All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(119)

I had lost.

Then, with a sob, River dropped his arm. The blade dangled between his fingers. “I will,” he said, his voice broken. “I have to.”

“No,” I said. “You don’t.”

River met my gaze. Something seemed to ease in his face, lines of tension relaxing, like a mask lifting away. His finger peeled away from the blade.

The shot was so loud that it deafened me. River took an unsteady step, and his hand went to his side. Two more shots followed, pushing him to the side, and he collapsed against the cherry-wood credenza. River’s gaze never left mine. The knife slipped from his hand, and he collapsed to the ground. His lips moved, and I thought maybe it was a smile, or maybe it was a word, and years later, when I would think about it long past midnight, I would think that maybe it had been nothing at all, just a spasm of muscles, just a random firing in a dying brain, but even on the darkest nights, I refused to believe that. Then he was still.

It took me a long time, I think, to react. A long time before I trusted myself to turn away from River’s face. But when I did, Austin was still standing in the doorway with an old pistol gripped in both hands.





Austin didn’t seem to see me. He didn’t seem to see anything. I waited for him to speak or move or even just to breathe, but he looked frozen. Then Temple Mae gave a soft cry, and her canted eyes opened. Jake let out a choked breath, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her against him. Austin shivered, collapsing out of his shooting stance and dropping the pistol to his side.

“You all—” he started, and then he stiffened, and the hand with the pistol jerked a half-inch.

“Nope,” a soft voice said. A familiar voice. “None of that.” Austin staggered forward, and as he cleared the doorway, I could see the muzzle of the gun planted at the base of his skull. Lena followed Austin into the room, keeping the gun tight against him. “Drop it,” she said, and Austin let the pistol thunk to the carpet.

Somehow, I got to my feet, although my legs felt like a pile of dishrags. “What do you want, Lena?”

She laughed. That helmet of blond hair didn’t move, not a single strand, but she laughed like I’d said the funniest thing in the world. “Vie, please. Don’t make me say it.”

“The gun. You’re working for the Biondi and you want the gun.”

“Oh,” she said, clicking her tongue. “This is embarrassing. And in front of your sweet little boyfriend, and his brother, and—” Lena raised an eyebrow at Temple Mae. “Whoever this is. Vie, you’re going to be so red in the face when you realize. Yes, I suppose Lena did work for the Biondi. Still does, if you want to be technical. It’s been rather useful in finalizing certain agreements. Transactions, contracts, services offered and services received. But don’t you recognize an old friend?”

Opening my third eyes was hard; those psychic muscles were exhausted, and it was like trying to keep awake at the end of a long day. When my inner sight unfolded, though, I saw him: Mr. Big Empty, spilling out of Lena like newspaper stuffed into a packing box. Had he been there before, in Denver? Or had that truly been Lena? When Lena had come to the apartment to give me the security footage? When I had seen her on Saturday morning outside Jigger Boss?

“How long?” I forced myself to ask.

“The night River . . .” he smiled, “disappeared. There are certain ways the mind and body have to be broken before I can make full use of someone. River had so much fun. I let him play and play in Lawayne’s secret room, and no one knew, no one ever imagined. River was quite good at what he did. He even finished early, and he got back to the bar just in time to pick a fight with your boyfriend and to steal away Hailey Van Hoyt, the stuck up little bitch.”

Emmett had told me, I thought. Emmett had told me that River had gone away. To use his own supply, Emmett had said, because River came back amped. But River hadn’t been high on coke. He’d been high on what he’d done to Lena.

“Sorry to see your boyfriend put all those holes in him, even if River was a particularly needy piece of shit. He had a rather useful skill, but he would go on and on about you, about his parents. When he realized he’d lost that key, he just about went off his rocker completely. We had to send DeHaven after that old bum, looking for the key, and then we had to kill the old bum, and it went on and on. You can’t imagine how tiring he became. When you finally left for Denver, I convinced River to let me wrap things up. He agreed. He really didn’t want you to know the truth. Imagine that: he thought it was better for you to be dead than to know what he’d done.”

“Why didn’t he just come to me at the start? What did you tell him?”

“At first, he didn’t even know about you. Or your father, or his mother’s family, who all still lived in the same shitty town. When I found him, I offered him information: your name and your father’s. He came almost immediately.”

“You lied to him.”

Yes, I suppose technically I lied to him. I let him think that, in exchange for his services, I would bring about a happy family reunion. He was very persistent about that. I grew rather tired of it.”

I was half-listening as I tried to gather whatever energy I had left. “And you showed Becca that vision to draw me out.”

“I convinced him to test you,” Mr. Big Empty said through Lena’s mouth. “I persuaded him to let me make it look like he’d been hurt, and then he could see what you did. It would be proof that you loved him. He wasn’t very bright, and he never wondered how you would know that he was your brother. I suppose he was just too eager to be loved. I knew you’d follow the trail like a good little doggie, but I thought for sure River would . . . act sooner than he did. He hated Bob Eliot. Did you know that? I think River would have killed him the night he came into town, except he was so desperate for your approval, your affection, your attention. That was a surprise for me. I was sure that I could make your paths tangle enough that River would finally lose control and do something stupid. I thought it would be such great fun, watching the two of you tear pieces from each other.” With a frown, Mr. Big Empty glanced at River’s body. “I suppose he did do something stupid in the end, and now the game’s over: time to sweep up the pieces, put the board away, move on.”