He doesn’t so much as blink, his face painted a palewhite. His lips tremble on the precipice of speaking, but he remains steadfast in silence as if he’s seen a ghost.
Click.
Bang!
Hot blood sprays my face as Other Guy’s body falls forward, landing with a thump against the floor. Behind him, a stranger steps into view with a gun aimed squarely at me.
Three men walk into a motel room.
The punchline?
None of them ever leave.
CHAPTER 14
SEVEN
Bang!
The walls of the bathroom seem to bend inward as the sound of a gunshot snaps me out of a daze. Hot water pelts my chest as steam obscures my view of the door, anxiously waiting for it to swing open. I consider all options, my mind racing to the thought of fleeing, but the square window in the shower is only about a foot wide.
I leave the shower running as I gently step out. Water drips from my body, coating the tile floor in shallow puddles. I hurry into a pair of black briefs, dig through the duffle bag on the counter, and grab the gun I used to kill Magnus.
The door clicks softly as I inch it open, peeking out into the room.
A familiar face stands in the doorway with his gun aimed at Noah. Just in front of him, Trent lies dead onthe floor, blood pooling around his head. My stomach churns, but I find a sense of grace in knowing Noah is alive. For now.
Pike is dressed in all black garb—tee, jeans, combat boots, and a baseball cap. He’s only five years older than me, but his face is battered and worn. Heavy smoking and alcohol use will do that to someone, even if that someone is supposed to be pure of worldly vices.
I lean back against the door, close my eyes, and try to steady my breathing. I’m no use to Noah if I’m dead before I can save him.
Pike is a no-nonsense, shoot-to-maim kind of guy. He’s a member of a group of cultists known informally as the enforcers—militia wannabes who are sent to extract defectors and runaways. When Magnus came for me almost a month ago, it wasn’t supposed to be him. It should have been Pike and his men.
It was easy for Magnus to find me because I was reckless. Spent five months on the road without a car, hitching from one place to the next but I never made it far. Now though, we are hundreds of miles from the compound. I have no online presence that can be tracked because I threw my phone into the water weeks ago.
Then I remember I called my sister from the phone in the room before Noah woke up, before we had left the motel for the firsttime. It makes absolutely no sense she would sell me out, but it’s the only explanation.
“I got money,” Noah says on the other side of the door. “You can take it all.”
“None of us are going to need that where we’re going,” Pike says.
I inhale sharply, feeling the way the air stutters down the back of my throat, like a coin being tossed into a well. I steady my nerves and rip the door open, aiming the gun directly at Pike.
“There’s the pretty boy,” Pike says as he swivels his aim to me. “You’re going to pay for what you did to Magnus.”
I step over a pile of clothing as I approach. The absurdity of the situation is not lost on me—a three person standoff and two of us are in our underwear. “You people are expending a lot of energy chasing down someone you all claimed to be a lost cause. Why am I so important to you?”
“Nobody else bothered to come looking for you because nobody cared you were gone. Except for Magnus. He has—had—a weird obsession with bringing you home. You weren’t important to the rest of us until you killed Magnus.”
“He tracked me down all right. Held me at gunpoint and forced me into his car, but he knew more than anyone that I’d do anything to avoid going back. He’d always been so self-righteous he couldn’t see the forest for the trees. I gave him every chance to letme go, but he wouldn’t break, so I shot him in the head.” I lean forward slightly. “And I’d do it again and again.” My finger dances on the trigger. “I’m giving you the same warning I gave him.”
“That song we used to sing when we were children? It wasn’t a nursery rhyme. It was a warning.” He clears his throat and begins to sing, “When all the crows cloud the skyway, and night falls down on men. They play a game with their lives, and if they run, they’re going to die. Hide and seek. Hide and seek.”
“You and me,” I interject, finishing the chorus in a speaking tone. “Forever and ever, these chains will set us free.”
Noah bats his eyes sideways. “Okay, so everyone is completely fucked in the head.”
“You’re not going to have a head if you say another word.” Pike laughs. “In fact, I’m going to kill you if your boyfriend doesn’t put down his gun.”
