McCardle cowered on the ground as Adam closed on him. He lifted an arm to shield his face. “You … would save her?” The old man’s voice was ragged, and he puffed for air. “The girl that killed you?”
I went limp. The truth, the one I’d been holding on to with a death grip, the one that every day I’d had an opportunity to share and that every day I’d chosen not to, was out. What could I say now that hadn’t already been said in one bone-crushing sentence?
Adam stopped. When he turned, his expression was a raw wound. His eyes held pools of sorrow. “Victoria?” There was still awe there and hope, and I felt it begin to crumble through my fingers.
“I killed you,” I said softly. “It was me that night.” A strangled groan, nearly inhuman. “It was an accident.” Since the night of the wreck, we’d come miles, but when I stared across an endless chasm at my creation, I felt that I’d returned to our start. I stood dripping wet in front of him, begging for his forgiveness, pleading with him to understand. I didn’t know whether I deserved it, only that I was what I was and he was what he was and that neither of us could hide from it. Neither of us were perfect, only special.
He wrapped his hands around his head and pulled his elbows over his face like a cage. The air between us crackled, and I mentally readied myself for an attack. I could feel the violence raging within him. My own creation may kill me with his bare hands, I realized.
Find the thing you love and let it kill you. That was what my father had done.
He lowered his hands. His entire body was shaking now. “I remember,” he said. “It’s…”
Out of the corner of my eye, there was movement. I tensed. McCardle stretched his fingers for something. The gun on the ground. “Adam!”
There was less than an instant. Adam’s decision balanced on the edge of a razor before it tipped over and fell. Forever. Irrevocably. And then he was mine.
He lurched on a damaged leg and pinned McCardle’s arm. “Not … Victoria.” I watched horror-struck as Adam’s hands wrapped around the neck of the man who used to be our school’s janitor. Tearing myself from the spot, I reached for the gun, pulling it to safety and out of reach. The weight of it in my hands again felt deadly and even scarier now that it had been pointed at my brain. Milliseconds went by that felt excruciatingly long. McCardle began to gurgle. His frail lips worked for words.
I could have stopped Adam, but I didn’t. I was ready to watch McCardle die, when suddenly, Adam released his grip. He slid away from the old man and sank his head into his hands. “Not yet, Adam,” I said, too quietly for anyone to hear.
“My son,” McCardle wept. “My son.” The contorted evil that had engulfed his features had vanished, and what was left was just a man stricken with grief.
I sensed the defeat in McCardle as he dragged himself to his feet. The retreat in his step. I watched as he tried to shift into the shadows, to disappear into the woods he knew so well. The Hunter of Hollow Pines. Only, it was too late. I couldn’t let that happen. He knew our secret. He knew what Adam was. He knew what I had done.
My hands were slick with sweat. I held the barrel of the gun straight out from my body. I had to do something. I always knew when something hard had to be done and when someone special had to do it. So I did. I fired. The first bullet missed, whizzing by to lodge in a tree trunk somewhere. Lost. I fired a second shot.
This time Old Man McCardle doubled over. He clutched his stomach. The word son made it halfway out before he collapsed. The muscles in my arms dissolved, and the gun plummeted from my hands.
THIRTY-NINE
A description of the event: The storm approached Hollow Pines from the northeast corridor. As it neared, it became clear that the lightning was both attracted to and reinforced by the presence of the generators. A few stray lightning bolts hit close to home, but when, at last, a series of bolts found their mark, the electricity was harnessed and strengthened through the use of the adjustable spark gap. The tangle of lightning was too bright for the bare human eye to view without discomfort. A single, combined bolt made it to the ground, amplified in brightness and intensity more than any observed in nature of which I am aware.
*
The adrenaline drained from my body with the waning storm and we were left with the damage. The final shot rang in my ears. My eyes were too wide. I stumbled to the overturned lantern, barely seeing. I stared at the wreckage, which seemed to fan out from me like I was a bomb that had already detonated.