She looked at him with exasperation. “God helps those who help themselves, Obidiah.”
“No,” he said, his heart racing. That wasn’t right. “Jesus helps those who cannot help themselves.”
His mother just shook her head. Obi didn’t understand why she couldn’t see the truth in his words. All of these people read the bible for hours every single day, but they didn’t see what he saw. It didn’t make any sense. Before he could say anything further, the door crashed open. His father stood there, his expression stormier than the sky outside, his belt in his hand.
“Get up. Now.”
Obi did as he was told. He’d take his punishment. He’d take whatever punishment they wanted to give him. He was right. He was right and they were wrong, and he’d let them flay the skin from his body before he betrayed what he knew was the right thing to do.
As his father’s belt fell across his back and his bottom, he prayed in silence. He prayed that they would see the truth in his words. He prayed that they would someday understand they were meant to help people, and if that didn’t work, he prayed that someday, he’d finally be free from Magnus Dei and free from Brother Samuel, even if it meant letting them kill him.
Robby Shaw cracked open one raw, swollen eye, trying to make sense of the images swimming into view around him. Everything was a swirl of lights that made him want to hurl. Also, somebody wouldn’t stop screaming. It was relentless. His arms and legs were leaden. He tried to move, but everything hurt. His exposed skin stuck to the vinyl beneath him. It smelled like vomit, or maybe he did. Why did his throat feel like he’d gargled razor blades? Where was he?
He forced himself to focus. He was in a car. He could feel the vibrations of the tires over the road, and his whole body jumped with every imperfection in the asphalt. He was on his stomach, one leg smooshed up against the door, the other on the floorboard. A black grate separated him from a shadowy figure in the driver’s seat. Was he in a cab? It smelled like a cab. Another wave of nausea rolled over him, and he shivered as he forced himself not to throw up.
“Let me out,” he mumbled over the screaming. “I’ll walk home.”
“Nice try, kid. Go back to sleep. We’ll be there soon.”
“Let me out,” he demanded, his voice a hoarse shout.
“Kid, are you looking to get tazed again? Relax.”
He fumbled for his phone in the pocket of his jeans, smiling when he realized his kidnappers had missed it. He freed it with effort, managing to unlock it with his thumbprint. He pressed the top number, still his emergency contact, and hoped he’d believe him.
The phone rang…and rang…and rang. Robby’s heart sank. He was going to die in this smelly vinyl box surrounded by screaming. But then, “‘lo?”
“Eli?”
The sound of rustling made Robby pull his phone away, and then a sleepy-sounding Elijah said, “Robby? What’s wrong? It’s, like”—a yawn broke his speech—“four in the morning?”
Robby’s brain fought to put words together, wanting to get the important stuff out first. “Kidnapped. I don’t know where I am. I can’t see anything. Can’t move. So much screaming. I need you to save Casanova.”
“Your dog? Robby? Have you been drinking? Where are you? You don’t sound good. Is that a police siren? Tell me where you are, and I’ll find somebody to come get you.”
He didn’t want somebody. He wanted a friend. “You, come get me. Please. You owe me.”
Elijah’s tone held just enough pity to twist the knife in Robby’s heart. “Babe, I live hours away now, remember? Tell me where you are, and I’ll get you some help? Do you need a lawyer? An ambulance?”
His heart sank. Elijah was married now. Married to that ginger psycho. They lived in the mountains far away. “Save my dog. Just do that. I don’t care what happens to me. I probably deserve it.”
He dropped his phone without hanging up and rolled over, burying his face in the crack of the smelly seat. He just wanted to sleep. He’d deal with his kidnappers later. Or maybe not at all. He didn’t much care either way. He didn’t care about anything really, just Casanova. The thought of his ugly dog made him think of the man he’d named him after. A long-haired, tattooed stranger who’d studied him during the worst day of his life, giving him ‘fuck me’ eyes in a room full of men in suits. He drifted with a smile on his face. If he was going to die, at least he had that memory.
Robby woke again to a sound like somebody ringing a bell before a boxing match. He scraped bleary eyes open to find a police officer staring at him from behind a set of iron bars. “Up and at ‘em, pussycat. You made bail.”
Robby groaned as he sat up, the world tilting on its axis until he thought he would vomit. He gripped his head and whimpered. What the hell had happened last night? He tried to recall even a single thing, but it was a giant black hole in his memory. “Bail?”
The officer scoffed. “Yeah, the money you pay to be released from jail after you’ve made an ass out of yourself.”
“I didn’t call anybody,” Robby said, not entirely sure how true that statement was.
The cop chuckled. “Kid, you called everybody. By the time we’d gotten you to the station, you were ten seconds away from asking the tabloids to bail you out. Don’t you have a manager? A lawyer? You’re famous. Don’t leagues of suits follow you around so you don’t do something stupid…like this?”
Something withered inside Robby. He had all of those things. It was about all he had really. Suddenly, a memory flashed through his head. Elijah. He’d called Elijah. Had Elijah come to bail him out? His heart soared at the thought, crashing and burning at a different question. Had he brought Shepherd? “Who…”
“I did, Obidiah.”
That voice… It couldn’t be. He never would have calledhim. “I didn’t call you.”
