“Kit!” I shouted and twisted to see what had become of the man who had been beside me moments before. He was toppled and subdued by two men in dark clothes who were busily wrenching his arms behind his back and securing them with rope.
I imagined the same coming for me and pressed my palms against the gritty earth, straining to push or pull myself out from under the weight on my back.
“Don’t fight!” Kit called out to me. “Do what they say! You’ll be fine!”
But they hadn’tsaidanything. And every pump of my heart told me I would not be fine, not if I laid still or went along quietly.
The fourth attacker’s leather boots padded across the earth as she approached. She stooped and flashed her sharpened teeth in a smile as she jerked a thumb at Kit. “Your friend here seems pretty smart. Are you?”
Between her legs, I watched the men drop a brown burlap sack over Kit’s head. They cinched it around his neck with another length of rope and gave a tug that must have rendered it strangling before securing the knot.
When the attacker on my back grabbed my wrist, I threw my elbow in a flailing effort that I accompanied with a full-body buck.
“Damn it, quit that!” the man snarled from behind me.
Pulling my knees up, I was halfway to turning, one hand free while the other twisted in the man’s unyielding grasp. That was when the hard sole of a shoe planted firmly against the side of my head. The woman above me leveraged her weight into grinding my skull against the ground. My teeth gritted through a wince.
“Hold still or I’ll put my footinyour face instead of on top of it.” The woman twisted her heel across the tender skin of my cheek.
Pressure built between my temples, making thought impossible. Between that and the threat of a kick that would shatter my teeth or break my nose, I was left with little choice but to allow them to bind my wrists.
When they hauled me to my feet, my legs were quivering. I stole another glance at Kit, who stood with a man holding each elbow and his face obscured by the bag. That final sight was not a comforting one as a sack dropped over my head and blacked out everything.
12
Kit
Strong hands gripped my shoulders as they steered me through a labyrinth of alleys, then hallways. Adding to the list of things that hurt after the tackle into the dirt, my captor failed to warn me about an upcoming step. I ran my shin into it and would have toppled completely if whoever held me hadn’t jerked me upright.
Up several stairs and down another short hall, we came to a stop. A rough thrust threw me forward, and I hissed a breath as my knees cracked against the wood floor. My fear that they would separate Penny and me was realized when there was no second set of footsteps behind me. Worry wound its way into the pit of my stomach at the thought of Penny enduring an interrogation without my guidance; I didn’t trust him not to give everything away at the first threat of harm.
Someone yanked the rough burlap sack off my head. It took my eyes a moment to focus on the man who sat a few feet in front of me, brandishing my Penny-menacing knife. His face was unfamiliar. I’d been gone a long time, but Ihoped that the names I remembered from all those years ago held some weight.
“How did you find us?” the man asked, looking me over with a critical eye.
“I grew up here,” I said. “I’m Vaughn Koesters’ son.”
The man scoffed and shook his head. “Vaughn Koesters didn’t have a son.”
That statement chilled me from the inside out. I had disowned him as my father, but the thought that he’d attempted—and perhaps succeeded—to erase my existence hurt.
My mouth went dry as I spoke again. “If you can just get Gulman Burns, he can vouch for me.”
The interrogator brushed his thumb across the knife’s sharpened edge, then aimed the tip toward me in an attempt to look intimidating. “Gulman’s been dead for nigh on ten years now,” he said, sounding bored, “so no chance of that.”
“Auren Gibson, then,” I tried. Sweat beaded at my hairline. “She knows me, too.”
The man turned the blade and used it to scrape a bit of dirt from beneath one fingernail. “Auren got herself arrested and executed seven years ago. Wherever you found your information, it’s a bit outdated.”
I tried not to let panic add to the nausea churning in my gut.
How long would we go on like this? And to what end?
“I’ve been gone thirteen years. Of course my information is out of date.” I failed to keep a growl from edging into my tone.
I worried again about Penny and the fear I’d heard in his voice when he called my name. I might be able to talk my way out of trouble, but he could just as easily talk his way into it. In my youth, I had not been privy to thecomings and goings of intruders, though there must have been some. However they were dealt with, it happened outside my notice. I knew one thing, though: the Bone Men always needed sacrifices, and they would gladly take them from any source.
“Harlan Volkur?” I sputtered another name, dredging the well of my memory.
