Dedication

  For MQ. And Jen, again.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Adam Cesare

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA

  I haven’t done anything to deserve this!

  That was the final thought through Charlie Rome’s mind before losing consciousness in the Waffle House parking lot.

  Several hours later, a less coherent version of that same thought—“Nothing! Did nothing!”—were the first words Charlie sputtered upon waking.

  If there was anyone to hear him, they didn’t answer.

  Charlie shivered in the dark, felt around to discover that his left wrist was chained to a length of pipe.

  The floor was cold under him. And the pipe must have been leaking, because the back of his jeans was wet. He tried to stand but couldn’t, there was an algae slickness under his heel. The leak must’ve been going for a while.

  He jangled his wrist. There wasn’t enough slack in the chain to let him stand anyway.

  “Hello?” he asked into the dark, and then, louder: “Help!”

  That was all Charlie could manage; his head throbbed, and the reverb of his own voice against tile made the pain even worse.

  He wondered how long he’d been here. There were no windows in this place, just a faint line of green/blue light straight ahead, probably the gap under a door. To either side of that door . . . how the fuck did he know? He couldn’t see anything but the line, the rest of the room an abyss.

  It had been two or three a.m. when he’d been walking to his car. He wondered how much time he’d spent unconscious, if it was daytime by now.

  Never mind time or light, Charlie’s head was killing him. It was hard to tell how much of his headache was from the hit and how much was the pre–Waffle House drinking he’d been doing down at the Corner Pocket.

  Fuck, Charlie thought.

  This was why he hated drinking alone. This was why he should’ve kept more than one friend. Alone, there was nobody with you to help, nobody but the bartender to keep a count, nobody to . . .

  He tried to remember how he’d gotten here. Where here even was.

  Did he owe money?

  Yes, of course he owed money. More than usual. Recent events had cleaned him out. But he didn’t think the cable company would’ve jumped to kidnapping after final notice and shutting off his HBO.

  I haven’t done anything to deserve this.

  Why had he been thinking that?

  It was because, while fumbling for his keys, in the window glare he’d seen someone.

  But who had he seen creeping up behind h—

  There was a noise.

  In the blackness to the right side of the door, someone sighed.

  Charlie wasn’t alone in here.

  There was someone standing in that corner.

  He stared.

  His eyes didn’t adjust, but he kept staring.

  No image resolved itself out of the blackness.

  There were no additional noises. But he knew what he’d heard.

  He knew there was someone there, his eyes working to see something, any shape in the gloom.

  Click.

  The sudden flash of white light was worse than the hit in the parking lot. Worse than the hangover. Worse than anything.

  Charlie Rome clenched his eyelids closed, squeezing out tears, his vision swimming pink and splotchy with his own blood vessels.

  The first thing he noticed as the pain subsided was now the front of his jeans was wet.

  And when he could finally open his eyes, to see who was in this cold, wet room with him? He wished he hadn’t.

  Frendo the Clown stood in the corner.

  Not the full costume.

  Just the mask.

  A female figure wearing a Frendo mask, a grease-stained tank top, and holding behind her a . . .

  Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

  The screech of metal against tile caused Charlie to spasm in pain, his left wrist pinching as he tried to cover his ears but the chain stopping his hand short.

  Frendo moved to the center of the room.

  She stood above a drain in the tile.

  The sound had been a pair of bolt cutters, blades down, dragged across the floor behind her. The tool’s handles were several feet long, tall enough they came to the woman’s waist.

  “Where is he?” Frendo asked. The person behind the mask didn’t growl, didn’t menace him with the bolt cutters. She was almost calm about it.

  “W-where’s w-who?” He didn’t need to exaggerate the tremor in his voice. He was scared shitless.

  And he hadn’t done anything to deserve this.

  “Your buddy,” Frendo said.

  Charlie looked up at her, confused. Trying to look confused. If she was able to read the confusion on his face, that he had no idea what she was talking about, then she would let him go. Right?

  “The buddy you went on a road trip with last October,” she said.

  Oh, Charlie thought.

  And beyond the dark eyeholes of the mask, she must have seen him thinking it.

  Because Charlie did know who she meant.

  Frendo lifted one hand, could have been reading from a note she had there, could have been messing with him. “Guy I’m looking for. His legal name is Benjamin Koontz. And his internet alias is . . .” She paused, humor in her voice.

  Clownstick, Charlie thought, goose bumps breaking out on his arms. Clownstick oh fuck oh fuck I told Ben not to get into this shit.

  “Clownstick69,” she said.

  “Who?” Charlie asked. “What are you talking about?”

  But it was no use. Charlie wasn’t a great actor under the best of conditions, had never talked his way out of a ticket in his life. And she’d already seen the expression on his face.

  He looked beyond her, toward the door, and started to scream: “Help! Help!”

  The young woman in the mask ignored him.

  “Are you right- or left-handed?” she asked.

  “What?”

  She swung the bolt cutters around, a short screech, the muscles in her arms flexing.

  “I said,” she started, then made a frustrated groan and yanked at the heavy cutters, the tip skittering forward, digging at the grout one tile away from Charlie’s knees. “Goddamn,” she said. “Can’t breathe.”

  Frendo pulled away the mask and there she was:

  Quinn Maybrook.

  She looked different from the pictures he’d seen.

  But when you took those images from the news a couple years ago, where she was looking younger and healthier, had longer hair, and combined them with the last few months of blurry security cam and cell phone footage? This was her all right.

  “I don’t know how you guys walk around in these things,” she said. “Never mind run. Can’t see. Can’t talk.”

  It was her, Quinn Maybrook. She was the vision Charlie had seen swimming up behind him in the reflection of his car window.

  The split second of realization that’d put him on the defensive. Why he’d needed to yell out that he’d done nothing wrong. He’d just been along for the ride. What was he going to do, let his only friend in the world drive thirteen hours by himself? No, not with Ben’s suspended license. And the money. Not that Charlie had much to give, but the guy needed it. Acted like he was going to die without it. . . .

  “One more time, Chuck. Where is Benjamin Koontz?”

  “I don’t know! At his house? I can give you the address. He lives—”

  “Come on. I don’t have time for this. He’s not at his house. Or I should say, he’s not at his sister’s house. His wife and sister aren’t there either. Kids haven’t been to school. So either tell me where I can find him or choose. Right or left?”

  “Right or—”

  “What hand do you use more?”

  “North!”

  “Are you okay? Are you concussed? Your north hand?”

  “Ben left town. He took his family and he went up north.”

  “We’re in the southernmost state, Chuck, you’re going to have to do better than that if you’re planning on piano lessons anytime in the future.”

  Was she joking with him? Was this all a joke to her? What was happening? His head hurt so bad and he wasn’t supposed to be here. He hadn’t even done anything. Truly! When things started getting crowded, when there were gunshots and bonfires in the streets of that town, Charlie had stayed in the car! He only got out of the driver’s seat like one time in the entire state of Missouri, and that w
as to take a piss! And the money, it was—

  Eeeeeee.

  She adjusted the cutters again, getting both hands into position on the textured grips. The head and joints were rusty, but the blades themselves gleamed, the edges clean and sharp as polished silver.

  “If you’re not going to choose, we’ll start small. The pinkie on your left hand.”

  She had to step on the back of Charlie’s hand to get him to uncurl his fist.

  Even if the girl was bluffing, even if she didn’t use the bolt cutters on him, he felt something pop, knew some bone or ligament in his hand was now broken.

  The pain was immense. Pain that snowballed with the confusion and the light and the tacky cool wetness on the back of his head.

  “It’s not fair,” Charlie said. He didn’t mean to snivel, but he did.

  There was a pause, the blades of the bolt cutters pinching.

  “Do you know how many kids I’ve known who thought the same thing? How few of them are going to get to grow up?” Quinn Maybrook asked, no more humor in her voice.

  The blades were still open. He wriggled, cutting into the flesh between his pinkie and ring finger, shaving off the hair below the knuckle.

  “I don’t know where he is,” Charlie said. “I’m telling you the truth. I was with him in Kettle Springs, for the riot, but I didn’t participate. I don’t even follow this shit. I think it’s terrible what happened to you and your friends.”

  “I appreciate that,” Quinn Maybrook said, then tensed up, ready to cut his finger off.

  “Wait! Wait!” Charlie screamed. She stopped, listened.

  “I don’t know where he is, but I know that he left. He asked for money, said he only needed a little more to cover the move for five people. When I asked him, ‘Move to where?’ he told me it was safer that I didn’t know. That I could be hurt, if I knew where he was staying. That I could be killed, if I told. That they kill people.”

  Quinn Maybrook paused, seemed to consider this. Then she looked back down at him.

  “But Charlie, haven’t you heard?” she said. “I kill people.”

  Then she cut off his finger.

  One

  KETTLE SPRINGS

  God walked Tabitha Werther to school.

  She could feel his presence. He was a warmth that took the chill out of the moist air on the long walk through dead fields and pitted roads.

  He was an inner strength that—

  Thwack!

  The sound of split firewood echoed over the rise. The noise was coming from the small collection of rooftops ahead.

  Someone in the town center was swinging an ax.

  It was a strange time to be chopping firewood, odd in both the hour of the day and time in the season.

  One more instance of strangeness to add to her town, beset by settlers, unquiet for this last year. A year of change and transformation.

  As Tabitha approached the schoolhouse, the sound grew louder and the dirt road under her feet grew softer.

  Thwack.

  The soles of Tabitha’s shoes started to sink into the loam.

  Started to, but God lifted her up.

  Her faith kept her aloft, gave her strength to pull against the suck.

  He was an escort at her arm and she was able to stand tall even as the buckles of her shoes began to strain.

  The sensation, his presence, was difficult to describe. God walked with Tabitha and did not. He was also elsewhere. He was yards, chains, full acres away. At this same moment, he was watching over their livestock. In the larder, keeping cream from curdling. Helping a clumsy mason regain his balance atop a ladder. He was up in the sky, guiding the sunbeams into the earth.

  God was in every corner of the newly incorporated township of Kettle Springs.

  She turned, now standing in the doorway of the schoolhouse. She tilted her head, looking up at the church.

  Whitewash siding that’d never seemed less white.

  It wasn’t just the overcast day or her imagination: the outer walls of the church were green with algae and brown with mud fleck.

  All that prosperity promised by the Pastor and the church had never looked shabbier, not while Tabitha had been alive. The steeple tilted slightly, always seeming to hold you in its shadow.

  Tabitha wasn’t sure God was—

  Thwack.

  Tabitha flinched.

  Inside the door, her schoolmates tittered.

  She ignored them.

  She didn’t know them. She had not grown up with them. Not that the children, all younger than Tabitha, were grown.

  It took strength, patience, not to scowl at the children. She reminded herself that they couldn’t help it, that they lacked her grace because their parents hadn’t raised them to know God.

  At least not the God who’d walked Tabitha to school.

  Tabitha took her seat on the bench beside Hannah Trent.

  Kind, considerate, quiet Hannah Trent. A new arrival, but nothing like their classmates.

  The little girl nodded a greeting.

  A few moments later, Mrs. Hill began the day’s lesson.

  Tabitha found it difficult to—

  Thwack.

  Tabitha watched out the schoolhouse window as the man swung the axe.

  She didn’t know much about Isaiah Dunne. She didn’t know his history or from where he’d traveled to be here with them.

  But watching Isaiah, she knew one thing: wherever he was from, he hadn’t been a woodworker.

  His stance was wrong and his aim was scattershot. She watched him swing and her own calluses from splitting firewood itched.

  Isaiah Dunne was going to injure himself.

  Thwack.

  He was able to compensate for his poor form with powerful strokes. He was a big man. Unnaturally big, with muscles in his neck as big around as Tabitha’s arms. He stood a head taller than Tabitha’s father and was probably five stone heavier.

  The lumber he was chopping wasn’t firewood. The finished pieces were too long. The material was slab wood with most of its bark intact, nothing you would use to build a house. Tabitha wasn’t sure of the project’s end goal, but she could guess that the Pastor himself had set Isaiah on the task. The giant man was working enthusiastically. Fervently.

  Watching him, his corded muscles, the bulge of his forearms, Tabitha was reminded of a story.

  Several stories, now that she thought about it. There were often woodsmen in the stories her father told. Back when he told bedtime stories. Back when he said anything at all, except for repeating what the Pastor had said last Sunday in—

  “Werther. Tabitha Werther. Are you listening, girl?” Mrs. Hill asked. “The word is to you.”

  Oh dear.

  The word. And what had the word been?

  Tabitha could ask the teacher to repeat what she’d said while Tabitha had been daydreaming, but that would only give Mrs. Hill a reason to be spiteful. Not that their new schoolteacher tended to need a reason.

  Tabitha looked around the schoolhouse.

  Her classmates grinned at her.

  Hannah Trent was the only one of Tabitha’s schoolmates who would be willing to help, the only one of these strange, new children to show Tabitha kindness and friendship.

  Tabitha could see in Hannah’s eyes that the young girl was willing to help. Not that she could. Hannah couldn’t speak and Mrs. Hill was staring too intently in their direction for the girl to mouth the word.

  Instead, Hannah gave a sad look, then a regretful raise of her brows.

  Tabitha sighed.

  “May I hear the word again, ma’am?”

  Mrs. Hill smiled softly, deciding Tabitha’s fate, then said:

  “You may. It’s a word for you, girl. Dissent.”

  Tabitha stood, the wooden bench groaning in the quiet of the classroom.

  Beside her, Hannah made a loud swallowing sound. The girl was anxious.

  Outside, Isaiah Dunne completed another downward swing.

  Thwack.

  There was no need for Hannah to be uneasy. Yes, this was a difficult word, but Tabitha knew it.

  At fifteen, Tabitha was the oldest student in the room. Mrs. Hill had been in charge of the schoolhouse for four months now, and Tabitha was used to playing this game, the woman always giving her difficult words.

  It was okay. God was with Tabitha. Whispering to her. And even if he weren’t, Tabitha knew difficult words.

  She had been a prodigious reader, before.

  Before the arrival of the Pastor.

  Before Kettle Springs was Kettle Springs.

  “Descent,” Tabitha said, then spelled: “D-e-s-c-e-n-t. Descent, that is the word.”