CHAPTER FOUR
“David!” Faith cried. “No!”
David fought bravely, gritting his teeth and swinging at the agents surrounding him. His eyes reflected his fear but also his courage, even as his far better-trained opponents easily evaded his strikes.
Faith fought to escape her own opponents, but each time she felled one, another appeared in front of her, slashing with blades, swinging with fists, shooting with guns, forcing her to focus entirely on defending herself rather than coming to the aid of her beleaguered husband.
“Turk!” she cried. “Go get him!”
Turk shot off like a rocket, teeth bared, powerful legs pumping as he came to his papa’s rescue.
He nearly made it. He was only twenty feet from the struggle when a half dozen dogs barreled into him.
Their jaws snapped, and when Turk leaped out of the way, they pursued, forming a half-circle around him and pushing him farther and farther away from David.
Their eyes were flat, glazed, dead. In the distance, Faith could see the silhouettes of their handlers, safely behind bulletproof glass, their own eyes gleaming as they projected their will onto their dogs.
Turk yelped, not in pain but in fear and frustration. Even at eleven years old, he was more than a match for any of these dogs one-on-one, but with six of them boxing him in, there was no way he could get to David.
Faith shouted and fought harder, her own fists flying, flame blossoming from the barrel of her service weapon as she dropped her attackers. She was killing American service members, but it was either them or her husband. “David! David!”
David cried out, and Faith looked up to see him clutching his side. A CIA agent in the uniform of a Marine NCO grinned at him, eyes alive with joy at the kill, Ka-Bar knife plunged deep into David’s liver.
“No!” Faith cried. “No, please! Don’t hurt him!”
But it was too late. The agent pulled away and withdrew the knife. Blood spurted from the wound, and David stumbled forward, a sick expression on his face as he clutched his hands uselessly to the fatal blow.
“No!” Faith shouted. “David, please!”
David looked at her. He opened his mouth, but blood poured out before he could say anything. He sank to his knees.
“David!” Faith shouted. “David, stay with me!”
The agent who had murdered him chuckled at her pain.
When Faith looked at him, she saw the crazed, rotten-toothed grin of Jethro Trammell, the infamous Donkey Killer whose brief but sensational reign of terror in rural Pennsylvania had ended with the encounter that nearly killed Faith and inspired two future generations of serial killers to terrorize the nation.
“He bleeds better than you, little girl,” the killer crooned.
David fell on his face. Faith rushed toward him, but strong arms wrapped around hers and yanked her off her feet.
Hot breath fell over her face, and the voice of Franklin West, the Copycat Killer, the disciple of the Donkey Killer who had surpassed his mentor and tortured Faith for years, crowed in her ear, “I told you I would break you, Faith. I promised you.”
He opened his mouth and dragged his tongue across her cheek. She shuddered and struggled, but she couldn’t get free. He had her. David was dead, and Turk was retreating, surrounded by a sea of dogs. West had her in his arms, and he was licking her, and she couldn’t do anything but scream and—
“Faith!”
Faith snapped awake just in time to see the headlights of the semi bearing down on her. She cut the wheel to the right and swerved into her own lane just before a head-on collision with forty tons of American steel took away all of her worried for good.
She checked the dash clock. Nine o’clock. She’d only been out for a few seconds. How had she managed to generate a complete and vivid dream in only a few seconds?
Because you’ve been imagining this or scenes like it for months. Years, really. Your mind is excellent at finding the worst possible outcome to every situation.
“Do you want me to drive?” Jessica asked.
Faith pulled off the highway. The FBI Academy staff entrance was visible a half mile down the road. “No, it’s all right. We’ll be there in less than a minute.”
“Well, make sure Michael drives you guys west.”
“Yeah,” Faith agreed. “Will do.”
Turk leaned into the front seat and licked her face. The last lingering anxiety from her dream faded at his attentions. She smiled gratefully and pushed him back into the rear seats. “I’m all right, boy. I’m okay.”
Faith was okay, but only relatively speaking.
The life she’d built for herself in Quantico was supposed to be free of the terror that lingered within every shadow in Philadelphia.
Now that life was crumbling, and the way forward was shrouded in darkness.
All she could do was hope that the light came back and revealed a solid path and not ruins and ash.