Donny was waiting on the sidewalk for her when she got back. The poor kid had gotten himself a freaking faux hawk, skinny jeans, a V-neck tee, and sunglasses big enough to put Jennifer Lopez to shame.
She rolled down the window. "You look like hipster heaven."
"You look…um. Brunette."
"We'll make a detective of you yet," she said. Nodded towards the bag. "That your stuff? Stick in the trunk. Time we hit the road."
"Uh, sure." Donny nodded, and bounced back and forth a little on his heels. "Uh, where, uh, exactly are we going?"
"We're going to find your uncle."
She was grateful for her own sunglasses as she said that, as she blinked a little rapidly over the words and tightened her jaw against the possibility that—no. She'd find him. She would.
"Oh, right." He threw his bag in the trunk and took shotgun. He drummed his fingers on his knees as she pulled back into traffic.
She kept her own voice clipped and crisp. "Your new ID is in the glove department. You're Max Kinney. I'm your mother Evelyn."
"Look, I, I think I have a right to know what's going on—"
"Your uncle's in trouble. Again. That's all you need to know."
xxxxx
It was dark again.
It had been dark for a long time, and then it had been burning bright until all he could see was the light shoved in his eyes and there were questions and his eyes watering burning going to melt out of his skull and all the light.
And then there was pain.
And then it was dark.
The fabric over his face was rough and scratchy, wet, wool? It smelled of grease, lanolin. He could smell machine oil. The whole left side of his face hurt. He couldn't smell the blood anymore.
There weren't any sounds, except things that were so soft and shifting and far away that maybe they weren't sounds, maybe he made them up in his head to keep from going insane going insane going insange-going insane-going—
One two three four five six seven eight nine ten.
Columbus sailed the ocean blue, six times seven is forty-two.
Ten nine eight seven six five four three two one.
He wanted to laugh with how stupid it was, that they had grabbed him, that they had thought he was a danger to them, when it wasn't until just after they left him in this room (blood clogging up his nostrils, dripping down into his teeth) that he'd managed to work out what they thought he knew…
Sounds?
Footsteps.
Click. Light through the wool, through his swollen eyelids.
They yanked the hood off, threads catching where they'd stuck in the drying scabs. Light.
One of them raised a fist.
Darkness.
