Stirred (37 page)

Donaldson was conflicted. He knew he needed to keep his mind in the game, on what needed to be done, but his head kept running through what he’d said to Lucy, over and over again. He needed to set it right. At the same time, a big part of him was worried she’d reject his offer. He had no idea why that scared him so much, but it did.

Donaldson cleared his throat, but the lump remained.

“Look, I was thinking. It probably is best if we work as a team. Stay together.”

“You sure about that, D?”

“Yeah. We could hitchhike up to Canada, killing drivers along the way, taking their money and credit cards. When we get there, we get some fake IDs, saying we’re citizens. They got socialized medicine. All the pain pills we want, courtesy of the government.”

“I’d like that,” Lucy said.

In the darkness, her hand found his.

Donaldson hurt.

He hurt like hell.

But right then, in that moment, for the first time in ages, he didn’t mind the pain so much.

• • •

They pressed on for another ten minutes, their progress slow and interrupted by frequent rest breaks.

“D, look.” Lucy was pointing toward a wide expanse of nothingness, dotted with the occasional tilting light pole—an abandoned parking lot.

“What?”

“You don’t see her?”

He stopped and stared into the distance, and when he finally saw what Lucy was pointing at, he felt first a thrill, and then a pang of amazement. How the hell had his one-eyed partner spotted this from several hundred yards away in the semidarkness of early evening?

“It’s her, isn’t it?” Lucy said.

From this distance, neither the height nor the hair length and color would’ve confirmed it, but the woman’s protruding belly certainly did.

A pregnant woman was limping across that parking lot toward a brick warehouse.

“Yep,” Donaldson said, “that’s Jack Daniels.”

H
e heard a door opening, and then Luther Kite was standing in the dungeon room, staring at him and Harry.

“I’m a rich man,” McGlade said.

“So am I,” Luther replied. “You think your money means anything to me?”

“No. But it means a lot to me. I was hoping you’d let me go so I can spend my money on stuff. Like a vibrating stripper pole.”

Luther’s dark eyes settled on Phin’s. “Does he always do that? Make jokes in times of crisis?”

“Yeah. All the time.”

“Doesn’t it annoy you?”

Phin stuck out his jaw. “Where’s Jack?”

“She’ll be by shortly, to watch you both suffer. I just want to do some last-minute tests to make sure everything is working properly. Those chairs you’re strapped to are quite ingenious. They were designed to inflict pain of varying types. This control panel here,” Luther walked up to a metal cart installed with a laptop, “can deliver heat, cold, pressure, electricity, perforation, and abrasion. In other words, you can be burned, frozen, shocked, cut, and scraped, in a variety of agonizing ways.”

“Nice,” McGlade said. “You get that at Psychos ‘R’ Us?”

Luther picked up two objects from the cart. He walked around Phin’s back and placed one in his hand, and then did the same for Harry.

“This is how the game will work,” Luther said. “We’ll start with electroshock. You each hold a remote control with a button. If pressed, it will send electricity to the other chair.”

Phin was suddenly seized by a white-hot jolt of pure pain, vibrating every nerve in his body.

It was over in an instant.

“Sorry, buddy,” Harry said. “Just seeing if it worked.”

Phin blew out a breath. “Goddamn it, McGlade.”

“How bad was it?”

Phin blinked away the tears. “Bad.”

Luther’s mouth formed a thin smile. “Here’s the game. Only one of the buttons will work at once. If you press your button, you’ll shock the other person and stop the flow of electricity to your chair. Soon Jack will be watching you, from behind the Plexiglas there.” Luther pointed to the far wall. “I want you to put on a good show for her. Show her who’s stronger. Oh, and burning ash will be falling down on you the entire time.”

“No contest,” Harry said. “Phin’s stronger. I cry watching reruns of
Family Ties
.”

“Then Phin will take the suffering for both of you.”

Phin steeled himself. That one-second electrical jolt was damn near the worst pain he’d ever experienced, and he and pain went back a long way.

But he’d spent over an hour trying to get McGlade to stop sobbing. Phin remembered the last time they’d been in this situation, with Alex cutting off McGlade’s fingers.

Poor Harry had endured the worst of it that time.

Phin was prepared to take the worst of it now.

“Let’s try it out, shall we?” Luther said, getting behind the control panel. “We’ll start with you, Phin. And I must apologize in advance for pairing you with such a coward.”

Phin took a deep, calming breath, and let it out slow.

“Harry McGlade is my friend,” Phin said, his teeth clenched. “And he’s also the bravest man I ever met.”

“You mean that, buddy?” McGlade asked. His voice had gone soft.

“Yeah.”

“You want to play this asshole’s game?”

“Hell, no.”

“Me neither. Ready on three?” McGlade asked.

Phin stared at Luther, and grinned. “Hell, yeah.”

“One…two…fuck you, Luther…three!”

Phin began pressing the button rapidly, knowing McGlade was doing the same. That way, they both took intermittent, rapid shocks, neither of them bearing the brunt of it.

Still, the agony was blinding. Phin felt like his entire body was becoming a giant charley horse. But it was sporadic, not constant, only happening every other second.

He heard screaming, realized it was Harry.

When the screaming got louder, Phin realized he’d joined in.

“Stop it!” Luther yelled. “This isn’t how the game works!”

McGlade began to shout, “THIS SUCKS! THIS SUCKS!” over and over, Phin figuring that he was going to bow out, forcing him to endure all the agony.

But, son of a bitch, Harry kept pressing his button.

And so did Phin.

Smoke rose from the chair he’d been strapped to, and his blood felt like it had begun to boil, but he wouldn’t stop tapping that button.

He swore he’d die first.

McGlade had stopped his
THIS SUCKS
mantra and was now yelling out words between jolts and screams.

“PUT…A…LIGHT…BULB…IN…MY…MOUTH…SEE…IF…IT…GLOWS!”

Phin forced himself to smile, teeth clenched, eyes squeezed shut, the pain so bad he was heading toward a blackout, but he kept pressing that button over and over andoverandover until consciousness ceased.

F
irst, Phin’s chair shorts out, causing a small electrical fire.

Then McGlade’s follows suit.

Luther grabs the fire extinguisher under the cart and quickly puts out the flames. He needs these chairs to work. They’re an integral part of the plan.

The duo has passed out, and Luther uses a portable oxygen cylinder filled with QNB gas to make sure they stay out for a while, strapping on the face mask and giving each a dose.

Then he frees them, pulling them onto the sandy floor and checking out his precious machines.

Phin’s is fried, the circuit board melted.

Luther gives the unconscious man a hard kick in the ribs and then checks Harry’s chair.

It still seems operational, thankfully.

Luther rubs his face, considering his next move. This was the Violence circle of hell, and the goal had been for Jack to watch her friends kill each other. Luther has put many people in these devices before, and they always made for a good, drawn-out show. Most people resisted at first, but they eventually broke and allowed their counterpart to suffer.

Apparently, he underestimated the bravery of these two men.

Especially McGlade.

Luther walks over, gives Harry a hard kick as well.

No matter. There will be time later to kill them both.

In fact, if things go well, he’ll have the chance to watch Jack kill them both.

But first, Luther has to break her.

He goes to the control panel, putting the second device through the paces, testing to make sure it all works. Unfortunately, it has lost its ability to deliver electrical shocks.

That’s okay.

It can still burn, freeze, stretch, cut, and abrade.

Luther knows he has to alter the course of Jack’s journey. She was supposed to visit Violence next, but Luther supposes he can now save it for last.

After all, once he straps her to this chair, she won’t be in any shape to do any more wandering around.

I
reached the doors, typed in the code.

When the deadbolt retracted, I tugged them open.

Shit.

It was dark outside.

Inside…it was pitch black.

From what little light slipped in, I made out the faintest impression of a corridor.

Cracked and buckled linoleum flooring.

Walls streaked black with mildew.

Ceiling panels missing, exposing old ductwork.

And something just beyond the edge of visible light that I couldn’t quite nail down.

“What are you waiting for, Jack?”

I stepped across the threshold but lingered in the doorway.

“There’s no light, Luther.”

“You aren’t scared, are you?”

Through sheer force of will, I moved decisively over the threshold and got three steps in before I couldn’t see anything anymore.

Total darkness.

Total silence.

“Luther?”

He didn’t answer.

“Luther. I can’t see a damn thing. Where am I supposed to go?”

I waited, both for him to reply and for my eyes to register some inkling of light, but neither happened.

Tightness was beginning to press down against my chest.

I rubbed my belly and said in my head,
It’s okay. We’re gonna be okay. He doesn’t want to kill us. He doesn’t want to kill us.

Nothing to do but edge forward.

So slowly, painstakingly.

One step at a time.

My hands outstretched so I wouldn’t walk into something.

Ten steps in, my left hand grazed a wall, and I kept it there, letting it trail along like a lifeline.

“Luther, what is this?” I asked. “What do you want?”

Received as a response only the echo of my voice.