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  I walk forward, a row of metal detectors and robot security guards marking the entrance into the highly monitored room where guests and interrogators can meet in person with inmates. Except when I enter the room, the bright fluorescent light straining my eyes, I am shocked at who I see.

  It isn’t some creepy old man that is gonna take me out back and chop my head off. And it certainly isn’t one of my dad’s friends.

  It is Lez Mooney, the chief executive officer of the United Kingdom’s largest media company. The same company that owns the defunct Spiders World park. He outstretches his pale, hairy arm, a smile forming on his face, which has a nose that is several inches too big and a large receding hairline.

  For a moment, I want to laugh at how a balding, overweight, middle-aged man like him could sleep with some of the world’s hottest supermodels. Then I outstretch my own hand, and the second my palm makes contact with his cold, stiff grip, I feel a series of chills run down my spine.

  I almost throw up as he opens his mouth and says the one thing I was dreading.

  He posted my bail.

  Chapter 18

  “It is a pleasure to finally meet you.” He pats me on the back, his figure still intimidating despite the fact that he is several inches shorter than me. Although he is certainly overweight, I can tell that when he was younger, he probably went to the gym all the time, and then as he got older and his testosterone levels dropped, every ounce of muscle on him slowly turned to flab.

  “Nice to meet you too.” I smile weakly. There is no way I can manage to put on my normal act of kindness, not when I’m this tired. Not when my stomach is doing flips inside me.

  Despite the adrenaline rushing through me, the exhaustion from the last week weighs me down, making my head feel groggy and my thoughts lethargic. There’s no way he posted my bail to be nice to me for burning down his old park. He must have an agenda. He must be working with them.

  “I’ll let you know up front, there are no promises I’ll get the federal charges dropped.” He steps down from the sidewalk outside of the prison. Surrounding us on all sides are barbed wire fences and guard watch towers which are worn by years of torrential rain pounding against them, but still undoubtedly effective at keeping prisoners from escaping the maximum-security prison.

  “Thanks so much for posting my bail and not pressing any charges against me on your end.” I follow him as he walks on the cracked, rough pavement of the parking lot. I study his face, trying to get a read on what his motive is, but dissecting his refined expression is impossible. “And it’s no worries if you can’t get the federal charges dropped. You have already helped out so much. Are you sure you don’t want my dad paying you back for the bail payment?”

  “No, please.” Lez holds up a hand. “Tell him not to worry about it all. I’m sure he has enough to worry about anyway. If the charges end up being dropped, they will give back the money anyway, and if the charges aren’t dropped… well, he will have to pay anyway.”

  “He will have to pay?” I repeat his words back to him, the sick feeling in my stomach being validated by his suddenly darker tone. My instinct might be right. This guy might be one of them.

  “Twenty-two days.” Lez snickers, his meaty belly jiggling a bit as he laughs. “He will have to pay the greatest price. I’m not worried about the money—it’s worth nothing at the end of the day. Hopefully, if everything works out, none of us have to pay.”

  I stand there silently for a moment. My legs freeze, refusing to continue following him through the parking lot to the sports car parked at the far edge. At first, I have to hold myself back from screaming a series of curses at him. This man is one of the most powerful men in all of Europe. Numerous news articles that I have read about the manipulation of elections his company engaged in cross my mind. This man is a multi-billionaire. And he is one of them. He wants to kill me.

  “That fire.” He puts his hand on my shoulder, and I quickly shift away from his grip. I don’t want this man to touch me, to look at me, to think about me. Suddenly, prison seems like a better option. “It was a reminder. That fear burning inside you won’t ever leave until you listen, until you trust. All of that destruction—the ash—will be what your entire life is reduced to. Twen—”

  I don’t let another word escape from his disgusting, dry lips. I lunge forward, using both my hands and wrapping them around his neck.

  “Fuck you.” I spit on him, making sure to have some of my saliva land in his eyes, which are wide open with surprise. I can tell I caught him off guard because I easily manage to force my weight on top of him and begin to choke the life out of him.

  This motherfucker won’t live another day thinking he can hurt me. I fuel all the anger inside me, letting it explode against him in the series of screams that are roaring from my throat. His people will have to learn to stay away from me. I will not be stepped on.

  After a solid ten seconds of choking him with minimal resistance, his face turns red, and the look of almost amusement in his eyes shifts to madness. I don’t let his contorted facial expression affect me, and I don’t let his words hurt me. I will make sure I’m the one haunting his every waking moment.

  Except that thought is a dream. I don’t have that power.

  I feel a sharp pain in my side as the knife that he had reached for in his pocket digs into my love handle. I don’t have time to react to try and stop him, as I am so caught up trying to inflict as much agony as possible upon him that the second he slashes me with his blade, my grip loosens.

  Now he has the advantage.

  He throws my body off him, shoving me onto the ground and pinning my arms at my sides so that I can’t move. He laughs, his stomach madly vibrating against mine as sweat drips from his neck to my face. He is going to stab me right now. I squirm, doing everything in my power to try and escape his grip before he delivers the knife’s point into my heart, lungs, or face.

  He raises a hand above his body, preparing to deliver it down upon me. I close my eyes, not wanting to watch as the knife digs into me, likely tearing my chest open. But instead, I feel the graze of the knife against my neck, its sharp blade tickling the unshaven hair beneath my chin.

  “Listen to me,” he whispers, shifting his body so that one hand grips the collar of my shirt and the other holds the knife up to my neck. We are both lying on the pavement directly between two SUVs, which makes it nearly impossible for any of the guards in the watch towers, or security cameras around the complex, to spot us.

  “I know who set the fire. We sent them.” His hot breath, which smells of stale bread and cheese, invades my nostrils. “In minutes, I can have evidence linking them to the crimes sent to the authorities, and they will go to jail for the rest of their lives, and you will be able to leave this country scot-free by tonight.”

  “Stop saying you can.” I keep my voice low, mainly because if I move my jaw too much, it will be sliced by the knife, and the last thing I need is more searing pain to accompany me in this moment. There is already a steady stream of blood dripping from my right side, where the knife dug in enough to make me feel a blinding agony, but not enough to cause any significant damage. “You need me. You will.” I wince as the side of my abdomen throbs. “You will get me out of this. You will. I’m not worried about what you will do. I am about what you want me to do.”

  “Stop saying I want.” He smiles. I am so close to his mouth that I can see the coffee stain on the back of his tongue. “I will. I will force you to. I don’t need you. I control you. We control you. And you will do as I say. The faster you do it, the faster this pain ends.” He pauses, letting his words sink into my mind. I see him reach into his jean pocket out of the corner of my eye, and my spine tenses with fear. “This is just the beginning. If you continue to challenge us, if you continue to think you have power over us, then you will regret it. More people will die, more places will be destroyed. We will incinerate everything you love.”

  I open my mouth to speak, but barely utter a
syllable before his right hand lunges forward directly into my mouth. I gag violently, my entire throat spazzing out as it tries to expel his long, dirty fingers that are pushing up against the back of my throat. He scrapes his nails against the roof of my mouth and drops something that has the smooth texture of a pill on my tongue.

  I hack. It does no use, though. I can’t stop him. I gasp for air, his hand effectively sucking the air out of my mouth. I swallow the pill.

  I buck as I feel it make its way down my throat. His hand leaves my mouth, and he makes a point of wiping off my saliva on my own shirt. Then he slides the knife back into his pocket and pulls my body back to a standing position. He keeps one hand on the collar of my shirt the entire time, making sure he can impose his will over me at any moment.

  I want to scream. I want to run into that police station and cry for help.

  But there is a deeply sinister look in his eyes that reminds me that I am dealing with a kind of evil, a kind of power, that no one can stop.

  “It was nice doing business with you, son.” He steps back and stretches his hand as if closing a business deal. “I see a prosperous future for the both of us—a boundless one.”

  I refuse to shake his hand, instead staring at him coldly. My head hurts, my body aches with pain, and all I want to do is lunge forward and kill this man. But I know that will give me a fast pass to life in jail indefinitely.

  “I’ll bring Jake to you now.” He pulls a pair of hologlasses from his pants pocket and motions with his hand. Immediately, his sports car, parked a few dozen feet away, rolls up, its doors lifting open.

  Jake emerges at first with a smile and a new pair of clothes the man had undoubtedly given him, until he sees the blood slowly dripping from my side.

  “You lock me in that car and then stab my friend?” Jake stares at the man, a bellicose expression in his eyes. He must be learning now that everything in life comes with strings attached. People are never just nice; they never give to be charitable. It’s all for a reason.

  “You boys have a wonderful day.” He smiles widely, waving as he steps towards the open doors of his car. He turns to face the entrance to the prison, where a car speeds towards the parking lot. “We will be in touch.”

  He laughs, a nonchalant manner present in his demeanor.

  Jake stands there, glancing at me up and down, shocked. There is an expression of hurt in his eyes that runs much deeper than my superficial stab wound. I don’t have the energy to ask him what is wrong. Watching the car leave with Lez Mooney inside it, the roar of the engine pounding against my ear drums, takes all the life out of me.

  I suddenly feel defeated.

  That man gets to walk away. That man gets to live his life at the top of the world. Meanwhile, I’m about to be buried beneath it.

  I close my eyes. Rubbing my face, I hope that when I open them again, my life will go back to normal and I can be sitting on the porch outside of our home in La Jolla, staring up at the stars with my mom. That life is long gone, though. And there might be nothing left to replace it.

  I open my eyes.

  Everything appears boring and depressing, mostly the same as before. Jake puts both his arms around me, hugging me for the first time in years. For some reason, it’s easier to fall into the trap of loving someone without showing it.

  But for once I can feel his care, and I don’t know what to do except let out one long, drawn-out sigh. The same car that sped through the entrance to the prison pulls up right in front of us.

  Jake and I both make eye contact, the normal light energy between us devoid as the seriousness of our situation still sinks in. We have to get through this. We will get through this.

  As we both are about to wonder what to do now, the doors to the gray SUV open in front of us, and my dad emerges.

  His eyes widen the moment he sees my blood-stained shirt. All the images I had running through my mind about how he would yell and scream at me, call me a failure, and banish me from his company forever dissipate as he wraps his arms around me.

  He whispers into my ears, tears in his eyes for the first time since we both arrived at the edge of that cliff at three in the morning to a sea of paramedics and emergency responders. They all were there to only tell us that she was dead. This time, my dad’s words to me are different.

  “I wish I could tell you why this is all happening.” His voice is dangerously low. “But if I did, then they would have to take away your life like they did with mine years ago.”

  Chapter 19

  I have already vomited once. The last thing I want to do is have that hot, pungent liquid burn my throat and stain my tongue again.

  “Dad, this car is moving at seventy miles per hour down the highway.” I sit back in my leather seat in the car my dad rented upon arriving at London International Airport. The second he heard about the fire, he got the next flight over to London, and now we are here—on our way to get the first flight back to America, while I’m supposed to be puking out the window of the car. Lovely times.

  “I don’t care how fast we are going.” He is trying to keep his voice level given the circumstances, but a sense of annoyance can’t help but seep into his tone. “You have to get that garbage out of your system. I will not let those psychos track my kid. They don’t have that right.”

  “What makes you think it’s a tracker?” I stare at him through the rearview mirror of the car. It is an autonomous vehicle, so he doesn’t even have to bother looking at the road; he could stare at me through that mirror for the entire drive. “It could be…” My voice trails off and he glances at me condescendingly. “Maybe it’s a laxative. He may want me to shit my brains out as punishment for going against him.”

  “Okay, that is ridiculous.” My dad laughs, and so does Jake.

  “You never know.” I find it ironic how I am being the optimistic one when it comes to my own involuntary digestion of a substance, but when it comes to anything else, I am normally a staunch doomer—the kind of person who views being too hopeful about something in the world as akin to heresy.

  “Maybe with other psychopaths, but not these guys.” He sighs, sweat dripping down his face. This is the first time I have ever seen my dad this stressed. The creases underneath his eyes are a deep red from the pain of his own exhaustion, and his hair seems to be thinner than normal. This look I have seen before; it only happens when his elaborate plans for life aren’t going the way he wants. Apparently, the threats before were expected and within the bounds of acceptance, but now these people, who have power over my father too, have upped their game. And I don’t know if anyone can stop them. “Trust me, it was a tracker, designed to implant its microchip inside your intestinal tract and stay glued there for eternity. I hope we can get it out in time.”

  “So, you think they are tracking me right now?”

  “It doesn’t matter if they are, or if they aren’t.” His tone is harsh. “All that matters is that they can’t in the future. Now, vomit again. We have to make sure every ounce of food is outside of you. We will stop to get something to eat soon.”

  “Imagine kissing our fourth-grade teacher,” Jake comments from the front seat of the rental vehicle. He is referring to our teacher who had a massive hairy birthmark that covered the majority of her face. Now, that in and of itself is fine, but what was particularly repulsive about the lady is that she would get really close to her students, so that her sweaty skin could make contact with their innocent faces.

  “That’s not gonna work.” I sigh.

  Without fussing anymore or wasting more time to allow the tracker to permanently embed itself in my intestinal tract, I force myself to vomit once again. I crane my neck out of the window, experiencing a sick form of pleasure when the vile liquid that spews from my mouth happens to land on the side of the car driving in the lane next to us.

  I roll up my window, ignoring the subsequent belligerent middle finger I receive from the man seated in the old sedan that has paint chips along the blue body
of the car.

  “That was absolutely disgusting.” Jake turns towards me.

  “If it looked that bad, imagine how it felt.” I put a hand on my stomach, which growls loudly. There is no doubt now that my stomach is empty of anything that has gone into it over the last few hours, and now all I want is to eat a sandwich and take a nap.

  “You’re good now.” Dad turns around, staring directly at me instead of the road. Although it is perfectly safe, it still feels weird to be talking directly to someone who should be driving—after all, it was only a few years ago when texting while driving was one of the world’s biggest issues.

  Now the biggest problems are a lack of wealth distribution, lack of opportunity, lack of preparedness for climate change, lack of happiness, and a general lacking of most things of utmost importance in all areas of society.

  “I…” His voice trails off. Both Jake and I sit there silently, the absence of any music or podcasts droning on in the background making the moment of a rare show of emotion from my dad that much more intense. “I’m so sorry to both of you. For failing.”

  He chokes up, and the glassy wall over his eyes almost bursts into a river of tears. “That’s all I have to say. I can’t say more. Just know I’m here to protect you both. I just have to protect myself first to make that happen, and I’m afraid I can’t.”

  There is a moment of silence as the car merges left to exit off the interstate down to where the airport is located. Jake and I both want to leave London so badly that we don’t even care about getting our stuff from our hotel rooms. It will be easier to have it all shipped back to our home and have us shipped out of here before anyone else tries to kill us.

  “How can I help?” I don’t know how to respond, but those four words are all I can manage. I feel uncomfortable by the fact that my dad is vulnerable in this moment, by the reality that he finally looks like life is starting to catch up to him. He looks lost. And if he’s lost, I will have no idea where to go myself—I need him more than anyone.