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Rainy opened her eyes, looked at Ginger this time. Taured had pistol-whipped him pretty good. One side of his head was...dented. Along with the broken nose she’d given him, he was almost unrecognizable.

Nice way of saying it.Her mother’s voice in her head.

Rainy looked away quickly, the tears in her eyes fat but unfallen. “I don’t know what he wanted to do. I just did what he said.”

The idea that he was in some way affiliated with Taured and his cult had crossed her mind. At first, she’d wondered if he could be Frank, Sammy or Marshall. All those guys had been Taured’s henchmen, but they’d all lacked something she picked up right away in Ginger: he was smart, really smart. That wouldn’t have gone down well at the compound. Taured couldn’t keep smart men because they always eventually called him out. The women had been different: they stayed because they were in love with him, but it hadn’t mattered how smart they were because their feelings for him won out, even if they probably just had Stockholm syndrome. Ginger’s black hair had thrown her off, but then she remembered. It was when the lady at the Quick Mart had said that one of the two men who bought the syrup dyed his hair, had light roots underneath. The little boy who’d followed Taured around the compound until everyone made fun of him: he’d loved Taured, too. And Taured had used that love against him. He’d been training all the kids up to serve him, so possibly he thought of Ginger as the future Frank/Sammy/Marshall. And somewhere along the line his love for Taured started the rot that spread through the rest of him.

She felt the vomit piling up behind her throat. Turning her head to the left, she let it come, and she was sick across the floor. This kitchen was having an odd baptism. When she looked back at Taured, he seemed pleased. Of course he was: he fed on the emotions he caused. It didn’t matter how gross the outcome was. After another torturous minute of watching her, he dragged Ginger’s body into the walk-in freezer and kicked the door closed, dusting his hands.

“He hit her pretty good.” Rainy licked her lips, nodding toward Braithe. “Can you check on her?”

Taured nodded. He walked over to where Braithe sat, taking her in, before lowering himself to his haunches. She was no longer sitting up, alert; her legs were extended in front of her and her head was lolling again. He touched her neck and looked at Rainy. “She’s alive,” he said. Then, as he stood up, he said, “You care about her.”

“I do.”

“You offered yourself up to this to save her.”

“I suppose that’s what it looks like,” she said.

“No greater love than this, a man who gives up his life for his friend...” He looked down at Braithe for another few seconds, considering either her beauty or her value to Rainy—she didn’t know which—then he walked toward Rainy along the length of table that separated her from Braithe. When he was in front of Rainy, with his back to the freezer, he leaned against it, crossing his ankles.

“You were never transparent about what you cared about, except for your mother. It was all a mystery to me—what parts you were faking and what parts were real.”

Rainy thought back to the journaling he’d had them do, the way she’d always try to write things that would please him. And that’s what he was doing back then: brainwashing a bunch of kids into believing their life’s purpose was to please him. Pillaging their brains for information and then using it against them and their families.

“Ditto,” Rainy said. She wished he’d given her some of that water, too, but she was too proud to ask.

“Wonderful,” he said, throwing his hands up. “Let’s get to know each other again, then—what do you say?”

“I’d say it’s about time.”

Taured looked pleased with that. He surveyed Ginger’s array of food on the counter, his lips pursed.

“I’ll get us something better,” he said, bypassing the vegetables Ginger had so carefully lined up. “You want a steak, Summer? Who am I kidding, everyone likes a steak, right? Except maybe that guy.”

“Fine,” Rainy said. “A steak is great.” She wanted him to leave for a bit so she could think and gather herself. She knew he wasn’t going to just let her out of these cuffs. But that was stage two, and she wasn’t there yet.

She watched him wash his hands using the little bottle of detergent Ginger had brought, washing off Ginger’s blood with Ginger’s soap. She didn’t feel bad for him; the bastard intended to harm both her and Braithe.

Taured whistled while he scrubbed. Rainy didn’t recognize the tune, but it sounded like something sung at church. When he was done, he pulled off his shirt, making sure to face her as he did it. He was all muscle, tough like a bull. Even his neck had thick cords running through it, veins standing at attention. Dropping the bloody shirt on the floor, he turned away from Rainy; she saw the gun in the waistband of his pants, as she supposed he wanted her to.

She’d seen him shirtless only once, when she’d accidentally walked into the makeshift clinic for a Band-Aid. He’d been sitting on the examination table, kicking his feet like a kid. Rainy had been so alarmed that he was there she almost hadn’t noticed that he wasn’t wearing anything on top, and then when she did notice, she must have turned a shade of ultrasonic violet, because Taured had laughed.

“They’re just tattoos, Summa, Summa, Summatime...” And then he’d shown her each one, without getting off the table: animals exploding from leaves across his shoulder blades, and a snake draped across his chest, the tip of its tail touching his belly button. His arms were clean of tattoos, which, he explained, gave the world what they wanted: a respectable man.

“And I am themostrespectable man, Summer, wouldn’t you agree?”

It was then her job to say, “Yes, Taured.”

Even then, she’d wanted to laugh when Taured used the wordrespectableso generously on himself.

Then he was shrugging on another shirt, a tight, white undershirt he pulled from his pocket. He looked like a dick, she noted, not above being petty in this moment. He picked up the duct tape and walked over.

No, no, no—she needed to be able to talk to Braithe. He was gentle at least, spreading two layers over her mouth before backing away to look at his handiwork. She watched him walk over to Braithe and survey her. He kicked her leg.

“She’s out cold,” he said. “She won’t bother us tonight.” And then he left.

Rainy kicked at the air. Trying to make noise under the tape was exhausting and then the feeling that she was suffocating would creep in and she’d have to calm herself down. But it was only five—maybe ten—minutes after he left that Braithe began to stir.