CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
There’s a moment of hesitation, and then the Terror charges him. Grant finally springs into action.
“DAAAGH!” he yells, his eyes wild as he employs his practiced disarm-and-jab maneuver with perfect form.
Which would be great if he were anywhere near the man. As it is, he’s a good three feet short, chopping and striking at empty air.
Still, the Terror stops short at Grant’s outburst and freezes, panting with rattling breaths.
He looks back at me warily, and for a moment we all hang there in a game of chicken, waiting to see who does something first. The man swipes sweat from his upper lip, his breath ragged.
He shifts his weight back and forth and wiggles his fingers like a spaghetti Western gunslinger.
And then, finally, his face splits into a manic smile and he laughs.
The high-pitched, crackling sound rips through the night.
I look to Grant, wondering if this is some kind of classic crime trope he can clue me in on, but he just widens his eyes and gives me an I have no idea shrug.
“Such a shame,” says the Terror, still cackling. “I love a Sunday roast.”
“It’s Thursday,” I say.
“It’s Sunday somewhere.”
“No, it’s not,” says Grant.
He reaches subtly for the pocketed zip ties but stills when the Terror twitches defensively.
Grant eyes me with uncertainty. We’re supposed to restrain the Terror so Lissa and Lesley can swoop in for questioning.
But I get the feeling that any sudden movements could spook him into a second wind, and I really don’t want to get chomped again.
Plus … he’s talking. So I make an executive decision.
“Who is Mr. Page and what does he want?” I demand.
Probably not how you’re supposed to start an interrogation, but oh well.
The man jerks to face me, wide-eyed. And then he doubles over, devolving back into maniacal giggles. I look to Grant for assistance, raising my eyebrows at him. He scrunches his at me.
YOU GO, I mouth at him.
He looks like he wants to argue. But eventually, with a queasy look, he clears his throat.
“Listen,” he says, setting his hands stiffly on his hips. “We can do this the easy way … or the hard way.”
Wow. He wasn’t kidding about his writer’s block if that’s the best he can do.
The Terror runs his tongue over his broken teeth and grins. “The hard way, hm? What’s that?”
“Cutting your head off with toenail clippers,” I say.
Too much. Definitely too much. Grant is sending me a what the fuck look, and even the Terror looks perplexed.
He claps his hands and rubs them together.
“I see, I see,” he says. “In it to win it, are you? Thinking you’ll steal my chance at the grand prize?
” He glances between the two of us, clicking his tongue repeatedly.
“All that money and blood. But only one can be the best, you know. If you take me out, which of you will kill the other?” He sniffs a big phlegmy snort, considering us, and points to me.
“I’m going with Jackie chopping Mr. Beanstalk. ”
“Well, obviously,” I mutter.
“Hey,” hisses Grant.
I square my shoulders, aiming for authoritative but not threatening. “We aren’t going to kill you,” I say. “We just want information. If you come with us and cooperate, then—”
“Then?”
Huh. Good question. The obvious answer, then we’ll turn you in and you’ll rot in prison, probably won’t help our case. Other than that, I’m drawing a blank. I really must sign up for an improv class when I get out of this.
Grant speaks up. “Then whatever happens won’t be nearly as bad as what Mr. Page would do to you.”
“YES. That,” I say, pointing to Grant in fervent agreement. “Haven’t you heard what that guy does to the ones who don’t succeed? He doesn’t let them try again. He doesn’t do second chances.”
It’s a bit of a bluff, since we don’t exactly have proof that Mr. Page killed the Pulverizer—but the flicker in the Terror’s gaze is all the confirmation I need.
Some level of understanding, peeking through his lunacy.
It’s enough to ignite the tiniest spark of hope in me. I chance a small step forward.
“He kills people, you know.”
His lips curl in a mocking smile, despite his stiffened posture. “Who doesn’t?”
“Arguably most people,” says Grant.
I take another step forward, and this time the Terror backs away, closer to Grant. He freezes as he realizes this, darting glances between us as if it’s just sinking in that he’s caught.
“You’ve already failed tonight,” I say. “You’re outnumbered and your time is up. Even if you escaped, Mr. Page would find you. He’d kill you, and he’d make it hurt.”
“So instead,” he says, his eyes narrowing on me, “you want to be allies, hmm?”
“What? No, you creep.”
He twists his face in a grotesque puppy-dog pout.
“But,” I continue, “you get to pick which form of justice you’d rather face. And from the looks of it, your options are the legal system or some monster who would probably treat you to a very drawn-out dissection. So I’ll ask you again: Who is Mr. Page?”
Damn. I’m on fire. I should have gotten into crime fiction a long time ago. Even Grant looks impressed for approximately half a second.
The Terror opens his mouth to speak. My pulse thrums like a drumroll for the imminent breakthrough. And then, as if he’s intentionally fraying my last nerve, he erupts into whinnying titters. “Could be anyone. Could be you. Could be me!”
“Yeah, I really don’t think it’s you,” Grant says.
“Quite right, String Bean.” He salutes Grant, then casts his moony gaze my way. “And so, so wrong. You see two options, and I see three.”
And then, without so much as a crack in his delirious grin, he moves—but not toward me, and not toward Grant. He darts to the right instead, straight toward the firepit, and plunges his gasoline-soaked arm into the embers. He goes up instantly.
“NO!” I lurch forward, and Grant moves into action at the same time—but he runs past the man on fire and all but tackles me before I even make it three steps.
“Don’t,” he says in my ear, holding me back with his arms banded firmly around me. “You’ll go up too.”
Adrenaline surges in my veins, urging me to fight him off, but I slowly realize he’s right. My clothes reek of gasoline. There’s nothing I can do about the man burning himself alive unless I want to join him en flambé.
My knees give out, and Grant stumbles down with me, both of us landing roughly on the cobbled stone. The air is thick with heat and the stink of singeing flesh.
And over the crackle of flames, screaming laughter.
“If at first you don’t succeed,” the Terror shrieks as he burns, “die, die again!”
It’s a paralyzing spectacle. I can’t even seem to blink. We sit where we fell, crumpled like paper, Grant’s arms still crushing around me because I’m not sure he can move them. When I remember how to breathe, it comes out as a long, exhaled “Fuuuuuuuck.”
If there was any remaining chance of this story resembling the old Anna Matthews fare, this scene just shot it in the back of the head.
I think about Anna now. How blissfully ignorant she must be. For all I know, she’s writing this on her couch in a ravioli-stained sweatshirt, shoveling M&M’s into her mouth by the handful, completely unaware that her fiction is our reality.
But that’s not how it feels. It feels like she’s swiveling in a high-backed leather chair, stroking a fluffy white cat and shrieking out cruel peals of laughter while she invents new horrors for us. Like she’s torturing us, and she knows it, and she loves it.
That’s the thought that stays with me as I watch the Terror burn, the thought that I suspect will haunt me for a long time:
Sometimes, the real villain of the story is the author.