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Alderson’s phone was ringing.

Forty

Chris allowed himself to be led out of the house.

He was too exhausted and scared to resist. The old man guided him. He was holding Chris around the upper arm with a grip so hard he was sure the old man’s fingers would be leaving more bruises on his skin. His hands were still bound, and the gag remained in place, but he had been blindfolded now as well, and the claustrophobia from the multiple restraints was as bad as anything he had ever felt.

He had never been so afraid.

The old man gave him the slightest of shoves, and he stumbled a little. His legs and back were stiff from lying on the stone floor all night in that pitch-black room. He had not slept and, devoid of sensation, time had begun to lose meaning. Although he had been conditioned by the physical discomfort of sleeping on the streets over the years, last night had been worse than anything he’d experienced before. When you were sleeping rough, you were at least surrounded bysomething. But in that absolute darkness, it had started to feel like everything had been taken from him. As though he was nothing more than a small, forgotten memory at the back of someone’s skull.

But there was sensation to make up for that now.

When the old man led him outside, he felt a cool breeze on his face.His feet crunched across gravel of some kind. It was raining lightly. He breathed in as best he could, and even through the damp, dirty cloth of the gag the air tasted crisp and fresh. There were so many sudden reminders of being alive that his heart fluttered at the realization he would not be for long.

“Stop.”

Chris did as he was told. Although the blindfold was tied tightly around his head, a little light was making it through the fabric, the world reduced to ghostly gray impressions in front of him. He heard the sound of a car door opening, and one of those ghosts resolved itself into the shape of a vehicle. When the old man put his hand on Chris’s head, he understood what was required of him. He ducked down. Maneuvered himself awkwardly into the back seat.

The doorwhumpedshut beside him.

The creak of leather now. The stench of lemon air freshener. He couldn’t make out much through the blindfold, but he could sense a presence in the driver’s seat ahead, and he reached out tentatively with his bound hands and touched a screen of glass separating the front seats from the back. Then he withdrew them quickly as the other back door opened, and the old man clambered in beside him.

A few moments later, the engine started and the car began to move.

“Where are we going?” he tried to say.

“Be quiet.”

“Are we going to meet James?”

The old man laughed. Chris wasn’t sure if the man had understood him or was simply laughing at his attempts at speech. Either way, there was no humor in the sound, and the old man did not answer him. Chris supposed there was no need for him to. The old man wanted the book, which meant he must have convinced James he was prepared to exchange Chris for it.

The idea brought a fresh bloom of terror, one more vivid than any he had ever felt for himself. His whole life, the world had seemed to have been set against him, and a part of him had eventually hardened to thatand welcomed the moral freedom it offered. There had been occasions when he had not only accepted help when it was offered but taken it when it wasn’t. He had been selfish and thoughtless, putting his own needs above those of others. He had done things that made him more ashamed than he could bear.

And yet now all he felt was a desperate desire for James to be safe.

Don’t trust this man, Chris thought.Run.

But he knew that James wouldn’t do that. No more, had their situations been reversed, than he would have abandoned James.

So you’ll have to be ready, won’t you?

Yes, he thought.

I will.

Tensing his muscles slowly, trying not to attract attention, he tested the bindings around his wrists again. It might have been his imagination, but was there a little more give in them now than there had been during the night? Perhaps. Not enough though. He entertained himself with the fantasy of somehow getting his arms around the old man’s neck from behind and pulling with all his might. A knee in his back, and then see which gave first—the bindings or the man’s throat.

The old man laughed again, as though reading his mind.

Chris held on to the fantasy anyway.

But another thought was growing too. For as long as he could remember, there had been that voice in his head telling him he was worthless—that he deserved all the bad things that happened to him. Ever since Alan found him, the voice had become quieter, but he could hear it again now, growing in volume. Stronger than before. More confident. And while he didn’t understand half of what the old man had said to him last night, he knew this much: he didn’t deserve any of this.

You should never have been born.

He had always believed that, and once upon a time the voice would have listened to those words, nodded in agreement, and then repeated them back to him with glee.