“I don’t have a sister.”
His eyebrows crunched together slightly, and he turned back to the road.
“I don’t have a sister,” she repeated with more force.
Reykon sighed. “Listen, there are going to be a lot of things that you discover in the next week, things that will sound crazy. Let’s just pace ourselves – for your sake.”
“No,” she insisted.
“What?”
“Tell me right now. I don’t have a sister, which means you either have the wrong person, or the wrong information. Either way, I have a right to know who’s responsible for this crime.”
Reykon laughed softly and shook his head.
This enraged her further. “It is a crime, believe it or not.”
“I know it’s a crime, it’s just, where I’m from, people don’t call it that.”
“And where are you from?”
“Louisiana,” he said simply.
“Is this funny to you?” she demanded.
“No,” he sighed. “Believe it or not, I’m saving you a lot of anxiety.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’re so damn thoughtful.”
He shook his head and kept driving.
“I do not have a sister,” she hissed, leaning towards him and catching a hint of his deodorant.
“Yes, you do. A half-sister.”
“How do you figure?”
“On your dad’s side.”
She laughed bitterly. “Seriously? My dad would never cheat on my mom. You don’t know him. You’re wrong.”
“You really wanna do this?”
“Yes,” she seethed.
Reykon’s knuckles tightened on the steering wheel, and he sucked in a frustrated breath. “You’re adopted, Robin.”
A silence sunk between them as she stared at him with narrowed, skeptical eyes.
After a moment, she started laughing. “No, I’m not.”
He shrugged. “Believe me or not, but I have proof. I’m very thorough.”
“Prove it, then.”
He kept one hand on the wheel and leaned back, digging his hand into the pocket on her seat’s back. He pulled out a file folder, and set it on her lap, opening it up and taking out a picture. It was her parents, standing in front of a hedge at somebody’s house. She didn’t recognize the location.
“When were you born?”
“March 13th, 1994.”
“So Ellen Wright would have been eight months pregnant in February of 1994, correct?”
“Yes,” she said with a scowl.
He turned the picture over. In her mother’s swoopy cursive, undoubtedly authentic, the date was written. Valentine’s Day, 1994.
“That’s not…” Robin faltered, staring at the date. Reykon turned the image over again and dropped it in the file, leaving it face up. She traced over her parents’ silhouettes with her eyes. Her mother wore a pale pink dress, the kind with big shoulders. She clearly wasn’t pregnant, and most definitely wasn’t eight months pregnant. As the confusion and frustration seeped in, she began searching for any error. “That’s not right.”
“It’s her picture,” he pointed out.
“I don’t care whose picture it is!” Robin snapped, her voice angry. “It’s not right.”
Reykon’s lips pressed together and he closed the file. “I told you it wouldn’t do any good to ask questions.”
“You’re wrong,” she whispered, turning back to the window.
“I tried to tell you.”
An hour passed, the corn fields and rolling plains blending into a sort of personal hell as Robin considered the statements Reykon had made about her parents. The picture. It was authentic, that much was true. She couldn’t fathom the idea that her parents weren’t her parents – they were older, and they hadn’t had any other children, but they’d had her. They had pictures of her in the hospital. How would he explain that?
She didn’t have the heart to ask right now. The whole thing was making her head spin, and only increased her need to get away from this man. If she could just get a moment alone, then she could formulate a plan.
A green sign alerted her that a town was coming up in a few miles. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she mumbled, keeping her eyes on the horizon. With any luck, there’d be something there that she could use to escape.
Reykon nodded. As they pulled into the town, she wondered with a spark of hope where they’d be stopping. It was 7:00 p.m, and there were people everywhere. They pulled into a Wendy’s parking lot, on the less occupied side. There were five or six cars in front of the restaurant, but nobody next to them.
Why here? she wondered. There were witnesses everywhere. She would be able to yell out that he’d kidnapped her in an instant.
He turned the car off and leaned over, getting something from the glove box. She watched him with suspicion and fear.
He’d pulled out a pair of leather gloves and a thick black ring, about four inches across and made out of some shiny polished material. Silver metal lined the edges, and she eyed it nervously.
He put on the leather gloves. “My employer spends a lot of money on technology. He’s really obsessed with gadgets and stuff,” Reykon explained. He’d gotten both gloves on and picked up the ring. “For instance: this.”
Reykon held the ring in one hand and pulled a remote out of his jacket pocket. With the press of a button, the air around the ring crackled violently, blue electricity striking out from the inner sides.
Robin let out a cry of surprise and flinched, slamming back against the door.
He held it up to the light, examining the small piece. “Pretty cool, huh? Stun guns put out about 45,000 volts. This baby does 60,000 in one go. I’ve seen people crack teeth from the convulsions. We got these about a year ago, straight from the lab. They’re incredibly compact, they never jam, and they have a range of five miles. And, they’re fairly fashionable. Nobody would ever guess that it’s a weapon.”
She stared at him, fairly certain the man was insane.
He pressed a button on the remote and the ring clicked open, each half falling to the side. In a quick movement, he swung it down, and she felt the smooth metal connect on her forearm. The other half followed, clicking into place on and locking around her wrist. She pulled back, trying to get away from the weapon, but it was too late.
“Get it
