Stirred

“Yeah, two of them almost killed me.”

“What happened to those guys?”

“One of them’s in jail. The other ran into a bigger badass than he was.”

That run-in had happened shortly after my encounter with Donaldson. Supposedly, he’d been tortured for hours and then burned. It was a miracle he’d survived, though Donaldson probably didn’t consider it miraculous in the least.

“Where is he now?” McGlade asked.

“Last I heard, in an institution, in terrible pain, under constant medical care.”

Harry said, “Sounds like he got what he deserved. What was his name?”

“Donaldson.”

Harry snapped his fingers on his good hand. “I heard about that guy. He was hanging out with some young chick. They were both killing hitchhikers or some crazy shit.”

“Can we not talk about this? You promised not to talk about anything.”

“Someone tied them up and went at them with antique farm implements.”

“McGlade…”

“Didn’t Donaldson have a bunch of pictures in his car of people he’d killed?”

“McGlade! Enough!”

He glanced at me, saw how serious I was.

“Jesus, Jackie. What’s the problem?”

“Pregnancy isn’t easy, McGlade. It’s especially difficult when you’re staring over your shoulder the entire time, waiting for some psycho to kill both you and your baby. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be afraid all the time?”

McGlade didn’t answer. I hoped that had finally shut him up.

But after a few miles of silence, I began to feel shitty for snapping at him. Was that who I’d become? A gigantic bitch who treated the people who cared about her like trash?

“I understand fear,” McGlade said, jolting me out of my self-pity party.

I stared at him. “I know.”

“Do you?” He briefly met my eyes. “You’ve been through the wringer, Jack. No doubt. No one ever said you had it easy. But how much do you know about what Alex did to me?”

Alex Kork was another psycho from the past I didn’t want to think about. But she’d hurt McGlade as much as me. Maybe even worse.

“I remember being tied to that chair, helpless. Phin ever tell you about it?” McGlade asked.

“Not in detail.” Phin had been there as well. They’d been bound, back to back, at Alex’s mercy. And Alex had no mercy.

“She was cutting my fingers off,” McGlade said, holding up his mechanical hand. “Stopping the bleeding with a blowtorch. Lemme tell you—the pain was unimaginable. But you know what was worse than the pain? The loss of all hope. Knowing I was helpless, that it wasn’t going to end. That was worse. I’d take a bullet for that man of yours. Phin is the only thing that kept me sane while it was happening. And then you came in, saved my ass. I owe you both. And I’m sorry I piss you off all the time. You’re family to me, you know.”

Ah, hell. I hated Harry when he got real. It made me feel even worse about myself.

“Got any more of those parenting tips?” I managed to say, trying to break the maudlin mood.

“Just one. Love your kid. Love her as hard as you can. Because you don’t have forever. You only have a short time.” He frowned. “It’s always too short a time.”

I let that sink in. Then said, “Christ, McGlade. That’s almost profound.”

“Yeah. And also, teach her how to suppress the gag reflex. That’s the single most important trait in chicks.”

I felt a headache coming on. “You can go back to shutting up now.”

The GPS piped in to inform us that our exit was coming up. McGlade turned off the highway, and soon we were cruising through a residential area. Townhomes and cul-de-sacs. The neighborhood wasn’t affluent, but it had a homey Mayberry, USA, vibe going on. It was nice to see trees again after an hour of flat, barren plains.

We were nearing the residence of Violet King, and I was thinking about what I was going to say to her when McGlade broke my concentration.

“Promise not to freak out?” he asked.

I didn’t like his tone, and it made me freak out a little. “What?”

“I’ve been keeping a close eye on the rearview mirror, for obvious reasons, and the same beat-up Monte Carlo has been behind us since we left Chicago.”

March 28, Three Days Earlier

The pain was constant.

Unrelenting.

It didn’t even let up during sleep—what little sleep he could get between nightmares.

That’s how it had been for years.

He was hooked on narcotics. Always wore two codeine patches on the ruins that were his legs. Thrice-daily Vicodin and Norco. Ativan to help him sleep. His lungs were scarred, making each labored breath a wet, raspy wheeze. He had six fingers left, and only four of them still worked properly.

Sometimes, it got so bad he couldn’t stop trembling, shaking for hours on end. If he’d been the type of man to believe in karma, or justice, or some higher power that dished out retribution, he might have drawn the obvious conclusion and realized this was what he deserved.

That’s what the judge, and the jury of twelve, had said while sentencing him to this hellhole.

Him and his partner.

Partner. What a joke.

A joke that became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Though he’d killed many, and was widely known as a monster, the extent and permanence of his debilitating injuries deemed him no longer a threat to society, so this medical facility wasn’t even maximum security. Sometimes, they forgot to lock the door to his room at night. One of his doctors even had the balls to tell the court that there was zero concern about escape, because that would mean being away from the pain meds.

The court agreed. Their mistake. One they’d pay dearly for.

Groaning, he shuffled down the hospital hallway, supporting himself with the rolling IV stand, his backless gown exposing the latticework of scars covering him from neck to heels. Nurses didn’t even bother looking at him. To them, he was as harmless as a toothless puppy. Even with full doses of various medications swirling through his system, walking was agony, each step an electric jolt of pain, firing the nerve endings he still had left—an unremitting reminder of the horror he had endured.

He reached the end of the hall and then paused to catch his tortured breath, which rattled in his chest like a BB in a can of spray paint. He was getting close to his stamina’s limit and contemplated leaning against the wall to rest for a moment. But rather than give in to the fatigue and pain, he pressed onward, turning the corner, limping down four more doors until he reached her room.

She was sprawled out in bed like a broken, violated angel. Pretty once. Now an apocalypse of scar tissue and skin grafts and tubes and stitches. Her latest operation had been a week ago—a setback that had cost them a lot of precious time.

He pushed his way inside, seeking the nearest chair, collapsing into it with a sigh of relief even as his nerves flared in unison.

“Hey,” he rasped. “How you doing?”

She peeked her remaining eye open. “Aces. You?”

He cupped a hand to the hole where his ear used to be and said, “Louder.”

She repeated at a higher volume. “Aces. You?”

“Each sunrise is a gift from the Lord. We still on for two days from now?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. As long as your fat ass doesn’t gobble up all our pills.”

The fat ass comment was a nod to the past. He hadn’t been fat for some time. Fat required the ability to eat solids.

“Two days then,” he said, nodding to himself. “Then we’re out of here.”

Over the last six months, the duo had been stockpiling medication. Soon they would have enough to survive on the outside for two weeks without needing to find another supply.