Chapter 31
Kat
I’m barefoot, running through the cornfield behind my house, the stiff, dried-out stalks scratching at my skin, tearing at my nightgown.
My throat burns from his touch, my lungs are gasping for air, my legs ache, the soles of my feet bleeding from twigs and rocks, but I have to keep going, I have to.
Brom will be coming after me.
Brom who isn’t Brom.
Brom who has turned into a monster.
Tears stream down my face, blurring my vision, and somehow, I keep going, pushing the stalks away as I run toward the road. I don’t know where I’m going; I just know I have to get away from him.
Behind me, I hear a horse whinny, then hoofbeats.
He’s going to hunt me down in the rows of corn, just as he did to Joshua Meeks.
The monster inside him will hunt me down and hold me down, and he’ll rape me, and then he’ll kill me.
Looking into Brom’s eyes and watching them change from the man I know, the man who said he loved me still after all this time, into an evil force is something I’ll never forget. I don’t know if I can shake it. I don’t know if I’ll survive it.
But first, I have to survive tonight.
I’m running to Mary’s, to ask for help. She’ll understand—they’re good people. They’ll help me. I know if I run across the cornfields, I’ll hit the road, and that will take me up to her farm.
I keep going, unable to see above the stalks of corn until the ground slopes up slightly, and I’m pushing through, stumbling onto the road, stones biting into my feet.
I whirl around, looking for a light, someone’s lantern. There’s nothing but darkness and the light of the half-moon, and I’m so disoriented I don’t even know which way to go.
Brom’s face flashes in my head. The sorrow in his eyes when he said he needed me.
The tenderness in his voice as he told me he missed me.
The way he shook slightly when he told me he loved me.
It twists and burns in my head, dissolving like paper in a fire, the smoke giving way to the emptiness in his eyes, the crush of his fingers on my throat, the sneer on his lips when he told me he was going to put me in the grave.
I feel deceived, so deceived that I think my heart might shatter if I give it more thought, but I can’t, not now. I can only think about survival.
I run up the road until I see Mary’s farm. In the distance, I still hear hoofbeats and the sound of rustling corn, and I know he’s close.
The monster on my tail.
I scramble up the path to the front door of the farmhouse and start banging on it with my fists.
“Mary!” I scream. “Mary! Open up! Please, it’s me, it’s Kat!”
I try the door, but it won’t open. They’ve never locked their doors before.
There hasn’t been a murderer on the loose, I think. One that’s after you.
I rattle it violently, but it won’t give, so I start banging on the door again, smacking it with the heel of my palm, panic clawing up me like a wild beast.
Answer. Please answer.
“Help me!” I sob, tears of desperation running down my face.
The house remains quiet and dark, and even if they’re slow to wake, I don’t have time to wait and see.
There’s only one person who can help me.
There’s only ever been one person who can help me.
I run around the house to their stable, relieved to see Mathias’s roan mare in the stall. I coax her out of the stall, and then use a stepping post to swing up onto her back.
“Take me north,” I whisper to her frantically. “Take me to Crane.”
The mare responds with a flattening of her ears and starts galloping out of the farm, careening out onto the road, dust and soil kicked up behind us.
I glance over my shoulder at the dark road. I don’t see Brom behind me, but I swear I still hear him, hear his horse on our trail. As long as I get to the school before he does, I should be safe.
But will you be? the voice inside my head says. Or are you going into the lion’s den?
All the more reason I need to get to Crane.
The mare picks up on my thoughts and goes as fast as her little pony legs will take her.
Up ahead, beyond the bend of withered sunflowers, the covered bridge comes into view.
It’s then that I hear the hoofbeats more clearly.
I twist in my seat, looking over my shoulder, and I see dust rising in the distance like a ghost. I don’t see Brom or his nightmare horse, but I know they’re there now, coming for me and fast.
I’m not going to make it in time.
It’s when I’m turning around as we approach the bridge that everything goes sideways.
There’s another sound, another set of thunderous hooves that are getting louder and louder, and suddenly, a horse and rider come shooting out of the bridge.
My horse rears up in surprise, and I reach forward to grab her mane, but then I’m falling off, landing in the ditch at the side of the road while she tears off.
The wind is knocked out of me as I roll over, and I hear Crane’s voice. “Whoa!” he commands the horse, and Gunpowder comes to a stop beside me. “Kat!”
In seconds, his strong hands are under mine, pulling me to my feet, then embracing me.
My heart sobs with relief, and I collapse into him, just for a moment, just so I can have a taste of safety.
“Brom,” I try to say to Crane, unable to get a breath in. “He’s coming. He’s the horseman.”
“I know,” Crane says, his voice grim. “I got a visit from him too.”
He pulls back and peers at me, his expression anguished.
“Did he hurt you?” he asks, brushing my hair off my face.
Then his gaze goes from the corner of my forehead where Brom rammed my head into the wall and drops to my neck where he crushed my throat, and his jaw tightens, the cords of his neck becoming visible.
“Did he do that to you?” he says in a voice so calm it frightens me.
“It’s not him,” I manage to say.
Crane’s nostrils flare, rage burning in his eyes. “I’m going to kill him.”
“No, you know it’s not him,” I say, grabbing hold of his coat, trying to keep him with me as he gets up. “Don’t hurt him.”
He ignores me, a vein rigid in his forehead.
“He’s here,” he says, looking off down the road, eyes narrowing.
I follow his gaze and see Brom and Daredevil galloping right for us, a force of darkness and evil rushing on the wind.
“Crane,” I plead. “We need to get out of here.”
“No,” he says, pushing me back behind him. “You need to get out of here. Take Gunpowder. Cut through the fields and go into town. To the constable. I’ll handle Brom.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“He’s after you, Kat,” he practically growls.
“And he’ll kill you,” I tell him. “He’s just as possessive as you are. He doesn’t want to share.”
At that, he tilts his head, and for the first time, I see a real darkness in Crane’s gray eyes.
It makes my blood run cold. He opens his mouth to say something, and I know he’s going to ask if I’ve just been intimate with Brom.
But he presses his lips together and takes in a deep, shaking inhale as he looks over my nightgown.
But there’s no time for Crane to recant on his own feelings about sharing me with Brom because he’s almost at us now.
We both turn to face the galloping black horse.
Stop, I say inside my head, directing the command at Daredevil. Stop now, stop!
But though the horse lets out a whinny, Brom kicks him forward. And he obeys his master.
Meanwhile, Crane reaches into his coat pocket.
He pulls out a gun.
“Crane!” I cry out, shocked to see a weapon in his hand.
“Salt doesn’t work much on him,” he says as he points the gun at Brom as he approaches.
“But this is Brom, not the horseman now. You’ll kill him if you shoot him!”
“God forgive me, then,” Crane says solemnly.
Then he pulls the trigger.
I scream as the bullet fires in a blast of smoke. It grazes Daredevil’s black ears, hitting Brom in the shoulder.
He yelps and lets go of the reins, flying off the stallion’s back and tumbling onto the road in a heap. Daredevil gallops forward and then turns toward us, rearing on his hind legs.
“Down!” I command, throwing my arms out at the horse while Crane runs forward to Brom. “Easy now!”
Daredevil snorts wildly but listens, coming to a standstill, breathing hard with foam on its flanks, the reins hanging by his side.
Now that I know Brom’s not going to try to kill us too, I run over to him on the ground.
“Brom!” I gasp, collapsing on my knees beside him, ignoring the rocks in my shins.
Brom is lying on his back, blood seeping through his white shirt at the shoulder, gasping in pain.
“Shh,” Crane says, cradling Brom’s head in his hand with disarming tenderness.
Brom’s eyes pinch shut, and he cries out, back arching in agony.
“I didn’t want to do it,” Crane says to him. “But you left me no choice. I wasn’t about to let you hurt her again.”
At that, Brom’s eyes go to mine, and I see that it’s him, no trace of the horseman at the moment. He holds my gaze, bewildered and scared. Then another wave of pain rocks through him, and he grunts, his teeth gnashing together.
“Is he going to die?” I ask, pressing the hem of my nightgown on his wound, trying to keep pressure on it.
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” Crane says. His gaze flicks up to mine. “Switch positions with me.”
I do as he asks, holding Brom’s head in my hands while Crane rips open his shirt, revealing the round ball of the bullet lodged in his shoulder, blood flowing out of it. Crane then reaches into his inner coat pocket and pulls out a ruler. “Put this in his mouth. Get him to bite down.”
He places the ruler in my hand, and I can’t help but give him an odd look. I’ve felt that same ruler striking my backside. I suppose he carries it with him at all times.
“What?” Crane asks, noticing my look.
I just shake my head and look down at Brom in my hands. “Open, please,” I tell him, my voice trembling. Brom obeys, and I slip the ruler between his teeth.
“That’s a good boy,” Crane praises him, reaching into the wound with his finger. “I’m sorry. This is going to hurt like hell.”