Page 158 of Antihero

“You’re going to prison, Taswell.”

“Prison? Nah.” Taz gave an odd stutter of a laugh. He had bits of pinto bean in his teeth. “No way, man. No way.”

Evan stared at him.

“Wait. Wut? Prison? For real? ’R you fer real?”

“I want you to look at me. Look at me closely. And ask yourself: Should you be scared?”

Taz’s eyes skittered across Evan’s chest. Eye contact seemed to pain him.

Evan stayed still. Waited. Waited some more.

Finally Taz lifted his gaze and looked at him.

His pupils constricted sharply, as if he’d glanced at the sun.

“Nuh,” he said. “No way.”

He had earned nothing in his life and yet he could not—could not—believe that his will could be thwarted.

“You kidnapped her,” Evan said. “Assaulted her. Violated her.”

Taswell reached for his phone on the table but Evan blocked him.

“My phone, bruh. Need my phone.”

“Do you feel anything, Taz?”

“Huhn?”

“In there. Do you feel things?”

Taz gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Dunno.”

Evan said, “You’ll have plenty of time to figure it out.”

“Wudduya mean?” Taz’s face barely moved, and yet it changed drastically with the realization. A widening of his features, hairline settling back, skin gone lax. Abject terror. Evan had never seen anything like it.

“Nuh,” Taz cried out. “What if they do things to me there?”

Evan swept his shirt open, the magnetized buttons parting to reveal a glimpse of the ARES 1911 sitting ready in the appendix holster. Taz gasped and then the shirt front swung back into place, magnets clapping together once more like a stage curtain, sealing off the pistol from view.

“Uh-uh,” Taz said. “Uh-uh.”

Evan considered where he’d like to shoot the boy.

Few people understand how resilient the pelvic bone is.

Two precisely placed shots would be ideal, one to the front and one just above would blow bone and shrapnel through most of the essential working parts of his lower anatomy. The damage to his pelvic region would mean agony with every step, every time he sat, every time he moved.

For what he’d done to Anca, it was not enough.

But Evan didn’t want to do that here, not in public, not with children around, not against the spirit of Anca’s directives. Maybe not even for himself.

He’d put Taswell to sleep quietly, call Naomi to get him to the cops and the courts, leave the kid’s phone for additional evidence.

There was nothing more to say, nothing to get out of the kid, so Evan put his arm around his neck, starting to crimp the vagus nerve.