“He needs to be at the conversion camp next Friday. If he was the son ofanyoneelse in this congregation, I’d have sent him to his Maker for his sins. This is his last chance. Get your son in line, or God will judge him,” he threatened.
The woman dropped her gaze, her cheeks heating up with shame.
Just then, Tobi managed to get one arm free from one of his captors and started hitting the other man holding him. As the two men struggled with him, Dreyven stood.
“Do I have to do every fucking thing myself?” he yelled, walking over and bringing the butt of the gun down on the back of Tobi’s head. Tobi’sMom inhaled sharply as Tobi dropped to his knees, dazed from the blow. For a skinny teenager, the kid had a lot of fight in him. That fight was going to get him killed if we weren’t careful. Even injured as he now was, he continued struggling weakly against the men still holding him.
“Tobi! Tobi, stop it!” I yelled, trying to get him to calm down as the men wrestled with him.“Tobi!” I yelled, finally, imitating Lee’s drill sergeant voice. It got through to him. He looked up and locked eyes with me.
“Mason, no…” he began, tears spilling down his cheeks. “You don’t know them, what they can do—”
“I do know them, Tobi. Now is not the time, so listen to me,” I interrupted as he started to say something. “Remember the day of the signing? You asked me about souls. Well, you need to get out of here. Get somewhere safe and…” I glanced at the adults around him “…and pray to myHigher Powerto save our souls.”
I saw the moment when Tobi remembered the day of the signing, and he got the message. Stay quiet. Get away from everyone.Thenescape and call Lee. He nodded.
The church members took my comment to mean I was trying to get Tobi to worship the devil or something, because they began grumbling and quoting Bible verses at us again.
They half-dragged Tobi out of the room, his mother falling in line behind them. Soon, it was only Conyers and Dreyven left in the room with me.
“So, Mason, here’s how this is going to go,” Dreyven said, sitting on the edge of the desk, the gun still in his hands. “You’re going to meet us at this address, tomorrow at 2 p.m.,” Dreyven said, writing an address on a piece of paper, then handing it to Conyers to shove in my pocket.
“We’re going to be making a trip to the West coast tomorrow,” he said. “It may have taken me a while to get back what I lost in Milwaukee, but I’ve built up quite a base here. A base my friend, Bill, here is going to run in my absence. Not as much competition here as there was in Milwaukee,” he snickered.
Bill snickered back as he sat in the chair next to mine.
“And it pays a helluva lot more than selling books and Bibles ever did!” He joked.
Dreyven just smiled thinly in response, turning back to me.
“We’re going to make a visit to your place in Seattle, pack up your shit, clean out your bank accounts. Then you are going to disappear. You are going to doexactlywhat I tell you to do,whenI tell you to do it, foraslongas I tell you to do it,” he continued, flicking on the computer monitor on his desk. “Or someone on this screen is going to beveryunhappy to have ever known you.”
The screen flashed, and the air caught in my throat. The first photos were of Zem, outside her college dorm right after Christmas. She was wearing a coat that I bought her as a gift. Then I saw photos of Lizzie and Ev in Seattle, the Devereaux family, the signing at Twin Peeks with Lee and the twins. There was even one of me standing at the door to the Devereaux household, Mama K standing in the open door. Another photo showed Lee and I at the arcade the day before, his arm around me, his hand resting possessively on my waist as we’d played pinball.
I felt the crushing weight of despair settle in my chest as I looked at the pictures. Each of these people had opened their hearts and lives to me unconditionally.
That… that was the moment I broke, and the tears began in earnest. Up until that point I'd held tight to my fury, kept my terror leashed until I could get Tobi out of the picture. I’d been holding out some kind of hope that I’d be able to get away, to escape. Now I knew it was over—they had me. I would do anything—doanyone—to make sure my friends could live their lives untouched by the poison that was Dreyven Reckner.
I’d managed to escape for a little while, but I’d always felt in my bones it was just a reprieve. I had known Dreyven would come for me. It was what had driven my anxiety all these years. I slid my hands toward my phone in my pocket. I had to get help.
Dreyven’s gaze remained steadily on me, but I saw the way his eyes narrowed as the picture of Lee and I flashed on the screen.
“So fucking oblivious. You thought you got away by running. Well,you won’t be running anywhere now. Not when I have the people you care for in the palm of my hands,” Dreyven said, glaring at me.
“They’ll… they’ll miss me, come looking for me,” I said hoarsely, my throat closing up at the threat to these people I had started thinking of as family.
“What’s to miss?” Dreyven asked, leaning forward on his desk. “Some fucker disappears on vacation? I’m sure it happens all the time. I doubt they’d even realize you were gone. Maybe I should just send one of the videos of you whoring yourself out to the newspapers. I’m sure it would make complete sense if you disappeared after that story broke. But…” he paused as he studied my face. “…I think we want some insurance, just in case.”
My fingers twitched toward my phone as my anxiety skyrocketed. I wanted nothing more than to run my fingers across the screen and call for help, but I knew I didn’t dare. Conyers spotted my involuntary movement, though, and grabbed me before I could do anything but brush my fingers across the screen.
“Of all the stupid—! You son of a bitch! What did you think you were gonna do? Call the police? Iownthe cops in this county, boy,” he growled as he held the phone in his hand. He smashed it on the corner of Dreyven’s desk, then threw it on a bookshelf. The lights flashed crazily on the display for a moment, then went out.Shit.
Dreyven smiled approvingly at Bill.
“Good job, Bill! I should have checked him when I brought him in—an error I won’t repeat. Search him.”
Conyers ran his hands over me, pulling my pockets inside out before stuffing them and the paper with the address back in my pockets.
Dreyven just smiled when Bill indicated I wasn’t carrying anything else, except my wallet.
