He turtled toward the flowerpot, trying to move quietly enough where the crinkle of the chains sounded like the wind nuzzling the pines.
Luke knelt by the flowerpot. He heard the man call out from deep inside the house, ‘There’s food in the fridge.’
He tipped over the flowerpot. The keys to the shackles were gone.
Behind him the woman called, ‘You’re not very smart, are you?’
‘I guess not.’ Luke stood and faced her.
The woman wasn’t even bothering to point the gun at him. She walked close to him, and aimed the flashlight into his face. ‘Don’t take it the wrong way. I’m amazed you even got halfway free.’
So close, he thought. He noticed she wasn’t aiming the gun at him and wondered if she even considered him a threat. In a flash he thought: you’ve studied these people but you’ve never faced them. This is different than reading a book or a loudmouth posting on the web. You can’t analyze them, you just have to fight them. Because you know what they’re like. Single-minded. Brutal. Reasoning hadn’t worked with Eric; it wouldn’t work with these two.
Luke felt the quiet scholar in him easing backward, something new and primal emerging.
‘Mouser, he’s out here. Still in chains. Looks like he’s auditioning for A Christmas Carol.’ She laughed, a glassy sick giggle. ‘He looks like Jacob Marley. C’m’ere, schoolboy.’
Luke jumped at her, hammering into her before she could lift the gun, shoving the flashlight so it smacked her in the face. He fell to the grass with her and lassoed a length of the chain around her neck. She swung the gun at him, nailing him in the head, but he was tall and strong and desperate. He got her in front of him, the chain a choker across her throat. He knocked her down, pried the gun from her fingers as he yanked her back to her feet.
The man – Mouser – rushed into the doorway. He aimed his gun at Luke’s head. ‘Let her go.’
‘No. She comes with me.’ His voice broke, like a teenage boy’s. Luke put the gun on her head. The chain was a twisted braid in his left fist, the gun in his right hand. Don’t think, just do.
Mouser lowered the gun and Luke saw the gesture for what the woman’s laughter was – a sign of contempt. This couple weren’t remotely afraid of him, not even with him having a gun.
‘So you stay there,’ Luke said to him. ‘All right?’
‘Luke Dantry,’ Mouser said. ‘We’re here from your stepdad. Here to help you, find out who took you.’
‘You’re not the police,’ Luke said.
‘No, we’re better. Don’t be a stupid kid. Let her go and we’ll call him.’
But they were talking about bombing casinos and resorts. ‘I just want the keys to these shackles,’ Luke said.
‘You don’t know what a can of kick-ass you just opened up on yourself.’ Mouser sat on the porch step, with a sign of anticipation. Ready for the show to begin.
It was not what Luke expected. ‘Where are the keys?’ he yelled. The woman began to choke and he realized how tight the chain was across her throat. He eased his grip. But barely.
‘I’m going to… obliterate… you,’ the woman said.
‘Snow means what she says,’ Mouser added.
‘Where are the keys?’ Luke yelled again at Mouser. He tightened the chain again.
The woman pointed at Mouser. ‘His pocket.’
‘Toss the keys to her,’ Luke said.
Mouser didn’t stand. ‘Snow? How you want to go here?’
‘Give him the keys,’ Snow said.
‘Whatever you say,’ Mouser lumbered to his feet, dug in his pockets and tossed the keys. Snow caught them deftly.
‘Unlock me. The feet first.’
‘You think you’re smart because you escaped from a bed?’ She unlocked the chains binding his feet. Her skin was cool against his ankles. He pulled her back straight to him; she didn’t resist. He kicked the shackles free.
‘Be still and I’ll unlock your hands,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll play for real, schoolboy.’
If he lowered the chain from her throat she could fight him, even with the gun. Their confidence was daunting. He tightened the chain around her throat again, just enough to pull her close. ‘Not quite yet,’ Luke said. ‘Let’s walk to your car.’
‘Mouser has the car keys.’
‘Car keys,’ he called.
‘No,’ Mouser said. ‘Come on, Snow, enough. Let’s get going before the sky opens up again.’
Snow stayed still. ‘I just wanted to see what he’d try. What he’d do. It’s like watching a hamster work a maze.’
‘I’m going to shoot you is what I’ll do,’ Luke said.
‘Then shoot,’ she said. Her calm was maddening.
‘I… I need you alive for now. You come with me to the car.’
‘And we’ll be hot-wiring it?’ she asked. ‘You saw that in a movie, right, schoolboy?’
‘Come on.’ He gave the chains a harder pull than he meant to and she gagged.
‘For every second of pain you cause me, I will give you an hour of it.’ The icy tone of her promise chilled his skin. He shouldn’t be afraid of her but he was.
‘Maybe he doesn’t have the keys to toss me. Maybe you do,’ he said in a harsh whisper in her ear. ‘You. Mouse!’
‘Mouser.’
‘Whatever. You stay on the porch. I see you come off, I shoot her.’
‘How you want to play it, Snow?’ he asked again. The rain started again, hissing in the pines, thunder booming in the distance.
‘Do as he says,’ Snow said.
They hurried backward down the long path toward where he and Eric had come through the gate. The rain boomed out of the clouds, thick again. Mud sucked at their shoes, darkness drank them up except when the lightning flashed in the wet heavens.
Luke blinked, trying to keep sight of Mouser, looking back over his shoulder toward the gate. The metal chains grew slick in his grasp, from sweat or rain.
‘Empty your pockets.’
‘I don’t…’
‘Shut up! Prove to me you don’t have the keys. Pull out your pockets.’
Snow made a little grunt of anger and jammed her hand into her pocket. She stumbled against the gun and he pulled the gun away from her head. Suddenly she lashed her head back to catch him in the face. He tottered and she pivoted and powered him into the mud. The hand holding the gun slid deep into the muck. She wrenched free of the chains, nearly breaking his arm. She aimed a brutal kick at his head but he rolled and caught it on the upper back. He raised the mudglopped gun but she knocked it free from his hand, with a savage and precise kick. The gun was gone.
No gun. She was screaming for Mouser.
He lashed the chains at her face, she ducked back and fell, and he turned and ran. Away from the gate, from the glow of the automatic light. Into the rain-drenched blackness.
The grass rolled down a slight incline toward a dense grove of pines. He dodged around the trees; the faint glimmer from the gate lights receded.
He had no light for his path except the inconstant slash of lightning. He stumbled and fell, ran ten more feet into a pine, the bark scraping his cheek. Lightning again showed him an opening in the growth and he ran toward it. He spotted the silvery barbs of a wire fence. He eased below the bottom strand, sliding in the mud, slicking him from head to foot.
Luke stumbled past the fence and back into a stretch of unpaved road. Roads led, eventually, to people. He tried to get his bearings. To his right, the road bent into the darkness where he’d run from. To his left the road went straight. Toward civilization.
He ran hard to the left, grateful for the clean, smooth unobstructed line. He was tired of dodging pines.
He ran. Aware of nothing but the bright pain in his legs and the pounding in his chest and the chains weighing his arms down.
Suddenly headlights exploded into life behind him, a loud growl of tires speeding. Engine revving. The lights, low to the ground, cut across him, pushing him to run faster, as if the light had weight. The car accelerated toward him. He powered hard to the right. A gully cut down along the side of the road, topped by another wire fence. The car couldn’t go across the gully.