“What's going on!” Nemo yelled. I patted his pathetic head. Orson leaned over Bree and popped open a hidden compartment. We watched in fascination as he produced a small bottle and a rag.
“Is that chloroform?” Bree asked. He lifted the container and swirled it around, looking at how much was left.
“Sort of. It’s a lot stronger. Which means it’ll work on all of you.”
There was a beat of silence where we processed what he said. He looked at us, raising an eyebrow.
“No complaints?”
“You aren’t serious,” Bree scoffed. Suddenly, he smashed the bottle and covered his face with the rag. Nemo and Bree slumped almost immediately. I held on in a delirious state. Whatever it was, it smelled like a semi-fresh corpse—when they still had that sweet scent. The car spun, black leather and blood splatters warping in my eyes. Orson studied me in the rearview. Behind the rag he was definitely smiling.
The details of his serial killing were in my head like a song stuck on repeat—hacked limbs, drained blood, signs of prolonged captivitychorused with guitar sounds. A garbled grunt of dismay fell from my mouth as I smashed my hands into the door handle. My fingers wouldn’t work despite my desperate desire for them to save me.
Maybe Orson was still pissed off from that time I goaded him into a mental breakdown. Or perhaps he was just a serial killer who, at one point or another, planned to kill each one of the people in the car and now had the opportunity. Either way, I was fucked.
3
WINDSHIELD WARRIOR
BAZ
Orson was crawling over a still sleeping Nemo in the backseat when I woke up. Levi was missing, but the scent of his saltwater rot lingered on the upholstery. Blearily, I eyed the inside of the car until I remembered what was going on.
Orson was trying to murder us.
He’d likely already chopped Levi into snack-size pieces to suck on like Werther's Originals. The sick fuck.
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Orson commented. He wanted me conscious while he cut me into pieces? I pushed Nemo, shoving him closer to Orson in an attempt to create a barricade to prolong the inevitable. I’d never tell anyone this, but I was afraid of Orson. What was scarier than a therapist? Oh, wait, I knew … a serial killing one that was immune to my venomous touch. I’d had nightmares that involved him demanding I face all my trauma while cutting off my limbs. Absolutely terrifying.
My attempt to use Nemo as a meat shield didn’t work. Orson was already out of the car and walking over to my side. I fumbled around trying to shove hundreds of pounds of dense muscle offmy legs so I could scramble away from the approaching serial killer.
My car door clicked open, and hands landed on my shoulders. Swiftly and effectively, I was ripped from the vehicle and deposited on rough concrete. Verfallen was nowhere in sight. Nothing was. We were pulled over on the side of a road in the dead of night. The hood of the car was peeled back, and smoke was billowing out.
The silence was strange. Lights out at Verfallen had offered a calming combination of muffled sobbing, pillow screams, and the headache-inducing buzz of faulty electric wiring. Here, there was just my own breathing loud behind the mask. So, obviously, I stopped breathing, because why sound like an asthmatic pervert panting in the dark? Seconds later, my lungs were rebelling. I tried to inhale quietly.
Orson loomed over me with judgmental purple eyes. The color had a way of slicing through shadows. My mouth went dry as the chorus picked back up in my head—hacked limbs, drained blood, signs of prolonged captivity.
“Why aren’t you breathing?” he asked.
I let out my breath and gasped through a few lung-filling inhales.Think, think, think.What would distract Orson?
“Let’s fuck,” I barked out. “Just don’t make me talk about the Oedipus Complex again.” That therapy session still haunted me.
“Although I do appreciate the enthusiasm, I need you to stop yelling before the Uber gets here,” Orson said.
“The what?” My eyes bugged. Shit, what was that? Orson tapped his jaw in thought.
“A taxi.”
“Huh?” I asked. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“A chauffeur.”
“Ohhh. Why didn’t you say that?” I asked.
“Because most people are far more familiar with taxis than chauffeurs. But, your time in Verfallen was preceded by being a spoiled rich boy.” He bent over and forced me to sit up. “Emotionally poor, though.”
“Why must your physical torture include therapy?”
