Messiahs by Matt Rogers (bookstand for reading txt) 📕

And so could Pressfield.

Slater said, ‘That would mean flying back with this stuff on us. We don’t even know what it is yet.’

King said, ‘How’d the kid get them over here? Look at that vial design. It’s airtight. He swallowed them.’

‘That’s the route you want to go? We’re becoming drug smugglers?’

‘I haven’t agreed to anything,’ King said. ‘I’m just listing options.’

They passed Holt’s Saloon on their right, its steady thrum of country music like a bad dream, reminding them of what had happened since.

Slater pocketed the vials. ‘What the hell are we going to say when we get back home?’

‘What we always say,’ King said. ‘The truth.’

11

Violetta and Alexis stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the other side of the living room, their faces pale.

Slater bit his lower lip and chewed it absent-mindedly. He only realised he was doing it when the silence became too heavy, and he took his teeth off the skin so he didn’t draw blood.

He shifted from foot to foot. ‘I’d appreciate it if one of you responded.’

He’d laid out what happened, word for word, leaving nothing out, not even the explanation of the fine mist of blood coating the top of his bald head and the back of his skull.

Violetta said, ‘Let me see the drugs.’

Slater fished them out of his pocket and handed them over. She twirled the vials around between her fingers, scrutinising them. Alexis looked on, her eyes swirling with discomfort.

Alexis said, ‘You keep saying boy. How old was he?’

‘Eighteen,’ King said. ‘So technically an adult, but that’s no relief, I know. He had his whole life ahead of him…’

He trailed off, staring at the floor. He couldn’t lift his eyes to meet theirs. He’d seen kids die before — the number of operations he’d undertaken, it was simply inevitable — but something about this time had him shellshocked. Maybe the proximity of it, the confined space of the rental car’s interior, the horrendous noise, the fact that it was a suicide.

‘Did you spook him?’ Violetta said. ‘Was it your fault?’

Slater smirked without a hint of happiness and turned away, as if he couldn’t bear the conversation a moment longer. He went to the kitchen, took a shiny whiskey tumbler down from the top shelf of a glass cabinet, twirled it over in his hand, then put it back. He put his hands on the kitchen bench and breathed a sigh that came from deep in his core.

He said, ‘I need a fucking drink.’

Alexis was fixed to the spot next to Violetta, but concern plastered her face. ‘It’s that bad?’

‘Yeah,’ King said, his stare vacant. ‘It was bad.’

Violetta said, ‘I hate to sound remorseless, but I take it he was going to do it one way or the other.’

‘It’s not that,’ King said. ‘It’s … I’ve seen brainwashing before, but that takes the cake. He didn’t even consider an alternative.’

He trailed off, his gaze locked on the vials in Violetta’s hand. He said, ‘We need to test that stuff as soon as possible.’

Violetta said, ‘Why?’

‘I need to know what’s in it,’ he said. ‘I need to know what it did to that kid.’

Her face changed.

She saw something in his eyes.

He was haunted.

Across the room, it clicked for Slater. They were both considering that it could have been their own kid. Sure, Jace was technically an adult, but at that stage of life there’s little room for independent thought. You do what you’re told, and if everyone in the small hemisphere that encompasses your reality tells you the same thing, you listen. Add a chemical cocktail to the mix, and it speeds up the process, amplifies it tenfold in some cases. This was a more extreme version of what had happened to Melanie Kerr in Vegas a month earlier — roped into underage prostitution with the aid of drugs to squash any intrusive thoughts.

Slater could see King had abandoned everything he’d said earlier that day.

He would follow this to the bitter end.

Violetta was beginning to understand that, and the accompanying silence was overwhelming.

King said, ‘Mother Libertas.’

Violetta said, ‘What?’

‘That’s the cult he named. Dylan funded it. It’s based in Wyoming. That was as much as we got out of the kid before he degloved himself. We need to—’

‘He what?’ Alexis said.

Slater sighed and pressed his hands harder into the countertop, sending veins bulging in his forearms. ‘You skipped over that part, King.’

King realised he had. He thought he’d told them everything, but he’d only told them Jace had forced himself out of his restraints. He hadn’t elaborated.

Violetta said, ‘He ripped the skin off his hands?’

Slater said, ‘The cable tie was tight. Tight enough to almost cut off circulation. He still got out.’

Violetta held the vial up to the light. ‘What the hell is this, then?’

King said, ‘I need to know. And we need to go to Wyoming.’

Alexis said, ‘I thought—’

Slater said, ‘I think we’re past that now.’

He spoke to Alexis, but his eyes were on Violetta. She had newfound understanding on her face, and the last thing on her mind was discussing their agreement.

Alexis reached over and put a hand on Violetta’s shoulder. ‘Listen, I know this is fresh. But you need to think about this. What if we fly back home and you get cold feet? I say we sleep on it.’

King shook his head, but no one was paying attention to him.

Violetta was staring off into space, but she turned to face Alexis. ‘What if there’s kids younger than eighteen? We just had an opportunity fall into our laps we otherwise wouldn’t have known about. I doubt Dylan kept records of his deal with Mother Libertas. If we don’t put a stop to whatever the hell’s going on over there…’

She trailed off.

King said, ‘You don’t think he kept records?’

‘I’d wager he treated it like a start-up,’ she said. ‘An initial investment to help them gain momentum, unrecognised and unspoken. It sounds like a passion project for him. I don’t think even someone as awful as Dylan Walcott would want a written