We took Elijah’s car to my apartment, where I peeled off my bloody clothes and piled them in the sink. I took a hot shower, scrubbing the rest of the blood away, and when I came out Brooke had changed into some of my clothes. She was sitting on the floor scratching Boy Dog behind the ears, whispering to him in a language I’d never heard before. I got dressed, too, and filled my backpack with all the food and water I could carry.
I didn’t have much to leave behind. I packed another few sets of clothes and all my cash, and then looked through Potash’s duffel for any cash he might have been hiding. True to his word, there were no weapons, but I found a stash of small bills and documents and addresses—his “go bag,” I assumed, for if he ever had to disappear. He’d lived in the darkness his whole life, and being on our team hadn’t changed that. The passports with his name and face were useless to us, but I took the rest.
It was nearly 5:00 A.M. and the city would be waking up soon. Most of the night’s horrors would be new to them—the slaughter in The Corners, the devastation of the police force, even the inexplicable double homicide at the mortuary—but the worst horrors were gone now. Rack was dead, and the man who’d helped him. The killers who’d stalked this town for months were done forever. And now the Demon Girl and the Murder Boy were leaving as well.
What did I do that I didn’t have to do? That was always the question. Figure out what we choose when we’re free to choose anything, and you’ll know who we really are. I saved Brooke when I could have run. I chose to be hurt when I could have chosen to never be hurt again. I was a killer, cold-blooded and ruthless, but I was a hero, too. Or at least I was trying to be.
Elijah’s car was damaged from Rack’s rage, so we took mine instead. Brooke climbed in the passenger seat, and Boy Dog in the back, and we drove for three hours before the winter sun finally peeked up behind the horizon.
“I love you, John,” said Brooke. Or maybe it was Nobody. I kept my eyes on the road.
“Rack said he had people to meet,” I told her. “Let’s see if we can find them.”
About the Author
DAN WELLS lives in North Salt Lake, Utah, with his wife, Dawn, and their five children. He is the author of three previous novels about John Wayne Cleaver, as well as The Hollow City and the popular Partials Sequence of young adult books. Visit him at www.thedanwells.com. Or sign up for email updates here.