Free The Sovereign Era (Book 2): Pilgrimage by Matthew Wayne Selznick Page B

next-to-worthless metahuman bag of tricks and a cheap tailor. I can’t make you do anything, Marc, and you’re even more delusional than I thought if you think I can.”
    “Delusional!”
    Schwippe took a breath, glanced around and seemed to find the same restraint Marc had a moment before, and huffed through his narrow nostrils. “Listen, man: your son is a Sovereign.”
    Marc leaned quickly back against the window. “Bullshit.”
    Schwippe’s laugh held disbelief. “How can you say that?”
    “Just because they took him doesn’t mean he’s one of you. There’s no proof of that. Just their word.”
    Schwippe’s shiny black eyes fixed on Marc. He tilted his head to the left and tapped a long, knobby finger against his lip.
    “I’ll give you that one,” he said. “Technically. But…why would they lie?”
    “To give them a reason to hold my son captive for the last eleven months.” Marc relaxed slightly. “Of course.”
    “But…” Schwippe kept looking at him. “But…why? Why your kid? What for?”
    Marc had no idea. There had to be a reason, though. Something to do with the business between the Charters family and Tyndale Labs, maybe. That whole ugly mess last year. There had to be a reason.
    “I don’t know,” he muttered. “I’m sure you’ll be able to ask them.”
    Schwippe laughed. “Oh, sure, what, during the weekly Sovereign poker game?”
    Marc didn’t laugh. He imagined strategy sessions—had the vague idea of a war room, like in that movie with the Pink Panther guy and Slim Pickens. The image gave him a bad feeling.
    Schwippe said, “What if your kid…Byron, right? What if he just…wants to be there?”
    “He wouldn’t.” Marc’s voice was flat. “There’s nothing there for him. He’s a prisoner—don’t you get that?” He kept his jaw tight to avoid yelling. “Your…you freaks…are holding my kid a prisoner. That’s the kind of p—" He stopped himself. “The kind of trash you’re running to. Get it?”
    “Boy,” Schwippe said with a small smile, “you have no idea of the kind of trash I’m running from . Seriously.”
    Marc fell back against his seat. Fucking freak.
    Schwippe didn’t say anything for a few blessed minutes. Marc ground his teeth and tried to get his ears to pop. He wondered how much farther it was. How much longer he’d have to endure Eddie Schwippe’s company.
    “But…” Schwippe said.
    “Fuck. Give me a break, would you?”
    “But…seriously, even if he’s not a Sovereign—what will you do if he says he wants to stay there? What if he’s not a prisoner, after all? What if it’s something else?”
    “Like what?”
    “I don’t know! Sake of argument.”
    Marc shook his head. “He’s a minor. He’s my kid. He does what I say. If—and I mean it’s a big fucking if—he’s just sitting up there…laughing at me and his mother…” Marc couldn’t deny the thought had crossed his mind. The kid might think he had plenty of reasons to get back at his dad. Marc would have thought the same at his age.
    He shook his head again.
    “No difference. He comes home with me. He doesn’t get to do what he wants until he hits eighteen years old and gets a job.”
    Schwippe’s eyes went wide. He stared at Marc and covered his mouth with a spidery hand. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he did his best to stifle a laugh.
    “Oh, right,” he finally said. “Eighteen. Totally.” A single laugh burst out. “That’s when us big kids get to do whatever we want. You bet.”
    Schwippe calmed down. He shifted in his seat, stretching his left leg into the aisle before slowly, apparently painfully, bending the hinged stick back in place.
    “Hit eighteen, the world’s your oyster!”
    He whistled another sigh, gave Marc one more crooked-head, glassy-eyed glance, and didn’t say another word the rest of the trip.
    Marc had no idea why that bothered him more than anything Schwippe had said or done so far.

Marc Teslowski – Four
    Marc didn’t have