Chapter 50
KOENIG RANCH
I feel the sound it makes on his skull, dull and resounding, more than hear it.
The impact vibrates through his body. Then he falls still.
All the strength leaves my body. The rock is still there in my hands. I toss it to the side quickly, afraid to look at it. Afraid to look down at Carter.
If I can stay here in this moment, nothing else has to happen. I don’t have to hear anything else, see anything else, learn anything else. I don’t have to decide what’s next. I can just be—a doll without a soul.
It sounds so peaceful.
But someone is pulling at my shoulder, my arm.
Someone slaps me, light but firm, across the face.
I blink, my eyes coming back to focus, and I’m about to tell her she’s got a lot of fucking nerve to lay hands on me after everything else, but then I see her face, pale as the moon.
She’s saying something but I can’t track what it is.
She tries again, one word, again and again, until I understand.
“Fire,” she shouts. “Fire!”
The candles. One rolled into the dead leaves that’d gathered in the corner of the cabin. We’re in a drought; there’s been no moisture out here for better than ten months. The place is a matchbox, a cornhusk, a dry and empty thing. Flames are licking along the wall now.
“Help me,” she moans. She’s got Carter by one arm and is trying to pull him, but he’s too heavy for her.
I scramble to my feet, take his other arm.
We are both strong—she’s got a gymnast’s legs, and even though I’m barely five-one, I’ve got a core like a slingshot—but he’s a big guy.
We drag him a few inches and stop, a few inches and stop.
It’d be almost funny if the flames weren’t licking along the seams of the wall now.
We break free into the cool night air. We only manage to get Carter a few more feet before we let go.
Hayden collapses next to him, weeping. I half expect her to run to my car, start it up, and try to get away one last time, but it seems like she’s out of energy to fight.
What does it matter? There’s no way out for her, not anymore.
I should be grateful, I know, at least on some level; she chose not to let Carter kill me.
She fought alongside me. Well, maybe gratitude will come later.
Right now I just feel a dull and exhausted throb of anger at everything else she has done.
Somewhere down the road I can hear sirens. They have to be for us—there’s no way there’s something else going on in Varda on a Monday night. I don’t know who called for help, and for the moment I’m too tired to care. I fall into the cool dirt and watch the cabin catch fire.
I hope whoever is coming is too late to put it out.