23

“Mr. Hokes,” said Fiona, reaching out a hand, “put that down.”

“I knew it,” repeated Edgar Hokes, pointing the tire iron at Peter. “I knew you’d be back, you little shit.”

Peter looked from Edgar to Fiona, face twisted in outrage. “Is this why you followed me?” he whispered. “Is this your big plan all along? Finish what your father started?”

“I swear, I have no idea how he got here—”

Peter stormed away from her, heading to his desk. She scrambled after him.

“Please, Peter, you’ve got to believe me! I had nothing to do with this!”

“Get over here, buddy!” shouted Edgar Hokes, his face reddening as he stormed toward them. “You think we were joking when we told you what would happen if you came back to my town? This is long overdue.”

Fiona turned and ran to Edgar, hoping to keep herself between the two men before things went entirely ass-up. “Mr. Hokes, stop it, okay? You need to put that tire iron down and just listen—”

Edgar grabbed a handful of her hair, and she cried out as hot needles stabbed into her scalp. He wrenched her head back hard enough that her knees buckled beneath her, and she hung from his grip. Through the pain, she recognized that she’d always known Edgar had this in him, but seeing it—feeling it tearing her hair out at the roots—was horrifying. What was about to happen?

“You just wait, skank,” spat Edgar, staring down at her with a look of triumph on his flat face. “Your father believed you, my Calvin believed you, but you didn’t fool me for a goddamned second. I knew you were trouble on two legs. When I’m done with your boyfriend, I’m going to teach you some manners and make sure your father knows exactly what kind of daughter he rais—”

Sound hit them both like an uppercut.

Edgar let go of Fiona with a shout, and they both slapped their hands to their ears. The tire iron tumbled to the floor, but Fiona couldn’t hear its clatter over the noise. Music, tangible in its volume, throttled the room. Every speaker in the loft unleashed a flood of sonic power.

Peter stood at his turntable, watching the master copy spin. Though the whole room shook in Fiona’s vision, he stayed perfectly still.

For Fiona, covering her ears helped, though she could still feel the vibrations deep in her marrow. But Edgar wasn’t used to Peter’s music and wasn’t so lucky—he stumbled to his knees, his eyes and teeth clenched tight. Foam dotted his lips, and the veins in his temples swelled until they looked like fingers under his skin. Finally, he lurched forward, his hands falling away to reveal trickles of red coming out of each ear.

All at once, the music stopped. Peter returned his record to its sleeve and walked calmly over to them. In him, Fiona saw no signs of the person who’d held her and kissed her. The cracks in his persona were sealed, and the brightness in his eyes wasn’t the possibility of tears, only hardened mania.

Peter was gone.

The Pit Viper squatted down in front of Edgar Hokes and peered at him as one would at an insect in a glass case.

“You know,” he said in a soft voice, “even though three men beat me that night, I always remembered you as the mean one.” Then he stood up straight and walked over to Fiona. After silently observing her, he exhaled slowly and carefully. “I’d tell you to leave, but I know I don’t have to,” he said. “It’s what you do.” And then he turned his back on her.

…

She lifted Edgar Hokes the same way she’d lifted Horace that night in the city, with one arm over her shoulders. But the older man weighed at least a Horace and a half, and by the time she’d lugged him down the stairs and piled him into his car, her collar was damp with sweat.

Fiona drove the Hokes family SUV carefully, riding the brake. She had her license and wasn’t terrible behind the wheel—she’d grown up in a small town, driving lessons had been a social necessity, even if she spent every cent she ever earned on a guitar instead of a car—but she found driving while sobbing difficult, and the last thing she needed was for the cops to pull over an ordinary speeder and discover a weeping unlicensed teenager with a bleeding, incoherent man in the passenger seat. The highway was terrifying, but Edgar’s GPS saved her life and got her back to Hamm in one piece. The entire drive, Hokes just moaned and rolled his head back and forth in the seat next to her. Once again, she was reminded of Horace tripping his face off, mumbling his stoned visions into her ear on the train.

Obviously, Peter had grown stronger since then. Horace had only had his mind blown by the power the DJ had wielded, and he’d been under chemical suggestion. Edgar Hokes might have had his eardrums ruptured.

By the time she finally reached the Hokeses’ house, Edgar’s hair had turned white. She gagged and reared back, repulsed by the sight of it. She left the car in the driveway, rang the doorbell, and ran through the backyards of town.

…

A few yards away from her family’s house, the weight of it all slammed into her, and she put her hands on her knees, caught her breath, and wept.

She’d lost him. She knew that. For a moment, they had been unstoppable, beautiful and mysterious and actually learning to love someone like each other—and just like that, her father was right, and everything else was dead. Peter, the person she’d come to know and believe in, was gone, leaving only the snake from his album cover behind.

Even if he didn’t feel betrayed by her, what she’d overheard in that hovel in the city meant she couldn’t trust him. Fiona would get a way out, but Udo demanded a tribute. More than half female to male, always good. Kidnapping her friends and avenging himself on the people she loved had always been Peter’s plan. She was just an unexpected bonus, and now he considered her nothing more than another busted amp in his graveyard, an emotional conduit that proved it couldn’t follow through on what he asked of it.

That wasn’t the Peter she’d known. Or worse, it was, and she’d overlooked it because of how he’d made her feel. In reality, it didn’t matter anymore. She’d had the crushing truth shown to her in no uncertain terms. If she ignored it, she was looking the other way willingly. If she accepted it, the world broke her heart yet again.

Once she got back to her silent, miserable house, she sat on her bed and wondered what she was going to do. Maybe her classmates had seemed pathetic and weak to her, just like Peter had said they were, but they didn’t deserve this. It wasn’t their fault that the Hamm town council had called in some mercenary to deal with their problems, or that her father and two other men had robbed all of Hamm to keep the money out of his hands. They didn’t even realize they were being affected by his music; for all they knew, they’d just found an incredible new album, a modern classic. Peter’s vengeance was going on over their heads.

Originally, the idea of being elevated above her classmates had made Fiona feel special, but now that she saw what was at stake, she just wanted to be one of them again. She wanted to keep the people around her from getting hurt.

And Peter…

She hugged herself tightly and shook her head to no one in particular. She wasn’t sure how she would deal with him, but he had to be stopped. If the look in his eyes when Edgar Hokes appeared was to be believed, he was too powerful and too angry to be left alone with the hopes that he’d go back on his plan.

She needed to do something. But what? Who could she turn to? Who would believe her insane story, or understand her without judging her?

There were two rings, and then a belch of double bass drums and guttural screams filled the line. It quieted quickly, and a voice said, “Hello?”

“Filip, it’s Fiona,” she said.

“Finally,” said Filip. “What up, Jones, what’d you find out?”

“We need to stop him,” she said.