Page 58 of Requiem & Reverie

“One shot into your spinal column, and I could paralyze you.”

“Where is my son?”

“I’ll take you to him, if you’d like. But first, you’re going to empty your pockets and hand me your phone.”

Swallowing a harsh gulp, I stuff my hands into my coat pockets and hold my phone over my head.

It’s swiped out of my hands, and the crashing sound that follows tells me he’s smashed it against the concrete. “C’mon, Nola. I’m not stupid. The spray, as well.”

Reaching in again, I pass back the pepper spray, leaving myself totally defenseless.

A nudge from behind urges me forward, and I stumble toward the door.

“You can send her back here when you’re done with her. We’ll take her to the club. Get her acquainted with all my brethren,” Duane says from behind, and he laughs, as I push through the glass door.

A thousand thoughts race through my head. I could run, but he’d shoot me. Even if he didn’t, the invalids back at the garage might try to run me down like something out of Wrong Turn.

None of that will get me to my son.

Simon forces me out of the building, the gun pressed into my back, until we reach his car. He opens the door for me, and I fall into the passenger seat.

The feeling pummeling through me is a mixture of surprise, sadness, and anger. Betrayal. Absolute betrayal that, once again, leaves me feeling like I can’t trust my own instincts, anymore.

With the gun set in his lap and pointed at me, he takes off down the open, dark road.

“I don’t understand, Simon. Why? Why would you do this?”

He glances toward me and back to the road. “I like you, Nola.”

“You have a shitty way of showing it.”

“Perhaps.”

“Is Oliver … alive?”

“For now.”

The relief of that is more than I can express, more than I want to explore right now, so I tuck it away. “Is Dale in on this?”

Snorting a laugh, he shakes his head. “Dale isn’t smart enough.”

“Is he dead? You used his phone to text me, right? Did you kill him?”

He huffs, as though he’s getting bored with my questions. “No. I stole his phone this afternoon.”

“You killed …. You killed those women, though. Why?”

“I didn’t kill them. I’m not a murderer. I made them better. Pure.”

“You … fucking … killed them!”

Rolling his shoulders back, he keeps his gaze forward. “I suggest you keep your voice down. It’s unbecoming of a woman to yell at her superior.”

I have to bite my lip to keep from snapping back at him again. I don’t want to piss him off and risk he’ll not take me to my son. “Why did you do it? Why did you take my son?”

“You’ll see.”

His responses are only goading my irritation, and I turn away to keep from saying something that will surely set him off. Open fields of farmland, lit only by the moon, pass by the window. “Who are you, Simon? How does any of this have anything to do with me?”