They drove for a long time. Three hours, maybe four. Amani drifted in and out, the drug was still in his system, pulling him under in waves that he fought against and lost against and fought again. Each time he surfaced, the van was the same. The sharks talked among themselves about nothing, women they were sleeping with, money they owed, a fight at some bar. Meaningless. They talked around him the way people talked around furniture.
He used the lucid stretches to assess. The van was moving steadily, no stop-and-go traffic, which meant they'd left the city. The road was smooth. Highway. The temperature inside the van was rising, which meant sun and no shade, which meant desert. They were heading out of Vegas into the nothing.
Las Vegas existed as a bright, impossible jewel in the middle of a landscape that wanted to kill people. Drive thirty minutes in any direction and you were in a world of scrub brush and sand and heat that could drop a man in hours. Drive half an hour and enter a world where no one could find lost body.
The van slowed. Gravel crunched under the tires. They stopped.
The back doors opened and sunlight flooded in so bright that Amani squeezed his eyes shut. The sharks spilled out, groaning and stretching, and then one of the bigger ones reached into the cage. The latch clicked. Hands grabbed his bound wrists and dragged him across the metal floor and out into the open air.
He landed on his side on hard-packed dirt. The impact knocked the wind out of him and sent a bolt of pain through his already-aching shoulder. The silver collar burned like never before as his neck jerked back and forth. Before he could orient himself, he was yanked up by the binding ropes. The world swam around him, too bright, too hot. The ground tilted under him as the drug, pain and the sudden jostling fought for dominance.
"You three! Don't you dare hurt him!"
The voice came from somewhere ahead. It was smooth and oddly musical, with a cadence that reminded Amani of a bird's call, precise, carrying, pitched to be heard across open space.
"He's to be my mate, after all."
Amani's stomach dropped through the floor of the world.
The sharks released him, laying him on the hot sand. He blinked against the sun until his vision cleared.
The man walking toward him was tall and lean, with long white hair tied back from his face and flowing down his shoulders. Old, at least forty years older than Amani, maybe more, but he moved with a grace that seemed to contradict his age, each step precise and fluid, like a bird picking its way acrosswater. It was only in his hands that the years showed. They were weathered, crippled things, the fingers twisted and the knuckles swollen, and they looked like they belonged to a much older man.
He walked up to Amani and laid a bony finger along his jaw. The touch was light but proprietary, the touch of someone inspecting something they'd purchased. Amani held still. His training held him still.
"He's beautiful," the man told the sharks. His voice had the hushed quality of someone looking at a painting in a museum. "He'll be a perfect mate to stay with me while I pass from this world. You've done well. Check your bank account, the money is all there."
He smiled at Amani. It was a warm smile, a grandfatherly smile, and it was one of the most frightening things Amani had ever seen because it was completely genuine. This man believed what he was saying. He believed he had purchased a mate.
"Now, if you don't mind," the man continued, still smiling, "please untie him. My poor little cub is probably hungry and thirsty after such a long journey."
Little cub.
Amani's skin crawled.
"Mr. Grainger, I know you said you wanted him loose, but I think you should reconsider," the driver said. He was standing by the van with his arms crossed, watching Amani with the wary assessment of someone who knew what a lion could do when it was angry. "This one isn't very calm. He might take a while to break in."
Mr. Grainger, the crane, laughed softly. It was a gentle sound, like wind through dry grass. "He'll be fine. Won't you, my little cub?"
Amani nodded. Quickly, emphatically. Whatever got the ropes off. Whatever got his hands free. Freed him of the silvercollar, and his mouth ungagged. He wanted his body back under his own control. He could figure out the rest once he could move.
The plan was simple. Play compliant. Let the sharks leave. Get the collar off. Then find a car, a phone, a road, anything, and get the hell out.
The ropes came off. He pulled the gag from his mouth himself, the cloth soaked through with his own saliva, and dropped it on the ground. His jaw ached. His wrists were raw and marked with rope burn. He flexed his fingers, felt the blood rush back into them, and took his first full breath in hours.
His hand went to his throat. The collar was smooth under his fingers, thin enough to sit close against his skin, thick enough that he couldn't bend it. There was no visible clasp, no hinge, no seam he could feel. Just a continuous band of silver that burned where it touched him and kept burning. It was worse than touching a hot skillet.
"Thank you," he said to Mr. Grainger.
It cost him something to say it. A small piece of pride, swallowed and held down. But he knew where to lay his gratitude right now, and it wasn't with the sharks. If anyone was going to give him an opening, it was the old man who wanted him untied and comfortable. The old man who believed Amani could be tamed with kindness instead of ropes.
Mr. Grainger beamed. "Besides," the crane continued brightly, gesturing at the landscape around them, "there's nothing around for miles. He'd have no chance of survival without my help."
Amani looked.
He scanned in every direction, a full slow turn, and what he saw killed half his plan as efficiently as a bullet. The collar had already killed the other half.
Nothing. Flat scrub brush in every direction, stretching out to a horizon that shimmered with heat. No buildings. No roadsvisible. No power lines. No landmarks. Just the ranch house behind Grainger, massive and Spanish-styled, red tile roof, white arches, beautiful and completely, terrifyingly isolated, and the vast beige emptiness of the Mojave in every other direction.
