Jay twisted her neck, watching the roiling flames over her shoulder as she ran, like she was expecting Ashley to emerge from the wreckage. “You . . . you killed his brother.”
“Yeah. I did.” It was still sinking in to Darby — yes, she’d killed someone today. She’d stabbed another human being in the neck, broke his finger and cheekbone, and slit his throat. As worn and chipped as it was, that Swiss Army knife had slipped right in, like she was cutting meat (and, technically, she was). Just dirty, grim business. And before tonight ended, she knew, she’d have to kill one more.
Jay fretted. “He loves his brother.”
“Loved. Past tense.”
“He’s not going to be happy with you—”
“I . . .” Darby choked on a hoarse laugh. “I think that ship has sailed, Jay.”
Just one more.
I’ve already killed Beavis. Just Butthead left.
Fifty yards back, the Big Devil building groaned like a monster turning over in its sleep, blackened ribs creaking and popping inside the firestorm. Melting snow slid off the roof in a billow of scalding steam.
Then . . . then I can finally rest.
They’d reached the Nightmare Children — those dozen or so half-gnawed kids frozen in apocalyptic playtime, buried to their waists in snow — when Jay stopped, pointing downhill, stabbing with her finger: “Look. Look, look!”
Darby wiped Lars’s blood from her eyes and saw it, too.
Headlights.
Approaching the entrance ramp of the Wanapani rest area from the highway. Big, industrial high beams over a curved silver plate throwing an arc of backlit ice chips. The first CDOT snowplow was finally here.
Jay squinted. “Is . . . is that for us?”
“Yeah. That’s for us.”
Seeing this reassured Darby that there was still an outside world. It was still out there, it was real, it was populated with decent people who could help, and holy Christ, she’d almost clawed her way out of this fiery, blood-drenched nightmare. She’d almost rescued Jay. Almost.
Her knees gave out and she fell to a crouch. She was crying and laughing all at once, her face a tight mask, her scar as visible as a billboard. She didn’t care. She was so close now. She watched the yellow lights float closer in the darkness, like twin lanterns. She heard the lope of an engine. “Thank you, God. Oh, thank you, God—”
She’d lost her phone but she knew the time was now almost six a.m. It’d been nine hours since she’d first found this girl in a padlocked dog kennel, reeking of urine, in an unattended van. In another hour, the sun would be up.
Road crews are ahead of schedule.
Or, they received special direction from the cops, maybe, in light of a mysterious text message concerning a similarly named rest area—
“Darby.” Jay grabbed her wrist, her voice rising with panic.
“What?”
“I see him. He’s following us.”
5:44 a.m.
“Daaaaarby.”
Yes, Ashley Garver was following them, a ragged shadow silhouetted against the roaring blaze. Nail gun carried in his left hand now. His right was injured, clenched under his armpit. He was fifty yards behind them, a shambling figure in smoking clothes, raising his unhurt hand to wipe his mouth.
He was too far away to shoot.
Darby’s marksmanship was too uncertain, and she couldn’t waste her single bullet. So she concealed the pistol behind her waist, and at her back, the headlights intensified as the snowplow chugged closer.
A murderer approaching behind them, and the assistance of a stranger ahead of them — it should have been an easy choice.
Jay tugged her. “Let’s go—”
And in a way, she realized . . . it still was.
“Darby, let’s go. We have to run—”
“No.”
“What?”
She nodded at her ankle. “I’ll just slow you down. You run.”
Alarm in Jay’s eyes. “What? No—”
“Jay, listen to me. I have to stop him. I can’t run anymore. I’ve been running from him all night, all freaking night, and I’m sick of it.”
The headlights grew brighter, cutting shafts in the smoky fog, drawing harsh shadows in the glittering snow. They burned Darby’s eyes. And behind them, the shadow of Ashley Garver staggered closer — twenty paces away now. But still not close enough. She tightened her grip on the Beretta.
“You have to run.”
“No.”
“Run,” Darby shouted, smoke in her throat. “Run to those headlights. And tell the driver to turn his truck around, to take you to a hospital.”
She pushed her forward but Jay fought back. The girl shrieked, dug her feet in, tried to punch Darby in the shoulder, but then it all melted into a hug. A shivery, aching embrace under intensifying lights—
“I’ll come back,” Darby whispered into the girl’s hair, rocking her. “I’ll get him, and then I will come back to you.”
“Promise.”
“I promise, Jay—”
“You’re lying again—”
“I pinkie-swear,” she said, raising her duct-taped right hand.
Jay winced. “That’s not funny.”
Something sliced through the air above them, tugging a handful of Darby’s hair. Her first thought was shrapnel, but she knew better. It was a nail, a steel projectile twirling past her scalp. Ashley was shambling closer to them — but still not close enough to risk her only bullet.
Not yet.
She pushed the girl away, toward the headlights. “Now run.”
Jamie Nissen took two shaky steps in the snow and looked back, her eyes brimming with fiery tears. “Don’t miss.”
“I won’t,” Darby said.
Then she turned back to face Ashley.
I won’t.
*
Ashley was perplexed to see them separate — Jaybird ran for the incoming snowplow while Darby turned around to face him.
They were now twenty paces apart.
His right fist throbbed like it was full of gravel. The skin on his cheeks and forehead felt tight, tingly, like a sunburn. His lips were cracked, splitting and leaking down his chin. He reeked of burnt skin and hair, a dense and fatty odor curling off him in wisps of smoke. His North Face jacket had melted weirdly to his back, hanging off in molten strings.
But hell, he was alive. No rest for the wicked, right? And he was feeling pretty goddamn wicked tonight. He’d broken a woman’s neck with his bare hands and nail-gunned an innocent man to death. It’d make for a hell of an episode of Forensic Files. To do all that, then to dive out the window of an exploding building while sustaining only second-degree burns takes the luck of the devil. Jelly-side up, indeed.
Now he noticed that Darby was limping toward him. Away from the bright lights of safety. Away from any hope of escape.
Toward him.
He choked on a laugh that sounded like a bark. Maybe . . . maybe she’d gone a little crazy, too, in this wild pressure cooker of a night. He couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t even sure he could hate her — his brain was a potent sugar rush, a cocktail of confused feelings for this tenacious bitch. But feelings aside, he still had to red-card her for killing his baby brother, so he raised the cordless nailer at Darby, squinted through hot smoke, and fired again.
A hollow click.
What?
He pulled the trigger again — another click. To his horror, the Paslode’s battery light now blinked an urgent red. Sapped by the cold weather. It had finally, finally happened.