Chapter 260

The car ride was dead silent. As they entered the Vanguard Mountain area, Evelyn finally pulled the medical mask from her fingers and snapped it onto her face with practiced ease. Nathaniel was dumped like trash onto an open stretch of cracked, weed-covered concrete. His clothes were a mess, smeared with dirt, and his body bore scrapes and bruises of every size—courtesy of the not-so-gentle 'transportation' he'd experienced. Now he was lying there like a wreck, limbs tied, slumped on the rough ground. One side of his face was scraped raw and bleeding, the skin partly torn. Everything about him screamed pitiful. He was clearly panicking. Bound stiff, and with a black cloth tied tightly over his eyes, he couldn't see a thing. The total darkness only fed his growing fear. His mind jumped straight to a not-so-distant memory—being jumped by Jasmine and her thugs, the feel of the sack thrown over his head, the panic of being suspended mid-air, hands bound tight. Yeah—this was déjà vu, just w