Release me. Now. Or I ust call for help." "Sorry, man. Nothing personal, but this just isn't my cup of tea." Carter had his pistol on the boy but still he wouldn't meet the killer's gaze. I stepped in front of Carter and stared the boy down. "How many people have you killed this week, Nathaniel?" He shook his head. "I haven't killed anyone." "Not yet," Carter said. "But you've been about to." "I didn't mean it. I didn't know you were there." He looked from Carter to me. "You know me." "We know you, Nathaniel. What you've done and what you're capable of doing. But I'd feel a lot better if you'd just take a step back, think about what you're doing, and realize you are endangering all of us." Carter's face was stone cold and I knew he was willing to put a bullet in the boy's brain and be done with it. "Nathaniel, we came here to talk to you about your brother. I'm asking you one more time. You've got ten seconds to do the right thing. Ten. Nine." "You don't know what it's like in there, man. He's not making any sense anymore. He doesn't know who I am. He's like, I can't see the light. Can't see the light, man." "Eight," Carter said. "I swear I'm going to shoot you. Do you have anything you want to tell us?" "Seven." He looked around. "He's just trying to keep us together. You don't get it. He did it to us. To me and my folks and my brother and his folks. He said we're not a family anymore. He took my family away. They're all in this fucking thing. He's trying to keep it going. To make us strong, so we can beat him. I've got to stop him, now. I've got to stop him." "Six," Carter said. "Stop what?" "Us. Them. You. Me. Anyone who's part of it. Them against us, you against me, heh, man. They won't let us leave the family. We need to stop him. You don't know." "Five." "It's going to be bigger. Bigger than anything you can imagine. He can get us out, if we don't stop him. He will if we don't stop him." Carter's grip tightened. "Four. What is this? The Untouchables? Five, let's go. We don't have all day." "Three." "Let me make this clear, Nathaniel, and don't fuck with me. Whoever you're scared of, whatever you think you're part of, you get the hell out of the way now. And don't pretend that you'll get it all to make some point. You and I both know you won't. There's no family any more. That's all over. Stop wasting our time." Nathaniel took a step toward us. "Two. You can't stop him." "I already have. Four." Carter took a step toward the boy. "One." The boy took a step back, almost stumbling into a crate of metal bars. Carter and I followed and took his arms. He fought, almost dropping the gun, but we had a tight hold on him and he didn't try hard. I let go, grabbed his gun, and threw it onto the pavement. "Look what I found." I pushed him, knocking him into the side of a shed, breaking his fall. "Stop fighting me." He struggled to his feet. I watched for a second, but nothing happened. I grabbed him and turned him so he was facing the other way. I pushed him hard into a tree and then back again. He was crying now, big sobs of fear. I turned to Carter. "He's ready to talk now." "I think we're all ready to talk now." I let go of the boy and he nearly collapsed. He was huddled against the tree, legs shaking. "Let him sit." Carter helped Nathaniel over to the concrete barrier. He leaned over him and patted him on the shoulder. "Good luck, brother." I stood behind him and watched him over Nathaniel's back. "Nathaniel, we need to hear from you now. I'm not playing any more games." He didn't move. I stepped away and checked on the two men standing outside the shed. "I need to talk to the people guarding you, do you mind? And I'd really appreciate it if you left Nathaniel right where he is. He's too frightened to move right now." The men didn't even look at me, just nodded. "Whatever you say." Carter nodded. "Thanks." He spoke into his radio. "They're going to stand guard outside." I took off my backpack, walked over to the shed and put it on the concrete. It seemed like there was plenty of room inside. I got to work, pushing a couple of large crates aside, removing some of the broken ones, and finally taking out a few boxes of small cans. I set one on the ground for every crate I took out. We took some time. There were at least a hundred cans, more or less. I didn't bother to count. The sound of the cans popping open and tinkling on the concrete only took a few minutes. Then I heard a man say, "What is that?" I leaned around the side of the shed. The cans were already disappearing into a burlap bag the man had been carrying. I walked over, taking the torch from my backpack. The torch light turned the cans to white ghosts, fading in and out of existence, as it filled the man with light. He was so stunned he couldn't move. I walked over to him, took off his cap, put it on my head, and stuck his Beretta in my pocket. "Sorry about that. I guess you were looking out for people getting out, aren't you? Well, if you're here, you must have thought the worst of me. But maybe you can guess who I am?" "Jesus." "That's right, Jesus. And this one is his best friend. So I guess you'd better give me a real good reason not to set this place on fire. And we'll call off all the people you were going to kill." The man stood there. A young man, scared out of his mind, wearing a uniform that said he was some kind of guard. "Who the hell are you?" "Jesus, don't you recognize me?" "I've never seen him before in my life." "Yeah, I'd never seen you before either. But let me tell you a story." I pointed to the can in his hand. "Once upon a time, there was a man. This man found a can of gasoline. He thought about a campfire and decided it would be so much fun to put it all out. Only, he couldn't figure out how to do it, so he walked across the desert for days, carrying that can of gasoline. All he did was smoke cigarettes. He never did anything because he was so scared of being discovered. Finally he got to this ranch. It was on the edge of nowhere. The only water was this spring where there used to be two horses. They were really skinny and their eyes were as big as dinner plates." I took one of the cans from the burlap bag. "This is gasoline and gasoline is hot and the horses were really hungry. But they were more scared of that can of gasoline than the man was. Maybe they had been starving too long and were getting used to it. A couple of weeks later, the same man found himself stuck with a gun he didn't know how to use. He thought of that can of gasoline. He pulled it out of his bag, but the gas was empty. He didn't know how to make more of it. He decided that the man was so stupid that he couldn't even find the gasoline anymore. If only the man had taken that gun and headed to the spring, but he was so scared he didn't know where he was going and got lost. He found that ranch. He found the horses. He found the man. And he killed him. He didn't see that he was still in his body, but the man realized he was being hunted. And that was bad, because the man wasn't a killer. But that's who he had become. So the man ran. He ran across the country until he ended up here, where he had friends, where he'd always been welcome." I took the last can out of the bag. I saw a spark. I put the can on the ground, closed the burlap, and picked up the torch. I dropped it on the can. The man was still there, but only because the beam was still there. I looked around. Carter was leaning against the front gate, looking at the stars and listening to his radio. Nathaniel was leaning