Chapter Twenty-Five

 

 

As quick as it had come, the nausea left Krysty. All she felt now was cold and empty. She wrapped her arms around herself in an effort to keep warm, her teeth chattering.

 

Mildred took a blanket from one of the backpacks Hoyle and Bernsen had been carrying, then draped it around the woman's shoulders.

 

"Oh, Mildred, I saw him. Saw Dean dead," Krysty said, rocking slightly and trying to clear her head, trying to think.

 

"Maybe. Or maybe it was something else."

 

"What?" Krysty asked, looking at the woman.

 

"I don't know."

 

"Then you can't say that."

 

Mildred's face hardened. "You just get it together, girl. This is no place for someone who's lost her head."

 

"I know." Krysty dropped her chin onto her chest and closed her eyes. That was a mistake, because the image of Dean came swirling back into her head, all mixed up with the visions she'd had the day before. "But what else could it be, Mildred? Give me something I can believe in."

 

Mildred shook her head. "I can't do that. You're going to believe in whatever you want to believe in."

 

"If I may" Doc interrupted.

 

Krysty looked at the old man, seeing him raise an eyebrow at Mildred.

 

"Go ahead," the doctor said.

 

Doc leaned in closer, his eyes locked on Krysty's. "Are you sure Dean was dead in your vision?"

 

"He looked that way."

 

"Then he could have just as well been asleep."

 

"Not asleep," Krysty argued. "I've seen him asleep. It wasn't anything like this. He was too pale, barely breathing. And he was outside somewhere."

 

"Then mayhap he was sick and you saw him at that time. It might not be something that is going on now at all."

 

Krysty wanted to believe that. At least it was something better than believing he was dead, a chance to get to Dean before it was too late.

 

"You might be able to find out," Doc said.

 

She looked at him, knowing what he was going to say. "I don't know if I can do that. I lost him, and I couldn't hang on to that image anymore."

 

"Don't try for an image," Doc said. "You yourself have said if anything happened to Ryan you would know. And you believe that tie goes beyond just yourself and Ryan."

 

Krysty nodded, not feeling so lost. It was a thought to hold on to.

 

Doc reached out and took one of her hands. "To allay your feelings and fears, you should try to reach out to Dean."

 

"But what if I can't feel him?"

 

"That's not the question you should be asking yourself," Doc admonished. "You should instead be asking yourself what if you can feel him."

 

She nodded, feeling her fear shove icy tendrils through her brain. "I know you're right, Doc, but I'm still afraid."

 

"The only thing to fear is the unknown," the old man said. "Not the truth. I know not what happened to my own family, and I would give anything to have that peace of knowing for sure. There comes a time when what you're supposed to do is lay down the burdens you've been carrying. And fear, dear lady, is a huge burden to bear. You've been given enough of them of late."

 

Reluctantly Krysty closed her eyes and concentrated on Dean. She built his face in her mind, the way she'd seen it thousands of times, so like Ryan that she could see part of what her lover had to have been like as a child. Despite Ryan's irritation with Dean over behavior on occasion, there wasn't so much separating the father and son.

 

Electricity grazed her mind, sharp and insistent. Then Dean was there, his presence not as strong and as vibrant as it normally was, but that might have been because of the distance and her own fatigue. She reached out to him, felt his aliveness.

 

"Krysty," Doc said.

 

"It's okay, Doc." Feeling weak, Krysty wiped a shirtsleeve across her face to dry the fresh tears. "He's there."

 

"Alive?"

 

"Yes."

 

"And you're sure?"

 

"Yes. The only thing I really felt in him was tiredness and that he was afraid."

 

"Kind of sums up a normal day for a youngster if you ask me," J.B. commented.

 

Doc patted Krysty's hand. "Just you rest easy, dear lady. Ryan will return in a short while, and things will seem better."

 

"Guess so." Krysty pulled the blanket around her tighter, trying to stave off the chill still threatening to consume her. A headache dawned in the back of her head and lingered as a dull throb. She kept her gaze focused on the dark and forbidding forest around them, afraid to close her eyes because of what she might find there. "Gaia," she whispered, "stand by me. I don't know what you're trying to show me, don't know what it all means. But keep me strong enough to endure. And hold dear to you all that I hold dear, please."

 

 

 

"I CHECKED, Baron, and the boys appear to be all right. No permanent injuries, nothing that would keep them from being of service to you."

 

Full consciousness returned to Dean slowly, flickering in by dribs and drabs. His head hurt, and he could feel his heartbeat throbbing in his ears and his neck.

 

"All ten are there?" a deeper voice asked.

 

"Yes."

 

Dean slitted his eyes open. He could already tell he was lying on a hard surfacenot the ground, though. As he let the dim yellow light filter into his vision, he opened his hand on his side opposite the one the men talked on. He splayed his fingers, sliding them across a smooth wooden surface that held only a few nicks and rough spots.

 

"You say this group has been trained together, Solomon?" the deep voice asked.

 

"For just short of ten months," Solomon answered.

 

"This one looks kind of skinny." Something hard pressed into Dean's side, and he closed his eyes, clamping his lips shut against a cry of pain.

 

"Don't worry about him, Baron," another man said. "Bastard kid there is quick as lightning. Had him in my sights, and he wheeled on me as I was squeezing the trigger. Disappeared like a fucking ghost and was gone before I could draw another bead."

 

"So he can run," the baron said. "Don't need a runner. Need a fighter."

 

"He can fight," Solomon said. "He's a chiller."

 

"Know that for a fact, do you?"

 

"If that boy had gotten his hands on a weapon, you might not have all your men back out of the brush," Solomon replied. "If he hadn't trusted me just long enough, I wouldn't have bagged him for you. And I think he was already figuring out that I wasn't on his side."

 

Dean slitted his eyes open again. This time he saw the wall of bars separating him from the speakers. Solomon was talking to a gruff-looking man in road leathers, the right side of his face spider webbed with tattoos, a rifle resting easy in the crook of his arm.

 

"Moves like that, Baron," the gruff man said, "you can't teach. Boy's been around some."

 

Beyond the trio of men, another dozen were making final preparations on the wags that had formed a loose circle around the area.

 

"Give me that light," the baron ordered. He took a cylinder from the man beside him, switched it on and fanned the lens out into a broad cone.

 

With the extra light, Dean could see that he was in a wag of some type. The sides were covered by canvas over a rib cage of bars just like the ones covering the back end, converting the wag to a cage on wheels. Slavers used vehicles like these when they could.

 

His heartbeat sped up. Solomon had sold them out to slavers. The other boys were scattered around him. A few moved, struggling to throw off the effects of the trank dart they'd been hit with.

 

The baron strode to the end of the wag, then stepped up on a platform mounted there. The wag shifted as it took on the man's weight.

 

Framed in the light he directed at the top of the canvas-covered cage, the baron looked fierce. His face was scalpeled by hard living in mean times, scraped free of any softness or empathy. Long black hair framed his face and ran down past his shoulders. A mustache and goatee almost disguised the old knife scar that ran across his cruel lips. Another scar started from the bottom of the goatee and trailed down the side of his neck, showing how close he'd come to death.

 

He wore jeans with wraparound black chaps over them, a body-armor vest with a death's-head painted over his heart, a deep turquoise silk shirt with a high collar under that. Feathered earrings thatched with blue-jay quills hung from either side of his head. A cut-down Mossberg Bull-pup 12 shotgun rode in a hand-tooled breakout holster that ran the length of the man's right thigh, the butt sawed off and replaced with a fold-out metal stock. He carried a Detonics .45 in shoulder leather.

 

"I'm Baron Vinge Connrad," the man declared. "That probably don't mean a thing to most of you."

 

It didn't mean anything to Dean. Scoping out the other boys without moving his head, he figured it didn't mean anything to anyone else, either.

 

"What does matter," Connrad continued, "is that I own you as of this minute. You can live or die right now." He slipped the Mossberg free of the thigh holster and held it in one hand. "What's it going to be?"

 

None of the boys said anything.

 

"I better damn sure get an answer," Connrad growled, leveling the Mossberg. "Otherwise, I'm going to shoot me some fish in a barrel."

 

"Live!" Ethan Perry said, blood tracking a split lip. The other boys took up the cry.

 

Dean, who'd said nothing, found himself being prodded with the shotgun muzzle. He thought about trying to grab the barrel but decided against it. Even if he managed to get it away from the man, there was nowhere to go.

 

"What about you, kid?" Connrad demanded.

 

"I want to live," Dean answered.

 

Connrad flashed him a cruel grin, eyes shadowed by the night's darkness. "Smart kid." He withdrew the Mossberg.

 

Dean sat up, sidling out of reach of an arm through the cage. "What do we have to do to live?"

 

"Chill a few people. Nothing big."

 

"Who?"

 

"Does it matter?" Connrad's gaze was direct and forceful.

 

Dean dropped his arms over his folded knees. "Not really."

 

Connrad looked over his shoulder at Solomon. "I like this kid, Payton."

 

Solomon nodded. "Knew you would. Like to talk about the jack you owe me for training these kids for you."

 

Connrad waved a dismissive hand, turning his gaze back to Dean. "You're kind of the runt of the litter, kid. Way you heard from Solomon, I paid him some good jack for finding ten of you here at the school and putting you together as a team. Promised him more when he delivered you." He grinned. "Been thinking about that, though. Saunders!"

 

Instantly the gruff man beside the phys-ed teacher put a gun to Solomon's head, then quickly relieved him of his weapons. "Put your hands up and keep them there," Saunders ordered.

 

"What the hell is going on?" Solomon demanded.

 

"Got to thinking about it," Connrad said. "You don't want to go to Vegas with us, and that leaves me kind of exposed. You might tell some of Brody's people about this transaction. Mebbe old Brody is an ornery enough cuss to send somebody looking for us. Can't have that."

 

"Wait a minute," Solomon said. "If I sell you out, I'm writing my own death sentence." Desperation filled his face. "Even if you didn't hunt me down, Brody or one of those townsfolk would."

 

"Mebbe. And mebbe you'd cut some kind of deal if you got caught getting out of this territory. Townsfolk get kind of soft, forget those hard roots that got them as far as they are. If you came with us, I'd know you got free of the situation. But you didn't want it that way."

 

"I'll go!" Solomon said in a strained voice. "I'll go with you! It's not that big of a deal!"

 

Connrad fixed Dean with his stare. "You believe him?"

 

Dean looked deep into the phys-ed teacher's eyes, thinking about the way Solomon had betrayed Nicholas Brody, the school and the nine other boys sitting in the cage behind him. "No."

 

Connrad smiled, honest pleasure showing. "Lad after my own heart. You figure ol' Solomon would up and split the first chance he got?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"So do I." The baron glanced at the teacher. Solomon was pale, shaky. "You think I should just shoot him and be done with it?"

 

"Up to you," Dean said.

 

Connrad abruptly passed the flashlight to another man, then worked the shotgun's slide to eject five shells. "Got one left in there. You hard enough to shoot Solomon for what he done?"

 

Dean returned the baron's flat gaze full measure. Nothing stirred inside him; it was all about survival now. "Yeah."

 

"Cawdor!" Ethan Perry exploded. "You can't do that! You coldhearted little son of a bitch!" The boy erupted from his seat and came at Dean.

 

Dean rose to his feet to defend himself.

 

"Sit down!" Connrad barked. He wielded the Detonics in his other hand, pointing it directly at Perry's head. "Or I'll blow your bastard head off!"

 

Other boys, including Moxen and Louis McKenzie, reached up for Perry and pulled him back down. Perry put up a struggle, but it was mostly show. There wasn't any way he was going to go up against the baron's pistol.

 

Dean smelled the raw stink of fear filling the wag cage.

 

"Want to do it?" Connrad asked Dean.

 

"Up to you. You're in charge." Dean tried to play it the way his dad would, imagining his father in his shoes, willing himself to step into his dad's way of thinking. It was all about here and now, living to take one more breath and not regretting what he had to do to take it.

 

Connrad passed the Mossberg through the bars.

 

Dean took it, keeping his hand out of the trigger guard. The gun felt solid, dependable. He thought about the one round in the magazine, wondering if it was really there.

 

"Go ahead and do it," the baron urged, pointing the Detonics at Dean.

 

Slowly Dean brought the shotgun to bear on the baron's chest. He peered intently at the man over the barrel, neither of them backing off.