3. Five Months

Blink and it will pass you by. This place, a town always in the shadows, an address no one pays any attention to.

It’s close to midnight, and I sit on my motorcycle, looking at the sleeping buildings and feeling the stillness. I’ve been back for just over twenty-four hours and everything feels the same. Bleak and cold and lifeless. Not just this town, but me.

I rub my chilled hands together. The only sign of life I got today was a text from an unknown number. It said to be downtown at midnight.

Lots of people could have sent me that text. I’m hoping that my mom sent it, but I’m afraid that it belongs to the people who have her.

If she’s even still alive.

I try to silence that voice, but it keeps popping up inside my head. It’s been wondering the same thing ever since I discovered that the rugged mountain man happened to be Uncle Robert in costume and that Mom had been kidnapped. The same thing the next day when we discovered the plane tickets from “Mom” for flights from Chicago to Asheville. The same question that greeted me as I opened the door to the cabin and felt the cold inside.

Is Mom still alive, or did they kill her?

The good news is that Mom spoke to Dad before emailing the tickets, explaining that she was too busy and too tired to make the drive up to Chicago. I think she said a few other things, perhaps some relationship stuff that Dad didn’t feel like mentioning. He never questioned the tickets or the call or anything.

I have enough questions for both of us.

It’s strange how I feel. The chilly, empty feeling is there, but the fear isn’t. Looking at the darkened buildings and the black windows doesn’t frighten me. Waiting out here doesn’t frighten me. The thought of dying doesn’t even frighten me.

All I hope is that it’s not too late to save Mom.

I see the bright lights and the big SUV, and I know who it is without even needing to hear the voice inside. I get off the bike and walk over to the street where the massive Hummer waits. I open the door and see Staunch behind the wheel, just like the first time I ever saw him.

“Get in.”

“Where’s my mother?”

He jerks his head and then grits his teeth. This guy doesn’t get many people refusing to do what he’s asking.

Especially teenagers.

“Boy, I’m gonna tell you this once: get in the vehicle now.”

But he doesn’t frighten me. He can’t hurt me, not anymore. He’s no longer going to bully people around like his son does at school.

“I’m not going to go anywhere unless you tell me—”

He curses and opens his door and then I hear the big rushing footsteps coming around the front of the car. My stomach drops, and I see him coming on like some wild animal. He pounds the side of my face with something hard and flat.

I slam against the side of the SUV, then crumple to the hard asphalt.

I feel something grab my shirt and jacket like a crane and lift me up, then launch me backward against the car again. I’m out of breath and half the side of my face is paralyzed and I can’t even shout out. I’m back on the street, then lifted up again and propped against the side of the car.

Staunch curses at me. I can only really look out one eye, but I see something thin and black in his hand.

“Your time has run out, boy, and I mean it. No more. I don’t care who you are, do you hear me? Just ’cause I can’t kill you doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you.”

And with that he takes the black thing he’s holding and whacks it against my forehead. Then my eye. Then my cheek. It feels like some kind of heavy weight or piece of metal or steel.

I cry out in pain, but he pounds my mouth, cutting my lips against my teeth. I start to sink away, but he lifts me up again and swats me on my ear. Then he curses in my face and shakes me over and over and over again until I start to black out.

“Don’t go just yet, don’t you—”

But I’m losing it all.

“Open your eyes and look at me. Hear me out, boy.”

I squint out of my one working eye. I taste blood, and my entire head and face throb and I cough and begin to choke.

Then I start to scream until he puts the black thing in my mouth, almost making me gag.

I suddenly realize that I’m biting down on his cell phone.

“From here on out, you do what we say. What I say. You got that? Do you?”

He shoves the phone in my mouth further, ripping the sides of my mouth.

“You got five months to shape up and start playing by the rules. Five months. You got that?”

I try and say some variation of “Uh huh.”

“Marsh is an idealist and others have patience and that’s fine, but I’m not here ’cause of my patience. I will kill your momma, and if that doesn’t work I’ll kill that pretty little blonde thing, and I’ll keep killing until I finally make you choke on your own blood. I don’t care whose blood it is and what kind of special boy you are, I will do that ’cause that’s what I do.”

He yanks his phone out of my mouth and then releases me. I drop to the ground like a bag of heavy garbage. I’m moaning and coughing, and I’ve never felt so much pain in my life.

Staunch is cursing now, saying something about his busted phone and about what I made him do. My head feels ripped open and suddenly I realize I’m going to die here, just like this, after being beaten to death by a cell phone.

Can you hear me now?

I’m not sure if Staunch said that or I imagined it.

I hear the door shut and hear the engine throttle and then …