This evil cop could be taking them anywhere. To another town, to a city, or just to a field where this monster could shoot them and bury them in plowed dirt so that wheat would grow from their bodies.
He hiccuped a little at the thought, but then his mom groaned, and he was so thankful she wasn’t dead that he began to cry in earnest, tears falling freely down his cheeks because he couldn’t reach them. She rolled her head back and forth for a second, but that was her only movement even after he watched her for long minutes.
Everett decided his only strength at this point was observation, so he blinked the grief from his eyes and read each sign that came up, each mile marker. They hadn’t driven far when they got off the highway and turned left again.
“Where are we going?” he forced himself to ask, but he got no answer except a raspy sigh from his mom, who seemed to be struggling to sit up again.
They weren’t far out of town, but out here there was nothing but farm roads, paved and unpaved, no real landmarks. He felt thankful that they stuck to the paved streets, because the isolation of a dirt road would be too terrifying in this situation.
When they turned left one more time, a strange stir of interest bloomed inside Everett’s brain. He squinted, studying every structure he could see. A farmhouse on one side. A bigger farm with a cattle pen on another. A group of huge cottonwoods near a drainage ditch. And far up the road, getting larger every second, stood a group of three houses.
A chill bloomed over the back of his neck and raced down his spine.
Despite all his careful research and investigation, despite his many suspicions, Everett had been wrong about everything and everyone. Because this monster wasn’t taking them to some random spot in the country.
He was delivering them straight to Alex Bennick, and that suddenly seemed like the scariest possibility of all.
CHAPTER 35
The side of her head burned, and a deeper pain throbbed there with every beat of her heart. A concussion surely, because she could barely force her eyes open, and the world spun around her.
Or perhaps the world was flying by, greens and browns and blues sliding past. Yes. She was in a vehicle. She was with . . .
Lily cut her eyes hard to the side, and she saw him. Him. The man who’d put terror in Everett’s eyes. It all rushed back, and she clamped her teeth hard to hold back the nausea that rolled over her. She tasted metal and pain and sour blood. Her heart fluttered at the sight of the oozing wound on Mendelson’s cheek. She’d marked him. She’d hurt him.
But where were they?
She didn’t think her head was injured badly, more of a goose egg than a skull fracture, but combined with the pain in her temple, she felt caught in a vise. Still, she forced herself to twist around and look for Everett. The sight of him stabbed her with relief and horror. He looked sickly white and shocked, but he met her eyes and even tried to smile for her. His attempt choked her with a wave of painful love.
She tried to raise a hand to her head, but of course her hands were cuffed behind her, so she only made her ribs twinge with sharp pain.
There had to be a way out of this.
Wherever they were going, Mendelson would get out of the car before her. He’d take the key with him, so even if her hands were free, she couldn’t drive away, but he’d have to open her door for her at least. Maybe she could kick it into him. Or she could throw herself at him, give Everett enough time to flee.
But where would he run out here in the middle of cow pastures and turned fields of dirt? There was nowhere to hide.
Except that when the vehicle began to slow, they weren’t in the middle of nowhere. Instead he turned onto a short drive that sprouted off in three directions to three houses. Everett would only need to make it to one of those.
She tensed, drawing her body up from its woozy sprawl. She could do this. She didn’t need her arms. She would launch herself at him and bite him again, tear his nose off this time, fill his throat with blood, and Everett could run, run, run.
Elation spread its wings inside her for a moment. She could see it happening. Feel herself fly through the air. Taste the flood of his blood as his flesh gave way beneath her teeth. She could even hear the slapping of her son’s shoes against the drive, then the whoosh of his steps sinking into the dried lawn of the house next door.
Then the home they were driving toward opened like a mouth, the garage door rising to swallow them, and her hope dissolved and sank to the ground to soak uselessly into dirt.
“This is Alex’s house,” Everett whispered from the back seat.
“What?” she rasped.