Page 87 of The Chain House

The man coughed, heaved, cried out again as Lizzie put more pressure on his knee.

“Where’s Beth Hawthorne?” Trevor asked again.

“Ain’t my lane,” the man croaked.

“What are you planning with those weapons up there?”

Lizzie asked, “What weapons?”

“They’re storing enough weapons for an army,” Trevor told her, and at the same time reiterated his question to the man with a widening of his eyes. “Huh? If Beth Hawthorne isn’t your lane, what is?”

“I’m just carving out my path, man.”

“What path?” Lizzie raised her foot as a threat to bring it down on his knee again.

“In the world of Oliver Crown,” the man said, as they all heard another vehicle approaching the house. And then multiple vehicles, some of them honking, and they heard hooting and hollering.

The man on the floor laughed. “You two came here to get it on … well, consider yourselves fucked now. Oliver Crown’s army has arrived.”

Trevor hoisted the bat over his shoulder, as if preparing to strike—and in his mind’s eye saw the Louisville Slugger connecting with the man’s face, busting teeth, splitting skin, splintering bone—but then he stopped. For a split second he thought of Sam. And what Sam might be thinking of him now. His grip eased on the bat’s handle.

As if in response to Trevor’s backing down, Lizzie aimed one of the guns at the man’s face.

Trevor said, “No … don’t.”

“He can ID us, Trevor,” she said. “He’s a bully. Aren’t you?” she said to the man. “You’re a murderer and a bully. And who are we now, Trevor?”

“The Raven and The Mongoose,” he said without hesitation, and it felt good. “But we aren’t executioners.” Trevor lowered her arm, the gun along with it. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Car doors opened and closed outside.

Lizzie yanked her clothes on, and together they fled out the back of the house just as a crowd of men entered the front.

CHAPTER44

Before

BETH HAWTHORNE GATHERED her thoughts as she watched young Luther Wright place piece after piece of the puzzle together.

The boy truly thought he was Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the classic novel. When she asked him if he’d read it, he gave her a look that said, Of course I’ve read it. Who hasn’t? But he was far too young to read such a book, not only the level of reading but to understand the complexity of it: with the themes of alienation and lost innocence, it should have been too far over his head. And when she asked him if he understood what it was about, he gave her that same look of disdain, and, as he worked the puzzle on the coffee table, said, “Holden Caulfield was a cynical and rebellious teenager who was trying to find his place in a world of adults who were nothing but big fat phonies who wear masks.”

“What masks?” Beth asked.

“Ones you can’t see.”

“Do you wish you could wear a mask? Luther?”

“Do you think I need to?”

“No. I think you look fine.”

“That’s what James says.”

“Who is James?”

“James has a giant peach,” he said as an answer.

“And where is James?” When he didn’t answer, she asked, with trepidation and a quiver in her voice, “Are you sometimes James?”