Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
What does Kyle believe? Do they really have a chance if Kyle defies George and stays here? Is he simply giving himself up and walking to his death if he goes with George?
“Just choose what’s right, man.”
Kyle turns to Drake, the one who spoke, who still clutches his forcibly-standing brother Lazarus, who is trapped in a state of perpetual agony, the silver bullet raging white-hot inside his abdomen, steam still swirling out.
“Don’t sweat anything else,” says Drake. His words are dry and less bubbly than usual. “Just think it over. Choose what you believe is right. You always have, haven’t you?”
Kyle looks away. His heart has never felt more troubled. “If I go …” he starts to say.
“No,” breathes Elias, shaking.
“If I go,” Kyle repeats anyway, “then everyone else is safe?”
“Everyone,” confirms George simply.
“Everyone,” agrees Mance, then eyes Lazarus. “Though I can’t guarantee that ugly one won’t hold a grudge.”
Elias grips Kyle’s hands tighter. “Babe, don’t.”
Kyle turns to him. “If I don’t go—”
“Then I’m coming with you!”
George makes a sound. “Mmm, I’m afraid you cannot.”
Elias’s eyes are fire when he turns. “I’m coming with him. I will not let my boyfriend go back to that hell without me.”
“Limited number of seats,” George drones on. “An invite-only affair. This is a special list, I am afraid, you are not on, dear Elias.”
Elias turns back to Kyle. “This is George that we’re talking about. George, the guy who killed your childhood friend in cold blood, who nearly got all of us killed over a stupid hobby of his.”
“Do you mean my hourglass collection?” asks George with a sparkle of unsettling joy, still standing atop the red platform that has become Salazo, who has not stopped glaring at George from the ground. “I have so often wondered, how is my hired thief Patrick faring? Is he still being held prisoner here in your local jail? I would very much like to see him.”
“You’re not seeing anyone,” Elias spits back at him.
Unfazed, George casually goes on. “I mean no harm. I only wish to taste of him … as I tasted his wife and child. It is like another collection of mine, a collection of blood. Within me.” He puts a hand upon his chest, as if feeling sentimental. “It will make me feel complete, I think, to drink his blood.”
Mance lets out a heavy sigh, cutting in. “Are you accepting the invitation or not, Kyle? We all got shit to do tonight. Ain’t none of us in the mood for another silver bullet to go flyin’.”
Kyle’s already made his choice. He hugs Elias. “No,” says Elias, part moan, part whimper, sensing the goodbye. “Don’t.”
He pulls away just enough to look Elias in the eye. “Protect this town while I’m gone tonight. Promise me.”
“Kyle …”
“Make sure Cade and Layna finish what they started.”
“P-Please …”
Kyle lets go of Elias. It takes more effort than he thought it would. With one last glance at the church, then Drake, whose heart is filled with warring emotions of his own, and finally at a jaw-clenched, shaking Elias, Kyle heads off, making way toward the terrifying sight of George. He doesn’t again peer over his shoulder for fear that one more look in Elias’s eyes will shatter his resolve and send him flying right back into his arms.
And if this is a mistake, and Kyle’s fate is to die tonight, well, perhaps he’s been waiting for it anyway, since the morning he sat against a rock in the desert and bid everything farewell.
That’s all this is. Just another game of chicken with the sunrise. Only this time, Kyle may have no one there to show up and stand in its way.
31.
A Change of Heart.
—∙—
It’s on a street behind the grocery store next to its loading bay doors that George takes Kyle to a parked limousine.
Kyle stops. “A limo?”
“And a hired driver,” says George, pulling open a door. “I’d expect champagne, wine, and an assortment of cheeses inside.”
“Cheeses?”
“I know they taste like nothing to our kind, but they came with the limo service, and I am not one to waste.”
Kyle glances at the closed grocery store, its dark back side, a stack of empty pallets next to two large dumpsters. “I need to change my clothes, don’t I? I’m not dressed for any kind of—”
“A change of clothing awaits you at the House of Vegasyn. Everything is taken care of. You need only come.” He holds the door open patiently.
After another moment of hesitation, Kyle finally slips into the limo. George closes the door, after which Kyle realizes the windows are completely blacked out. Nothing can be seen. The inside of the vehicle is traced with a strip of white-blue light, all the surfaces polished and smooth, a side couch facing a bar with bottles of iced beverages, wine, champagne, as well as crackers and cheeses, as promised. For as welcoming as the limo appears to be, Kyle enjoys none of it, staring ahead at the small window through which he sees the back of the driver’s head, and soon George’s when he sits in the passenger seat and mutters, “Go.”