Kyla
This pattern was everywhere in her dreams, in the bathroom’s broken mirror. The walls of the dead city were hewn from this same pale rock. They were grooved, all over, in these same fine whorls.
the stone is from the city the stone is from the city the stone is from the city.
But she didn’t care. She just stared at the egg.
Hunter said to Stanley, “You were the last person to come to dinner tonight. You had the best opportunity to kill Sarah.”
Stanley said, “I was asleep in my room.”
“Is that where you busted your lip?” Hunter said.
Stanley said nothing.
Ryan said, “Sarah put up a fight, huh, Stanley?”
“You’re insane. I never even met Sarah before tonight,” Stanley said.
Kyla turned to him, blinking, struggling to keep her head clear. “That’s a lie, Mister Holiday. You’ve been having dinner with her at the steakhouse for the last six weeks.”
The drama resumed. The pain in Kyla’s head was growing worse by the second, but that pain finally felt productive somehow.
It reminded Kyla of the way her baby teeth ached the more she used to loosen them.
She remembered her tongue prodding at the gap between the tooth and the gum.
The piercing, expectant agony as the root began to pull away.
The same thing was happening in Kyla’s mind. Something was coming loose. Something was trying to come back to her.
Stanley was starting to sound frantic. Ryan and Hunter pressed the attack. Fernanda said simply, “I heard a man arguing with Sarah in her room at seven thirty.”
“Did he sound like Stanley?” Ryan said.
Fernanda said carefully, “I am not sure. He might have.”
“That’s a lie!” Stanley said. “I don’t care what pictures you have—that’s a lie and you know it.”
Ethan, Kyla noticed, had yet to say a word.
At the edge of her vision, Kyla saw Hunter nod to Ryan. “Let’s take him somewhere quiet. We can get the truth out of him before midnight.”
Hunter took a step forward, bumping into Kyla. The motion jostled the stone egg and sent it slipping out of her bandaged fingers. The stone struck the wooden floor with a dull crack: a warning shot.
The moment she heard that sound, the block in Kyla’s mind came free with a wet rip, like a tooth tearing free.
All at once, Kyla remembered. She remembered everything.
Stanley started marching toward the door of the office, a vein thump-thump-thumping in his throat. Ryan stepped in Stanley’s way, said, “Where do you think you’re going?”
Stanley pushed the man back with his left hand.
Ryan came right back, fists up now, looking like he was ready to coldcock a man fifty pounds heavier and a good four inches taller.
Stanley reached for the massive Desert Eagle on his hip.
Ryan didn’t have time to react.
Kyla did. She was already in motion. She knew what was about to happen.
And she knew she needed to stop it.
Kyla lunged across the office, landing against Stanley the moment he got the gun free. Stanley might have been twice Kyla’s size, but she had the advantage of surprise. She hit him full force in the side, got a foot hooked around his knee. Together they went plummeting to the floor.
As he fell, Stanley squeezed off two shots, just like he had last night, but Kyla’s tackle had twisted him around.
The shots missed their intended target. As she fell with Stanley, Kyla saw Ryan Phan take a step backward, startled but very much alive.
Kyla saw Fernanda reaching for something near the fire.
Saw the woman flinch as a bullet whizzed past her ear and buried itself in the wall with a poof of sawdust.
Kyla landed on top of Stanley. With a roar of anger, he heaved her into the air. Kyla was flying.
She landed, hard, against the office’s desk. Her head struck the wood with a force she felt in the root of her tongue. The world started to spin. To go dark. Considering how hard her head had hit the desk, she wondered if she’d ever get back up.
And as her vision faded, she saw Hunter staring down at his chest. Staring at a massive circle of blood that had bloomed on his shirt.
“No,” Ethan said, stumbling from his chair, rushing to Hunter’s side. “No.”
Hunter sank to his knees. Blood was pumping fast out of the wound Stanley’s second bullet had created. Hunter opened his mouth to speak. A red bubble swelled where words should be. He struggled to stand. Fell. Reached out a hand for the side of the nearby chair, slipped.
Hunter came to rest near Ethan’s feet. He didn’t move again.
Stanley Holiday, too, tried to rise. Fernanda struck him across the skull with a fire poker. Hard.
Ethan was on the floor, shaking Hunter, saying again and again, “No. No. No.”
Behind Kyla’s ear, that almost-familiar voice sounded shocked. “This has never happened before.”
And then Kyla’s world went dark.