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Tean steadied himself and stood.
“We’re going for a walk. You first.” That part was for Jem. “We’ll come along behind you, nice and slow.”
Jem nodded.
“That way.” Quinn pointed toward a scraggly line of trees, where the ground began to drop toward the reservoir.
After another nod and a quick check of Tean, Jem started off. He heard steps behind him, recognized Tean’s easy way of moving over land, even land he wasn’t familiar with, and the heavier steps of Quinn, and then—
“Watch where you’re going, dumbass.”
Jem turned his head enough to see Colin recovering his balance. The younger man still had his head tilted back, and he said, “You’re supposed to do this so it stops bleeding.”
“Who cares if it bleeds? Can you be a man about one goddamn thing? Stop it from bleeding. Jesus Christ, Col. Put your head down and walk a straight line. Hey, I didn’t say stop walking!”
The only good part, Jem thought as he resumed walking, was that if he died in Missouri after being captured by Tweedledee and Tweedledum, nobody would ever learn about it in Utah. His reputation would be intact. Nobody would ever know the final humiliation of these two rednecks getting the upper hand because Jem had taken a kick to the jaw in the tussle, because that fraction of a second when he slowed down had been enough.
He pressed the thoughts down and focused on the situation at hand. He still had the barrette, but he needed to be close to use that. Or the tube sock, but for that, he needed rocks—and, more importantly, time. If they put them in a car, maybe. If they put Tean in first. The barrette to the throat, and then take the gun. Maybe. Or if he could get them talking. But Quinn’s threat lingered, and Jem wasn’t ready to risk it. Not yet.
At Quinn’s instructions, they followed a dirt road for a hundred yards. Dusk was rushing in, darkness swallowing everything: the cat enclosures, the outbuildings, the pinned-up silhouettes of trees. The sounds of the party had faded to a buzz in the distance. At first, Jem thought the noise, the slap and murmur of water, was his pulse. Then, through the trees, he caught sight of the stirring restlessness of the reservoir, the slight chop of the breeze.
“Here,” Quinn said.
Jem turned where the road branched and an older section cut through the trees. He made it another ten yards, into the deeper darkness under the canopy. And then he stopped and had to fight a giggle that swelled up in his throat.
The Jeep was white, glimmering in the twilight. A soft-top, probably twenty years old. And leaning against it, dressed—improbably—in summer-weight navy trousers and a crisp white button-up, was Emery Hazard. His eyes glittered in the dying light, and Jem thought of autumn fires, of aspen leaves drifting like embers, and a chill ran over him. It was impossible to miss the holster on his hip or the big cowboy revolver.
“Hello, dumbshits.”
That did it; the giggle slipped out. Only a tiny bit before Jem could stop it.
The best Quinn could come up with, apparently, was “Hey!”
Colin echoed him a moment later: “Hey!”
Emery didn’t roll his eyes, but nobody could have missed his disgust.
“I’ll shoot him,” Quinn said, and Tean made a noise that Jem thought meant Quinn had jabbed him with the gun. “Get the hell out of here! Right now! Or I’ll shoot him!”
“It’s obvious you’re going to shoot him,” Emery said as he picked up his phone from the Jeep’s hood. “You’ve got a gun pressed against his head,” he said as he placed a call and put the phone to his ear. “What was I supposed to think? You’re giving him a haircut? Lord knows he needs one.”
That giggle slipped out of Jem again.
“Shut up,” Quinn said.
“I cut his hair, actually,” Jem said.
“Yes,” Emery said into the phone, “I want to speak to the manager.” To Jem, he said, “Have you ever heard of clippers? Number two.”
“We like his hair. We like it just the way it is.”
Tean cleared his throat. “I don’t, actually. In case it matters.”
“Yes, I’ll hold,” Emery said into the phone. To Jem again, “Try a high and tight, next time. Or a crew cut. God, John and Auggie should be telling you this. Anything, really, so he doesn’t look like such a hippie.”
“Didn’t you hear my broder?” Colin shouted through the bloody nose. “He said get—”
“Get out of here, yes, I heard him.”
