Until my heart cracked.
Until my head exploded with the pain I felt drowning every cell in my body.
The man stopped at last when Mr. Foster raised a hand.
Then I heard Reyes’s voice. Soft. Barely audible. And yet as clear as if he were whispering it in my ear. “You have to know.”
I looked over at him. He’d passed out again. When one man forced his jaw apart and another walked forward with a knife, Mr. Foster said, “No! I want him lucid when it happens.” He turned back to me, blocking my view of my husband. “How do we kill it? Answer or he will only suffer longer.”
I heard it again. “You have to know.”
I tried to see past the evil evangelists to get to Reyes, but the harder I tried, the thicker the air became. Time slipped. People around me sped up and then bounced back to normal speed. Then they slowed down. It had to be Reyes. “Go,” I said to him. “Get out of here.”
He stopped time and looked across at me, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. “Well, I would, but the police are on the way, and it always looks better when the hostages are tied up and beaten bloody.”
Relief washed over me. So much so I almost hurled. Which I felt was a strange reaction to elation. But a part of me, like nine-tenths, was horrified.
“Reyes, you’re just letting them beat on you?”
“I’m sorry, Dutch. I didn’t know they were going to get you, too.”
“It’s okay. Wait. How did they get you?”
“Taser. Then drugs.”
“Me, too.” I still couldn’t balance and kept falling on my face. “That Taser crap hurts.”
“Not as much as it hurt watching them hit you.” His shirt was almost torn completely off him and hung in shreds.
“Wait a minute,” I said, not buying what my husband, a.k.a. the son of Satan, a.k.a. the best liar on this plane, was selling. “They Tasered you? Just out of the blue, they walked up and got the jump on you.”
“I may have let them, but it still hurt.”
“Reyes, seriously, they want you dead.”
“Why didn’t you try to summon me the moment they came for you? I would have felt it.”
“And taken you away from guard duty? You know she comes first. Speaking of which —”
“Osh is with her, now.”
I let out a sigh of relief then gestured toward Shawn. “Is he okay?”
He turned to him then back to me. “He’ll live.”
“Thank God. But, Reyes, why? Why did you let them hurt you?”
He looked away. “You were right. They need to be behind bars. I didn’t realize the extent of their crimes, Dutch. I would never have let them live this long.” When he looked back at me, his expression was somewhere between admiration and guilt. “I’m sorry I’m so hardheaded.”
“That’s okay. I can be a little stubborn at times, too. Wait. Have you seen a little girl about three years old?”
He gestured with a nod. I followed his gaze to a beautiful little girl being held by an elderly woman. Dawn Brooks. Dawn and the woman were the only people whose expressions weren’t pure delight. The woman looked scared, actually. Nervous. For us. And I was oddly grateful.
“Reyes, she’s beautiful.”
“I agree.”
“Hey, you need to summon Angel.”
“Been here the whole time, boss.”
I rose onto my elbows when I tried to turn toward Angel’s voice. “Okay, first I want to know why I wasn’t invited to this party earlier, and second, why didn’t you come get me the minute they took Reyes?”
“Ask the hell-god. He threatened to punch me in the throat.”
“Reyes, that’s mean.”
The grin that spread across Reyes’s bloody face was pure wickedness. “Your uncle is coming, but these things never end well. They’ll barricade themselves in, and there’ll be a days-long standoff.”
“I don’t want to be used as a punching bag for days,” I said.
“Yeah, me neither.”
“We need to get Dawn out of here, along with any other children. I’d bet my last nickel some of them are abductees as well.”
“I’ll see your last nickel and raise you a silver dollar that some of the adults were abductees, too. Raised here since they were kids.”
“I bet you’re right. We need to figure out how to get out of here.”
“You don’t think I could’ve gotten out hours ago?”
I was finally able to sit up without toppling over. Angel kneeled beside me for support. “Then why, Reyes? Why let them…” My voice cracked so I stopped talking.
But he didn’t need me to finish. “Because these people need to go to jail, and the best way to ensure that —”
“— is to be found all kidnapped and bloody?”
He nodded.
“Reyes, they…” The image of him as a baby as the Fosters tried to kill him ravaged my mind again. It would be something I would never forget. I fought the sting in my eyes, but the sting kicked my ass. Like most things today. Tears pushed past my lashes.
Angel leaned into me, and I grabbed hold of him. Wrapped both my arms around his neck. Buried my face in his cool shoulder.
“Dutch,” Reyes said softly. Soothingly. “I’m fine. I don’t even remember it. I’m not like you. I don’t have every memory from the day I was born.”
But I couldn’t help it. I sobbed, anyway. Angel wasn’t sure what to do, so he patted my head. It was just about the sweetest thing he’d ever done. If not for the fact that I’d been bludgeoned with a blunt object on that very head not once, but twice, I might have enjoyed it.