Durant’s mustache lifted again, the smile larger this time. “If the Messenger wants you to know, he’ll tell you.” He gestured with the pistol again. “Now, take off your clothes, all of them. Not a stitch remains. It’s the only way I’ll know you’re not carrying a tracker.”
“It’s forty degrees and raining.”
“Don’t worry,” Durant said. “We’ll get you wrapped up again in no time.”
Starting with his boots, Peter began to strip.
—
When he was fully naked, soaking wet, and already beginning to shiver in the swirling wind, the Bronco’s driver stepped out.
He was bulky and stiff in camouflage pants and hunting jacket that still held the creases from the packaging. He had a hungry smile onhis face and a Taser in his hand. He walked toward Peter, the smile widening. “Hold still, shithead. This is going to hurt.”
He aimed and pulled the trigger. The pinpoint prongs snaked out on their thin wires and hit Peter in the sternum, right below the purple bruise from the stopped bullet. His heart seized and he couldn’t breathe. His chest burned from the current, his entire body rigid as every muscle clenched in excruciating agony. The fact that he was naked and wet only increased the conductivity.
He rocked back on his heels, unable to maintain his balance. Right before he tipped like a felled tree, the current cut out. His heart stutter-started and his muscles released. Then his legs collapsed and he dropped to his knees on the asphalt. The whole thing had only taken five seconds but it felt like an eternity.
He was dimly aware of Durant holstering his pistol, then opening the back of the Bronco and returning with a heavy green canvas utility tarp. He shook out the fabric at Peter’s side. “This will warm you up,” he said.
Peter no longer needed to get warm. After the blast from the Taser, he was sweating profusely. The pain was fading but he knew he’d ache for days. He reached to remove the prongs, but the fat man triggered the Taser a second time.
Peter went rigid again, his chest on fire, his helpless heart clenched like a fist.
“You like that?” The fat man’s voice seemed distant. “Follow instructions or I’ll give you another. Or maybe just because I feel like it.”
“That’s enough, Troy,” Durant said. The voltage stopped. Peter fell forward, panting. The white static crackled into his brain, demanding that he react, fight or flight. But he knew he could do neither, not if he wanted Ellie and Carlotta to live.
“Mr. Ash, remove the electrodes and lie face-first on the tarp and cross your wrists behind your back.” Durant pulled a pair of handcuffsfrom his coat pocket. “I know what you’re capable of. I need to contain you. For the sake of the females.”
Peter did as he was told. His skin was on fire where the prongs had punctured. Durant knelt on his bare back and cuffed his wrists. “I told you to leave it alone, Mr. Ash. Now you pay the price. Where are the black-tips?”
“In the back of the truck.” Peter’s voice was a rasp.
Durant stood. “Your sidearm and your phone?”
“In the glove box.”
Durant nodded at Boxall, who popped the Tahoe’s hatch and carried the ammunition and the AK to the Bronco. He made a second trip and returned with Peter’s pistol, wallet, phone, and keys, which he handed to Durant.
Opening the wallet, Durant looked at the cash inside. “No way you came by this honestly.”
Peter choked out a laugh. “That’s funny, coming from you.”
Durant slid the cash into his own pocket, then threw everything else into the retention pond. “Is anybody waiting to follow us?”
“No.”
“If you’re lying, Boxall will take it out on the females. And he likes it.”
“I’m not lying.”
“We’ll see about that.” Durant took a step back and Boxall stepped in close and punched the Taser directly into Peter’s side. The pain drove all other thoughts from his head. When it was over, Durant and Boxall were pulling the tarp over him and rolling him up like a burrito.
When it was done, he could barely move. Was there enough air in this thing? At least the tarp was canvas rather than plastic. The claustrophobia closed in. He heard the sticky sound of tape coming off a roll as the canvas cinched tight above his head and below his feet.
Someone grunted and he felt himself rise into the air, then thump back down. He was in the back of the Bronco. The white static flashed like lightning in his brain, panic rising, blinding his mind. The Bronco lurched into motion and began to pick up speed. Frantic, hyperventilating, his chest in a vise, he managed to remember to hold his breath. He counted to eight, then released it slowly. Then another breath, deeper this time, another count of eight, followed by another long, slow release. Again, then again, and yet again. Breath by breath he settled into his mind again, not fighting the static. Allowing it to be.Hello, old friend. Stay cool.We can handle this.
This time, instead of calling up a mental picture of the sandy beach where he and June had walked not long ago, he pictured Ellie’s face when she talked with her mom about pizza at the motel, before everything went to hell. She looked calm and confident and safe. Even though he knew, right now, she was none of those things.
