Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake #4)(72)

The curtains—plaid, in rust and avocado-green patterns—are clamped shut on all the windows. Nobody can see in. I’m looking for escapes. Besides the entry door across from me—bolted shut from the inside, and fastened with a padlock—there’s a hatch in the floor that’s probably for maintenance, and one up above with a skylight over it. No exit in the back that I can see. But options, at least.

If I get loose, I intend to kill as many of them as I need to, hijack this piece of shit, and drive to the nearest place we can get real help. If I can’t manage that, I’ll get Connor out through one of the escape hatches before I go down fighting. It isn’t much, but at least he’ll have a chance to run. Hide. Find help.

It’s not the best plan. My headache is so strong it’s making my stomach boil, but I doubt they’re going to give me a bathroom break.

“Why do you want us?” Connor asks. He directs it straight at the man with the Taser. “What did we ever do to you?”

“Don’t worry. You’ll be home soon,” the man says. “My name is Caleb, by the way. The woman we’re after stole a baby. All we want is to find him and bring him home.” He treats Connor like an equal, not a captive. I get his contempt. For Connor, he busts out the warmth.

And Connor is listening. “Are you trying to find your baby?”

“No. He’s Father Tom’s son. That makes him my brother. So I want him back too.”

Jesus. He thinks Connor can be manipulated, I realize. I’d like to say the kid’s immune to that, but at this age? No. Connor’s dad played on his fears and his need to belong. Same thing cults do.

He’s vulnerable.

I can’t let this new asshole get a grip on Connor’s soul. So even though I know I’ll get punished for it, I say, “And when the babies are girls, how old are they when you marry them off to your prophet? How old do they have to be before he starts molesting them?”

That pisses Caleb right off, which is what I intend; he grabs the Taser. I see him fire it this time, and the bright pop as the electrodes hit me and start pulsing.

That’s pretty much all I see before the amps fire, and then I don’t see or feel anything but waves of mind-numbing agony as my muscles convulse. It stops for a second and I catch my breath, but then he presses the trigger again. More agony. I hear Connor yelling for him to stop. My lungs are pulsing, burning for air, but my muscles won’t unlock enough for me to fill them. I don’t think you can tase someone to death, but it feels like it.

Seems like a year until he finally runs out of juice, and the pulsing, paralyzing shocks stop coming. I gasp in a huge, whooping breath. My chains rattle from the force of the convulsions, and the metal around my wrists and ankles feels hot. Just being alive feels like a victory.

I can hear him pressing the trigger again. Nothing. He’s killed the battery. You son of a bitch. There’s a real sadistic streak in Caleb. And better I am its target than Connor.

“Leave him alone!” Connor shouts, and from the driver’s seat comes a sharp command for all of us to shut up or get gagged. I manage to nod to Connor. Give him a thumbs-up signal, even though I’m limp as a landed fish and twitching with reaction. I acknowledge the pain and focus on the man who was so quick on the trigger. He gets up, unlocks one of the cabinets with a key from his pocket, and takes out another Taser, which he shows me very pointedly before he walks back to his table.

We all go quiet. I close my eyes, because the aftereffect of being hit with a shock like that brings exhaustion; I slip almost imperceptibly into a doze for a while. No point in being hyperalert when I’m chained down and there’s nothing productive I can do. Air force pilots don’t just train on flying and fighting; we also get a serious dose of SERE education. I’ve already failed the Search and Evasion parts of that course, since I’m sitting here tied up, but the Resistance and Escape parts are definitely applicable. The cult isn’t likely to pull anything I haven’t seen and felt and experienced before, and been trained how to counter. Wasn’t fun to go through, but it’s paying off in an unexpected way now.

All I have to do is get us to the last E of that training: Escape. Future-state visualization is important in all this, and I need to start making that real not just for me, but for Connor too. I need to coach him through this and get us home safe.

Or, if that isn’t possible, at least get him home safe. Because that’s my job.

He calls me Dad, and I need to live up to that.

I snap back out of my doze. The rocking and bumping of the RV has changed to a smoother, accelerating pace. We’re on a real road, finally. It’s nearly dawn outside, from the light leaking around the curtains. Caleb’s stretched out in one of the bunks at the back. Complacent asshole.

I start methodically testing my restraints. Wherever we’re heading, we’re moving fast toward it. The U-bolt in the floor that I’m chained to is completely solid. So are the chains, of course. There’s enough slack that I can twist my wrists, winding the chain in on itself tighter and tighter. I’m hoping to find a weak spot in the links, or the manacles. I don’t. Connor’s watching me, and trying his own bonds. The captors are just a few feet away, and periodically the man sitting shotgun swivels around to look at me. He doesn’t seem worried that I’m testing the restraints, and he doesn’t bother to tell me to stop.