Page 72 of The Chain House

He felt Lizzie’s arms trembling as she held him, and he liked to think it was from rage over what had been done to him and not the fear of what he’d done. Because you’re not a cannibal if you didn’t know, right? You’re not a cannibal if they forced it down your throat.

You’re just a victim, and they’re bullies.

And he said the next thought out loud: “It stops now, Lizzie.”

And he knew that with her response he would either sink or sail, and when she said, “You’re goddamn right,” he thought he might cry all over again, because he was about to set sail and it wouldn’t be alone. They stood together from the floor, didn’t matter to him that she towered over him, especially in her heels, because nothing was going to stop him from finding Justice Minks now. Nothing was going to stop him from dancing on his brother’s grave, because that clock had been ticking for way too long now and was finally about to run out.

He was The Raven, and she was The Mongoose.

And because his childhood heroes made decisions based on clues and facts and newly attained evidence, his heart swelled with pride when The Mongoose said, “There’s something in the other room you need to see.”

CHAPTER34

BETH WAS EXHAUSTED.

Physically and emotionally exhausted.

But she’d refused to sleep. She couldn’t defend herself if she was asleep. She laughed inwardly at that because she couldn’t defend herself at all. But she’d give anything right now to be free of the chains. The weight of them was causing unbearable strain on her limbs and joints; so far she’d only discovered two positions where the strain was tolerable, but after a matter of minutes, even those positions hurt.

He was a madman to do this.

Or maybe Mallard Malone was a madman for thinking it up, these Chain Houses.

Earlier, she’d heard movement inside the neighboring room, what sounded like a body being dragged across a floor, and felt sure Billy Boyle’s corpse had finally been removed. So far, no one else had been hooked to the chain to replace him, but when she pulled on the chain through that wall, the resistance was still heavy. Although not as heavy as Billy’s dead body. She’d been able to move whatever it was attached to, but it had taken effort, and eventually the chain stopped again. By the sound of the heavy object scooting across the floor over there, she guessed it was a cinderblock, or maybe a boat anchor. Either way, the slight leeway granted by the change had allowed her to get closer to the hole in the floor, and after peering down into it, she’d been able to see Joseph Gerrard sleeping on the floor below. She feared for his state of mind. She’d tried getting him to talk and he either wouldn’t or couldn’t, but what disturbed her even more than his lack of response was that, aside from the wall with the window, he appeared to be chained in every direction available. A chain disappeared into the other three walls and another one disappeared into the floor next to where he lay curled into a ball, which meant there was either a room in the basement or this Chain House was three floors tall.

Refusing to stay idle and refusing to give in to her exhaustion, Beth had spent the past thirty minutes intermittently calling out her captor’s name. Alternating between shouts of Justice, or Minks, or Justice Minks, or Oliver, hoping to lure him into her room, hoping to coax him into conversation, because she was a full believer in the idiom: Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. She stopped shouting when she heard footsteps thundering down the hallway outside her room, but when the door flew open so rapidly the knob punched a hole in the drywall, puncturing one of the book covers plastered there, she knew she was in trouble, because it wasn’t Oliver Crown in his Guy Fawkes mask, but another man altogether, one she’d never seen before.

“You’re gonna shut the fuck up, bitch, or I will shut you up.” He was tall and thick with small eyes and a shaved head, dressed in army fatigues with big black shitkicker boots that ran halfway up the shins of his camo pants.

Beth scooted as far away as her chains would allow. Within seconds she realized her display of fear was a mistake, as his rage quickly morphed into something she could only construe to be lust. Like he was an animal with uncontrollable urges that needed to be sated now, and she cursed herself for poking the bear. She’d only made her situation worse.

The man, glancing over his shoulder toward the open door, acting as if his time might be limited, began undoing his belt, and before she knew it his pants were down around his ankles. Beth grabbed the chains around her, one in each hand, gritted her teeth, and hissed, “Try it, motherfucker.”

He stepped forward, grinning, oblivious to another sound of footsteps approaching down the hallway, these angry as well, but somehow moving more methodically and controlled, and seconds later Justice Minks showed himself in the doorway, mask and all, a large gun in his right hand.

Beth’s shaved-head assailant glanced over his shoulder and said in desperation, “It’s not what you think, Justice …” But he barely had time to blink before Minks pointed the gun and blew the man’s brains across the floor, against the wall.

Beth screamed, and her screaming acted like a trigger for the rest of those held captive inside the house, because a chain reaction of screaming soon followed, even from Joseph Gerrard directly below, and by the sound of the cacophony of fear resonating through the Chain House, through the walls and floors, Beth guessed the number of prisoners was close to a dozen, if not more. She looked away from the carnage, away from the sight of her assailant’s body somehow still resting on his knees, mostly headless, before Minks kicked it over and the body landed with a loud, floor-shaking thump on the hardwood.

“He knew better,” Minks said. If Beth had anything in her stomach, she would have thrown it up right then and there, especially as Minks squatted down with his eyes on her. “He’d been warned. Oliver Crown is a leader of the new world order. And they don’t rape or pillage.” His knees popped when he stood. He checked his watch. “Four hours now.”

“Until what?”

“Batise is executed,” he said. “By firing squad. On national television.”

This was news to her. For the first time, she wondered how much the world had changed over the past thirty-six hours. “And then what? You’ll let me go?”

He didn’t answer, just stared at her with those dark eyes, and after forcing herself to investigate them, really focus deep into them, she realized she recognized those eyes from somewhere. From the horrors of the attack inside the Hawthorne mansion, yes, but perhaps even before then.

“Oliver,” she said. “Take off the mask.”

He watched her, said nothing, the gun hanging heavy as a boulder in his right hand, grip loose like he might accidentally drop it.

Beth adjusted her seat on the floor. “You said they’ve all been forced to read the books. All of them. Who is … all of them? Justice?”

“Oliver,” he said. “I’m Oliver Crown now, and I’ll soon be the leader of men and women.”

“The new world order?”