“Right here,” said Reilly, springing up off the altar. He buried the knife in Terrence’s stomach.
Terrence bent over, letting out a grunt.
Reilly pulled the knife out.
Terrence grabbed for Reilly with one hand, groping. The other hand went to the wound in his stomach.
Reilly punched the knife into the man’s chest. Blood gushed out, onto Reilly’s hands. The knife handle was slippery.
“No!” Karen screamed. She hurled herself at Reilly.
Reilly staggered backwards.
Karen caught Terrence.
He turned his head at her. His eyes were dull. He tried to say something, but only gurgling noises came out of his throat.
Karen sobbed. “No, no, no.”
Reilly backed up until he collided with one of the pavilion posts. He pointed the knife at Karen.
She looked up at Reilly and down at Terrence, and then she got up and took off running into the woods.
Reilly pushed off the pavilion and went after her. She was going back to the cabin, and Wren was there.
But Reilly couldn’t go quickly, and Karen was running. He lost sight of her almost immediately.
When he finally reached the cabin, he opened the door.
Steam rolled out, billows of it.
He coughed. What the hell? Then he realized there was a pot on the stove, water boiling. He spied Wren in the living room, tied to the ceiling. He staggered over to her and cut her down.
“Reilly,” she said. “You’re okay.” Then she looked at his chest. “Are you okay?”
He looked down at his chest, which was very bloody now. “Not really, no, but I’m alive.”
She wrung out her hands, clenching them into fists and releasing them as she headed in the kitchen. “There were rags in here. Towels. To stop the blood.”
“Let’s just go,” said Reilly. “We have to get out of here.”
She snatched up a rag and went to him, pushing the fabric into his wounds.
It hurt. He gasped.
“Sorry,” she said. “But you apply pressure. That’s what you do. We need to find something to tie them down and to bandage you.”
“We need to go,” he said.
Her fingers fluttered around his face. “I thought you were dead. I thought they killed you. They said something about giving Hawk your skin.”
Reilly grimaced. “And here I thought Hawk and I bonded.”
Wren laughed. She laughed high and wild and then she stopped. “Are they dead?” She started ripping at one of the rags, turning it into strips of fabric. “Did you kill them?”
“I don’t know. Not the woman,” said Reilly. “But I stabbed the man a couple times. He went down. I think it’s really hard to stab someone to death, though.”
Wren stretched one of the fabric strips around Reilly’s chest, trying to tie to it off. “Hell, why do you have to have such a broad chest, Reilly?”
“Just leave it.” He pushed her away and headed for the door. “Let’s go.”
* * *
“Which way?” said Wren. They were in the woods, back on the other side of the clearing where the pavilion was. They knew they’d come this way.
“Um…” Reilly looked one way and then the other. “I can’t remember. I feel too woozy. It’s probably blood loss.” He glanced at her. “What’s your excuse?”
“I don’t know. I’m shit with directions?”
“Well, that’s great.”
“I guess you don’t have your phone anymore?”
“No, the asshole who was trying to skin me alive took it,” said Reilly.
“Well, maybe it’s still on him,” said Wren. “Maybe we should go back to the pavilion, and look.”
“No,” said Reilly. “I saw that movie, and what happened was, when they got back to the spot, the killer was gone, and they both got axed to death. Or chainsawed.”
“Yeah? Well, I saw the movie where the people wandered aimlessly in the woods for days until the killer cornered them in a weird old house and killed them all.”
Reilly looked back in the direction of the pavilion.
Wren did too. Then she turned back to the woods. She pointed. “I think it’s this way.”
“When we were back in the cabin, we should have gone out and seen if Miller was alive,” said Reilly. “Maybe he had his phone on him. Or his gun.”
“I guess they took your gun too?”
“Sure as hell did.”
Wren started walking in the direction she’d pointed.
Reilly came with her. “This seems like the right way. We’re going to be fine.”
“Yeah, we’ll get out of the woods, and we’ll call this in,” said Wren. “There are two innocent little girls out here at the mercy of Hawk, and we need to do something to save them.”
“What?” said Reilly. “Girls?” Then he nodded. “The beds. They have daughters?”
“Yeah,” said Wren. “They’re eleven. They’re twins. They’re Hawk’s wet dream.”
“Oh, gross,” said Reilly.
“We need to stop it,” said Wren.
“Not to mention the fact that we can’t be sure that Anderson is dead, or that Miller is. And Roger is roaming around in the woods somewhere.”
“Maybe he got out,” said Wren.
“Maybe he did,” said Reilly. “What are the odds he went to the police?”
“Um, I put it twenty to one against,” said Wren. “I don’t think he much likes the police.”
“Hell,” said Reilly.
They trudged through the woods in silence for a while.
“Hey.” Wren pointed. “The path. That’s the path. Right there. Up ahead.”
“Oh, hell, you’re right,” said Reilly. “We made it.”
It was only a few feet until they made it back onto the narrow path, the one that Hawk and Major had cleared out to get to Hawk’s house. Now on the path, Wren felt sure that she knew the way. To the right led further into the woods. To the left was back to civilization. She turned left and started walking, Reilly right behind her.
Up ahead, the path went around a tall rock formation, and when they rounded the bend, a body was swinging from the branches of one of the trees.
It was Roger.
His throat had been cut and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. There was a pattern carved into his skin, shaky lines connected to each other, like forks of lightning or antlers. Where his eyes should have been, there was nothing but red holes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
They stopped short.
Wren gaped at it, horrified and fascinated, as usual.
Reilly moaned.
Wren turned her head to one side, staring at the pattern on the chest. It was like the drawings he’d made in his apartment, the ones on the walls.
Reilly shoved her. “Go,” he said in a guttural voice.
“We can’t leave him like this,” said Wren. “Where’s the knife? Cut him down.”
“It’s a crime scene, Wren,” said Reilly. “Remember what you said to Miller?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Wren, who couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from Roger’s body.
“Go,” he said. “We need to get free and get to a phone. We’ll have this woods swarming with police in an hour.”
“No, you won’t,” said a voice from behind them.
They whirled.
Karen was on the path, holding Reilly’s gun, pointing it at both of them. Behind her was Terrence, barely on his feet, his clothes stained in blood. He had Miller’s gun and had it trained on them as well. His hand was trembling.
“Yeah,” said Reilly. “I knew it was hard as hell to stab a man to death.”
Karen’s nose was red. “I felt sorry for you, black man. But you tried to kill my husband.”
“Well, he tried to kill me first, to be fair,” said Reilly.
Wren furrowed her brow. “When did you have time to catch Roger and kill him?” She gestured with her thumb at the body handing behi
nd him.
“Hawk did that,” said Karen.
Terrence coughed. Blood came up. He spat it on the path.
“We have to kill the black one and give Wren to Hawk,” said Karen. “It’s for our little girls. We don’t have a choice.”
“You do have a choice,” said Wren. “It’s like I was saying before. You wanted to believe me, Karen. You’ve never wanted this. It’s Terrence—”
“He didn’t want it either,” yelled Karen. “He hates it as much as I do.”
“Does he?” said Wren. “Of the two of you, who’s idea was it to go to the police?”
Karen licked her lips. “Well… it was both of us.”
“Really?” said Wren. “Was it little Felix Wilson? That night at the Walker’s? You saw him shot in the head, still clutching his toys, and you knew what you were doing, it couldn’t be in the service of anything good. You knew that it had to end. Vivian had to be stopped.”
Karen swallowed. “Terrence agreed with me. He wanted Vivian gone.”
“Oh, I see,” said Wren, looking over Karen’s shoulder at Terrence. “You thought you could take over for her. But then you started realizing, now that the police were involved, that the whole FCL was going to crumble, and you wouldn’t have anything. So, you cut your losses. Sure, it would have been nice to have a whole cult to order around, but you’d settle for your wife and kids, huh? And the killing? Well, you just like the killing, don’t you?”
Terrence laughed. His teeth were red. “You think you understand me, but you don’t. It’s not me that needs the killing, little Wren. It’s the Lord. He’s the one who guides our path. Shoot them, Karen. We’ll shoot Hawk too. We have guns now.”
Karen turned to look at Terrence. “But Hawk… you said he was in the service of the Lord.”
“Not if he takes our girls,” said Terrence. “Not then.”
“Don’t shoot us,” said Wren. “Please, don’t shoot us. Let us go and get help.”
“No one’s getting help,” said Karen.
“Shoot them,” said Terrence.
Karen turned on him. She marched over to her husband and snatched his gun out of his hand. “No one’s getting shot either.” She looked at Wren and Reilly. “Not as long as you do as I say. I’m taking you both to Hawk. If he wants the black man dead so bad, he can do it himself.” She gestured with her gun. “Let’s go. Walk.”
“I don’t think you’ll shoot me,” said Wren.
“No?” said Karen, and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The gun went off with a crack, and the bullet lodged in the trunk of a tree too close to Wren for comfort. It splintered the tree, sending shards of wood everywhere.
Wren cowered.
Reilly staggered.
Terrence fell backwards and settled on the ground. He began to cough again.
“You okay?” said Karen to him.
“Save our girls,” he croaked. “Save our babies, darling.”
Karen nodded. She gestured with the gun. “Let’s go.”
Wren started to move.
Reilly did too, but he stumbled.
Wren reached out to catch him.
Karen yelled.
“I’m just helping him,” said Wren. “Just let him lean on me.”
“Fine,” Karen snapped. “Walk.”
So, they walked.
They left Terrence behind. He sat on the path, his back against a tree trunk, and his breath came in rattling gasps.
Reilly leaned against Wren, and he was bleeding through the makeshift bandages she’d put on him, not that they were put on very well. They probably would have fallen off, but they were stuck to his skin with his own crusted blood.
Karen came behind them, gun on them, telling them to move faster if they faltered. Other than that, no one spoke.
They walked and walked, and the path went on and on.
Wren couldn’t keep track of how long it was. Reilly was heavy against her, and he was sweaty and panting. She was worried. She thought he’d lost too much blood. She clutched at him, wondering how it had all gone so badly, so fast. Her breath grew labored too, and sweat broke out on her forehead and at the nape of her neck.
They walked.
Eventually, a house came into view. Well, it was charitable to call it a house. It was more like a pyramid with doors and a few holes for windows. It was covered in black pitch. Maybe he’d done that to waterproof it.
When the house came into view, Karen yelled for Hawk.
And Hawk appeared in the doorway to the house. He looked more gaunt than Wren remembered. Had he always been that thin and skeletal? He looked her over, his gray eyes piercing her, but his face expressionless.
“Where are my girls?” Karen’s voice was thin.
“They’re sleeping,” said Hawk, coming out of the pyramid and walking toward them. “Where’s your husband?”
“Dead, most likely,” said Karen. “I’ll shoot you too, Hawk. You deserve it.”
Hawk advanced on them, his gray eyes flashing. “You’ll do no such thing, Karen Marie Freeman. Hand me that gun.”
“No,” said Karen, shaking her head, backing away.
“I command thee, sister,” said Hawk. “Turn it over to me, the agent of thy lord and master, for I am most displeased. I will spare thy life if thou dost obey.”
Karen crumpled to the ground, sobbing, holding the gun above her head.
Hawk pushed past Wren and took the gun from her. “Fucking idiots just roll over if you start talking like the King James version. Really, Karen?”
She whimpered.
Hawk shot her in the head.
Karen fell backwards, eyes staring blankly at the sky.
Wren jumped.
Hawk whirled around, leveling the gun at Reilly. “Wren, you’re in my way. This one is supposed to be dead.”
Reilly glared at Hawk. “It’s because I wouldn’t give you a job, isn’t it? Listen, Hawk, you have no experience. Why would I let you work in law enforcement, huh? What are your qualifications? Just that you’re really good at making people shoot themselves?”
Hawk stalked forward, putting the barrel of the gun between Reilly’s eyes. “Shut up.”
“Hawk,” said Wren.
He turned to her.
“What are you doing?” she said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Killing the witnesses, little bird.”
She sucked in a breath. “Don’t. We should talk. We’ve never talked, not honestly, not when I knew everything.”
He lifted his chin, surveying her. “Talk, hmm? Honestly, hmm? I don’t think you can be honest, little bird. I think your whole identity is caught up in lying to yourself.”
She forced herself to smile. “You want someone to know how you did it, don’t you? You want to tell me about that.”
Hawk chuckled. “Oh, little bird. You think it’s like that, don’t you? I’m not like your other killers. And it’s not that I want to tell, it’s that you want to know. Ever since you saw that dead little girl in the Walker house, you’ve been salivating for all the details. It gets you wet.”
She flinched.
“Now, what’s going to happen is that I’m going to shoot the detective here, and then you can spend as much time with the dead body as you want. Because we both know you want to.”
She swallowed. “Not Reilly. Please? Not him?”
“Has to be him,” said Hawk. He shifted on his feet, looking down at Reilly. “Got to say, before all this, I was a little squeamish about it. I liked it to be clean. But I find you get desensitized to it. The more you kill, the easier it gets.”
“Not Reilly,” she said.
“Why not Reilly?” Hawk was glaring at the man.
“Maybe she likes me better than you,” Reilly said.
“Shut up,” said Wren, panicked. “Don’t talk, Reilly.”
“Is that it, little bird? Do you like him better?” Hawk turned to look at her. “You want him?”
; “No,” said Wren. “No, no. It’s not like that at all. It’s you, Hawk. It’s always been you. It’s only ever been you. Hawk, please. Don’t shoot him. Just talk to me. We have things to talk about.”
“We can’t talk until he’s dead.”
“Hawk, please. I don’t want to be surrounded by any more death. I’m… I’m pregnant.”
Hawk’s eyes widened. He hadn’t been expecting that. “What?”
“I forgot my birth control,” she said. “I didn’t mean to, and then I forgot the condoms, and then… I’m just a mess. And I need you right now, Hawk, I need you not to be killing people. Okay?”
Hawk pulled the gun away from Reilly’s head and put the safety on. He tucked it into his belt. “That’s a whole lot of stupid, little bird.”
Her mouth was dry. “I-I know.”
Hawk advanced on her. “Not just your stupid, of course. Not fair to let you bear the burden alone. It takes two.” And then he balled up his fist and punched her in the stomach. Hard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Wren gasped.
Hawk held onto her shoulder and punched her again.
She cried out.
His lips at her ear. “If it doesn’t take,” he whispered, “get rid of it as soon as you can.” He let go of her.
She doubled over, clutching her stomach, grunting.
Reilly lurched at Hawk. “You fucking bastard—”
Hawk punched Reilly too.
Reilly staggered backward.
Hawk kicked him, knocking Reilly onto his back. He kicked Reilly again, boot to the face.
Reilly’s nose erupted red gore.
“No!” said Wren.
Reilly twitched and then was still. His wide eyes gazed at the sky.
Hawk looked at her.
She shook her head at him. “No,” she repeated, softer.
Hawk turned his back on her and started walking toward the doorway of the house.
Wren straightened painfully. It hurt where Hawk had hit her. And there was something wet and warm running down her thigh. My period, she thought. Must be that. She didn’t have anything out here to deal with it.
But her dignity didn’t seem important at the moment, not with Reilly lying motionless on the ground, and the dead body of Karen behind her, and the little girls that Hawk had said were sleeping.
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