisters,” Mr. Foster said, his voice booming now, “comes the light.”
They shouted and clapped. A couple even fell to their knees with hands raised.
Don’t get me wrong. I was all for religion. Whatever helped you get up in the morning. And a higher power, like the one Christians referred to as the God Jehovah, was definitely real. It was religion being turned into an excuse to torture and maim and kill that I had a problem with.
Mrs. Foster raised her hands as well. “And the answer we’ve prayed for night and day has finally arrived.” She smiled down at me. “When Shawn went to you, a weak, corrupted slut—”
“Slut?”
“—we knew what we had to do.”
“I think slut is a tad strong.”
“See, you aren’t just any corrupted. You are his corrupted. His concubine. The Dark One’s. The demon from hell.”
“Promiscuous, maybe.”
She kneeled again. “We were never after you.”
“Wanton.”
“We were after the abomination,” Mr. Foster said, quite proud of himself. “We’ve been tracking him since he got out of prison. We just had no way of getting to him until now.”
When their meaning finally sank in, I focused on the crazy kids in front of me. If they thought to lure Reyes here the same way they lured me, they’d have another thing coming. Oh, they’d get him here, but he would not be in such a cooperative mood.
Whereas, I was all about cooperation. I also shared well in school.
“It’s true,” Mrs. Foster said. “If you hadn’t come to our offices, we probably never would have known about the connection between you and The Dark One.”
I fell forward in my attempt to see Shawn again. The ground kept toppling over. Thank God my hands weren’t tied. I’d be eating dirt about now.
“We figured you were onto us,” Mr. Foster continued. “That was why you showed up. But apparently we were wrong. Shawn, in his weakened state, sought you out.”
“That’s not why I went to your offices.”
“Oh?”
“Not at all. I was thinking about becoming the leader of a fanatical cult and wanted some pointers.”
Another crack echoed off the walls and, as my head whipped around, I noted the expressions of excitement on all those present. If anyone were there against his or her will, as was known to happen in cultish situations, I certainly wasn’t picking up on it.
Mrs. Foster grabbed a handful of hair. Unfortunately, it was mine. “How do we send him back?”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you abducted Reyes when he was a baby and gave him to a monster.” People never think ahead.
Mrs. Foster bent so we’d be face-to-face, her smile so congenial, it creeped me out. “Of course we gave him to a monster. He’s evil. He deserved to be raised by a man just as evil.”
It was at that moment precisely that I knew I was staring into the cold eyes of true evil. Evil hiding under the guise of righteousness. It wasn’t the first time and certainly wouldn’t be the last, but it still astonished me. How someone could do that to an infant.
Then I thought about the baby girl they murdered and pinned on the mother, albeit twenty-five years later, and could hardly believe what I was about to say. But my curiosity got the better of me. “But why give him to Earl Walker? Why didn’t you just do what you did to Baby Liana? Why didn’t you just kill him?”
Mrs. Foster was surprised I’d pieced it together. No idea why. Veronica Isom, Baby Liana’s mother, was telling anyone who would listen about the adoption agency, about what they did, but as a former prostitute and drug addict, her credibility was shot. No one believed her. Clearly, the Fosters knew that.
The smile she placed on me that time was full of sadness, as though she felt sorry for me. For my ignorance. “Oh, sweetheart, we did try to kill him. Several times. He just wouldn’t die.”
Her words hit harder than any slap could have. The air fled my lungs, and a roaring silence stretched out as the truth sank in. She said something else, but nothing could get past the shock wave pummeling my system.
They’d tried to kill him. When he was a baby, they’d tried. And I thought what he went through with Earl Walker was unfathomable. What had he gone through with the Fosters? What had they done to him? How had they tried to kill him? And what was it like for him when they failed?
I doubled over in astonishment. True evil. I was in the midst of true evil, and Reyes thought he was dark. He had nothing on the Fosters.
“The scales have been knocked off balance,” Mr. Foster said, but not to me. He was back in full preach mode. Waving his Bible. “It’s all over the news. The end of the world is nearing, so we have to kill. To rid the lands of evil so it can heal. So it can become strong again. So it can nourish us and support us. It is our sacred duty.”
He got a whole lot of amens for his effort.
Mrs. Foster let go of my hair but stayed close. She spoke to me as her nutcase brother-slash-husband spewed his sanctimonious bullshit. “We were quite surprised he survived that horrible man,” she said. “We figured he’d have killed The Dark One while he was still young.”
I was certain he’d tried.
The Diviners were praying and praising God, raising their hands in celebration, asking for His blessing on the blood sacrifice to cleanse the lands. Apparently they hadn’t moved on to the New Testament. Sacrifices were kind of old-school, but whatever floated your boat.
Still, how Jehovah could stand by and let others be killed in His name …
I tried to stop time so I could walk—or probably stumble—to Shawn and check on him. Nothing. I tried again to summon Angel. Osh. Artemis. Nothing again. What the hell had they given me?
Reyes would figure out something was wrong. I just had to stall. To buy us some time. Then again, I’d sent him to Beep. He was watching over her. And that information caused a peaceful sensation to spread through me. At least she was safe from the likes of people like this.
But I’d given Ubie a clue. Maybe he would figure it out and storm the gates. Still, deciphering my whereabouts would be next to impossible if he didn’t get some supernatural help.
“Okay,” I said, swaying upright, “I’ll tell you how to kill him.”
The crowd hushed.
“First, everyone here has to sacrifice themselves at the altar.”
Mr. Foster grabbed my hair that time and dragged me closer to Shawn. At last. “Do you think because you are a woman we won’t do this to you?”
“Shawn,” I said to him, “the cops know everything I do. They won’t get away with this.”
That caught Mr. Foster’s attention. He shook his Bible at me. That’d teach me. Then he said, “You know nothing about us, whore.”
They really had a problem with promiscuity. The most promiscuous often did.
I snorted. “You’re right. I know nothing about what it’s like to have sex with my sibling.”
When absolute, unadulterated surprise flashed across their faces, I knew what it must’ve felt like to win a gold medal at the Olympics. Or at a hot dog–eating contest. Either way. And I had more where that came from.
“How did you—”
“Find out about your incestuous relationship with your sister?” I could only hope he understood me. My words were blurrier than my vision.
“God has ordained our union,” Mrs. Foster said.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
Shawn groaned before I could say anything else. I tried to stand, to get to him, but the blunt object slamming into the back of my skull convinced me to chillax.
So I did. I lay there for a while. Gathered my thoughts. Weighed vacation spots in my mind, arranging them according to where I’d most rather be at that moment in time.
“How do we kill The Dark One?”
“You don’t.”
Fury arced out of Mrs. Foster, then her expression changed. Morphed into one of absolute cruelty. “Bring him out.”
Him? Who him?
I lay there, begging to get off the merry-go-round, when two men dragged out a third man who was tied and gagged. They dropped him a few feet away from me, and my vision darkened around the edges. The image before me had my head spinning even more. This was not real. This was not happening.
It was Reyes. Unconscious. Beaten and bloody and bruised.
Tears sprang to my eyes. It was the picture. The one I’d gotten ahold of a year ago. The one taken by the monster that had raised him.
He was a kid again. Bound with ropes. His hair mussed. His mouth gagged. His face swollen and discolored and bloody. And I lay in stunned silence.
We were gods. Reyes and I. How could this happen to us? To him? There was no way they could get him. Not Reyes. Not unless … unless they Tasered and drugged him. It had worked on me. I bit back the rage swelling inside me.
Reyes groaned, coming to, and I heard the pressure from the ropes as they strained and stretched. Was he fighting against them? I tried to look up at him, but we were suddenly in an industrial-sized dryer, tossing and tumbling. That last hit must’ve knocked something loose. I begged for the timer to go off, because this sucked.
“Shut him up,” Mr. Foster said.
I lost sight of Reyes through the shuffling of feet. Then I heard a struggle and another loud crack, but I felt no pain that time. They’d hit Reyes. I cried out to him and, naturally, received another blunt object to the cranium for my efforts, but this time I managed to focus on him.
I saw him through the throngs of legs. He fought the restraints when they hit me. And because of that, they’d hit him again, too.
“Reyes, stop,” I said.
“Shhhift,” he said. Or tried to say.
“Cut out the abomination’s tongue,” Mrs. Foster ordered.
Two men grabbed hold of Reyes’s face and tried to force open his mouth as I shot forward. I didn’t get far. Reyes clamped his teeth shut so a beefy man—it was always the beefy ones—started hitting him, his fist landing punch after violent punch.
Until my stomach lurched.
Until my heart cracked.
Until my head exploded with the pain I felt drowning every cell in my body.
The man stopped at last when Mr. Foster raised a hand.
Then I heard Reyes’s voice. Soft. Barely audible. And yet as clear as if he were whispering it in my ear. “You have to know.”
I looked over at him. He’d passed out again. When one man forced his jaw apart and another walked forward with a knife, Mr. Foster said, “No! I want him lucid when it happens.” He turned back to me, blocking my view of my husband. “How do we kill it? Answer or he will only suffer longer.”
I heard it again. “You have to know.”
I tried to see past the evil evangelists to get to Reyes, but the harder I tried, the thicker the air became. Time slipped. People around me sped up and then bounced back to normal speed. Then they slowed down. It had to be Reyes. “Go,” I said to him. “Get out of here.”
He stopped time and looked across at me, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. “Well, I would, but the police are on the way, and it always looks better when the hostages are tied up and beaten bloody.”
Relief washed over me. So much so I almost hurled. Which I felt was a strange reaction to elation. But a part of me, like nine-tenths, was horrified.
“Reyes, you’re just letting them beat on you?”
“I’m sorry, Dutch. I didn’t know they were going to get you, too.”
“It’s okay. Wait. How did they get you?”
“Taser. Then drugs.”
“Me, too.” I still couldn’t balance and kept falling on my face. “That Taser crap hurts.”
“Not as much as it hurt watching them hit you.” His shirt was almost torn completely off him and hung in shreds.
“Wait a minute,” I said, not buying what my husband, a.k.a. the son of Satan, a.k.a. the best liar on this plane, was selling. “They Tasered you? Just out of the blue, they walked up and got the jump on you.”
“I may have let them, but it still hurt.”
“Reyes, seriously, they want you dead.”
“Why didn’t you try to summon me the moment they came for you? I would have felt it.”
“And taken you away from guard duty? You know she comes first. Speaking of which—”
“Osh is with her, now.”
I let out a sigh of relief then gestured toward Shawn. “Is he okay?”
He turned to him then back to me. “He’ll live.”
“Thank God. But, Reyes, why? Why did you let them hurt you?”
He looked away. “You were right. They need to be behind bars. I didn’t realize the extent of their crimes, Dutch. I would never have let them live this long.” When he looked back at me, his expression was somewhere between admiration and guilt. “I’m sorry I’m so hardheaded.”
“That’s okay. I can be a little stubborn at times, too. Wait. Have you seen a little girl about three years old?”
He gestured with a nod. I followed his gaze to a beautiful little girl being held by an elderly woman. Dawn Brooks. Dawn and the woman were the only people whose expressions weren’t pure delight. The woman looked scared, actually. Nervous. For us. And I was oddly grateful.
“Reyes, she’s beautiful.”
“I agree.”
“Hey, you need to summon Angel.”
“Been here the whole time, boss.”
I rose onto my elbows when I tried to turn toward Angel’s voice. “Okay, first I want to know why I wasn’t invited to this party earlier, and second, why didn’t you come get me the minute they took Reyes?”
“Ask the hell-god. He threatened to punch me in the throat.”
“Reyes, that’s mean.”
The grin that spread across Reyes’s bloody face was pure wickedness. “Your uncle is coming, but these things never end well. They’ll barricade themselves in, and there’ll be a days-long standoff.”
“I don’t want to be used as a punching bag for days,” I said.
“Yeah, me neither.”
“We need to get Dawn out of here, along with any other children. I’d bet my last nickel some of them are abductees as well.”
“I’ll see your last nickel and raise you a silver dollar that some of the adults were abductees, too. Raised here since they were kids.”
“I bet you’re right. We need to figure out how to get out of here.”
“You don’t think I could’ve gotten out hours ago?”
I was finally able to sit up without toppling over. Angel kneeled beside me for support. “Then why, Reyes? Why let them…” My voice cracked so I stopped talking.
But he didn’t need me to finish. “Because these people need to go to jail, and the best way to ensure that—”
“—is to be found all kidnapped and bloody?”
He nodded.
“Reyes, they…” The image of him as a baby as the Fosters tried to kill him ravaged my mind again. It would be something I would never forget. I fought the sting in my eyes, but the sting kicked my ass. Like most things today. Tears pushed past my lashes.
Angel leaned into me, and I grabbed hold of him. Wrapped both my arms around his neck. Buried my face in his cool shoulder.
“Dutch,” Reyes said softly. Soothingly. “I’m fine. I don’t even remember it. I’m not like you. I don’t have every memory from the day I was born.”
But I couldn’t help
it. I sobbed, anyway. Angel wasn’t sure what to do, so he patted my head. It was just about the sweetest thing he’d ever done. If not for the fact that I’d been bludgeoned with a blunt object on that very head not once, but twice, I might have enjoyed it.
I tried to get to my feet, to make my way to the man I adored more than caramel apples, but my legs wouldn’t work right.
“It’s okay,” he said, gazing at me through lids swollen almost completely shut. I had a feeling his lopsided grin could be attributed more to facial paralysis than that mischievous charm he carried around like a weapon of mass destruction. “We need to make sure there’s no standoff. We have to stop them from barricading themselves inside. This whole place is one big compound.”
I sniffed and wiped my nose on Angel’s dirty tank. “I’m all ears. Wait!” I said as a plan formed. A good one. “Okay, I’ve got it.”
“Does it involve either of us getting our tongues cut out?”
“How’d you know? Just follow my lead.”
Angel snickered. “I’ve had to do that a few times. It’s scary.”
“Why are people always dissing my plans?”
“They’re almost here,” Angel said.
“Is Uncle Bob with them?”
“Boss, Uncle Bob is leading the cavalry. And he is not happy.”
19
I never make the same mistake twice. I make it like five or six times, you know, just to be sure.
—T-SHIRT
I was beginning to get the feeling back in my legs. The drugs had worked their way through my system and were starting to wear off.
With Angel’s help, I navigated the Diviners and checked on Shawn. He was alive. Then I returned to my earlier position and nodded. “I’m ready.”
Reyes nodded and prepared to release time. “In three…”
“You know they’re wrong about you.”
“Later,” he said, letting his head fall to the ground again. “Two…”
“You aren’t evil.”
“Dutch. Do you want to get hit again?”
“Are you threatening to spank me?” I teased.
He glared. “Them. If you talk … one…”
I whispered to Angel as fast as I could, “Tell me when the cops are close.” Then I looked at Reyes again. At my beautiful, heartbreaking, breathtaking husband. “And they’re wrong.”