Funny, though. Funny your period started right then.
Wren shook her head, dislodging the thought. She didn’t have time to think about any of that. She went to Reilly, kneeling next to him, seizing his wrist, feeling for a pulse.
A faint sound from the house—a girl’s voice, frightened.
Wren dropped Reilly’s hand and rushed for the doorway. “Hawk, don’t you dare hurt those girls, don’t you dare.”
Inside the house, it was dark. The only light came from tiny windows. She couldn’t see at first, but then she made out one small figure lying on the floor, and then she saw another, this one moving, trying to get up.
Hawk’s voice from the darkness. “It’s all ruined now.”
Wren went to the little girl. She held out her hand.
The little girl grasped it.
Wren tried to pull the girl to her feet, but the girl wasn’t trying hard enough. She was too sluggish. Wren got down to her knees, trying to get the girl’s arm around her shoulder, wondering how she was going to get the girl’s sister.
Hawk crouched down in front of her, his features shadowed. “At first, I thought I could get you back to stop it. I thought you’d make it better. And you did, you did.”
“Out of the way, Hawk.” She was still struggling with the little girl, who wasn’t speaking, but was now making high-pitched mewling noises. Oh, hell, did the sedative Hawk gave them do brain damage? Why didn’t she know this?
“But then you came to me that night and you told me that you killed a man and you liked it.”
She flinched.
He leaned closer, and now a sliver of sunlight from the window illuminated half his face. “And then I knew that you weren’t saving me, that I—that he—was getting to you. Getting into your head.” He reached out and touched her temple. “Inside here.”
“Get your hands off me,” she said through clenched teeth.
He pulled his fingers away. “I grappled with it. I wasn’t sure which way to go. I had tried to resist, but if he had you too, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. I thought, maybe we could be there together.”
“Be where?” she said, even though she shouldn’t engage him, even though it was idiotic to talk to him right now, when he wasn’t making any sense.
“Wherever the Horned Lord is,” said Hawk.
“No,” she said, her face twisting in disgust. “No, you don’t get to play that stupid card. You don’t get to blame this on some imaginary man with horns. He’s not real, and he didn’t do this. You did. It was you. You killed people, Hawk. You killed little girls. You were killing me over and over again. Killing me because you wanted to fuck me. Well, you got your shot, didn’t you? Got me to spread my legs, and you thought it would stop the compulsion, but you had to face the fact that you just like killing, you sick fuck—”
“That’s wrong.” He shook his head. “You don’t understand anything.”
“I don’t need to understand. Now, get out of my way, because I’m not letting you hurt these girls.”
“You’ve never seen his face,” said Hawk. “You’ve never been alone when his shadow falls over you. You don’t know what it’s like, the way he makes your insides twist, how you can hardly breathe in his presence—”
“The Crimson Ram is imaginary.” She was screaming it. “Some stupid made-up god, the shared vision of David Song and Vivian. They made him up so that they could control people.”
“I wish he was imaginary.” Now Hawk was yelling too, and there was a desperate edge to his voice. “You don’t understand, Wren, she protected you.”
“Oh, bullshit, stop—”
“Your mother, she kept you away from him. She never let you see him—”
“Did you see him while you were tripping on acid?” said Wren.
“It doesn’t matter whether you saw him or not,” said Hawk. “He’s in you. Working through you. Making you do his bidding. He wants sacrifices, and you like to kill, so you’ll kill again. You’ll kill for him, and you’ll never even know you’re doing it—”
“No.” She hated him. She hated him because he was saying her worst fears out loud, and she worried that if they were given words, given form, there would be more power to them, and they would overtake her.
“I didn’t want to kill those girls.” He was anguished. “But the Crimson Ram was angry, because you were protected. He wanted you. I was there when Vivian was told what he wanted of you, and she changed it all. She defied the Horned Lord and had you given to me, in the pairing, and I was supposed to protect you, and I did. I did what I could, but…” He shook his head. “The Lord wasn’t done with me. He made me take those other girls.”
“What you’re calling the Crimson Ram is just a part of yourself,” she said.
“Then it’s a part of you, too,” he said. “That part of you that felt triumph when you pulled the trigger?”
“It might be part of me, but it came from her,” said Wren.
“Vivian?”
“Yes.”
And then they were quiet.
“It’s ruined now,” he finally said. “I thought we could be together, could… could kill together. That maybe it would be okay if it was both of us. I tried to kill the sort of people you would want dead.”
“You mean Oliver? And Noah Adams? Did you kill him?”
“Noah killed himself,” said Hawk darkly.
“But you were there.”
“I was,” he said. “For you.”
“No, no, no.” She shook her head fiercely. “You don’t get to pin this on me. It’s not about me. You did this, all on your own. And I would never have killed with you. That’s disgusting.”
“No,” he said. “Not after what I did to your unborn child. Not anymore.”
“Not ever,” she said.
His hand shot out and he seized her by the neck.
She choked.
He flung her against the wall of the house, and she collided there, gasping for breath, hurt.
He pushed the little girl back onto the floor of the house and he wrapped his hand around her neck.
“No!” screamed Wren, getting up and launching herself at him.
She tackled him and they went backwards on the floor. She was on top of him, her body pressed against his, and it was familiar and horrible and terrifying and it caught her off guard.
And he flipped them, so that now he was on top of her, his pelvis crushing hers, his gray eyes wild as he looked down on her.
She struggled. She raked her nails over his cheek.
He wrapped his hands around her neck, tight.
She couldn’t breathe. The world was going dark, now, everything was closing in on her. The periphery of her vision faded and faded…
She scrabbled at his face. She got her thumb into his mouth, scraping at the inside of his gums.
He grunted, and jerked his head back. At the same time, his grip on her neck loosened, he moved his body back from hers.
She brought up her knee into his crotch.
He yelled.
She punched him.
And now they had switched again. She had rolled on top of him, and he was under her, and he was in pain. She hit him again. And again. She couldn’t stop hitting him.
“Little bird,” he moaned.
She slammed her fist into his nose. “Don’t call me that.”
“Wren,” he breathed.
She pushed up from his body and got to her feet. She kicked him. In the stomach. In the chest. Under his chin.
Then she spied the gun he’d taken from Karen, peering out of the top of his belt, and she felt stupid for not remembering it sooner. She snatched it up and turned it on him.
He gazed up at her. His nose was bleeding. He chuckled. “Going to shoot me?”
She cocked the gun.
“You probably should,” he said, and his voice dropped in register several notches. “You probably want to.”
“Maybe I do,” she breathed.
“You thin
k I want to kill you, don’t you?” he whispered. “You think that’s what this is all about. But maybe it’s about you, little bird. Maybe it’s about coming full circle and taking your place at his right hand. Maybe the reason he wanted me to kill was just for this moment, for you to kill me and complete the arc.”
She didn’t say anything. Her blood was thundering against her temples, pulsing in time to a remembered drum beat.
“Do it, Wren,” he rasped. “Pull the trigger. Take my life.”
But instead, she uncocked the gun and turned in her hand and brought down the butt of it against the top of his head as hard as she could.
He let out a little sound of surprise, reaching for her.
She clocked him again, even harder this time.
And he slithered onto the ground, unconscious.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Wren panted.
She sat down on the ground, putting her head between her knees, and she tried to get her breathing under control. That was all she could concentrate on for the moment.
Then she lifted her head to look at the twin girls.
One of the girls was sitting up, looking right at Wren. The other was twitching.
Wren motioned to the girl sitting up. “Can you stand? Stand up.”
The girl looked down at Hawk’s motionless form, and then she scrambled to her feet. She ran over to her sister and took the other girl by the shoulders, shaking her. “Wake up, Nattie. Wake up.”
The other girl moaned.
Wren got up and went over to the girls. “Are you okay?”
“The milkshake tastes funny,” moaned the girl on the ground.
“Wake up, Nattie.” Panic in the other girl’s voice. She glanced at Wren with panicked eyes. She shot a look down at the gun and then up at Wren’s eyes.
Wren tucked the gun away. She held out her hand. “I’m not going to hurt you. But we have to get you out of here.”
Nattie sat up, sputtering. She blinked.
The other girl pulled Nattie to her feet. “We have to run.” And she darted out of the house, dragging her sister along behind her.
“Wait!” Wren called. “You don’t want to go out there. Your mother—”
A scream.
Wren tore out of the house to find the girls staring down at their mother’s body. They were both horrified.
Reilly! She had never gotten his pulse.
She turned to look for his body.
But Reilly was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Wren didn’t know what that meant. Had Reilly gotten up and left? Would he have done that? Why wouldn’t he have come into the house and tried to help her with Hawk?
What about Terrence? Maybe he’d somehow recovered enough to come and drag Reilly’s body away. Maybe he was skinning him or carving him up. She needed to go and find Reilly now, save him. She couldn’t let anything happen to Reilly.
The girls looked back at the house and then at the body of their mother, and they didn’t know what to do.
Wren couldn’t think about Reilly right now. She had to take care of these innocent children. They were caught in the middle of all of this through no fault of their own. Reilly was a cop. He’d signed up for this, and as much as she wanted to find him, her priority had to be the girls.
Wren went to them, kneeling down. “Hi,” she said.
The girls both shied away from her. They had tears glittering in their eyes. Lord, they must be so frightened.
“I’m Wren.” She touched her chest. “What are your names?”
The girls exchanged a glance, and unspoken communication seemed to pass between them. They were likely trying to decide if they could trust Wren. They didn’t know her, after all, and they were in a living nightmare. But they seemed to decide to take what they could get.
“Jessica,” said one of the girls. “And this is Natalie.”
“Okay, Jessica and Natalie,” said Wren. “We need to get out of here. Get somewhere safe, away from the man back there.” She pointed at the house. “Will you come with me?”
“Daddy?” said Natalie. “Where’s Daddy?”
Even if Terrence was still alive, no way was Wren giving the girls back to that man. He was insane. But there was no reason to further traumatize them. “We’ll find your father later, okay? Will you come with me now?”
The girls hesitated, but then they nodded.
Wren held out her hand.
Jessica took it, and Natalie gripped Jessica’s hand.
Wren led them in a wide berth around their mother’s body and back onto the path. As they walked, she considered the idea that Terrence was still sitting on the path, where they’d left him, and she didn’t want the girls to have to see that too. But she didn’t know what else she could do. They had to stay on the path if they wanted to get out of the woods. She considered telling the girls to stay put when they got close, and then going up ahead on her own.
But she didn’t want to leave them alone. They might run off, and she didn’t know how long Hawk would be out. She’d hit him hard, but she knew he wasn’t dead. He’d wake up, and he’d come after them.
Or he’d flee.
He’d get away.
That made her angry, too. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away. She considered leaving the girls where they were, going back to the house and putting a bullet in Hawk Marner.
That was probably the smart thing to do.
But she wasn’t going to do that, and she was going to tell herself that she wasn’t doing it because she didn’t want to be a killer, and not because her feelings about Hawk were confusing and twisted.
She didn’t want to think about that.
She should probably talk to the girls. She tried to think of something reassuring to say, but she didn’t know what could possibly comfort them in the wake of their mother’s death and their own near brush with death themselves.
When Vivian had been arrested, she’d still been left with her dad, and he was the parent who had shown her affection and love. Wren suspected the dynamic was switched here, so they were truly alone in the world, and they must be feeling such terror and such sadness. What could she possibly say that would reassure them?
No, there was nothing.
She only hoped the girls would continue to walk with her. She was going to take them out of the woods, and she didn’t think the girls had even been out of the woods. They’d been here their entire lives.
A noise, in the distance.
Someone was coming down the path. Wren could hear their footsteps, hear them moving through the underbrush.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Wren tugged on Jessica’s hand, pulling the girls off the path.
They came with her, and they crouched down behind a thorn bush. It was probably Terrence, and if it was, the girls were going to run to him, and Wren didn’t know what she would do. She had a gun. She could shoot Terrence if necessary, but she wasn’t going to shoot the girls’ father in front of them if she could help it.
But if it meant saving Reilly, if her own life was in danger—
A uniformed police officer appeared around the bend. He wasn’t alone. At least ten other men and women were following him, all in full uniform and with bullet-proof vests from the look of their bulky chests.
Reilly was with them.
He was bringing up the rear, and his face was smeared with blood. He had a shirt on now, but she could see the makeshift bandages she’d tied to him peering out of the collar. He looked awful, but he was upright, and he was moving.
She stood up, waving at him. “Reilly!”
“Wren!” he said,
Wren pulled the girls out from behind the thorn bush, practically running for Reilly. “You were gone, and I thought you were… I thought he came and dragged you off.”
Reilly hurried over to her. “I’m sorry I didn’t go in after you. I came to, and I looked into the house, and you were talking at him, and I thought I should go back for the phones, call
in help. It was a gamble, but I was unarmed and wounded, and I didn’t know if I would have been any help if I did go in—”
“You did the right thing,” said Wren.
Two officers had peeled away from the rest and they were coming over to Wren and Reilly.
“Detective Reilly, since we’ve found them, let’s get you all back out of the woods,” said one. The officer turned to Wren. “We tried to convince him to go out and get medical attention, but he was dead set on making sure you were all right.”
Wren hugged him.
He hugged her back. Then he grunted. He was wounded, after all.
She pulled back. “You did exactly the right thing.”
He gave her a weary smile. “I took a gamble. But I had a pretty good idea you could hold your own. You got away.”
“Let’s get out of these damned woods,” she said.
* * *
“You sure you want to do this, Mr. Reilly?” said the nurse, who was holding out a clipboard to him.
“The doctor said that I could, didn’t he?” said Reilly.
“Yes, but he recommended a night for observation, just to be sure.”
“I’ve got some stitches and a bandaged nose.”
“Some of your wounds are deep,” said the nurse. “You lost a lot of blood.”
“I’ll be more comfortable at home,” said Reilly.
“As long as you have someone there who can keep an eye on you and call for help if something happens.”
“Sure,” said Reilly. “Of course.” He gestured to the clipboard. “Where do I sign?”
The nurse pointed out the places for signatures and initialing, and then he was free. He’d signed himself out of the hospital. Wearing his sweaty, bloody pants and a sweatshirt from the hospital gift shop, he staggered out into the afternoon light.
He’d decided to check himself out after Lopez had come by to fill him in on everything that had been happening. He asked Lopez to go and talk to Wren, too. She deserved to be kept up to speed. But Lopez said that Wren had been discharged from the hospital.
Wren Delacroix Series Box Set Page 54