Page 37 of The Fix
“Yeah, well, I want to fuck Beyoncé and swim with the dolphins.”
“Why am I here?” he asked again.
“You won’t be for long. Just until the end of the week. I’d let you watch TV, but there ain’t no fuckin’ power here.” He reached in his back pocket and removed some rolled magazines and dropped those on the floor next to the bag of fast food. “Comics. Best I could do.Spider-Man. Kids like that,” he told him as though it was simply a fact and since Cyrus was a kid, he must obviously like Spider-Man.
“You’re a nose picker, too, aren’t you?” Cyrus asked.
“Huh?”
Cyrus let out a sound of disgust. He glanced behind the sleepy-looking man at the door, calculating the possibility of jumping off the bed, faking right, and then running left around him and out the door. He’d used that method to successfully avoid a bully named Crew who was in his class but had been held back three times and was as big as a lumberjack. Cyrus wasn’t big, but he was fast, and he was nimble.
And he was used to evading bullies. Sometimes he was successful, sometimes he wasn’t.
He thought of a time he wasn’t, which made him think of Mr. Abdullah in the park. Cyrus had shown up with a black eye, and Mr. Abdullah had told him about a book calledThe Art of Waras they played chess. Cyrus had told Mr. Abdullah that his dad didn’t like war. Mr. Abdullah had said no one should like war, but that sometimes war was dropped in your lap. Cyrus wasn’t sure he was at war, but he was definitely a prisoner. Mr. Abdullah would know what to do in this situation, and so would his dad. But he didn’t want to think about either of them because it made him want to cry. Mr. Abdullah wasn’t here. And Cyrus would never see his dad again. Cyrus was alone.
He considered running again, his eyes moving around the man to the door as he weighed his chances. “Don’t think about it, kid,” the guy said, obviously reading his intention as if it were spelled out on his face. So, okay, the guy wasn’t a total nose picker, but he still looked pretty dumb.
“Think about what?”
“Running. There’s nothing out there for miles around except bears. Did you know a grizzly bear’s bite can crush a bowling ball?”
“You’re a liar.”
“It’s the truth. You wanna test it out? Your chances of getting past me are zero to none, but even if a miracle occurred and you managedit, then you’d have to survive in the wilderness. There are grizzlies and snakes and wolves out there, and you’d have no food. Plus, it’s twenty miles to the nearest town,ifyou’re walking in the right direction. Not to mention, I’d hunt you down, and I’d find you.”
Cyrus’s gaze went to the door again and then moved to the window, where the sun was showing above the trees. He had no way to fact-check this loser, but the view out the window at least partly supported what he said. It looked like he was in the middle of nowhere. And when he’d pressed his ear against the glass, he could hear the roar of what sounded like water.
“I don’t have any parents,” he told the man. “They died, and I live with a foster family who doesn’t even like me. They definitely won’t give you money. They’re probably glad I’m gone.” Maybe they’d let him be taken. That idea caused a lump to form in his throat. He knew the man and woman he lived with wouldn’t care if he lived or died, but the thought that they might have turned him over to a crazy man who lived in the woods made him feel lower and lonelier than he had in a long time.
“They know all about you, kid.”
“Who’sthey?”
The man shrugged. “Who knows.They, the ones who make things happen. The dealmakers. The operators. Those with money and connections. The all-powerfulthey. You and me? We’re just cogs in their machine, my man. Once you accept that, everything’s easier. Not everyone has to seek the kingdom ofthey. A lot of pressure. Too much stress. Take their money, and keep your mouth shut, and you can coast. That’s all I want, just to coast.”
He was a cog? In a machine? Cyrus didn’t even know what a cog was. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
The man laughed. “At least you have some grit. I thought I was going to be dealing with a blubbering sissy. But I see you’re squared away. That’ll make it easier for you.”
Make what easier for me?But Cyrus had asked question after question, and the man had barely offered any helpful information whatsoever. What he did know now was that he’d definitely been kidnapped—there was a man outside his door, and if the man could be believed at all, others were coming to get him in about a week.
And Cyrus knew that any others who were coming to get him from a cabin in the middle of nowhere, where he was being held by a kidnapper, were bad, bad news.
Cyrus was no stranger to bad news. He’d been living bad news since he was eight years old.
He had to get out of here, and he had to do that beforetheyarrived.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cami pressed both hands over her mouth to hold back the moan of despair and surprise and a hundred other emotions that were lodged in her throat. Rex looked at her, his expression similarly conflicted.
He’d grabbed a pen and a pad from her counter as they’d watched and listened to the exchange, and now that the boy was alone again, investigating the contents of the greasy paper bag the man had left, Rex lowered the volume on the computer. “Foster care,” he said, meeting her wide eyes. “His parents died.”
Cami lowered her hands and then squeezed them together to contain the shaking. Then she closed her eyes and simply breathed, letting the anger and sadness stab at her until she could bear it. When she opened her eyes and placed her hands on the table, she noticed him lift his hand slightly, as if moving to touch her. It stayed in the air for a heartbeat before he lowered it again. “Do you think Elora Maxwell relocating to the Virgin Islands and the lawsuits against her adoption agency has a connection to this?” she asked.
“Maybe. I can’t see how this child’s adoptive parents’ death would be her fault, but it’s possible. If they died of something drug related because she didn’t vet them properly or something like that ...”
She nodded slowly.
