Page 56 of Devoured
CHAPTER 15
Roland
I left my office in Vanish. The volume of the music on the main floor was usually like a pleasant breeze on my skin, but for some reason, it didn’t feel right. Nightclubs had been my escape. My safe place. To know that it was always a party somewhere in the world, and I was always in control of it, always the host, the leader, the king. But now, it irritated me. I couldn’t bury the picture of Lexi’s face, her blank eyes, the sound of her last haggard breath. How she knew what was happening, her eyes begging me for help. How she knew, right before the passed, that I wasn’t going to do anything to stop it.
My car was in my line of sight. I had given my driver the night off; there was less need for a driver if you didn’t have the distraction of a vixen next to you. I clenched my fist, itching to check my pockets for another pill. Xanax? No. I needed something else. But there was one thing I knew; I needed to go somewhere else.
Another night stuck in Sage City. Another chance to escape what I had left behind. When I looked out in the direction of the coast, imagining as if I could see those endless waves, it all seemed bleak. Endless. Like I would always be stuck here, stuck in a wasteland like Sage City, unless I crawled out somehow. New York was next. And yet I waited in Sage City for one reason.Iris.
As I reached for my car door, a metal object nailed me in the back. I flinched, then whipped over my shoulder, surprised at what I saw. A person, tall like me, in a mask, round discs covering the eyes. Straight out of a monster movie.
“Move,” he said, his voice mechanical as if going through a voice changer. He motioned into the woods with one hand, the other hand still aiming the gun at my forehead.
Where were those security guards when you needed them? This masked man must have waited until he knew I was alone.
“You know I told Iris I’d be open to some kinky shit,” I said, “But I didn’t think I’d have to clarify that guns are off-limits. Unless,” I forced a smirk, “That’s a BB gun. In which case—”
“Move,” the man repeated.
So I moved. Why the hell not? The man had a gun aimed at my head, after all. But it didn’t seem real. None of it did. It was as if I had walked out of the real world and onto the set of a horror film. My security team would pop out any moment now, explaining it was a joke. A sour taste filled my mouth, soaked in disbelief. I blamed my mood. The night was already a loss. I was ready for tomorrow, so I could move on, do something else. The man jabbed the gun in my back, and I increased my space. I should have been afraid, but honestly? I didn’t care.
In the trees, there was a metal folding chair. He motioned to it, and when I didn’t move—what was the point, anyway?—he rammed the heavy gun onto the back of my head like a hammer, the pain blinding.
A tear of blood trailing down from the point of impact. I took a seat.
“Not an award-winning way to entertain your guests, but a chair is a start,” I said.
The man stayed silent, tying me to the chair using zip ties. I should have been afraid. Should have cared. But the guilt that had followed me from California was finally showing its ugly head, reminding me of what I did, of what I didn’t do, of what I had let happen. And yet as screwed up as it was, I wouldn’t change a thing, and still, I hated what had happened. That she chose her business, her drugs, over me. Over those innocent lives. That in the end, I chose my business over her life too.
Once I was sufficiently bound to the man’s liking, he stood in front of me, holding a white cord between his hands.
“Is that for knitting?” I asked. “My aunt always uses a lot more yarn than that. But you seem like the expert.”
“What happened to Lexi Adams?”
There she was again. Lexi fucking Adams. Dead. Buried. Six feet underground. Yet her ghost followed me into the woods of Sage City.
“She took some Gray Death.”
“But you didn’t have any that night,” he said. “Why?”
“Because I knew it was hers,” I said. The man straightened, those round flat eyes peering down at me. “Fuck, man. She was selling in my clubs, without my consent, because who the hell is going to say no to a pretty blond with big tits? And then kids, young kids, barely twenty-one years old, some with fake IDs, were winding up dead.”
“She encroached on your territory.”
“Hell, a cutback can be negotiated, but death? Stealing those kids’ lives? You can’t undo that.”
“You think she knew what it was doing?”
“She knew. We talked about it. She lied to me, said she felt terrible that so many people had died. But the product kept circulating. She didn’t care. As long as she had her money, what did it matter if someone made the bad decision to buy Gray Death?” I pulled against the straps. That would have been us, dead at sixteen. “They made that decision, not her. And I don’t give a fuck about drug money. But when death follows a trail, clearing its path, what good are the sales if they end? If teens with fake IDs wind up dead? But Lexi didn’t care. And once I found it was her…”
My eyes burned with rage. I hadn’t wanted to believe it. But once I accepted the truth, the only fitting end I saw was to give her what she sold.
The man studied me. The light from the parking lot shined through the trees, illuminating him from behind. The wisps of music from the club floated on a breeze toward us. Then the mist started, one of the things I hated about this state. The constant drizzle. The weather never seemed to change.
“Come on,” I said. I nodded at his gun stowed in his hip holster. “If you’re going to kill me, get it the fuck over with. I’m done.”
“You never laid a hand on her?” he asked.
