Page 26

Thomas woke to find the bed beside him empty.

It was still dark—early dawn, the garage black as midnight. Vivienne was gone. Outside, in the living room, the television was quiet. There was a terrible stillness in the house that left him cold. He knifed upright, his heart pounding. In the dark, Molly rose with him. Someone had let her in. Which meant someone had crept out. Panic gripped him. Sensing it, Molly let out a wolverine snarl. The sound woke up Judd, who glanced toward the door with a whine.

Something was wrong.

He climbed out of bed, fumbling hurriedly into his pants. After a quick but futile search for his T-shirt, he fished a new one out of the dresser and shoved out into the hall, leaving the dogs shut firmly in his room.

Out in the living room, he was met with shambles. Several photographs had been knocked off the walls. Frames lay broken upon the floor, glass scattered like starlight across the hardwood. His sister knelt on the floor, sweeping the glass into a dustpan.

He pulled his shirt over his head and sank to the floor in front of her. “Tess, you okay?”

“I’ve been better.” Her voice shook. She tried to smile and failed. “But I’m starting to think maybe you haven’t been working as a stripper this summer. Is it the Mafia? Th-the CIA?”

“Tessa.”

But Tessa’s nervous energy had always spurred her into speaking too much, and all at once. It was one of the reasons he’d moved into his own room. “Is it the men in black? Is Vivienne from Roswell? Area Fifty-One? Did you just hook up with a space alien? You weren’t very quiet.”

“Where is she?” Thomas asked.

“They took her,” said Tessa, rambling again. “She came out to get water. I was still awake. I ate your cupcake. I ate all the cupcakes, actually. I had a stomachache, so I was watching a movie. We were—we were talking when they came in. There were five of them, all in suits.”

“Fuck.” Thomas launched to his feet.

“I’m sorry,” said Tessa. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do.”

“It’s okay,” Thomas assured his sister. “You couldn’t have done anything.”

The front door had been left wide open. Outside, he could just see the first twinges of dawn. A car engine turned over, sputtering to life. In the garage, the dogs began barking without end. He raced into the dark of his yard, leaping over the garden beds, the perennials his mother had once so lovingly planted now overgrown with weeds. Landing on the front walk, he edged barefoot along the bricks, making his way toward the concrete retaining wall that led down to the driveway.

Parked behind his truck was a single van. White. Unmarked. Beside it stood Vivienne, dressed in his T-shirt, her wrists bound, her mouth muzzled with a ball gag. At the sight of him, her eyes went wide.

He broke into a run, so determined to get to her he didn’t even see the assailants waiting there in the dark until he slammed directly into them. They restrained him easily, shoving him back another step each time he heaved against them.

“Get your hands off of me,” he snapped.

“All in good time,” said the man to his left. “Let’s see her off first.”

He was forced to watch as a bag was lowered over Vivienne’s head and she was carted away, loaded hurriedly into the van by two identical men in suits. Thomas swore, shoving against his captors.

“Let go of me! Vivienne! ”

Behind him, there came a voice that made his knees nearly give out. The very last voice he wanted to hear, small and sleep addled. “What’s going on out here?”

“Who is that?” snarled the man to his right.

“It’s my mom ,” spat Thomas, still struggling to work himself free. “Calm down.”

“Get rid of her,” said the man to his left. “Or we will.”

He was shoved back a step, his arms blessedly freed. Keeping one eye on the van, as he moved around the rhododendrons and headed back up the walk toward the house.

There stood his mother, her robe loose on her brittle frame, her skin ghostly in moonlight. She looked both one hundred years old and eternally young—the exact way his memory had cemented her. Tess skidded out the door a half step behind, her eyes wide and apologetic.

“Tommy?” His mother blinked down at him, surprised, her hand shaping into a T over her heart. “I didn’t know you were home. What happened? I felt a crash.”

“Everything is fine,” he said, rushing through his signs. “I’m sorry we woke you.”

She took him in through pale, sharp eyes. Eyes she’d given him. Eyes that missed nothing.

“You’re in trouble,” she guessed. Thumb tucked. Fingers closing. He knew that sign too well. Trouble, trouble, trouble. Thomas Walsh was always in some sort of trouble. He didn’t want that to be what he was to her anymore—a mess to clean up after, when he knew she was too tired for messes.

“I’m fine,” he said, lying through his teeth. Lying with his hands. “Go back inside, Mom. You shouldn’t be up.”

Over her shoulder, Tess was glancing between Thomas and the van, partially obscured by the wild tangle of bushes out front. He gave his sister a look that he hoped conveyed his desperation.

You owe me , she mouthed, picking up on it at once.

“It’s just some of his idiot friends,” she said, stepping into their mother’s field of vision, her fingers already weaving together their falsehood. “They’re surprising him for his birthday. I told them the neighbors are going to call the cops if they’re any louder.”

His mother’s eyes flicked from Tess to him. Too long. Too long. Every time he blinked, he saw Vivienne with the bag over her head. Vivienne tripping into the van, her feet kicking for purchase.

Some of the tension went out of his mother’s shoulders. “Keep it down, okay?”

“Okay, Mom,” he said. “I will. I’m sorry. I love you.”

Her smile was warm. Her illness had robbed her of so much, but her smile stayed the same. Photograph perfect. The most consistent point in his swirling universe. “I’m glad you’re home,” she said. “We saved you a cupcake.”

His heart was going to tear in two. “Okay. Thanks.”

“Be safe.”

And then she was gone. Tess pulled the door shut behind them, firing off one last wide-eyed glance in Thomas’s direction. In the garage, the dogs bayed like wolves. He turned, ready to fight, and found a solitary man standing there. A man he recognized. He’d seen him just the other day, arguing with Philip Farrow in the churchyard.

“There’s no need to lie to your mother,” said Christian Price, with surprising gentleness. “Go back into your house.”

“Not without Vivienne.”

“Vivienne Farrow has been promised to the House.” Christian Price’s eyes glittered in the dark. “Fate has a sense of humor, it seems. I’ve been searching for her for a long time. I had no idea she was right under my nose all these years.”

“You’re the chairman,” Thomas said, understanding knocking into him.

Christian Price smiled. “I’ve heard some of the pledges like to call me that, yes. It’s all a game to them. A drawn out, real world campaign.”

“I don’t care what it is,” said Thomas. “You can’t have her.”

Christian’s smile was not unkind. There was sympathy in it, tucked in the razor-sharp corners of his mouth. “Your dedication to Vivienne is admirable. I’m told you’ve acted valiantly. You managed to outmaneuver my men back in Connecticut. It took them hours to track you down. It’s impressive. I truly mean that. But this is the end of the road.”

He turned without another word, shoes clicking along the weed-throttled brick. On the horizon, the first pinpricks of sunlight had begun to bleed through the trees. A hazy dawn, creeping into the black night. Panic clawed at Thomas’s throat.

“She’s your daughter,” he said. “Isn’t she?”

Christian Price faltered to a stop. He didn’t turn around, but Thomas could see the tight line of his shoulders limned in the burgeoning sunlight. Emboldened, he continued.

“I just find it interesting,” Thomas said, “that’s all.”

“What’s that?” The question came out sharp, some of his earlier warmth evaporating.

“Just that you have two children, and both of them are subjects of interest in the House of Hades.”

There followed a pause, chilly and absolute.

“Three,” Christian Price corrected him. “I had three children.”

He presented it as fact, no measure of grief in it at all. This time, when he walked away, Thomas chased after him.

“I’ll tell Philip Farrow everything,” he said. “I’ll tell him it was you who took her. I’ve worked for him long enough to know he has no issues retaliating when he feels like he’s been crossed. If you take his stepdaughter, what do you think he’ll do to your son?”

“Both of my sons are dead,” said Christian coldly.

“Not Colton,” said Thomas. “Not yet. But he will be.”

“That,” said Christian Price, turning to face Thomas in full, “is a very dangerous thing to say. I’m not sure you want me to call that bluff. From what I’m told, C. J. is a friend yours.”

“He’d understand,” said Thomas. “He’d do the same.”

Christian studied him for a long time. Long enough for the sky to grow lighter. Finally, he asked, “What is it you want?”

“Take me with you.”

A smile formed, slow and sharp. “Are you sure that’s wise? Throwing yourself unsolicited into the viper’s den? The House is exacting in what it takes from its guests. If you enter, there’s a chance you may never leave.”

“I don’t care,” said Thomas. “I made a promise.”

Christian Price regarded him carefully. He looked startlingly like his son this way, with the hard lines of his face pooled in shadow. But there were hints of Vivienne, too. The first shoots of early-morning light carved little wedges of amber in his eyes.

“On second thought,” he said, “I may have use for you. Bind him.”

He was shoved to his knees, his arms wrenched behind his back. The slow-blooming dawn went suddenly dark as a bag was pulled over his head. Forced back onto his feet, he was shoved—barefoot and stumbling—into the back of the van. The door slammed shut. The engine turned over. With a bump, it backed out into the cracked asphalt of his street. Gears shifted. The van lurched forward, taking a hard left.

He hadn’t expected the sudden assault to his senses. He hadn’t been thinking at all. In the suffocating dark, the walls began to shut up around him. His heart pounded like a hammer against an anvil, the sound pulsing through him in great, heavy clangs. He swallowed big bellyfuls of air and tasted his own breath, sour with sleep. He was eight years old, his father driving with a road-rage speed that left him tumbling into the trunk’s carpeted corners. Scraping at the hatch like a corpse in a coffin. He shut his eyes, clawing at a calm he couldn’t find.

Vivienne , he thought, clinging to her name like a lifeline. Where is Vivienne?

As if in reply, he heard the frantic sound of rustling somewhere nearby. There was a beat of terrible stillness. And then a foot collided hard into his jaw. Pain drove out panic with searing immediacy.

“Christ!” He rolled onto his side, stars popping behind his eyes. “Vivienne, it’s me. It’s Tommy.”

Her heel struck out again, this time without fury. Feeling him out, it landed against his chest and stayed there, small and arched. He wondered if she could feel his heart thudding against the heel of her foot.

“Fuck, that hurt.” He flexed his jaw, feeling it crack. “Are you okay?”

It was a stupid question. He swallowed a serrated breath. Another. Another. Gulping them down in a desperate attempt to convince himself he could breathe. In the dark, he could sense Vivienne listening to him and knew she heard him struggling for air.

“Thanks for not kicking me again,” he said, striving for humor he didn’t feel. His delivery was all off. His voice came out garroted. “Any harder, I’d be drinking through a straw.”

Her only response was to kick him again, though it was softer this time. Angry instead of afraid.

“Hey!”

She didn’t stop, leveling another kick directly to his abdomen. The next, he anticipated, rolling sideways just far enough for her to miss him. He felt the furious woosh of her heel as it went sailing past his head. The van took a sharp turn and they were jostled one into the other. He shifted his weight, somehow managing to catch her on his chest.

“I get it,” he said. “You’ve made your point.”

He tucked his chin over her head, wishing his wrists were unbound so he could reach for her. They lay like that for a while, listening to the rumble of the engine. Eventually, the warmth of her settled his racing heart. His breathing steadied.

“Did you really think I’d let you do this alone?” he finally asked, his voice muffled by the bag. “You know better.”

···

They drove for hours. Two, maybe three. It was difficult to tell in the dark, the air stale and sour beneath his covering. By the time the van drew to a stop, the feeling had gone out of his wrists. Vivienne was asleep on his chest, dozing fitfully.

“Hey,” he whispered. “Baby, wake up. I think we’re here.”

She stirred against him, slow at first, and then all at once, lurching awake like a rabbit.

“I’m going to get us out of this,” he promised just as the door rattled open.

The bright yellow of the sun poked through the grains in his hood. Before he could protest, bargain, cajole, Vivienne was hefted unceremoniously away from him. He was dragged out of the car just a few seconds later and shoved onto his feet. Numb and reeling, he swayed where he stood, pins and needles running down his legs. Somewhere nearby, he heard the discernible sounds of a struggle.

“Where are you taking her?” he demanded, exploding forward in a blind charge. A set of hands dragged him back, restraining him with ironclad grips. “Where are you— Vivienne! Vivienne! ”

“Shut him up,” ordered Christian Price, his voice cool and dark.

Starlight exploded behind his eyes. His knees hit gravel, skin splitting open. His head gave a single violent pulse. And then there was only dark.