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  Clementine’s bony, arthritic hands drew a match and struck the box’s flint with a surprising amount of strength. She removed the lamp’s glass chimney and brought the flame to its thick, cotton wick. It ignited instantly, filling the room with a soft, flickering glow. It reflected off the lenses of the woman’s glasses, making her look even more hellish.

  “I can’t believe I’m going through all this trouble,” she said, extinguishing the match with a shake of her wrist. “Guess it shows how much I love my daughter.”

  A thin, gray tendril of smoke snaked its way from the match’s burnt head into Sam’s nose. There was something oddly pleasant about the scent; it was reassuring. This was the smell of order. Of logical progression. Fire gives you smoke, every single time. If only the rest of world worked by such a reliable equation. A good man gets a good life.

  But there is no force greater, or more unpredictable, than nature. Sam was living proof of that.

  “Well, you’re a wonderful mother,” he said, brandishing his most obsequious smile.

  The woman scoffed, a scowl accompanying the sound. “Don’t think flattery’s going to get you anywhere. As soon your job’s done here, I’m gonna turn your meat into jerky.” She leaned forward, her vinegary breath overpowering any lingering trace of the sulfuric smoke from the lit match. She bared her teeth in a malevolent grin, so close to Sam he could see the wiry white hairs bordering her upper lip.

  “You’ll be your own child’s first meal away from the tit.”

  Sam tilted his body as far forward as the binding ropes would allow.

  “The things we do for our children,” he answered.

  Through the reflective lenses of her glasses, Sam could see Clementine’s ashy, clouded eyes actually widen in surprise.

  The speed of a camera’s shutter wouldn’t even have been able to capture the moment. But Sam saw it. The twitch of her eyebrow, the quiver of her bottom lip.

  She knew: something isn’t right.

  Now!

  His free hand flew from his crotch with the speed of a cobra about to strike. Sam didn’t feel the weight of the chair nor the woman sitting in it when he pushed out as hard as he could. Before the nerves in his fingers could register the cool touch of the chair’s metal frame, nor the flaky rust that rubbed at his skin, Clementine was already rolling backward, propelled by Sam’s mighty shove. She slammed into the wall behind her, the force sending her onto the floor.

  As much pleasure as the sight should have brought him, Sam couldn’t spare any time to enjoy it. He was already reaching into the sheets for the dynamite, his fingers gripping the prize like the sword in the stone. Nor did he hear the end of her descent, her body landing on the floor with the loud snap of breaking bone. His conscious thoughts had collected in a single, unbreakable notion. Nothing else existed but his one goal:

  Reach the flame.

  He stretched out his arm toward the uncovered, burning wick of the lantern.

  And then Grizzly was upon him.

  The only thing stopping her from crushing his skull into a pulpy mound of blood and brains was the foot he threw up between their colliding bodies. She was impossibly heavy, as if her blind rage actually contributed to her physical weight. Her uncountable pounds pushed down on Sam’s bent leg, driving his bony kneecap into his chin. A distant part of his mind was aware of his hamstring literally snapping under the pressure. But the pain did not deliver any message.

  Reach the flame.

  “Get ’em, Grizzly! Kill the bastard!”

  In spite of her useless legs and definite fractures in several of her brittle bones, Clementine Cedar found the strength to crawl across the floor toward the bed. Using only her spindly, skeletal arms, she dragged herself closer and closer.

  Reach the flame.

  Sam’s arm trembled. The fuse of the dynamite danced over the tip of the lantern’s wick, teasing to ignite but not yet sparking to life. Perspiration dripped into his eyes, blurring his glowing target. His shoulders cramped. He wouldn’t be able to hold this position much longer. In the fight between the demands of the body and the orders of the mind, sooner or later the body always won.

  A sudden, powerful movement rocked his vision. Grizzly was lashing out with her sasquatch-sized fists. Although Sam’s legs kept her from delivering the full force, her blows still dizzied his focus and brought a warm, torrent of blood when she connected with his nose.

  But it also brought focus: Sam knew what he had to do.

  He relaxed his legs. All of Grizzly’s crushing weight landed on his chest, pushing all the air from his lungs. Her thick, calloused hands immediately found his throat.

  Even with the coming darkness of asphyxiation, his hand was as steady as a surgeon’s.

  “Crazy he calls me…”

  The fuse ignited.

  Sam spun, catching a glimpse of Clementine directly below him as she crawled over the pile of his clothes. With Grizzly’s bulbous nose touching his, he brought the dynamite forward, its fuse raining light like a Fourth of July sparkler. Head ready to explode from blood pressure, vision blackening with every passing second, Sam gritted his smiling teeth—

  And slammed the stick of dynamite so far into Grizzly’s open mouth that he felt its end hit the back of her throat.

  She looked down at the sparkling fuse protruding from her cracked lips, disbelief raising the unibrow above her black eyes. Her stare darted back up to Sam.

  He blew her a kiss.

  “Suck it, bitch.”

  Samuel Tucker never got the chance to flip off the foundry owner whose failure to comply with safety standards robbed him of a father. Nor he did he ever get the chance to slug the face of the deadbeat who’d taken his mother on a one-way ride. But on that morning, in the bedroom of a cabin in the woods, Samuel Tucker finally got even with the world.

  As the explosion destroyed the entire room and everything in it, the justice denied him in life finally arrived with his death.

  Paid in full.

  Chapter 25

  “What the hell?”

  Rob turned toward the sound of the explosion that shook the ground. He’d been seconds away from grasping Leigh’s hand when the blast occurred. From the corner of her eye, Leigh could still see the mallet, but Rob’s unwavering stare had not allowed her any chance to reach for the weapon.

  Then the entire world outside the barn was blown to smithereens. The detonation claimed Rob’s attention, his distraction lasting only a moment.

  But a moment was enough.

  With the blast still echoing, Leigh didn’t dare take her eyes from Rob’s preoccupied face as her fingers searched the surface of the worktable.

  Come on. Come on. Find it.

  Something smooth and cylindrical found its way under the crook of her knuckles. As Leigh wrapped her hands around the wooden shaft, she knew she’d located her prize.

  Not a moment too soon.

  His gaze trailing behind him, Rob slowly turned back to her. “Come on, Leigh, let’s go see what—”

  Leigh swung the hammer with all her strength, making direct contact with Rob’s right cheekbone. Harsh vibrations shook her palm as it connected with the hard patch of skull under his eye, sending tremors all the way up her arm. But Leigh’s attention was focused on the sight of Rob slouching to the left and falling to the ground.

  If she had drawn blood, she didn’t see it. In fact, she had no idea at all how badly she’d injured him. She was already sprinting toward the barn door, not taking a second glance at her fallen enemy.

  At first, her legs seemed to rebel against her, refusing to operate as quickly as her mind demanded. Fear and stress had taken their toll, seizing her muscles with incapacitating cramps.

  But still the instinct to survive would not be denied, and it ordered her protesting muscles to shut their screaming mouths. One thought repeated over and over in her mind.

  Please, let him be unconscious.

  Another prayer unanswered.

  Over the
pounding of her feet on the ground and heart beating wildly in her chest, Leigh could just barely make out Rob’s voice coming from behind her. It sounded weak, almost groggy, as if he had just awoken from an afternoon nap.

  “Leigh…”

  And then, stronger:

  “LEEEIGGHHH!!!”

  He was pissed.

  Had she had the courage to glance over her shoulder, Leigh wouldn’t have been surprised if Rob had been transformed into a snarling werewolf. His voice sounded guttural, feral: the sound of pure rage. Whatever haze he’d momentarily suffered from Leigh’s blow to the head was gone now.

  “Get back here!”

  Leigh could practically hear his vocal chords ripping to shreds.

  “You BITCH!”

  If the door had been closed just an inch more, perhaps she wouldn’t have been able to slip through the slim crack without pausing to push it open. As it was, she turned her body sideways and forced herself through the opening, shoulders scraping the splintered wood.

  The slam behind her suggested Rob’s body was too large to do the same.

  Leigh was blinded by the sun the moment she stepped outside. She put her hand up to shield her eyes and that was when she saw it: half of the cabin blown away, jet-black smoke billowing from the flaming crater.

  Sam…

  There was a thunderous slam and the sound of wood cracking behind her. She looked back to see Rob ripping the entrance of the barn open, the sliding door almost flying off its hinges.

  Leigh didn’t know what scared her more—the bloodthirsty smile on Rob’s face or the black iron blade of the massive ax in his hands.

  For the second time, the destroyed cabin bought Leigh precious time. Rob couldn’t help but look over and study the explosion’s aftermath.

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered to no one in particular, hypnotized by the burning timber.

  Leigh’s legs reacted on their own:

  Run.

  The cool morning air chilled the perspiration glazing her skin as she took off into the woods. Branches whipped across the tender skin of her cheeks and chin, leaving behind red welts. She did not need to look back or even hear his footsteps to know Rob was right behind her. The curtain of leaves and tangled arms of the tree branches impeded her progress, but he knew how to dodge the obstacles the forest put before him. He’d been in these woods many times. Maybe even played this same game of cat-and-mouse with a past victim. This idea became more and more probable as he closed the gap between them.

  “I gave you a chance,” he said, his voice even closer than Leigh had assumed. “I could’ve made you happy.”

  Leigh darted ninety degrees to her right, zigzagging between the thick underbrush. She’d once seen a nature documentary about how some prey escaped predators by quickly changing direction and catching their pursuer off guard. Strange how she was able to recall such information at time like this, but she didn’t question it.

  She looked back, trying to catch a glimpse of Rob’s location, but there was no sign of him, although she could still hear his panting breath and the snapping twigs under his shoes, seemingly coming from every direction.

  Then he was upon her.

  Strong fingers caught her ankle, making her knees buckle and sending her crashing to the forest floor below. She clenched her eyes shut, painfully anticipating the fall of the rusty ax.

  “Watch your step, Leigh!”

  Her eyes sprang open. Rob’s voice was still a few feet away.

  Leigh looked down at her feet to see a tree root wrapped around her ankle. A short distance beyond, a drape of branches and brush parted to reveal the heavily sweating, ax-bearing maniac.

  Rob stopped in his tracks upon spotting her. She could see the whites of his wide, frenzied eyes, and there was a growing edema swelling from his right cheekbone. Dark streaks smeared the handle of the ax, blood from his hand wound running against the grain of the wood. The dirt, grime, and dried blood darkening Rob’s face made the teeth of his mad grin look even brighter.

  He took a step forward. There was probably no point in running anymore; Rob was far too close now to ever escape him. Any attempt to get away would be a waste of time. It made more sense to just get it over with and not drag out her torment any longer.

  But still, she got up and ran.

  Leigh ripped her foot away from the tangled root and made for the evergreen stand ahead. Even if Rob’s ax would be on her any second now, it would be better not to see it coming.

  The long bough of a pine tree stretched out exactly in her eye line. Raising her hand, Leigh pushed the branch aside, its flexible soft wood bending but not breaking with her push.

  Behind her, she knew, Rob hoisted the ax over his head.

  Leigh took one last leaping step.

  The pine branch shot back like a whip, slicing Rob directly across the eyes.

  “Fuck!” Rob screamed, momentarily blinded. He brought a hand to his brow and rubbed his eyes, the pain halting his pursuit.

  Leigh continued to bound over fallen logs and moss-covered stones. The thrashing tree limb had been nothing short of a gift from God. Or maybe just a little help from Mother Nature. The feeling that fate might be on Leigh’s side fueled her exhausted lungs and legs with hope.

  A moment later, she realized just how wrong she’d been. God had chosen a side.

  But it wasn’t hers.

  She bobbed in the air four times before she understood what had happened. The clutches that squeezed her left ankle and dangled her six feet above the ground was a snare trap—a rope that stretched from a tree branch high above.

  Leigh wasn’t going anywhere.

  Whimpering as she struggled to reach the loop around her ankle, Leigh choked on her own breath when she saw the upside-down image of Rob strolling up to her side.

  “Well, hello there,” he said, the ax casually resting on his shoulder. “It appears I caught something. But what strange species is this?”

  Long, hot streams of tears ran over Leigh’s eyebrows and into her hair. She could feel the blood rushing to her head, dizzying her vision.

  “Wait! Rob! Don’t!” Her hands shot forward as if she could stop his attack.

  Rob chuckled as he brought the ax off his shoulders and into his hands. “Look at this. It talks!”

  “You don’t want to do this, Rob.”

  “Of course I do.” Rob squeezed the ax’s handle, twisting the wood in his sweaty palms. “I mean, what else am I going to have for dinner?”

  Leigh was on autopilot, frantically blabbering in a last-ditch effort to save her own life. “I’m sorry, Rob. I was wrong to attack you. We should be together, I see that now.”

  Rob inhaled as if to spit out another sarcastic remark, but froze with Leigh’s last comment. She saw the hesitation in his eyes and that encouraged her to bring forth more words.

  “It’s true. Please forgive me, I was scared before. But now it’s all so clear. You and I are the same. We should be together.”

  He smiled and looked at the ground, the aggression just barely leaving his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Rob. I’m so sorry. I made a mistake, but it’ll never happen again.”

  Looking up from under his eyebrows, Rob bared a grin that Satan himself would’ve envied.

  “No,” he said, lifting the ax into the air. “It won’t happen again.”

  Leigh wanted to shut her eyes, but they were propped open with fear. She could do nothing but watch as Rob brought the ax behind him, winding himself up to deliver a decapitating swing.

  Here it comes.

  The ax had completed half of its journey toward her head when Leigh suddenly plummeted to the ground, her descent accompanied by the explosive crack of a gunshot.

  Rob passed over her crumpled body, connecting with nothing but air. The momentum of his swing twisted his body in a complete 360-degree rotation.

  Leigh lay in a heap at Rob’s feet. She looked up at him, knowing he must be thinking the same thing: had he missed
and sliced the rope? No, it was impossible. Even if he’d swung a little high, the ax would’ve buried itself into Leigh’s chest or stomach. Something else had broken the rope.

  The gunshot.

  A twig snapped behind her. Rob looked up from Leigh, surprise widening his eyes. In an inappropriately light tone, as if a salesman had knocked on his front door, he asked, “What do you want?”

  A second later, he got his answer.

  Leigh shrieked at the explosion of a second gunshot echoing through the morning air. Blood shot out the back of Rob’s head, a puzzled look frozen in his features. The ax fell from his limp grip, landing inches away from Leigh’s hip. Wobbling for a few seconds as if to deny his own demise, Rob finally followed, collapsing.

  He landed facing Leigh, his blank stare looking directly into hers. Part of her expected an evil spirit to crawl from the void that the bullet had left in one of Rob’s eye sockets, as if a slug-like parasite had been controlling his actions all along.

  But no such thing occurred. The man lying next to her was only a fresh corpse, a lifeless body that could never harm anyone ever again. But Leigh couldn’t take her eyes away from his, even as she heard someone slowly approach her.

  Above her, she heard a man’s voice say, “Miss? Are you okay? Can you hear me?”

  The figure above her appeared as a silhouette from the sunlight backlighting him. Though she could not see his face, when he knelt to examine her, she was able to read a nametag on his right breast pocket.

  JACOB SPIRE.

  It would be the last thing Leigh would see for a while. She closed her eyes, letting her consciousness slip away. Warm, gentle fingers lightly touched her neck, looking for a pulse.

  When the man said, “We’re going to get you out of here. Everything’s going to be fine,” Leigh thought she was dreaming.

  Chapter 26

  Leigh could’ve sworn the minute hand was actually ticking backward as she stared at the clock on the wall above the blackboard. She’d long stopped listening to Professor Henderson drone on about the case of Williams vs. the State of Maine, her mind far too preoccupied to focus. There were only three minutes left until class was over, but those three minutes may as well have been an hour. Normally, Leigh wouldn’t have been nearly as anxious to leave a classroom