The Six: Complete Series Read Online Free PDF Page A

down her back. She looked over at the man and gave him a nod. The man lunged at Simon and yanked his arms behind his back like he was under arrest. He swiftly knotted a rope around his wrists and pulled it so tight he could feel his fingertips tingling.
    “Where are you taking me?” he said as he tried to pull his hands out of the ties.
    With a flip of her head, she motioned him to begin walking. Even if he wanted to run, his legs shook so hard he was afraid he’d fall if he dared take a step. The man poked him in the back with his fist. “Walk.”
    “I can’t,” he said.
    The man rolled his eyes. “Go.”
    He tried to move forward, and his knees felt wobbly, like Bambi taking his first steps.
    The woman spun around. She was already twenty feet in front of them and seemed to have no interest in waiting. “Walk, or he will carry you.”
    Simon forced his feet forward. When he got back to that room, the others were going to have questions. Every detail was important and he forced himself to look, really look, at where they were taking him.
    Every few feet they entered another room and moved through another set of locked doors. The woman swiped her card and typed a code before the doors slid open. They walked through identical fluorescently lit rooms with no windows or exits, except through the heavy locked doors.
    “Almost there,” she said in a reassuring voice.
    It was impossible to remember all the steps and turns. A left, then a right, then another left... or was it straight? And the codes—he tried to figure out the code to the doors. As soon as he had established that she typed 9453 into one door, it was 4324 in the next.
    They stopped in a small room, no bigger than a doctor’s waiting room, but with the dank darkness of a locker room in a power outage. She pointed to a small chair by the door. “Sit. And wait.”
     
    Eduardo threw him into a chair and re-tied his hands with thick leather straps. The first thing he saw was the turtleneck-clad woman holding a folder out in front of her. She sipped at a glass of water as he struggled to make sense of where they had taken him.
    They were in a stark conference room with a small table in the middle. There were no windows in here either, just the omnipresent hum of an air conditioner above them. The burly man stood by the door with his hand hovering over his belt. Simon could see the faint glimmer of his gun peeking out over the top of his pants.
    She slid the glass of water across the table. “You must be thirsty.”
    His throat burned, and every cell in his body wanted that water, but he knew better. He knew that was just shifting the power. Edwin had done this to him constantly. He’d deprive Simon of food for days and then, out of the blue, a plate of Big Macs and a tall glass of lemonade would appear at the door. He was just a stupid kid, and he was hungry.
    “No, I’m good,” he answered.
    She let the glass sit there, taunting him. “Very well.”
    “What am I doing here?”
    All she did was smile and stare straight at him as she opened the blue file folder in front of her.
    “Seriously. Do you want money or something? I don’t have any money.”
    He pulled at the restraints and they seemed to get tighter and tighter with each yank. Already his fingers tingled and felt numb.
    “No, Mr. Archer. That’s not it at all.”
    “Then what? What do you want?”
    She flipped over a page and began to read. “June 15, 1998: Simon Archer, 15, declared missing in Peteville neighborhood. June 19, 1998: Search for Simon Archer gains hundreds of supporters. June 22, 1998: Family of missing teenager pleads on Good Morning America.” She looked up for a brief second, almost seeking permission to continue. She didn’t seem to care, however, if he gave it or not.
    “June 25, 1998: New clues in Archer case. Police search the greater Santa Clara County. June 26, 1998: Body of boy found in river, not Simon Archer. Trail running cold, say police.”
    He’d heard