God of Pain novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Four Minutes

Livia knees Cormac and he doesn't flinch, but with Tino's cars circling he hides her in the school boathouse and quotes her a price.

I did not wait for him to finish the sentence.

I drove my knee up as hard as I could, the way my brother had taught me when I was twelve.

Cormac Reardon caught it on his hip.

He did not grunt, and he did not step back.

He looked down at my knee with mild interest.

"Your brother taught you that," he said.

"How do you know about my brother?"

"Everybody on the docks knows who your brother was."

He let go of my leg.

I swung my fist at his jaw, and he turned his head just enough that my knuckles skidded off his cheekbone.

It hurt me more than it hurt him.

"Again?" he said.

Behind us, the black cars turned into the lane.

Their headlights lit up the wall I had just climbed.

They lit up the two of us, standing in the middle of the road.

I stopped breathing.

Cormac looked over his shoulder, and something in his face closed.

"Four minutes," he said.

"What?"

"That's how long before they check every garden on this side of Milton. Get on the bike."

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Then stay and tell Tino how you like the ring."

He swung one leg over the motorcycle.

He did not touch me, and he did not grab me.

He just sat there with the engine running, waiting for me to do the math.

I did the math.

I climbed on behind him, holding my torn skirt in one fist.

"Don't touch the bruise on my ribs," he said. "Hold the seat."

"You don't have bruises. You're the God of Pain."

"Everyone has bruises. I just don't talk about them."

He pulled out of the lane without his headlights on.

The cars slid past the end of the street, and one of them slowed.

I felt my whole body go rigid against his back.

His hand dropped from the grip and touched my knee, only for a second.

"Breathe," he said.

Then he turned the bike down a side road I had never seen, and the cars were gone.

We rode twenty minutes with the cold air tearing at my dress.

I knew where we were going when I saw the river.

The Charles lay black and flat below the hill, and on the bank stood the old Hartwell boathouse with its green roof.

Cormac killed the engine and rolled the bike behind the building, out of sight of the road.

He picked the padlock on the side door with a bent key that I did not ask about.

"You're taking me to school," I said.

"I'm taking you somewhere nobody will look. Tino's men think you ran toward the highway."

"Why would they think that?"

"Because that's where I told them I saw you headed."

I stared at him.

"You lied to them."

"I said I'd bring you in. I didn't say when."

He pushed the door open, and the smell of river water and old varnish rolled out.

Inside, eight long racing shells hung in their slings from the ceiling, pale as bones in the dark.

He pulled me through, and shut the door, and slid the bolt.

My bare feet were bleeding on the concrete.

I only noticed when he crouched in front of me and looked.

"Sit," he said.

"Don't tell me what to do."

"Sit down, Maradei, or I'll sit you down."

I sat on an overturned crate, mostly because my legs had stopped working.

He found a first aid kit behind the oar rack.

He cleaned my feet with cold water and a rag.

His hands were enormous and scarred, and astonishingly careful.

"You came to get me," I said. "For Tino. How much does he pay?"

"That's not your business."

"I'm the business. How much?"

He tore a strip of tape with his teeth and did not answer.

Outside, an engine rolled slowly along the road above the boathouse and stopped.

We both froze.

A car door opened.

A man's voice said something low, and another one laughed.

Cormac reached up and switched off the one bulb that was burning, and the dark closed over us.

His mouth was beside my ear.

"Not one sound," he whispered.

Footsteps crossed the gravel, and came to the other side of the door.

A hand tried the handle.

It rattled once against the bolt.

I held my breath until my chest burned.

A phone buzzed in Cormac's jacket, and the glow of it lit his face blue.

He looked at the screen, and typed with his thumb, calm as a man ordering lunch.

Then he turned the screen toward me.

To: Tino. No sign of her. Checking the east side.

The footsteps went away.

The car pulled off, and the road went quiet.

Cormac put the phone away, and for the first time he looked at me like I was a person instead of a job.

"Five thousand dollars," he said. "That's what you're worth to him tonight."

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