Chapter Eighty-One
“Pat,” Quinn says, his voice shaded with disbelief, with desperation.
“What have you done?” he asks his uncle.
“Just couldn’t leave well enough alone,” Pat says. He’s holding a handgun now, pointed at Quinn.
Fear blankets Quinn but he forces calm. “So you’re going to kill me?”
Pat bunches his lips. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Mom found out. How could you do that to her?”
“You don’t know all the facts.”
“I know you took Jules. I know you took the others.”
Pat exhales, not moving the gun. “You can turn around, Q, just go on with your life. No one will be the wiser.”
“You’re fucking delusional. You’re sick.”
“It is a sickness, you’re right about that. The same one your dad had.”
“Don’t you say his—”
“Oh, if I’m goin’ down, the world’s gonna find out your dad wasn’t the Mr. Perfect he pretended to be.”
Quinn steps forward, rage overtaking him.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Pat says, waggling the gun.
“He would never—”
“We did the first one together. Sweet Megan Tucker. Mmm, mmm, mmm.” He licks his lips and Quinn feels like throwing up.
“Liar. Pathetic fucking liar.”
“Whatever you say, kid. But your dad owned this bunker, your grandfather bought it for storage when the military closed this place. They find out about me, they find out about your dad. Is that how you want everyone to remember Saint Rick Riley?”
Quinn’s blood is running hot, fear and anger squeezing his insides like a fist.
“Your dad, he tried to kill the monster inside of him. When you were born, he made a vow to stop. He killed our partner, John Smith, to keep him quiet. He let me go because of your mom.” He licks his lips.
Quinn won’t take more of this blasphemy.
“I guess your mom figured it out, recognized the earrings your dad gave her.” Pat gives an ominous grin. “If it makes you feel better, your dad never touched the girls—he just liked to watch.”
Quinn charges him, slams Pat against the steel door; the gun discharges.
They’re a tangle of limbs on the dirt floor of the bunker now.
Quinn has a nanosecond of a memory, the fight for his life in the abandoned building in Somalia.
He punches Pat hard in the face, goes for the gun, gripping Pat’s wrist, pulling it backward, trying to pop the ligaments. Pat screams, releases the gun.
But he hammers his head at Quinn, then bites down on Quinn’s arm like a hydraulic clamp. The pain is shocking, and now Pat’s scrabbling for the gun. Quinn moves for it, but it’s too late. Pat aims the barrel at Quinn. Pat’s unsteady but gets to his feet.
It’s over.
But then Pat is making a sickening sound, clasping his neck with a hand, still clutching the gun in his other hand. There’s a cord around his neck, and behind Pat, Jules is hauling on it like a garrote with both hands.
A figure appears behind Jules, a young woman, who joins in, helping Jules pull on the cord.
Jules continues to strangle Pat with the cord. It’s the second time in his life Quinn has been saved from sure death. But this time he won’t let his savior perish.
Pat fires the gun behind him, trying to hit Jules, but the cord is cutting into his neck, the aim awkward, and the bullets hit concrete, ricocheting.
The cord breaks and Jules and the young woman fall backward. Quinn charges Pat, who has lost his footing, ramming him hard, hauling him backward down the tunnel, and pushing him in a heap into the open cell.
Quinn slams the door shut. Jules brings the key, attached to the retractable cord she used to attack Pat, and with trembling hands locks the door.
The two of them stand there in a trance for a moment as Pat screams disgusting things from the cell. The other girl hovers nearby.
Pat yells that he’s ruined them. That the world will know that Quinn’s dad was a monster. That the world will know what whores they are.
Jules has her arm around the woman who is trembling but has a brave resolve etched on her face. Jules then walks to the door, opens the lid to the slot, as Pat continues to rant.
“Where’s my sister?”
“Same place you’re gonna be when I get out of here, you whore.”
Jules is unnaturally calm. She seems to notice something near the spot where Quinn and Pat had struggled. She walks over, ignoring Pat, who continues a grotesque tirade, describing what he did to Clare. Jules picks something up from the ground.
Quinn immediately understands what it is. Pat’s lucky coin.
Jules walks back to the slot in the door. Pat is still shouting vulgarities but he stops at Jules’s words.
“Heads or tails?” she asks.
“Fuck you. You worthless cunt, you’re nothing, you don’t have the—”
Jules flips the coin in the air, lets it hit the table. “Let’s say you chose heads,” she says, staring at Pat’s bloodshot eyes through the slot.
“I should’ve finished the job with you.”
Jules ignores him, makes a show of picking up the coin.
“Tails,” she says. Her eyes then go back to the table. To the cigarettes and lighter. She picks up the lighter.
Quinn doesn’t register what’s going on at first.
Jules looks at the other woman, who nods. She glances at Quinn, who understands and also nods.
Jules looks at Pat through the slot in the door. “I guess you’re not one of the Lucky Ones.” She then lights the Zippo and jams it through the hole. A bright burst of flame fills the room, igniting the gasoline Pat poured all over the cell.
The three of them then stagger out of the bunker, the only sound sirens in the distance and the wail of Pat’s screams.