“End her,” Garabrant hissed, his gun still aimed at them. His eyes were wide, their focus twitchy.
Fear pulsed like a hammer in Iver’s throat and lungs. The woman thrashed against him as he tried to hold her quiet. The insurgents were too close now.
Iver saw no other option. He had no doubt Garabrant would shoot, and they’d all die.
He took two steps toward the back door, whispering in her ear. “Shhh,” he said. “Shh.”
Her struggles paused for a moment, her gaze darting toward the exit to the alley. “Yes,” he told her. “I’m going to let you go.”
He started to set her feet on the ground, and she calmed. Her motions halted, though her pulse raced like a rabbit’s under his arm. “It’s okay,” he whispered again, and then, with her feet only inches from the floor, he reached his hand across her face and gripped her jaw between his palms.
Closing his eyes, he wrenched her neck with a brutal twist. There was a sickening crack as she slumped in his arms, and he lowered her to the ground. Her eyes were open, her mouth flexed in terror.
“Is she dead?” Garabrant asked. “Make sure she’s dead.”
“Look at her neck, Kenny,” Wykstra said to Garabrant. “She’s dead.”
Iver looked over to see Sanchez wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, vomit sprayed across his feet. Sanchez didn’t meet his eye. Brolyard made a sign that the insurgents were close.
With the dead woman on the floor a few feet away, Iver took up his rifle and positioned himself for the shoot, a numbing calm swimming through him. His fingers tingled, and a strange taste filled his mouth. It took him a moment to recognize it as blood, to realize that in the struggle he’d bitten the inside of his cheek so hard it was bleeding. He swallowed and shifted his full focus to the target. Brolyard counted down, and they all took aim and fired. The insurgents dropped and fled, and the men made it safely to the Humvee. Iver climbed into the back.
The realization of what he had done struck him as the Humvee pulled out in a cloud of dust. Iver was sobbing silently when they hit that IED.
He’d had no choice. It was what Brolyard and Wykstra and Sanchez would have told him that night, when they were safe in their CHU. Garabrant, too, once he had calmed the hell down.
He had done what he had to do. Her death would have been worth it, her life a fair trade for his brothers’, if those four men hadn’t died on the three-mile trip back to base.
The wind rattled the open trunk lid of the sheriff’s car and stung the wet skin of his cheeks. He jolted, scanning the area around him as he returned from the nightmare. Move, he commanded himself. Go find Lily, the detective.
He focused on the remaining equipment in the trunk and grabbed the shotgun, too, leaving the bat before lowering the trunk’s lid until it was almost closed. Orienting himself by the dull orange flare, Iver headed out in the snow, his breathing rapid. Despite the frigid air, sweat pooled at the small of his back.
He clenched his jaw and blew out the stale breath in his lungs, focusing on a plan for approach. He didn’t want to startle anyone, which was an easy way to get shot. But if the detective and Lily were in trouble, he also needed the element of surprise. He took ten steps and stopped to listen. The snow blew from the north, coming straight from the direction of the flare. The wind should have carried voices, too, but Iver heard only the wind, the drill, and, as he moved closer, the snickering of the flare as it burned.
Rather than continuing north to the spot where Gilbert’s car appeared on the map, Iver cut east fifty yards before turning north. The storm raged now, and visibility was maybe twelve or fifteen feet. Then, he shifted his course to head north, taking one step due west for every ten north in an effort to counteract the natural curve of his gait. When left in a place with no markers, humans naturally walked in circles, even if they thought they were going straight. Iver had enough experience walking through blinding sandstorms to know his own directional bias.
In the distance an engine’s growl cut through the storm. Not the groaning mechanics of the pump but something small, like a car. Iver stopped to listen. The engine shut off, close to where Milliard had parked. A door closed lightly. The wind buffeting it? Or someone trying to be quiet?
After the metal sound of the door, nothing. One person. He considered the silence. If someone had come to help Milliard, why not call out? It would be standard protocol to announce yourself, wouldn’t it? But maybe they wanted to retain the element of surprise, too.
Or maybe whoever had arrived was not a friend.
The wind changed, and now the snow blew from the east, pellets hard against his neck and the right side of his face. Iver lowered the shotgun to the ground and abandoned it there. He would need both hands on the rifle to shoot accurately. He trudged forward slowly, snow sliding into his boots with every step. As he lifted the rifle to a ready position, the bulk of the grasshopper rig appeared like a ghost against the white, startling him.
But it was comforting to know it was there. Orienting.
Hunching to make himself a smaller target, Iver continued north. By his estimation, Gilbert’s car should have been close. The hissing of the flare grew steadily louder and, with it, the snapping sounds of the hard pellets of snow striking the flame. Iver ducked around the back of the grasshopper and slowed. Once he passed the massive steel structure, there would be no cover.
But there was no car. Where the hell was Gilbert’s car?
And where the hell was Milliard? If she’d found Lily, she should have been back at the cruiser by now. She would have seen that he was gone and called out. Or Lily would have called for him.
He should have heard something. It was too damn quiet.
CHAPTER 59
LILY
The arm across her neck made it hard to breathe. Her shoes slipped in the snow as the man dragged her backward. This man. Had he been the man in the woods with Abby? The memories flooded her, and her heart stuttered. But he hadn’t killed Abby. Her legs buckled beneath her, and his forearm locked around her throat.
Lily squeezed her eyes closed, struggling to draw air into her lungs. The image of Abby bleeding in the snow was crystal in her mind. Abby’s gun in Lily’s hand.
She tried to push away the memories of lifting that gun, aiming at Abby.
Her friend’s eyes wide and scared. Terrified. Abby’s expression was a blade that had cut through her. How many moments of pure terror had they suffered together? Afraid of that man, of the darkness, the pain, the seemingly endless screams before the first girl had disappeared. She’d been buried in the grounds around the cabin, Lily had read in one of the articles Iver found.
But in the woods, Abby’s terror had been directed at Lily. Because Lily was ready to kill her rather than be taken again.
Had any of Abby’s terror been real during the months they were held? Or was Abby a part of it from the start? Abby was there the night Lily was taken, had lured Lily with her tears.
Her teeth chattering, Lily tried to make sense of the memories. The months still blended together in a vague sense of darkness and fear. But the rituals, those had been intense. Every two or three nights? More? Less? The time ran together. So much blackness and sleep. The juice he’d given them had made them sleep and forget.
Lily could still feel that blade slicing her skin, the heat of the pain followed by the soft feel of a tongue. His tongue.
Of course it had been his tongue, hadn’t it?
The forearm at her throat tightened. As she struggled for breath, the truth of that night in the woods rushed over her. Two or three times each week for sixteen months, someone had cut her. But it hadn’t been Derek Hudson.
It had been Abby. Abby’s voice in her ear. Abby’s tongue soaking up her blood.
The fear of those memories was so intense that Lily had exploded, knocking Abby backward and wrestling the gun from her hands.
And then she’d heard the sound of someone coming, so she had taken a last look at her friend, and she�
��d run. The woods rose up, sharp and clear in her memories now, the branches rough on her bare skin as she sprinted through the snow, the sounds of him close behind her. She’d reached the street, breathless and panicked, and a man had stopped and offered her a ride.
“Are you all right?”
“I just need to get out of town. As far as possible.”
Why hadn’t she gone to the police that night?
He was heading back to Fargo, he’d told her. He hadn’t asked any questions. She could ride along with him. It would give her time to make a plan, to figure out how to talk to the police, to tell them what she knew. And time to wrap her head around Abby. The betrayal.
But they’d never made it to Fargo. Lily couldn’t remember the accident, whether it was a patch of ice or an animal that had caused him to swerve and crash through the guardrail.
If only she had gotten away, made it to Fargo.
Tears burned on her cheeks, warm against the bitter cold. She longed to lie down in the snow, to quit. She stopped moving her feet. The end was near now. It had to be.
The man stumbled, and the gun struck her temple. Her vision went white and she cried out.
“Move,” he hissed, shoving her.
She took a small step, then slid and stopped again. Why shouldn’t she die, too? Abby was dead because of her. The driver of that car, Brent Nolan, was dead because of her. She had failed to get him out of that car before it went off the overpass.
Not just that. She had stolen from him first. Taken cash from his wallet.
It was an instinct.
No. It was who she was. The relationship with Tim, whatever drugs she’d been taking, her house . . . all were signs of who she really was.
“I said move,” the man hissed.
“Just shoot me,” she said.
“I’ll shoot you when I’m good and ready.” He shoved her again, the arm on her neck guiding her forward and also choking her.
Momentum carried her a few steps before she stopped. Done. She let her body weight drop, fell against the pressure of his arm. The tears froze on her cheeks; the chattering of her teeth stilled. If he killed her, it would be over. All of it. His victims would be dead.
Some part of her brain struggled against acceptance. He would get away with it. There would be no justice. But who was she to claim justice?
She was as bad as he was.
Her dead weight pulled on him, and he loosened his arm, let her fall to the snow.
“Get up!” he shouted, but she turned away from his voice. Her pulse still thundered as she imagined the moment the bullet would fire from the gun and enter her flesh.
Was that a sign she should fight?
He grabbed a fistful of her hair and wrenched her head upright, the gun in her face. “Get on your feet.”
She searched his eyes, looking for something familiar. “Who are you? Why are you doing this?”
“I swear to God, if you don’t stand up . . .”
She closed her eyes again.
A short whistle of sound was followed by an explosion in her ear as metal struck her temple. Pain rocketed through her skull, crimson and orange behind her eyelids. She pitched forward and vomited.
She struggled against the inclination to stand again, to do what he said. Death was coming, one way or another.
Another whistle sounded, and she flinched.
But there was no pain other than the dull pulsing from his first strike.
From somewhere in the distance came the crunch of boots in the snow. She opened her eyes and squinted.
A dark shape moved through the storm.
“Vogel!” a woman shouted.
Lily sat upright. The detective.
“Damn it,” the man cursed beside her.
Snow clung to Lily’s face and hair as she watched the shape move closer.
“Vogel. Wait!” the detective shouted again.
The man—Vogel—raised his gun and aimed it at the detective in the distance. Lily froze at the shift of his hand, anticipating the explosion even before it happened.
“No!” she screamed.
The roar of gunfire cut through the hum of the storm. She flinched and covered her ears as he fired a second, third, fourth time.
The wind shifted direction, and she searched for the detective through the falling snow. Something on the ground in the distance shifted. The detective. Had she been hit? Lily lunged toward her. She had to help.
The hand in her hair wrenched her back, and she cried out.
“You make this hard on me, and I’ll go out there and finish her off right now.”
Lily studied the shape, the movements. Maybe the detective could get away, get help. Maybe Kylie Milliard didn’t have to die, too. If Lily let this man take her, maybe she could save one life.
Her head throbbing, she lifted her hands into the air slowly.
“That’s a good girl,” he said, yanking her to her feet.
She shivered against the cold wind, something shifting in her chest. Purpose. If she could get free of him, if she could get his gun . . .
“Back up, nice and slow,” he hissed, tightening the arm on her neck. He yanked her backward, and she stepped tentatively, studying the sensation of him behind her. His bulk, the arm at her neck, the way it shifted up and down as he moved. The feel of his jacket—canvas, she guessed. Could she sink her teeth through it and bite hard enough to get him to release the gun?
He’d fired four bullets. How many did the gun hold? A magazine could hold more bullets—a dozen, she thought. Maybe more. But his gun was a revolver, not a pistol.
A few hollow notes traveled across the field, like a voice. Vogel froze, and she tried to turn her head, to search for the voice. But there was only whiteness around them. The wind howled from the line of trees, and Lily felt the stabbing pain of disappointment. Not a voice. Just the wind.
She was alone with him.
The arm hitched tighter on her throat as he yanked her backward. Over her shoulder a shed loomed like a gallows.
The detective was no longer visible, and Lily pressed her eyes closed and prayed Milliard was okay, that the bullets had missed.
CHAPTER 60
IVER
Iver took another half dozen steps before the profound white quiet exploded in gunfire. Iver dropped for cover, face in the snow, the rifle under his right arm ready for the counterattack.
The tattoo of four bullets in rapid succession gave way to total silence.
Lifting his head, he listened for the sounds of someone dying. Dying people were loud. Even a bullet to the head made a distinct sound, both a wet noise and a hard, dry crack. Perhaps he was too far away to hear anything. Most likely, someone out there was dead. Maybe more than one.
His heart drilled against the cold earth. Not Lily. Please, not Lily.
He fought the rush of rage, the impulse to spring up and attack. Instead, he forced himself to wait. If someone was alive, they needed him to stay alive. When he reached the count of twenty, he rose to his knees, gripping the rifle as he stood.
He replayed the noise in his head. Four bullets were fired, but it had sounded like a single weapon. He moved forward, focused on awareness. He recalled his time in Afghanistan, the moments when he’d sworn he could sense the bead of the laser on his head. Keep moving.
He stepped lightly, scanning, on high alert. He’d taken a half dozen steps when he spotted a figure stooped over something on the ground. The figure was broad, too large to be Lily. A man.
Iver took a slow step forward, the rifle at chin level, ready to fire.
The man grabbed at something, and Iver made out a second figure, a woman on the ground. Her dark hair in his hand, the profile of her face. He knew her immediately.
Lily.
He wanted to cry out to her, tell her he was there. Instead, he raised the rifle to his eye and searched through the scope for the man. Snow covered the glass immediately, and Iver reached to brush it off.
He took aim again
and found the man’s hulking form. Drew a breath. The wind blew the snow across the right side of his face. He shifted his aim an inch to the right to make up for the wind, then another half inch. It was a long shot, too far to be accurate. But if he moved any closer, he’d be seen.
He lifted his head. What if he missed and the man shot Lily? What if he didn’t shoot and she died anyway?
He brushed the snow off the scope and barrel and took aim again. Sucked air into his lungs and paused, waiting for a moment of stillness. The wind howled. He released the air slowly, then inhaled again, watching. The man was trying to pull her up. It was now or never.
He drew air through his teeth, found the figure of the man in the scope, and laid his finger on the trigger.
Then he shouted, “On the ground, Lily!”
Lily’s face appeared to shift toward him. Did she see him?
The man reared up.
Iver took his shot. The rifle kicked against him. Then a second explosion, something internal. No. Something from behind. Another bullet, this one to his back.
Unable to breathe, Iver dropped to the snow.
He never saw the shooter.
CHAPTER 61
KYLIE
A shot echoed in the blizzard, then a second. Baker.
Kylie tried to lift her head, but the searing heat in her shoulder kept her pinned to the ground. She’d been shot. Vogel had aimed that gun and fired four bullets, and one of them had hit her. She would die here. Gilbert was in jail, and Vogel would get away, make up some story about how Lily Baker tried to shoot him and he’d fired in self-defense. How Kylie was already dead.
He’d spin it so that he was a hero.
She opened her eyes and stared up at the falling snow. What fell were no longer flakes but quarter-size clumps. If she closed her eyes and lay there another fifteen or twenty minutes, she might be invisible under a drift. She could die of hypothermia rather than bleed out. Or maybe the blood leaching from her body would freeze up. All her blood would eventually freeze. A giant bloody popsicle.
White Out: A Thriller (Badlands Thriller) Page 28