The Storm King(104)

“Be good boys now, don’t make him mad—”

“Yeah, probably.” Nate didn’t know why Mrs. Liffey’s voice seemed fixed at a whisper. The soundproofing suggested that it hadn’t always been this way. “Mrs. Liffey?” Nate addressed the woman directly for the first time. Her eyes blinked wildly, her lips tasting the air as if nibbling a fruit. The smell that rolled off her made Nate’s eyes water: rot layered with strata of sweat and waste. “Ma’am? How do we get out of here?”



“You don’t want to make him mad—”

“Mrs. Liffey’s left the building, bro.”

Nate didn’t know when the woman was supposed to have suffered her stroke. She’d probably never had a stroke in the first place. Owen might have been keeping her down here for years, trapped in a chair, doing God knows what to her. She was too heavy to move around on her own, and her mind didn’t seem to be in any better shape than her body.

“No luck with the cuffs, I guess?” Nate asked Pete.

“They don’t feel like much, but they’re real strong. I thought if I got some sweat in there they’d loosen up, but nothing.”

Nate yanked and hammered and pulled at the flex-cuffs but only tenderized the skin of his wrists. He tried to picture the ties. It was a single loop of plastic tucked into a locking mechanism to ensure a tight fit. He thought that if he could mess up the fastener, the band might loosen, but he couldn’t get the angles to work. He ran his hands up and down the cylindrical post searching for some edge to worry against the plastic.

“He’s going to kill us,” Pete said.

“No, he isn’t.” But the kid was right. If they were still here when Owen returned, they were as good as dead.

“You think he’ll burn us? Like the others?”

“No.” Nate thought of the silver annihilation of the lake and shivered. “Do you have anything in your pockets?”

“I’m worried about them,” Pete said. “My friends.”

“That’s why we’ve got to get out of here. Anything in your pockets? Keys, coins? Wouldn’t turn down a box cutter.” If Pete had something, Nate might be able to use his feet to drag it to himself by pulling at the plastic drop cloth beneath them.

“Keys are in my pocket, but I can’t get them.”



Nate watched the boy struggle and contort against the pipe he was tied to. Meanwhile, he continued working at his own cuffs. Pulling and releasing. Tensing then relaxing. Seconds or minutes ticked by. In their windowless basement, it was impossible to tell.

“I can’t get them.” Pete was out of breath. “You think he could really burn down the Night Ship? It’s such a big place. And it’s gotta be soaking out there, with the hurricane and everything?”

“Gas will make anything burn, and Owen knows the pier. He’ll probably set it inside.”

Nate thought that Owen would set the fire on the landward end of the pier, where the shops and cafés used to be, in order to block the kids’ escape down the boardwalk to shore.

“They could swim for it,” Pete said, uncertainly.

“Yeah, they could,” Nate said. But that was easier said than done. Out that far, the lake was treacherous, and Medea had it hammering against the pier’s pilings with more ferocity than usual. Just June, an expert Daybreaker, had braved the waters in a dry suit during a lull in the storm, but how would the uninitiated fare?

Nate was afraid it wouldn’t matter, anyway. Owen was massive and powerful. He didn’t need to rely on stealth and patience if he didn’t want to. If he wanted, he could fall among the children like a wolf among poultry. He could be as brutal as he chose to be in order to prevent their escape, then make his exit and wait for the fire to scorch away the evidence.

Perhaps the old place had already gone down with all hands, the vicious waters alight with its reflected flames. Within the basement’s soundproofed walls, they wouldn’t hear town sirens going off or fire trucks wailing through the streets. Pete’s friends might already be dead, and Owen could be on his way back here right now.

Nate slammed his cuffed hands against the pipe in a spasm of frustration. His fingers were tacky where they touched each other. A band of pain was seared around his left wrist. Struggling against his bindings must have torn his skin. The slickness of his blood gave his wrist more give within the plastic cuff, but not as much as he needed.



Mrs. Liffey’s shaking had settled. Her eyes drooped, not open but not closed, either. The rims of her inflamed sclera glistened like veined crescent moons. Her mouth was still in constant motion, but Nate could no longer make out the words.

It was difficult for Nate to gather strength from the awkward angles of his arms. If only his hands had been in front of him instead of behind. If they’d been square against the small of his back and not looped around a wide support post.

But Nate had always been able to find strength when he needed it. He thought of Grams in her hospital bed. He thought of Lucy. He imagined her eyes bulging in her final moments, her cheeks purpling under the weight of Owen. Nate dug for anger, but all he found was anguish.

Maybe today was the day the lake finally claimed what had slipped from its grasp so many years ago.

Next to him, Pete was sniffling. Tears cut shining streaks down his face. The boy wasn’t looking at Nate anymore. He wasn’t looking at anything. Pete would die, too. So would the children in the Night Ship. When Nate thought of them gathered there, James and Tara and all the others, he tried not to think about what they’d done, but who they were. Kids with families and futures. Kids like Livvy. Kids just like he and Lucy and Tom and Johnny had been.