I try to cling to the facts.

I need to focus.

My gun, my badge, everything has been taken from me. Even my shoes. I don’t feel like I’ve been touched. But I’m so disconnected with my body, I don’t know if I could tell right now.

The driver is taking me somewhere. I don’t know where that is yet. My last memory is of trees. Tall trees. Taller than what I saw in south Texas.

When we get wherever we’re headed, I’m going to die. He’s going to kill me. I know this because he said the Warlock is real. He believes this man is a higher being.

Damian had warned me that the Warlock might have accomplices. He went out of his way to make it look like he was acting alone. Many psychopaths like to use the word “we” to imply they represent more than one person. To pretend they’re not just one lone nut job baying at the moon in the middle of the night.

This man, my captor, is probably acting under the Warlock’s orders and not just some disturbed rogue who decided to honor his idol. I know this because he uses the spray we think the Warlock was using.

If I’m awake, that means he’s going to spray me again. I decide to pull my hands around my body before he does that. I want to feel around the trunk again. If I can find a tire iron or some kind of weapon and hold my breath, I might be able to fight back.

It’s harder than I anticipate to slide the cuffs to the front of my body. My arms feel like they’re made from rubber. I have trouble knowing where they are in the darkness. The effort takes an eternity. I finally bring the cuffs to my face and stick my tongue out to tell what they are. With the right tool I can pick just about anything.

I taste glue and plastic. He’s put plastic cuffs on me, then wrapped them over and over again with duct tape. It’s the kind of binding you put on someone when you know you’re never going to set them free.

There is no doubt he’s going to kill me.

I could try to slide them off against the inside edge of the trunk. But I’m afraid he’ll spray me again and it won’t matter. He’ll just add more tape. I feel around the floor of the trunk for anything to use as a weapon.

My hands touch soft fabric. It’s my jacket. I can use it to cover my mouth when he sprays me. That might help just a little. I’m still vulnerable here. As I slide the jacket across my chest I hear something crackle inside a pocket. It sounds like a pack of gum.

I stick my hands inside and feel the bag with the letter and the blister pack of pills that Damian gave me. That seems like an eternity ago. I would have preferred my uncle’s knife. I push them back into my pocket, then remember what the note said and what the pills are for.