“I don’t know. I’m trapped here. There’s never enough food. I don’t want this life. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t ask for any of it.”

“What are they doing to you?”

“That’s not even the worst part,” the boy said.

“What is?”

“I’m nothing here. That’s the worst part.” His hushed voice held a kind of awe. “No one cares. If you don’t exist, then it doesn’t matter, right?”

“No. That’s not right. Look. Listen.” Evan blinked hard, rubbed his eyes, forging through the muddle in his head. “Whatever’s being done to you, it’s wrong. It’s not your fault. And you’re not the only one.”

“I know it happens to other kids,” the boy said. “I see it, even. But when it happens to you, it feels like you’re the first person it’s happened to in the whole world.”

“I know.” Evan felt emotion pressing at the back of his face. “You’re resourceful. Scrappy. Like I was.” The ether had loosened his inhibitions. He heard his words drawl, knew he was saying more than he should.

He was supposed to be the Nowhere Man, armored in his role as savior and hero, indomitable and distant and safe.

But right now he felt like none of those things.

The static grew to a roar, and for a moment Evan thought the call had dropped. But then the kid’s voice came back in. “—can’t talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“I’m scared to. It’s not safe.” A wet breath.

Evan took a breath of his own. Held it. Then, “Can you get out?”

“Nowhere to get to.”

“Find help?”

“No one can help me.”

“Can’t you run away and go to the cops?”

“No. I need you.”

Locked on the third floor of a guarded chalet at the base of a snowy valley, Evan nodded. “I’ll get to you,” he said. “I’m coming soon.”

In the silence he could hear the boy breathing across the phone.

Finally the kid said, “I have to go now. I’ll try ’n’ call back if I can.”

“When you do,” Evan said, “I’ll be ready.”

33. The Inexpressible

33

The Inexpressible

Parking Level 3, submerged in a sea of crimson.

Evan is underwater, trapped inside his own locked-down body. His lips stitched shut. Drowning in Jack’s blood.

Jack ripples across from him like some hard-bitten merman. His arm is raised. The fine hairs of his forearm waver like tendrils of seaweed. His finger points at Evan.

You.

Evan strains and struggles. His muscles bulge but cannot move. Paralyzed.

For the first time, he lifts his gaze to brave Jack’s stare directly. Jack’s eyes are not what Evan expects. They are filled not with accusation but with love.

Yet the finger still points.

And Evan realizes.

Not: You did this.

But: You hold the key.