I dropped to straddle Beckham, turning him on his back, pinning his elbows with my knees. I withdrew my father’s hunting knife, the same one I’d driven into Didion’s heart.
When life leaves, it’s just a breath exhaled and not drawn in again. I had wanted to feel something when Didion died. I wanted to feel something now.
But there was nothing. Just numbness, the emptiness of my actions expanding to fill the world. What would Mike say to me now? That there is no true justice delivered between men and women, the world is too complicated, we are all too tightly connected. You never do something to anyone without doing it to yourself. My rage billowed and plumed inside me.
I brought the knife to Beckham’s throat and he watched me, eyes twitching. The amusement and dismissiveness was gone from his gaze. There was fear there now, and I was glad to see that at least, that he knew a fraction of the terror I felt that night. Soon his pain would subside and he’d easily topple me. Then, we’d fight again.
From upstairs, a noise swelled—a kind of blowing wind, a whir. The sound of things being devoured by fire, crackling, snapping, breaking apart. Something else. Voices? Was I hearing voices faint and far away?
“Who were you working for that night?” I asked. It was the question I never asked Didion, my rage getting the better of me. “Who sent you to get that money?”
I used the butt of the knife to bash him hard on the bridge of his nose, but not hard enough to knock him out. He released a deep groan of pain as a river of blood gushed from his nostrils.
“Who?” I yelled.
He moved his head from side to side, insensible. In my imagination, in my child’s memory, these men were invincible, and I was defenseless against them, a rag doll. I was almost disappointed that he was so weak.
He tried to buck beneath me, but I brought my elbow down hard on his solar plexus, then leaned in close to lace my fingers through his hair and pull. He let out a desperate wheeze, struggling for breath. I saw another hard flash of fear in his eyes, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. Once, I’d screamed and struggled to get away from him. Now, he was helpless beneath me, in spite of his superior size and strength because I had worked and trained. Because I was the Red Hunter, the embodiment of my own rage.
“Who?” I asked. “Who sent you for that money?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” asked my father, who stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at the smoke that was starting to plume. He had a cigarette in his hand, took a deep drag, and turned to me. “Do you want all your childhood illusions dashed?”
“Of course, I want to know,” I yelled at him. “I’ve been looking for answers for ten years.”
“No,” Dad said, with a slow shake of his head. “You’ve been looking for revenge. You think it’s going to end your suffering. It’s not. You get that now, right?”
I turned my attention back to Beckham, who was looking at me with eyes wild. His breath was coming back; he was bucking and struggling beneath me.
I brought the hunting knife to his throat. The blade was so sharp, so carefully honed that just the slightest pressure drew a little bit of blood from the crepey skin of his neck.
I didn’t ask him again who he was working for. Maybe my father was right; maybe I didn’t really want to know. All I had to do was press and draw the blade across his throat and watch him bleed out. Listen to him gurgle, watch him thrash until life left him. It was the only thing I wanted. Not answers, not justice. Didion stood over by the stairs, ghastly pale and small. I pressed the knife deeper and Beckham began to struggle, lifting my weight with his hips. A thick line of blood trailed down his throat, black and twisting like a snake.
“Then what?” said my father, coming closer. “After that, who are you?”
I hesitated, drew the blade away. Just a millisecond. Who was I now? Who could I ever be with everything behind me, and everything I’d done?
The number one rule of fighting is to never let down your guard. Never leave yourself vulnerable to what may be coming up behind. I saw the flash of hope in Beckham’s eyes right before I felt the blow to the side of my head. I toppled, stunned, looking up into the drawn, pocked face of a woman with long dark hair. She stood over me with a shovel, panting.
Then nothing.
forty
I wasn’t out for long. Either she wasn’t that strong, or she chickened out. Because I’ll tell you that not many people wake up after a whack to the head with a shovel. That’s a killing blow. Still, I grappled to orient myself, my ears ringing, my head throbbing. I held on to my stomach; I could feel bile climbing up my throat.
Those voices were louder, below me. The smoke from upstairs was dark and billowing from the bedroom door at the top of the landing. I heard the rumble of an engine, the squeal of tires, a vehicle racing away.
I heard Seth’s voice. “You’re one of the good guys.”
My parents’ murderer, one of the men who tortured me, left my body and my spirit crisscrossed with scars that never healed, was getting away with a bag full of money. I’d had the opportunity to kill him, but I’d hesitated. And now he was gone. If I gave chase, got to the Suburban, and made it to the main road, maybe I could still find them.
But the house was on fire, and there were people trapped in the basement. I could hear their panicked yelling through the floorboards. Probably that blogger and her kid. With shaking effort, I pushed myself up. I was still hurting from being jumped last night—ribs, hip, bridge of my nose. Now there was blood on the floor, on my shirt, some combination of mine and Beckham’s. Mike would say I deserved it. I was careless last night, lost in thought. Today, I’d let my anger distract me. I’d hesitated when I’d had the upper hand.
I moved toward the kitchen, but a wall of heat and smoke pushed me back, coughing. The house was groaning, the air growing more toxic by the second. If I’d lain unconscious, I’d have been dead from carbon monoxide poisoning inside a half hour—no doubt what they had in mind when they left.
I raced to the front door, greedily sucking in the outdoor air, still coughing, as I ran to the cellar entrance I knew was on the side of the house. I came to a stop at the two metal doors in the ground locked with an old padlock. I summoned my strength and used the hard sole of my combat boot, drawing strength from my hips to kick at the lock. Once. Twice. Three times. On the fourth kick, the rusted door latch came loose, and I reached down to swing open the doors.
“Here!” I yelled. “Come out this way!”