Page 102 of The Demons We Hide

“Good.”

With that, Gio and I dive towards my SUV and Nolan turns back to the school and the football field.

Be okay, baby,I silently beg as I bark directions at Gio and he backs out of the parking space with a squeal of rubber on pavement.Please be fucking okay.

40

NOLAN

When I was eight, my mom tried to leave my father. In the middle of the night, she packed our things and despite the fact that I really wanted to sleep, she hurried me into the back of her gray, rusted sedan and started to drive.

We drove and drove and drove for hours. Or so it felt like lying in the back of a vehicle that smelled like Cheetos and Vaseline. Turned out, we’d only driven about thirty or so miles before she’d pulled over on the side of the backwoods country road and broken down crying. She hadn’t wanted to. I knew that, but the old car was smoking at the front and making all sorts of noises that told us both one thing—if we were going to get away from Silverwood, it wouldn’t be tonight and it wouldn’t be in this car.

I don’t really remember how we’d gotten home. I know she let herself finish crying and I’d pretended to still be asleep because I knew she wouldn’t do it in front of me. Then, she’d made a few calls. As she’d been on the phone, I actually had fallen back asleep and woke up to be switched from our broken-down sedan and into a new car.

That memory was the reason why as soon as I was old enough, I’d started learning about cars, working on them, doing everything I could to understand how to fix any problem they might cause. It stuck with me for the longest time, and getting good at fixing cars had been my solution. If she ever wanted to run again, I knew I’d be ready. Nothing—most certainly not a broken-down car—would ever stop my mom from running ever again, not if I could help it.

In the morning, when we were back where we started, Mom had made me promise not to tell Dad where we’d gone. It was an easy promise to keep. I wouldn’t tell the man who hurt my mom anything if it would get her into trouble, and I had a feeling that telling him about our little trip would mean more than a black eye or a broken arm.

In Xavier Pierce’s eyes, we were his. His property. His possessions. And I’d hated that.

Now, at nearly nineteen years old, I realize that I’ve become just like the old man at least in one way. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to keep what belongs to me in place. Only, my possessions haven’t run off into the night on their own. No, someone took her from me. From us.

My phone buzzes in my pocket with an incoming text message. It’s one of many in the last thirty minutes. I’ve changed from my football uniform since letting Gio and Lex run off after Juliet’s phone and hopefully her. I’ve done a lot in the time since.

Now, I stand in the garage where I work, dressed in dark jeans and a black t-shirt. I’ve got a gun holstered at the small of my back and several more in a duffle bag strapped over my shoulder. There’s just one more thing I need.

I reach into my pocket and pull out the black card I'd been contemplating throwing away again and again over the last several weeks. It’s a simple design. Nothing fancy. Just a name, address, email, and phone number.

Without giving myself time to think, I type in the number into my cell and start walking towards one of the cheap lenders the garage’s owner keeps on standby. Popping open the back door, I swing the duffle inside and then march around to the back and grab an automatic screwdriver.

The line rings as I press the phone between my shoulder and ear and work off the bolts keeping the license plate on the vehicle. It’ll be better if there’s nothing to trace us back to this, and the sedan is small and nondescript like most people’s cars on the south side of Silverwood.

The ringing stops, but Vikson doesn’t speak. So, I do. “We need your help.”

Silence stretches into impossibly long drawn-out moments. I rip the license plate off the back of the sedan and toss it onto one of the work benches nearby before I head for the front seat and pop the keys into the ignition. I wait.

The car coughs and sputters to life, and I know he can hear it, but Vikson doesn’t say anything.

I back out of the driver’s side and go to lift the garage door to back out the vehicle. Once it’s up, I’m back in the car and putting the phone on speaker since there is no Bluetooth in the old clunker. I back out onto the pavement before grabbing the phone and holding it to my chest as I reach up to yank the garage door down once more and lock up.

It isn’t until I’m in the car for a final time that Vikson speaks. “What do you need?” is all he asks.

I take a deep breath and press down on the accelerator. Lex’s name pops up at the top of the phone screen and I click it. A map opens along with blinking dots. I read the text that comes with it.

Trail’s End.

My lips curl down. Long ago, when Silverwood had just been a township starting out, the national railroad had built tracks that cut through the town, marking an actual physical line between the wealthy and the impoverished. Before government subsidies had paid for the better tracks, there’d been a separate set, older and used only by locals to get supplies from town to town in the immediate hundred-mile area. Those tracks end on the outskirts of Silverwood now, a dead end trail that spits out in a graveyard of old train cars and transients.

That’s where the blinking lights on my phone screen have stopped.

“How fast can you get to Silverwood?” I ask.

“Couple of hours, give or take,” he replies easily enough. “But I have friends still in the local area that can come help for immediate assistance.”

“Good,” I say. “Send them, and you need to come yourself too.”

“And why is that?” Vikson sounds serious, if not a slight bit amused by my abrupt tone. I don’t give two fucks if he thinks I’m being rude or demanding. If it means selling my soul to his ass then I’ll do it. Juliet has been taken, and I’m done fumbling around, trying to find out who is after her. Going after one of us? Fine. But her? Taking her is a step too far.

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