Chapter 69
CARO SLAMS INTO THE man and the knife, and it slices her hand before they both lose hold of it and it flies across the room.
She has so much momentum that she hits the wall of the church behind him.
It looked like stone when she first came in, but up close Caro sees that it’s bricks laid over with mud, the strokes used to apply the mud visible even now, hundreds of years later.
She leaves bloody handprints on the walls as she pushes away from them.
Her mind flashes, thinking of the people who built this place and who lie in the cemetery, of what they might have suffered, of who they might have made suffer.
The ones who came first. The ones they made leave. This man will not hurt Hope.
He’s strong, but Ash hit him at the knees when Caro went for the knife, and now he’s down.
Before he can get up again, Caro presses the flare gun into his groin.
“If you move,” she hisses, “I will shoot.” There are some things all men are afraid of, and she is banking on this.
He might not care if he dies, he might be the kind of person who would relish going up in flames if he can see them die, too, but she doesn’t think he wants her to do this.
She will, too. His body will absorb the impact of the flare gun, there might be sparks, but she thinks they’ll still have time to run.
Probably. “Get him out,” she says to Dan, and he pulls Henry through the door.
It slams shut behind them. Ash throws the bolt in the lock.
Caro hears Dan hammering against it, calling her name.
Stay out. Stay safe.
Caro’s hands are bleeding all over the man. There are a million reasons they have to hurry.
Hope is breathing again. Ash helps her stand. The trickle of blood across her neck is drying.
Where have you been? No one asks, but Hope knows the question.
“Here,” Hope says. “I’ve been here in the ghost town.
I climbed out of the canyon and I hid here.
Page has been helping me and bringing me food and sending the texts.
Then he found me. I’ll tell you the rest later.
” She coughs. “We need to tie him up. There’s rope in that backpack.
Not the one on the floor. The one on the middle church pew. ”
But before they can do anything, the man shoves himself to his feet, pushing Caro off-center enough that she falls back onto her butt. She lifts the gun, points it at his groin again. “Stay right there,” she says.
“Get Page out of here,” Hope says to Caro. “No matter what happens, we keep her safe. This piece of trash killed her sister.”
“Who is this piece of trash anyway?” Ash asks.
“Go ahead and take off the mask,” Hope tells the man. “Try anything else, and she’ll shoot.”
The man rips off his mask. Blond hair, tan skin, a weatherbeaten, outdoorsy face. She can’t make out the color of his eyes but she can feel the coldness of them right down to her bones. Damn these fumes, Caro thinks. Where have I seen him before?
“You don’t recognize me.” He’s laughing. “That’s funny. Because I know all of you so well.” He drops the mask on the floor. “I’ve been in your meetings,” he says. “In your phones. Your computers. Your houses, your rooms. Your girls are beautiful,” he tells Ash, and bile rises in her throat.
“Yeah, yeah, we know,” Hope says. She holds out her hand for the flare gun and Caro gives it to her. “Why do you think we’re here?” She smiles at him. “We didn’t come to disappear. We came here to draw you out.” She lifts her chin. “And we sure as hell didn’t come to die.”