Chapter 19
chapter nineteen
Morgan
The highway narrows. The trees close in on either side, their bare branches scraping against the darkening sky. Evan hasn't spoken in twelve minutes. The gun hasn't moved from his lap. The only sounds are the engine and Trixie's breathing in the back and the hammering of my heart in my own ears.
Then he turns.
Not onto another road as the highway is straight here, and there are no exits for another three miles according to the last sign I saw.
He turns off the highway entirely, the car lurching onto a dirt track that I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been looking directly at it.
The sedan bounces hard over the uneven ground, the undercarriage scraping.
"Where are we going?" My voice comes out steadier than I expected. A small, distant part of my brain notices with pride before the rest of me overrides it with pure, screaming terror.
Evan doesn't answer. His eyes are fixed on the path ahead, and the gun in his lap shifts slightly as the car rocks, the barrel catching the dim light from the dashboard.
The dirt track cuts through a field, brown and dead, stretching out on both sides like something abandoned.
Then the trees close in again, thicker here, the branches meeting overhead so that the headlights carve a tunnel through the darkness.
I lose count of the turns. Left, right, left again, each one taking us deeper into nowhere, each one erasing another layer of civilization.
Trixie makes a sound in the back, not a moan this time, but a word. Muffled, distorted by whatever drug is still in her system, but recognizable.
"No."
Evan's eyes flick to the rearview mirror. "Don't."
She goes quiet. But I can hear her trying to move, the rustle of the blanket, the scrape of her foot against the cargo floor. She's testing. She's an ER nurse. She knows about drugs, about doses, about how long they take to wear off. She's calculating.
I need her to stop. I need her to lie still and let the drug wear off completely before she makes Evan turn around. Because if he turns around in this car, the gun will move, and if the gun moves, one of us dies in the back of a sedan on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.
The trees break.
We emerge into a clearing, or what was once a clearing. The grass is waist-high and yellowed with frost. In the center of it, black against the dark sky, sits a barn.
It's huge. Or it was huge once. Now it's a skeleton with the roof half collapsed, the walls weathered gray, and the double doors hanging open like a mouth waiting to swallow us.
The headlights sweep across the front of it and I see the gaps between the boards, the missing shingles, the way the whole structure leans slightly to one side as if it's been trying to fall down for years and hasn't quite committed to the act.
Evan stops the car.
The engine idles and the headlights throw twin beams into the darkness of the barn's interior, illuminating nothing. The light just disappears into the darkness.
"We're here," he says.
My hands are shaking. I press them flat against my thighs, willing them to stop, but they don't. The fear is in my blood now, in my bones, in the space between my heartbeats.
It's not the calculated fear of the loading area, the tactical fear of planning and watching and waiting.
This is primal. This is the fear of a deserted barn on a deserted road with a man who has killed women and has a gun and has my friend's unconscious body in the back of his car.
Evan turns off the engine.
The silence is absolute. No highway noise or distant sirens. No sound of life at all, just the ticking of the cooling engine and the wind through the dead grass, and my own breathing, which I'm trying to control and failing.
"Inside," Evan says. He picks up the gun. Points it at me. Not at Trixie this time. At me.
I look at the barn. The headlights are still on, the battery hasn't drained yet, and in their beam I can see the interior: dirt floor, scattered hay, the rusted skeleton of some farming equipment pushed against the far wall.
The roof has partially collapsed on the left side, letting in a rectangle of pale moonlight that falls across the ground like a spotlight.
I think about running.
The thought arrives fully formed and is immediately deemed useless. We're miles from the highway. I don't know which direction. The grass is tall enough to hide in but the ground is frozen and the frost will show footprints, and Evan has a gun and knows this terrain and I don't.
"You won't get far," Evan says, reading my face with the same precision he used in the loading area. "And I'll shoot her first."
He means Trixie. He's telling me he'll shoot Trixie if I run.
I believe him.
I open the car door. The cold hits me like a wall, not the polite cold of the loading area but the deep, penetrating cold of an open field in November, the kind that finds every gap in your clothing and sets up residence.
My dress is thin. I left my jacket in the restaurant. I didn't know I was going to a barn.
Harris gets out on his side. The gun stays on me.
"Get her out of the back," he says.
I move to the rear of the car. My legs are wooden, uncooperative, like they belong to someone who hasn't used them in years. The hatchback opens with a beep, and there's Trixie, curled on her side, her eyes open now and fixed on mine with a clarity that wasn't there twenty minutes ago.
She's coming out of it. The drug is wearing off.
"Morgan." Her voice is a thread. "Where—"
"Don't talk." I keep my voice low. "He's armed. Just do what he says."
Evan steps around the car, the gun still trained on me. "I said, get her out."
I reach for Trixie, helping her sit up. Her body feels like deadweight, but there's a new awareness in her eyes. She's fighting it.
"We need to move inside," I tell her softly. "Can you stand?"
She nods, her movements clumsy as I help her slide out of the back. Her legs buckle immediately, and I catch her weight against my body. Evan watches us with detached interest, like we're an experiment whose outcome he already knows.
"Inside," he repeats, gesturing toward the barn with the gun.
We move slowly, Trixie leaning heavily on me as we cross the frozen ground. The tall grass whispers against my legs, wet with frost that soaks through my thin dress. Each step feels like walking through water.
The barn looms larger as we approach, its weathered boards groaning in the wind. The double doors hang crooked on rusted hinges, and the smell hits me. Decaying wood, damp earth, and something else I can't place.
"We need help," Trixie murmurs against my ear. "Harris drugged me at the hospital. He took my phone. I couldn't—"
"I know," I whisper back. "Stay quiet. Don't give him a reason."
Evan follows close behind, the gun now pressed against my back. "Keep moving."
We pass through the doorway into the cavernous interior. The headlights from the car casts long, distorted shadows across the dirt floor.
As my eyes adjust, I make out a small folding table with tools laid out in a neat row. Knives of various sizes. Rope. A battery-powered lantern. A black bag I don't want to imagine the contents of.
Evan has been here before. This was planned. This barn wasn't chosen randomly.
"Sit." He points to a spot near the table.
I guide Trixie to the floor, lowering her carefully against a support beam. Her eyes are clearer now, tracking Evan as he moves around the barn, checking the corners like he's confirming everything is as he left it.
"Why are you doing this?" I ask, trying to keep my voice steady. "Charlie is safe now. The adoption is finalized. You can't change that."
His face contorts between a smile and a snarl. "You think that's why I'm here? For custody?"
The gun swings toward me, and I fight the instinct to flinch.
"I'm here because you took what was mine. Not just Charlie. Not just her mother, Sarah." He steps closer, his voice dropping to something terrifying. "You took my purpose."
Trixie shifts beside me, her hand brushing against mine. I feel something small and cold press into my palm. Her hospital ID badge. The edges are sharp where she's broken it, creating a makeshift blade.
Evan doesn't notice. He's pacing now, the gun hanging loosely at his side.
"They called me a monster in prison. The other inmates. The guards. Everyone." His voice takes on a conversational tone, as if we're old friends sharing stories. "They don't understand. They never understood."
"What don't they understand?" I ask, buying time, working the broken plastic between my fingers.
His eyes find mine in the dim light. "That I was making them better. Purer. Women like Sarah, like the others, were flawed. Weak. I was helping them reach their potential."
Trixie's fingers tighten around my wrist. She's more alert than she's letting on, watching Evan with the same careful attention she'd give a difficult patient.
"The court ordered a psychiatric evaluation for you," I say, remembering what our lawyer told us. "They think you might be…"
"Insane?" He laughs, the sound echoing off the barn's rotting walls. "Is that what they told you? That I'm crazy?"
He stops pacing, suddenly very still. "I'm the only one who sees clearly. The world is broken, Morgan. People like me, we're the ones trying to fix it."
The gun rises again, pointing at my chest. "And you're standing in my way."
Outside a branch cracks in the distance. Evan's head whips around, gun swinging toward the sound.
For one second, his attention is diverted. Trixie squeezes my arm, a silent instruction, and I make my move.
I lunge forward, driving the sharp edge of the ID badge toward his wrist. I don't aim for the gun, as I know I can't take it from him. Instead, I slash at the soft tissue between his thumb and forefinger, the spot I remember from a self-defense class years ago.