The King

  And all of it.

  The dragging sensation on his forearm turned his head, and that was how he saw it happen, the vital form of his shellan going loose and toppling downward.

  With a shout, he reached out to catch her, but he was not fast enough.

  As the crowd gasped, Anha fell upon the floor, her sightless eyes staring up at him, but seeing nothing, her expression as blank as a mirror with no one before it, her skin even paler than it had been up in their chamber.

  "Anha!" he screamed as he crumpled to the floor with her. "Anha...!"

  EIGHTEEN

  Sola woke up with a start, her face whipping off a cold, concrete floor, her body stretched out unnaturally. Flipping herself off her belly, her brain processed the status of her location in a split second: Cell with three solid walls and one with bars. No heat, no window, recessed light high above, stainless-steel toilet.

  No cellmate, no warden that she could see.

  Next check-in was her body: Her head had splitting pains at the nape and in the front, but that wasn't as bad as what was going on with her thigh. That bastard with the dark birthmark covering half his face had shot her about six inches above her knee--the fact that she could lift her calf off the floor suggested he hadn't gotten bone, but talk about a case of the ouches. The burning sensation coupled with the throbs was enough to make her nauseous.

  Silence.

  Across the basement, over on a wall, a pair of chains had been bolted into the concrete, and the wrist latches that hung off their ends were a promise of horror.

  Well, that and the stains between and below the setup.

  No security cameras that she could see. Then again, Benloise was cagey. Maybe he'd use a camera phone to replay his version of home movies?

  With no idea how much time she had, she got to her feet--

  "Fuck."

  Putting weight on her right leg was like taking a hot poker and shoving it into her wound. Then pulling a Chubby Checker twist.

  Let's try to avoid that, shall we.

  As she eyed the toilet, which was a good five feet away, she cursed again. This leg of hers was going to be a major tactical disadvantage--because it was hard to walk without doing a zombie foot drag--which made noise as well as slowed her down.

  Trying to whisper her way over, as opposed to creating a major audible disturbance, she used the loo but didn't flush. Then she backtracked to where she'd been. She didn't feel the need to test out the bars or see whether the door was locked.

  Benloise wasn't into shoddy construction and wouldn't employ someone that stupid.

  Her only shot was to try to overpower that guard with the gun, and how that was going to happen in her current condition, she hadn't a clue. Unless ...

  Resettling down on the ground, she sprawled herself out in exactly the same position she'd woken up in. Closing her eyes, she was momentarily distracted by the beat of her own heart.

  Loud. Really damn loud.

  Especially as she thought of her grandmother.

  Oh, God, she couldn't end here. And not like this--this wasn't an illness or an accident on a highway. This was going to involve suffering deliberately inflicted, and afterward? Benloise was exactly the kind of sick fuck who'd send a piece of her back to be buried.

  Even if the recipient was an innocent party to all this ugliness.

  As she pictured her grandmother having only a hand or foot to place in a casket, she found her lips moving.

  God, please let me get out of this alive. For vovo's sake. Just let me survive this, and I promise you I will get out of the life. I will take her and go somewhere safe, and I will never, ever do a wrongful thing again.

  Distantly, she heard a clank like a door was being unlocked, and then muttering.

  Forcing her breath to be even, she watched through the veil of her hair, listening to footsteps get closer.

  The man who came down the staircase was the one with that huge birthmark on his face. Dressed in black combat pants and a muscle shirt, he was grim, hairy, and mad.

  "...goddamn idiot, dying on me. Least that shut him the fuck up--"

  She closed her eyes ... and there was another clank.

  Abruptly, his voice was much closer. "Wake up, bitch."

  Rough hands grabbed her arm and flopped her over onto her back, and it took all her self-control not to gasp in agony from her head and her leg. "Bitch! Wake up!"

  He slapped her across the face, and as she tasted blood, she figured he'd split her lip--but whatever pain flared up was a drop in the bucket to that thigh of hers.

  "Bitch!" Another slap, even harder. "Don't you fucking play with me!"

  Her chest jerked up as he grabbed the front of her parka and ripped it open--and as her head scraped across the concrete, she couldn't keep in the groan.

  "That's right--I'll wake you the fuck up." He yanked up her shirt, and there was a little pause. "Nice."

  Her bra had a front fastener and he snapped that free, icy air hitting her skin.

  "Oh ... that's ... yeah..."

  She gritted her teeth as he felt her up, and had to force her limbs to stay limp as he went for the waistband of her pants. Just like with the flare she'd found in the trunk, she had one shot at this, and she needed him well and properly distracted.

  Even though she felt like she was going to vomit again.

  The guard stripped her jeans along with her panties off in a series of harsh tugs, her bare ass slapping against the cold, scratchy floor as he yanked and pulled.

  "You owe me this, bitch--now I gotta tell him about that little shit you killed--what the fuck with your boots!"

  He frantically pulled the laces free and yanked the things off, one after the other. And while he worked on her, there was the temptation to try to kick him in the face, but she wouldn't have enough power at this angle to really do damage--and if she fought back too soon and lost, he was no doubt going to chain her to that fucking wall.

  As his hand went between her legs, she couldn't fight her body's panic at the invasion--no matter what her brain commanded, her thighs pressed shut around his wrist.

  "You awake now?" he gritted. "You want this, don'tcha."

  Relax, she told herself. You're waiting for one thing and one thing only.

  His hand retreated. And then the sound of a zipper being yanked down gave her the extra incentive to let her legs fall open. She needed him to try to mount her.

  And what do you know, he gave it a shot.

  Shoving her thighs even wider apart, he got down on his hands and knees and began to crab-walk into position.

  One shot. And she took it.

  With a sudden burst of energy, she jacked up and nailed a grip on the motherfucker's nuts like she intended to castrate him. And gee whiz, that was exactly what was on her dance card.

  Wrenching as hard as she could, she ignored the screams of pain in her thigh and her head and twisted with every ounce of strength she had. The guard let out a high-pitched holler, like a lapdog that had fallen into a deep fryer, and listed to the side.

  That was all she needed. Throwing him off of her, she jumped to her feet as he cupped his cock and balls and curled into a ball.

  Looking around quickly, she needed ...

  Limping across in her socks, she unlatched one of the chains that had been intended for her and dragged it back across the floor. Coiling it up around her fist, the heavy links formed a cage around her tight hand.

  She went across and straddled the man's head and shoulders. "You want a good fucking, asshole? How 'bout this."

  Lifting her arm high above her head, she brought the weight down with as much force as she could, striking at his cranium. The man immediately let out a roar and tried to cover himself up top, his arms forming a barrier around his skull.

  Fine. Lobotomy later.

  She went for below his ribs, for the soft field of flesh that protected his kidneys and his spleen. Over and over again, until he attempted a new defensive crouch. Back to the head--ha
rder this time, until she broke a sweat even though she was mostly naked and the cellar's air temp had to be in the fifties.

  Over.

  And over.

  Again.

  Anywhere she could find a place of vulnerability.

  And it was the strangest thing: She had all the strength in the world during the beating; it was as if she were possessed, her injuries fading into the background in deference to the superior need to ensure her own survival.

  She had never killed anyone before. Stolen from people? Ever since she was eleven, sure. Lied when she had to? Yup. Broken into all kinds of places she hadn't been welcome in? Nailed it.

  But death had always struck her as a level she didn't want to go to. Like heroin to a pot user, it was the granddaddy of them all--and once you'd crossed that line? Well, then you really were a criminal.

  In spite of all that, however, some minutes or hours or days later ... she stood over a bloodied mess of a body.

  Sucking breath down into her lungs, she let her arm come to rest by her side. As her strength ebbed, her grip on the chain relented and the links uncoiled themselves from her fist, falling to the floor in a hiss.

  "Move," she panted. "You have to move."

  Jesus ... when she had prayed for survival, she hadn't considered that God might give her the power to break one of his Ten Commandments.

  "Move, Sola. You must move."

  Dizzy, nauseous, with a headache that was so bad her vision fizzled in and out, she tried to think.

  Boots. She was going to need boots--they were more critical than pants in the snow. Scrambling around, she picked up the first one she came to, only to have it slip right out of her hold.

  Blood. There was blood all over her, her right hand especially.

  Wiping her palms on her floppy parka, she went back to work. One boot. Then the other. Laces sloppy but double-knotted.

  Back to her victim.

  She paused for a beat to take in the mess.

  Shit, she was going to be seeing this on the backs of her lids for a very, very long time.

  Assuming she survived.

  Making the sign of the cross over her chest, she got down next to the man and patted around. The gun she found was a godsend; so was the iPhone that was ... shit, password protected. Plus it wasn't getting a signal, although maybe that would change when she was aboveground.

  All she needed was the emergency call feature and then she could toss the thing.

  As she leaped out of the cell, she slid the bars shut behind her. She was pretty sure that the bastard was dead, but horror movies and the entire Batman franchise suggested that belt-and-suspenders were a good call when it came to bad guys.

  Quick survey. Two more cells just like the one she'd been in. Both empty. That was it.

  Outside of the open area, there was a short hall and then that set of stairs, and it took her forever to get over there. Goddamn leg of hers. Pausing before she went up, she listened. No sounds of anyone moving upstairs, but there was a distinct smell of cooked hamburger.

  Guess it was her kidnapper's last meal.

  Sola stuck to the wall side of the steps, the gun out in front of her, the shuffling of her right boot kept to a minimum even though she had to stop and catch her breath twice.

  The first floor had plenty of lights going on and not much else: There were a pair of cots in the corner, a galley kitchen with dirty dishes in its shallow sink--

  There was somebody lying on a third cot by a bathroom.

  Please let that be the other dead guy, she thought ... and shit, what kind of night was this that that was even on her radar?

  The rhetorical was answered as she went in for a closer look.

  "Oh--" Clamping a hand over her mouth, she turned away.

  Had she done that with the flare? Jesus ... and that smell hadn't been from somebody doing a DIY Big Mac. That was human flesh burned to a crisp.

  Focus, she needed to focus.

  The only windows in the place were the squat prop-open casement ones that you usually saw in basements and they were mounted high off the floor so there was no seeing out. And there were only three doors: the one she'd used to come up from the basement, the other that was open and flashing a toilet seat, and the last ... which certainly looked reinforced.

  It had a punch bar on the inside.

  She didn't bother to look for any more weapons. The forty she had in her hand was sufficient, but she did go across to snag an extra clip from the kitchen counter--

  Hello, Powerball winning ticket.

  Car keys had been thrown casually with the clip, and if she hadn't been so afraid for her life, she would have taken a moment to cry like a little girl.

  Yeah, sure, whatever car she'd been in probably had a GPS tracker like the phone.

  But compared to the option of getting out of wherever she was on foot?

  She'd take it in a heartbeat.

  Limping to the door, with her vision going wonky on her, she hit the bar--

  And smacked right into the steel panel.

  Nothing budged.

  Trying again and again, she found the door locked from the outside. Damn it! And as she checked out the car keys, there was nothing else on the ring. No--

  Oh, right, she thought.

  Mounted beside the door, there was a small square security sensor.

  Of course you'd fingerprint it--on the outside and on the inside.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she looked at the body across the way--specifically the hand that had flopped off the cot and was hanging halfway to the floor.

  "Fuck me."

  Going back to the dead guy, she knew dragging him over was not going to be a party. Especially with her leg. But what other choice did she have?

  Glancing around, she--

  Over in the corner, at a makeshift desk, there was a rolling chair, like you'd find in a proper office. It even had padded arms.

  Better than yanking him across the floor, right?

  Wrong. Stuffing flare-in-the-face guy into the thing was harder than she'd thought--and not because rigor mortis was an issue, as he'd apparently died not long after she'd melted his puss off. The problem was the chair--it kept slipping out of reach every time she got the deadweight--ha, ha--anywhere near the padded seat.

  Not going to work. And P.S., the stench of that flesh was like a football coach urging her stomach to punt.

  Breaking off with the corpse, who was now half off the cot, she scrambled for that bathroom, and the dry heaves were soooo helpful: First of all, there was nothing in there to toss, and second, if she'd thought her concussion was bad before?

  Back at the dead guy's side, she went around to his shoulders, grabbed him at the armpits, and dug in with her good leg. His boots banged into the floor one by one as she got him completely off the makeshift bed, and those Timberland heels scraped their way over to the door. Fortunately, the guard had arms long enough to be a center for the Knicks, so she was able stop a good four feet away from her target.

  His elbow even bent in the correct direction.

  The thumb went right where she needed it, and the light at the base of the reader went from red to blinking orange.

  The instant she got out of here, she was going to jump into that damn car and hit the gas--

  Red.

  The reader went back to red. So his print didn't work.

  Dropping his hand, she sagged in her skin and hung her head. As a wave of pass-out threatened, she took some deep breaths.

  The other guard was now locked in the cell all the way in the basement--and she'd barely been able to get this one across the damn floor. How the hell was she going to hump the man she'd killed up here?

  Other man she'd killed, that was.

  And shit ... she'd locked him in downstairs. If that cell was print-locked, too? She was liable to starve to death first.

  Unless Benloise got here soon.

  Leaning up against the wall, and bracing her hands on her good knee, s
he tried to think, think, think ...

  Looked like God had taken her prayers literally: She'd gotten out of the trunk after her first "Help me, Father." The second "Dear Lord, please let me get free" had only sprung her from the jail, but not the house.

  As she offered up a third prayer, she got real specific.

  Oh, Lord, I promise to get out of the life if you let me see my grandmother's face once again. Wait, wait, that could happen if she were on the verge of death and somehow vovo came here or to a hospital. Dear God, if I can just look into her eyes and know that I am home safe with her ... I swear I will take her somewhere far away and never again put myself in harm's way.

  "Amen," she said as she struggled to straighten.

  Reaching deep, she found the strength to weave her way back to the stairwell and--

  Sola stopped. Pivoted back to face the counter where she'd found the car keys and the clip. Locked eyes on a solution that was at once utterly repugnant, and evidence, arguably, that God was listening.

  It appeared as if things were looking up.

  In a sick way.

  NINETEEN

  "There it is," Assail said, pointing through the windshield. "The turnoff."

  He had waited a lifetime for the nearly hidden, evergreen-choked lane that finally saw fit to make an appearance about fifty feet ahead.

  As Ehric's phone had prescribed, they had followed the Northway all the way through the Adirondack Park, past a place called Lake Placid as well as some mountain that, considering what they had in the back, was rather fitting.

  Gore Mountain.

  And hadn't he seen something about a ski resort called Killington? His kind of recreation, indeed.

  It had been such a long trip. Hours and hours, each mile under the tires of the Range Rover like an endless succession of hurdles to be surmounted.

  "Thank fuck," Ehric muttered as he wrenched the wheel and they bumped onto a miserable stretch of earth.

  The ascent that followed was best suited to goats, and fortunately the Rover's superior traction turned whatever version of Goodyear they were riding upon into quite passable hooves. It was, however, another endless delay, to the point where Assail became convinced that they had chosen the wrong way: although Benloise himself was with them, one wouldn't have put it past the man to have some sort of edict in place whereby if he didn't contact the captors within certain parameters, whoever was in custody would be eliminated.

  Assail propped his elbow on the door and leaned his face into his open palm. The fact that his Marisol was a female made him ill. Males could be hard enough on members of their own sex--thinking about all the things that could be done to a woman was a nightmare he prayed had not been made manifest.