30

“How did you gain Troy’s trust so quickly?”

“Oh.” He heaved a sigh. “I had to go through his ‘initiation.’” He put air quotes around the word. “His word, not mine. It was a series of tests to prove my loyalty.”

“What kind of tests?”

He didn’t say anything for a while. When he finally opened his mouth again, he said, “Tests no one should have to go through. Especially not a teenager.” He rubbed his shoulder and looked away. “I still get nightmares about them. Sometimes.”

His words dredged up a memory I’d tried hard to forget. It was of Evan in those last minutes.

“Where were you,” he’d demanded of me, “when the Kings tortured me to break me and force me to kill to prove my loyalty to them?” Thinking of his words then, the unhinged glint in his eyes, how hard he’d breathed as he pointed the gun at me. With a rush of old guilt, I wondered if that torture he mentioned was anything like what Lance had gone through.

“I spoke to the kid who survived the kidnapping,” I said. “Samuel Granby.”