“Good evening, gentlemen.”
The fog disappeared. The hairs on the back of Jayne’s neck stood on end, and his overtaxed heart collapsed.
That voice.
He knew that voice.
No.
No, no,no.
Fearful, Jayne opened his eyes and looked up at Everett in the hopes that he could silently beg him to run, but Everett’s attention was fixed on the newcomer, and he never saw.
Please go,Jayne thought as loudly as he could. His throat was glued shut—even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t speak.Go, go, go! For fuck’s sake, go!
Everett didn’t get the message. He stretched his neck, likely in an attempt to view the man who stood down the alley.
The one who’d come to collect Jayne.
“Uh, hi,” Caleb said uncertainly. “Do you need to get through or something?”
“No,” the voice said. It inflected upward in a cruel way, like Caleb’s question was simultaneously amusing and beneath him. “I noticed that you were trying to leave with something that doesn’t belong to you, so I came to ask oh-so-nicely if you would give it back.”
Under normal circumstances, Jayne would have turned around, faced the man, and jabbed a finger at his chest. Temper flaring, he would have put him in his place. People weren’t possessions, and Jayne wasn’t something to be owned.
But now?
Now, Jayne was too frightened to so much as make a squeak. The seawater, momentarily chased away by fear, rolled back in seismic waves and slammed Jayne from within. He couldn’t stand up for himself. Hell, at this point, he could barely stand at all. His sharp tongue would do nothing to defend him.
It was over.
“What?” Everett stepped around Jayne to join Caleb, leaving the way forward unobstructed. Jayne’s quadriceps twitched, but his legs refused to move. If he ran, he’d be pursued. If he didn’t…
“I’m talking about Jayne,” that voice said. It spoke his name like it was a disease, and the hatred in it struck Jayne as effectively as a slap to the cheek.
“You okay, buddy?” Caleb asked. “Is this some reality show setup? First mermaids, now some chick’s name? Listen, we’re not trying to steal your girl. We don’t even—”
“Don’t youfuckingplay games with me.” Poison dripping from the fangs of a viper weren’t as toxic as those words. If Jayne stayed, that poison would penetrate his skin and start to rot him from the inside out. Then, when he was weak, he would be preyed upon until no part of him was left—until his bones had been picked so clean, no one would know what had happened, and no one would believe him if he tried to explain.
It had almost happened once before, and it had almost cost him everything.
He couldn’t let it happen again.
Leaden feet and calcified knees wouldn’t stop him. A waterlogged mind and distorted vision wouldn’t hold him back. Jayne sucked in a breath, focused on the street in the distance, and bolted toward safety.
At least, he tried.
Reality betrayed him.
The street, once flat and predictable, had warped since Jayne had come to a stop. He staggered and stumbled over its deformities, limbs bowing as he struggled to keep his footing. Structures that had once made sense—walls, and streets, and distant buildings—lost their definition, then blurred into one shadowy mass that Jayne couldn’t make sense of. Air rushed around him, cold—so cold, and a moment later, he hit the rain-soaked asphalt.
There was no pain.
I’m not drunk,Jayne realized in one last moment of clarity as his eyelids drooped and he lost sensation to his extremities.I’ve been drugged.
There would be no more running. He’d done his best, but it hadn’t been enough. Even as Jayne drowned in the rising tides of his mind, the truth was inescapable—Bastian had won, and that meant the terror wasn’t over. It had only just begun.
3
