Jack was too tired to say anything, or even look at his mother, by the time he strapped himself into the passenger seat of her car. He hadn't slept at all in for two days, but he had managed to get in a few workouts and his body was screaming with exhaustion. Admitting out loud what had happened with Gigi- and with Scarface-dad, too- left his mind just as worn out as his body.
In spite of that, his skin felt like it was on fire and his leg was bouncing up and down of its own accord.
Blair slid her eyes sideways and, with real effort, Jack forced himself to be still. "Sorry."
Twitching like an idiot- or Wheezy's dad- was something Jack could apologize for. Getting Gigi killed was not. His fingers curled themselves around the armrest and held on. He watched his knuckles grow white but had no way of loosening his grip. He might have to cut his own arm off to get himself into the police station.
Blair didn't acknowledge any of that. "I talked to Mickey Horton. He'll be here tomorrow morning. He doesn't like what you're doing, but he says he understands."
"That's the lawyer?" Jack asked. His voice was hoarse and shaky. McPain was going to have a great time with him, he just knew it. McPain didn't have Victor-dad to kick around anymore, so he was going to take everything out on Jack. That was how McPain worked. He had his favorites- people like Cole and Marty and- who never had to pay for anything. Then he had his usual suspects- people like Victor and Jack- who were always wrong even when they were right. This time Jack really was wrong, more wrong than he had ever imagined being, so whatever punishment McPain found was sure to be a living hell.
"Mmm-hmm."
"My lawyer is some guy named after a mouse?"
Blair laughed more than it was worth and Jack jumped at the unexpected noise. "He's an old man. It was a common nickname for Michael back when he was a kid."
"Is he senile?"
"Very sharp, I promise. His record is impeccable, but he gives off this grandfatherly vibe that lulls everyone into a false sense of security. He sympathizes with you, Jack. He says that between all of his grandchildren and nieces and nephews there's not one mistake that nobody's made."
Blair carefully made a left turn. Two more turns and they would be at the police station. Jack was glad that there wasn't much in his stomach to lose because he was pretty sure the nausea was going to overwhelm him. He was debating asking Blair to pull over and let him be sick when the car stopped unexpectedly.
For a second, Jack felt a flash of relief, like his mother really could read his mind after all and knew he needed, at least, some fresh air. Then Blair swore and jerked the car onto the shoulder. Jack saw that they had just avoided being caught in an unmoving traffic jam.
"Is something going on tonight?" she asked.
"Nothing I know about."
"Nothing I know about, either, and we're usually pretty on top of things for Capricorn."
Jack shrugged and leaned his aching head back against the seat.
"Hey." Blair brushed her fingers against Jack's arm. "We're not going to let a little thing like this stop us. We're going to walk through the alley and be at the police station faster than if we'd driven. I'll be right beside you the whole time."
Jack couldn't make any sound come out of his throat in reply, but he did manage to pry himself out of the car.
The sun was falling fast and the night was going to be cold. Instinctively, Jack found himself walking more quickly than he meant to. Blair was right beside him until, with a sickening thud, she wasn't.
Wheezy.
Shane Morasco's face, contorted with anger and righteous indignation, rose before Jack's mind's eye. He was the one who had hit Jack the night of Victor's murder; Jack remembered that now, sensing Shane for a split second as he fumbled for his keys.
Shane must be the one who was here, trying to take Jack's mother because Jack had taken his. He had hit Blair from behind just as he had hit Jack.
"Mom!"
Jack wrenched himself away from whatever was holding him- something had been holding him?- and lashed out blindly toward whoever had hit his mother. He landed one punch against someone too big and solid to be Wheezy. Then he saw a shoe, a woman's shoe with a high heel, aiming for Blair's head. He tossed himself to the ground and took the blow with his shoulder.
There was a pinching at the back of his neck, and his body froze.
Someone jerked him roughly to his feet and turned his head so he was looking at the owner of the shoe.
"You shouldn't have done that, my darling grandson," said Irene. She nodded to Jack's captor, who picked Jack up around his waist and tossed him into the trunk of a waiting car.
Just before the trunk slammed shut, Jack saw Irene direct another pointy-toed kick at Blair's face. "I never liked you at all," she said.
Todd smoothed down the rumpled quilt on the bed where Blair and Jack had been sitting. It was still warm from their bodies and he let his hand linger.
"Maybe we should meet them at the police station," he suggested to Starr.
"And tell them we listened to that whole conversation?" Starr wiped a stray tear off her still-flushed cheek. "Jack will be so pissed he won't confess to anything. He'll say we're all out to get him anyway and he has to protect himself."
"We'll just say it was a coincidence."
"They're both going to buy that?" She plucked Blair's brush from her dresser and ran it through her hair.
"I don't want Jack walking in there alone."
Starr turned and glared at Todd. "He's not alone. He's never been alone. Or did you believe that whole story about how I stole Mom from him and ruined our family by getting pregnant after ruining it by telling everyone Victor was you?"
"No one's saying anything is your fault, Shorty."
"Were you not eavesdropping on the same conversation I was eavesdropping on? What did you think he said?"
"I think he said Victor Lord Junior was an asshole who cut down my wife and my children until they felt worthless and convinced them that I don't love them." He crossed the room in a single stride and grabbed Starr by the shoulders. "I love you, Starr."
Starr stood on her toes to hug him. "Love you, too."
"So let's watch that movie you promised me," he said, but what he meant was How long will it be before I can get your mother or brother to say that?
In the dark, bumpy trunk, Jack found that he could move his fingers again. He used them to probe the spot at the back of his neck where he'd felt the pinch and found a hot, swollen bump. One of Irene's thugs must have injected him with something.
A vague lesson in the distant past about smashing the brake lights from the inside of the trunk floated to the forefront of his mind.
He groped in the general direction of the brake light. It hurt.
"Mom," he whispered.
He had to get back to Blair. He didn't think they'd killed her- he couldn't think they'd killed her- but he couldn't let her lie in the alley with a head injury. She needed to go to the hospital.
He tried again, this time managing to get his hand around the panel covering the light. It snapped off, pinching his finger in the process. He didn't care; there were wires behind the panel, wires he could rip out.
There was no way his mother was going to die because of him the way Gigi had.
Just as he had the wires out of the way, the trunk flew open.
Irene glared down at him.
"Resourceful, like my Victor, are you? Too late, though."
Jack blinked and saw that they were inside a loading dock.
He gathered his muscles, well trained by hour after hour of soccer, and sprang out of the trunk.
"There's nowhere to go, Jack," Irene crooned.
She was right, Jack realized. There was only one door; when he flung himself at it, he found it locked.
"Sneaking around isn't as easy as you thought it was, is it?" asked Irene. "You thought you got away with something last night. You thought I wouldn't find out."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I had dozens of surveillance cameras installed in my new home. I know that you stopped by last night, and you didn't even say hello to your grandmother." Irene pouted.
Jack shivered. He'd almost forgotten about that. His mind was too full of Gigi and Shane and Victor-dad and Scarface-dad and... "What did you do to my mom?"
"She'll come around. Probably." Irene chuckled. "It doesn't serve my purposes to kill her just yet. More's the pity."
"And me?"
"And you could have been my ally." Irene backed Jack against the door; her flowery perfume made him want to gag. "But now you're a liability."
"I didn't hear anything."
Irene slapped Jack across the face. "Prove it."
"How can I prove-"
She slapped him again. "Tell me what you know."
"I don't know anything!"
"Did you tell Todd?"
"I didn't- I don't even know where he is! I can't stand the guy, I thought you knew that!"
"I thought I did, too, but maybe you decided you would pretend to hate him and fool your silly old grandmother."
"I didn't!"
"But to protect myself, I have to assume that you would tell him everything you know."
"I don't know anything!" The more Jack said it, the more he realized it was true. He didn't know anything about his family or his friends or his school. He was the stupidest person who had ever walked the face of the planet, as Victor-dad had sometimes told him.
Irene snapped her fingers. "Jog his memory," she directed a pair of men. They seized Jack's arms and dragged him through the door, which Irene had unlocked by entering a code on a well-concealed keypad.
On the other side of the door was a warehouse four stories high. Rickety metal stairs ran along the walls; pallets of plastic-wrapped supplies stood ready for delivery. One of the men pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and roughly jerked Jack's hands into them.
Then he unbuckled his belt.
Jack's stomach lurched. The thought of rape had always wrapped itself silently around his family. Blair was the product of a rape. Sam was the product of a rape. Todd had raped Marty, and the rapist's daughter had fallen in love with the rape victim's son. That was without getting into the mess that was their extended family- Viki and Niki and Jess and Tess and the rest.
But he'd never pictured himself as a potential victim until that moment.
When the belt flew across his back, he shouted more from surprise than from pain. A beating was a lesser evil than the one he'd been imagining.
He braced himself against the second lash; that seemed to make it hurt more.
He tried to relax into the third lash, reminding himself that he deserved it for getting Gigi killed and Blair hit over the head.
On the fourth lash he thought about how nice it would be to die and not face McPain at the police station. At least Irene had kidnapped him before his confession and not after.
On the fifth lash he screamed and fell to his knees.
"What did you hear?" Irene demanded.
"Nothing." He couldn't remember anything. He remembered slinking into Sam's room. He remembered two women's voices. He remembered-
"Hit him again."
The pain made him forget.
"I'm your grandson!" He protested, not realizing how ridiculous that was until he heard himself say it. She hadn't cared that Biological-dad was her son. She'd done worse than this to him for eight years.
"And I hate to have to do this to you. You should have been honest with me. Todd should have been honest with me. Victor should have been honest with me. Your grandfather started this, you know, when he gave that ring to your father. Your father brought him your cousin Natalie so he could cut her heart out."
"Whatever."
"Whatever will mess with what little brain Todd has left the most, yes. Whatever will bring out the strongest sense of irony and fear and guilt."
Irene produced a knife from her bag and tapped Jack on the chest.
"Let's see if you have the heart of a Lord, shall we?"
