Without Mercy - Lisa Jackson [178]
As if he truly thought he were Jesus Christ.
CHAPTER 43
“So now we wait,” Eric Rolfe said smugly. “The others should be joining us, once they’ve finished their missions.” He glanced over at Missy, and she nodded, her blond hair pale in the fallout shelter, her expression one of supreme satisfaction. She’d cleaned her teeth of blood and now seemed confident that whatever horrid plan they’d all hatched together was working.
“What missions?” Jules asked from a hard folding chair, the one she’d been forced to take.
Whimpering Nell sat to one side of her, and Shay, belligerent, her eyes hot with fury, was seated on the other. They were trapped in a small subterranean room that, Jules guessed, was the fallout shelter from the fifties, the one Charla King had mentioned. It apparently had been recently fitted with a state-of-the-art security system and backup power and had been converted into some kind of weird underground chapel that housed not only an altar but also a floor-to-ceiling cabinet that held guns, rounds of ammunition, night goggles, and God only knew what else. It was certainly enough firepower to arm a secret militia. The place gave her a serious case of the creeps; the kids holding guns on them scared her to death.
“You don’t need to know anything else,” Missy said in her grating voice. Nonchalantly studying the nails on one hand while pinning the three captives down with a handgun with the other, she seemed at home in her position as prison guard. “The Leader has it all planned out. Perfectly.”
“Your leader is a murderer,” Jules said.
“Hey, don’t!” Nell shook her head, afraid to make any waves. Eyes round with terror, she said, “I’m sure…I’m sure he’s a great guy.”
Shay let out a huff of disbelief, and Jules couldn’t take the naive, desperate girl’s rationale. “A great guy? Get real. Three people are dead. Probably a fourth if you count Lauren. The one thing he isn’t is ‘a great guy.’”
“There are always sacrifices,” Missy said blithely as if the people who had died were meaningless.
“Four people dead?” Nell repeated, swallowing hard, her voice a frantic squeak. “But I thought just Drew and Nona…”
“And Maeve,” Jules said, “We found her mutilated body in the stable tonight.”
“Maeve, too?” Nell cried, horrified, shaking, a fresh spate of tears running down her cheeks. “Oh, no, no, no.”
“Who cares who’s dead?” Missy really wasn’t interested. “We just do what he tells us to.”
“No questions asked? Even murder?” Jules tried to get through to these kids. “Taking innocent lives?”
“God’s will,” Missy insisted. “And I don’t know about any murders.”
“There’s gonna be more,” Eric predicted. His smile was wide, an evil grin meant to remind them that they were in his control. He could do anything he damned well pleased with them, and there would be no consequences.
Nell whimpered.
Eric loved intimidating the poor girl. “If you ask me,” he said slyly, “we’re already a few shy.”
Missy shot him a look, warning him to be quiet.
Eric, however, was on a roll. “But I think we’ll make up for it tonight.”
“Shut up,” Missy advised.
Eric scoffed at her. “They want to know, so let’s tell them.” To Jules, he said, “I told him he should have taken out Howell, too, but he went soft on her.”
Maris Howell, the teacher Jules replaced?
“She was nosing around, like Lauren, and he let her go. Stupid.” Eric’s nostrils flared and his fingers tightened over his handgun. “I would have taken her out. Got rid of the problem once and for all.”
“Maris Howell?” Jules said. “Because of her affair with Ethan Slade?”
Again Missy and Eric exchanged glances, their smiles telling all.
“What affair?” Eric finally said, and laughed brutally, the horrid sound intensified by the small, confined space. Missy, too, giggled in her tiny voice as they shared a private little joke.
“She was caught with Ethan Slade,” Jules pressed, trying to under stand.
“A setup.” Rolfe was enjoying himself now, thinking he was smarter than everyone. “Because she was spying, the Leader came up with a story to