I watch the flurry of activity, relieved when Jester talks Malice out of shooting my friends. Roger rushes to his car to retrieve my backpack and a stack of blankets and a pillow. While I set up a makeshift bed, Jester and Malice free Wraith from the body bag. It’s a slow process, given Wraith’s size and the toll trizapam has taken on his body. At one point, they have to stop when he vomits blood, but they finally get him settled on the blankets, with Thomas administering him one last dose of noz.
“That’s about all he can absorb. I couldn’t smuggle out another syringe.” Thomas hands me a stuffed backpack. “But that should be all he needs.”
“Thank you.” I take the bag and settle it next to mine. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”
“Yes, you could have.” He gives me a reassuring smile, almost fatherly even though he’s not that much older than me. “I packed him some clothes. They probably won’t fit, but they’ll get him to Mayhem. There’s soap. Toothbrushes. Toothpaste. A few protein bars…” Thomas drags in a breath, taking a second to collect himself. “You take care, Jamie.”
I grab his hand. “I’ll see you soon.”
“I know.” He pulls his hands free. “You gotta go.”
Then Roger steps up to say goodbye. “Be careful. I’ll see you when this is over.”
“I’ll be fine. It’s you I worry about.”
“I’m always careful,” he promises with a wink.
The pit in my stomach tells me I’ll never see my friends alive again.
I can’t watch them walk away. Instead, I focus on Wraith. He’s unconscious, which is a good thing, and he’ll likely stay this way for most of the trip. Coming back from trizapam is a slow and painful process, but it’s the last ordeal he’ll have to endure.
Malice rides shotgun, with Jester driving first shift. I hope for quiet, but I’m not that lucky. “Start talking, sweetheart, or I break bones until I get answers.”
Now that he’s not pointing a gun at me, I remember him. Malice also went to Neil deGrasse Tyson High—Mayhem certainly had high hopes for its youth when it named its high school after the renowned astrophysicist. Back then, though, Malice was still Anthony Moretti, and he wasn’t violent. In fact, he was one of the decent guys. Life, apparently, turned him into an asshole.
What a shame.
“It’s going to be a long trip if you’re going to threaten me the entire way.”
Jester throws a jab that catches Malice on the arm. “Be nice.”
Malice cocks a brow at his friend. “We’re defending outsiders?”
“She’s Mayhem, and look at her face. Someone hit her.”
Malice hoists his enormous body to the back of the van. I scurry away, but he grabs me and examines my cheek. “Who did this?”
I try to twist out of his hold, but his hand is a vise on my chin. “David.”
His nod is curt. Angry. He glances at Wraith. “Same prick who did this to my friend.”
I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. “Yes.”
Malice releases me and lumbers back to the passenger seat. I crawl over to Wraith and sit cross-legged beside him. I haven’t seen him since the day after his torture, and all I want to do is snuggle against him and shut out the world.
“That guy Thomas,” Jester says to me. “Him and me, we’ve been talking. He said Wraith’s been on ket the entire time. That true?”
“Yes.”
Jester skids a hand through his hair, shoving it off his face. “Motherfucker.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Also said you put this plan together.” The growled question comes from Malice, who’s watching the road through the windshield.
“If you knew everything David did to Wraith, you wouldn’t have left him down there, either.”
They leave me alone after that, and we settle into an uncomfortable silence. Only once we hit County Road 314 and Jester and Malice are deep in their own quiet conversation do I ease under Wraith’s blanket and stretch out beside him. It’s bold and intrusive on his space, but I don’t care. I’ve been awake for what seems like forever, and it just feel natural to lie with him.
