Chapter 45
Little lies wove together to keep him sane.
The car eased around corners so smoothly, Kit’s limp body hardly moved.
Soft, cracked leather warmed against his cheek.
He ached from the effort of remaining still, but this would only work if his captor believed he’d been drugged asleep.
He didn’t dare open his eyes, in case the driver happened to glance back. Whoever the driver was.
That was a lie. Kit knew the driver. He just couldn’t let himself believe the truth, or his resolve would shatter. Little lies wove together to keep him sane.
The driver was a stranger. Kit was safe. His plan would work.
His lovers would find him.
Little lies—and the unused syringe tucked into Kit’s sleeve.
Archie hadn’t found it during his cursory pat-down.
The man was anxious. Sloppy. Gin on his breath.
Which was good, but Kit’s slapdash plan was already knocked askew.
He’d hoped Shiloh would have time to run away before Archie joined them.
He’d expected Archie to drive him away. But Archie just took Kit’s phone and gun, then hoisted him into the back seat of the car.
A minute had passed. Enough time for Kit to realize how fucked he was without his phone. Not enough time to change his mind and run. Then the driver’s door had opened. The car dipped with the man’s weight. Not Archie—the scent of gin and desperation was missing.
The door had closed. The car had growled the start of its steady, dreadful journey.
There were no words. No sound beyond the driver’s slow breathing and the car’s engine. No scent discernable from the blend of leather, takeout, and struggling pine air freshener.
Dad always wore different colognes, if he wore any. He didn’t want to be distinctive, he would say, which Kit never realized was strange.
The car slowed so gradually that stopping was hardly a change. Kit could just as well be hurtling along the highway at eighty miles an hour, except the engine coughed into silence. A garage door thundered down behind them. The driver’s door opened, and the seat squeaked.
Dad always drove with such careful expertise.
Except this was a stranger, Kit repeated. This was nobody. A figment of a person opened the back door. A hallucination rode the dusty garage air, and only imaginary fingertips brushed Kit’s cheek.
The stranger’s shuddering breath turned Kit’s stomach, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t real.
He could hide better. Disappear into himself until he felt nothing at all. But if he disappeared, he wouldn’t be able to fight. Instead, he struggled, painfully aware, to remain motionless.
Helpless.
Careful hands dragged Kit from the back seat. Skin and clothes sticking to the leather seats, Kit remained limp—except for his right hand, tucked into his sleeve, clutching the lifeline syringe.
Maybe now was the time. Before this stranger had a chance to do anything to him. Now, when the stranger bundled Kit’s limp body into his arms.
Except Kit couldn’t uncap the syringe safely from this angle. His right arm pressed against the stranger’s chest. He was likelier to stab himself instead of Laird—the stranger—this wasn’t the time. Whatever happened.
Despite Kit’s worst fears, the stranger carried him with almost clinical consideration. His hands remained under Kit’s knees and shoulders, without wandering out of bounds. Steady footsteps carried Kit inside, changing tone on tile, then carpet.
Maybe this really was a stranger. That thought wasn’t as reassuring as Kit expected. The arms looped around him felt unfamiliar. Too hard, too thin. Kit was a child the last time Laird Renaker carried him. The last time they hugged.
A door creaked. Fresh paint struck Kit’s nostrils. The stranger lowered Kit to a soft mattress, then straightened out his limbs. Kit fought not to tense at each unwelcome touch. His sweatshirt hid the disgust prickling up his skin, and the drugged syringe, still secure against his forearm.
Then the man spoke, shattering Kit’s delusion.
“It’s not the same, Kit,” Laird muttered. “Not the same.”
He touched Kit’s hair gently. Kit wanted to vomit. Five more seconds. He could endure five—now four—more seconds, and then he would break and flinch—
“I need to lock up,” Laird said, his voice unchanged after all these years. “You sleep here.”
His fingers left Kit’s hair, though the feel lingered like grease. Carpet-muffled footsteps retreated, then vanished. The door clicked closed.
Kit meant to wait twenty seconds. He lasted two seconds before springing from the mattress, eyes flashing open.
That was a mistake. His surroundings hammered a fresh bolt of nausea into his guts. Crouched trembling on the bed, Kit forced himself to look.
A misshapen replica of his childhood bedroom enclosed him. The walls were painted the same eggshell blue, but the wrong dimensions. Too narrow. The curtains were the same blue and green plaid, scrunched over too-small windows.
All the furniture was identical, right down to the scuffs on the red-painted bedposts. Kit reeled. Laird must have transported everything here. The shelves and toys and posters crowded claustrophobically in the smaller space.
After the first crushing wave of recognition, more incongruities stuck out.
Kit was fourteen when he found the photos that destroyed his childhood.
He hadn’t had this teddy bear at the foot of his bed by then.
He hadn’t had those wooden train tracks on the little table.
He’d broken that one silver engine years ago, but it was fixed or replaced now.
The room was a distorted blend of Kit’s childhood years. Kit trembled beneath the memories.
He was five when he played with the teddy bear. That was when Laird strangled another five-year-old, squeezing a collar of black bruises around the boy’s small neck.
Kit was eight when he last played with the trains. Laird killed three eight-year-olds that Kit knew of, each violated more brutally than the last.
Still no noise from outside the room. Laird must trust the sedative enough to leave Kit unbound.
Clutching the syringe beneath his sleeve, Kit slipped from the bed.
All the effort of remodeling the room and the door still creaked, so he should have warning before Laird returned.
Time to check for emergency escape routes.
Except twitching aside the curtains revealed not windows, but freshly laid bricks. This was a prison, not a nursery.
Kit swayed. His gaze darted to the corners—
Where camera lenses gleamed.
Too late. Kit was trapped. His every movement was recorded. The swing of his legs leaving the bed. The trembling of his hand pulling the curtain.
The shallowing of his breath as he met the cameras’ eyes.
Laird didn’t even need to touch Kit to violate him.
A disembodied voice spoke from every corner at once. “You were always terrible at pretending to sleep.”
“You don’t know me anymore,” Kit said, voice cold and far stronger than he felt. “Let me out.”
Laird chuckled. “The door isn’t locked.”
Kit hadn’t even considered the door.
But Laird was probably lying. If Kit raced to the door, he would scrabble desperately at the locked handle. Laird would laugh again, the sound sliding beneath the collar of Kit’s shirt.
Or worse. The door would open. And Laird would be right there, waiting.
This was all Kit’s fault. He wished for a brief selfish instant that he was safe at home, his real home, and Shiloh was here instead. That was just a defensive reflex, though. Not a real wish.
Hopefully Bishop, James, Darius, and Holden would understand.
Legs weak, Kit stumbled across the room. He sat on the edge of the bed, because if he stayed upright a moment longer, he would fall. His mind already spun, untethered.
Something dug into his palm. The syringe cap. Kit anchored himself around the hidden needle. He still had a chance. The plan wasn’t ruined yet, if he could just keep it together.
“Are you done acting up?” Laird asked through the speakers. “Good.”
The door opened. Kit’s gaze lifted involuntarily to meet his father’s eyes. For the first time in five years, there were no screens or panes of dark glass between them.
Any trace of laughter was gone. Sadness deepened the lines of Laird’s face. He looked ten years older, not five. Details sharpened. Paint stained his torn jeans. The long-sleeved t-shirt hung loose on his shoulders. Something weighed down his pocket. A phone or a knife.
Thinner, eyes shadowed, stubble more gray than dark. Kit expected to face Laird’s obsession. The burn of sickening desire. Or worse, comforting familiarity. No discernable changes from the architect of Kit’s happy childhood.
Instead, Laird looked disappointed.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” Laird said, approaching. The door remained casually, carelessly open.
Kit flicked the cap off the needle. “That should be my line,” he said, and lunged forward.
Laird side-stepped to block the door first. That was the only reason Kit had a chance. He slammed into Laird, left hand snatching Laird’s shirtfront, right hand punching the syringe into Laird’s upper arm.
He pressed down.
Pain burst along Kit’s cheekbone. The backhand knocked him to the floor. Barely feeling the fall, Kit jumped up. Or tried to. Dizziness dragged him back onto his ass.
The syringe fell to the carpet next to him. Still half full.
Laird’s breath sang harshly. “Little Shiloh was more rebellious than I thought.” Laird braced a booted foot over the syringe. Crunched down with all his weight. “I should have just fucked him to death. But what else would have lured you out?”
Kit scrambled backward, dizzy with cold nausea. Fuck. Fuck. The sedative was measured for Kit. Half a dose wouldn’t knock Laird out. It might slow him down.
Or it might just piss him off and strip away any last inhibition.
“I raised you too smart,” Laid said, swaying in place. “You did what nobody else could, caging the Viper.”
Taking the credit for his own downfall. Fucking typical. How did Kit never see Laird’s arrogance growing up?
Because he’d known nothing else.
“I could have lived with that,” Laird continued. “I was getting out in three years. I still had resources. But then you fucked that up too.” Laird crouched a foot away. “You disappeared. When I found you again, you were letting all those thugs ruin you.”
Kit’s back hit the side of the bed. There wasn’t anywhere else to run. “You ruined me,” Kit whispered. “They helped fix me.”
“I should have finished you years ago.” Laird’s eyes unfocused. Resharpened. Sweat beaded his temples. “I kept waiting for the perfect moment. You grew more beautiful every year. The very best of me.”
“And Mom,” Kit said, faintly grasping for any distraction. Any delay. “She didn’t run away, did she?”
“Of course she ran.” Laughing raggedly, Laird lurched to his feet. He towered. “That’s why I had to kill her.”
Kit hadn’t expected that to hurt. He’d known it for so long. But dragging things into the light was blindingly painful.
“You were so sweet,” Laird continued, starting to slur with the half-dose of sedative.
“So innocent. That’s why I kept waiting.
I wanted so badly to twist your tiny throat.
But I waited too long. My sweet little boy is dead.
” Laird reached for his pocket. A knife flicked open, bright as hatred.
“I can’t bear to see you like this, Christopher. ”
A final fight flashed through Kit’s imagination. Jumping for the knife hand. Knocking Laird off balance. Racing for the door, hoping the half-dose of an aesthetic was enough to slow Laird down. Searching the rest of this unknown building for a weapon. Preferably a gun.
But he was too dizzy. Too spent. He couldn’t face another failure, so he closed his eyes.
Then the wall exploded.