“Jeremiah?” I asked, searching her tear-stained face. She nodded, biting on her lower lip. “How do you know that? Did you see something? Hear something? Did Kitten say something to you?”
She shook her head and her gaze went distant and cold. She said in the far-off voice she sometimes used, “I just know.”
I looked to Artemis, who tended to balance out my paranoia in times like these. “The timing of it makes sense,” she said.
“Kitten was quiet at the bonfire last night,” Macon said. “Seemed like something was bothering him, but he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“He told me Jeremiah creeped him out,” I admitted. And then I’d gone and got drunk with the creep, so drunk that if Kitten had been kidnapped in the middle of the night, I might not have realized it at all. Did Larry know something about this?
“Larry, come in,” I said over the radio.
“I’m here, Cipher.”
“We think Jeremiah took him.”
There was a long pause where I imagined Larry was considering it, or maybe he was only planning his response.
“That’s not possible,” Larry said at last. “I was with Jeremiah this morning. We had coffee and breakfast. Then I walked him to his rig and watched him leave from there.”
“Were you with him the entire night?” Maybe he’d waited for me to pass out and nabbed Kitten then. It would explain why his inhaler and radios had been left behind–Jeremiah wouldn’t have known to take them.
“No, but I’ve known Jeremiah his whole life. He’s not the sort of man who would steal from the Fellowship. Is it possible that your young man might have stowed away on his rig? Did you two have a fight?”
We had fought, but there was no way Kitten would do something so reckless, not without telling at least one of our crew.
“There’s no way he’d have gone willingly,” I said, certain of that at least. “Contact Jeremiah and find out if Kitten is with him.”
“Will do, but I don’t see how that’s–”
“Just do it. Now.” I turned down the volume on the radio because I had nothing else to say to him. “What do you think I should do?” I asked the others. Normally I’d create a perimeter around the site and track in a spiral aiming outwards, but I couldn’t afford to waste any precious time, especially if Kitten was with Jeremiah in a vehicle that went a hell of a lot faster than I could travel by foot.
“I’d follow those tire tracks,” Macon said. “Question the guy when you find him and if Kitten is with him…”
That part was easy.
“I’ll slit his fucking throat.”
SIXTEEN
KITTEN
Vibrations rumbledthrough my sluggish body, a sensation so foreign that I didn’t know what to make of it at first. A lawnmower? A generator? I tried to move my arms but my wrists were stuck together, and when I tried to twist them apart, they burned. I opened my heavy eyelids and tried to shift positions–I needed to pee–but something was holding my ankles together too.
Rope.
My wrists and ankles were bound. More restraints were strapped across my chest, a seat belt. I was in a car, no, something bigger. Jeremiah’s rig. I glanced over to find him at the wheel.
I started yelling–screaming–but I’d been gagged, so the sound came out muffled and choked. Besides, there was no one to hear me over the sound of the vehicle’s engine as it carved a crude path through the forest.
Jeremiah chuckled and his soulless gaze swung in my direction. “I was wondering when you’d wake up. Might have dosed you with a little too much juice. The tranquilizers are meant for Rabids, after all.” His casual grin made him look all the more terrifying. “Sleep good?”
I shook my head slowly. It was late in the morning if I had to guess. I was thirsty and hungry and I had to pee, but none of it mattered when compared to the fact that I was bound and gagged. Was I his prisoner? I twisted, trying to get away from him, but I couldn’t go very far, so I swung my legs around to donkey kick at him. Jeremiah pulled the gun from his holster and placed the muzzle of it against my temple. Cold and deadly like the man himself.
“Don’t start trouble now, Joshua. That won’t end well for you. If you settle down, I’ll take off the gag and we can have a conversation.”
I stilled in my seat, fighting the urge to cry, remembering to breathe. I was dressed in one of Cipher’s shirts and a pair of underwear, the same thing I’d worn to bed last night. The last thing I remembered was falling asleep in his arms. Jeremiah must have drugged me in the middle of the night and taken me from our bedroom. Did Cipher know? Did our friends?
I glanced out the window at Rabid Country. Jeremiah’s rig crushed every bit of underbrush as we lumbered along. How fast had he said that this thing could go? I couldn’t remember. But even Cipher wouldn’t be able to keep up with a vehicle like this for very long, which meant I was on my own. I stared at my captor, silently pleading, but for what, I didn’t know. Jeremiah reached over and yanked down the gag roughly.
