All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(120)
“Vie,” Austin said shakily, “what’s she talking about?”
Mr. Big Empty jabbed the gun into the back of Austin’s head. “Quiet.”
“If you want me,” I said, “here I am. You don’t care about them.”
“No, I don’t. But you do. You care about this one,” he shoved the muzzle into Austin again, “oh you care about him so much. Is he your white knight? Is he the one that’s going to save you from all that self-hate you carry around? All that self-loathing?”
“Shut up,” Austin said.
Lena’s features flashed anger, and Mr. Big Empty slammed the pistol into Austin’s head. Austin crumpled to the ground, fingers laced across his scalp, blood showing between his fingers.
“I said be quiet,” Mr. Big Empty said. “Yes, you care about him. Look, you want to go to him right now. You want to tell him everything will be ok.” Mr. Big Empty bent, kicking Austin onto his back with Lena’s heavy combat boots, so that Austin lay staring up into the barrel of the pistol. “Tell him, Vie. Tell him everything will be fine. I want the last thing he hears to be you, lying to him.”
Fumbling, trying to keep my inner sight open, I stretched across that enormous distance between us, trying to reach Mr. Big Empty. But I was exhausted, and Mr. Big Empty was rested and fresh. When his power struck back against me, it hit like a gale, slamming shut the third eye. My inner sight faded, and instead of the overlap of Mr. Big Empty and Lena, I could only see Lena’s blond helmet of hair.
“Tell him,” Lena said, although I knew it was Mr. Big Empty speaking the words. “Tell him he’ll be fine!” Her voice rose to a shriek, and spittle flecked the air.
I couldn’t stop Mr. Big Empty psychically, but I’d be damned if I was going to watch him shoot Austin. I launched myself off the bed, throwing myself at Lena’s body. Lena spun, graceful even in her combat boots, and her hand came up almost lazily. The smile on her face wasn’t Lena’s smile, though. It was Mr. Big Empty’s, wide and cruel and eager. The pistol marked a perfect line between me and Lena. The sound of the shot rang out in the tiny room.
Something shoved me, and I crashed into the wall hard enough to split the sheetrock. I staggered, trying to keep my feet, and the first thing I saw was Lena’s face. Shock clouded her close-set eyes. A chunk of the bedframe was missing, splintered where the bullet had torn away the wood. But Mr. Big Empty hadn’t missed. Something had moved me out of the way.
And then I saw Temple Mae propped against Jake’s chest, her blood soaking his shirt, her head rolled against his shoulder, but her eyes fixed on Lena with a desperate, furious force.
Lena spun again, but now the movements were jerky, as though Mr. Big Empty’s haste were making him lose control of his puppet. The gun streaked silver through the air, rounding towards Jake and Temple Mae. But Temple Mae was faster. Her hard slash of a mouth tightened, and her canted eyes half-closed. With a sound like someone snapping a wishbone, Lena’s head cracked to the right, too far for anyone to survive. The tip of Lena’s bulbous nose quivered, and then her legs seemed to roll up under her, like someone had pulled the chain on window blinds. She hit the ground with a soft, flopping sound, and then Temple Mae buried her face in Jake’s plaid shirt and wept.
The sheriff and his deputies came, of course. Becca had called them. Emmett had been too busy fighting with Austin, trying to keep him from going back into the house. They took all of us to the hospital, separated from each other, and I spent a long night inside the tan walls, with nothing but the curtain to watch. It drifted whenever someone walked by, and the sound of shoes on linoleum and of low, excited voices were the only sounds that kept me company.
Dr. Fossey treated me again, of course. She told me she couldn’t do anything about the ringing in my ears—that was from the gunshots, and it should pass over the next day or two. But she cleaned the cut on my hand, the cut that had started all of this, and she found the cut on my side, where I’d slashed myself with that razor blade, and she informed me that I had a broken rib—courtesy of Salerno, or my father, or one of Lena’s thugs, I didn’t know.
When she’d finished, Diana Fossey perched on a stool, as thin and elegant and composed as I’d ever seen her. Her droopy left eye made me wonder what had happened, where she’d come from, why she was here. She spoke in a low voice. Not soft, because I got the impression there wasn’t much padding on any part of Diana Fossey, but low.
“They’re all fine. Temple Mae is the worst, but she’ll only be here a few days. Austin and Jake are with their parents. Jake is . . . emotional.”
“How’s Austin?”
“Stitches for the scalp wound.” She pursed her lips and seemed to change her mind about what she was going to say. “He’s not talking to anyone.”
“Is he ok?”
Her laugh had a dry, raspy sound, not unpleasant, but maybe like someone shaking a jarful of tongue depressors. “I think it’s safe to say none of you are ok. If you’re asking whether this is physical, I don’t think so. He doesn’t have a concussion. The trauma, though—well, that’s another type of wound.”
He wasn’t talking. Austin Miller, who was nice and kind and who had trusted me, wasn’t talking to anyone.
“Don’t look like that,” Dr. Fossey said. She reached out and laid one dry, thin hand on my shoulder. The touch was light, the way a bird might settle on your shoulder, almost weightless because of those hollow bones. “I’m sorry we couldn’t do anything for the other boy.”