First Girl Gone(101)

But he fought her, wrenching the pistol away, clutching it close.

She took this chance to get her knees up onto his torso. Climbing him. Mounting him. Pinning most of his arm against his chest.

He shifted beneath her, trying to free himself, but she had the advantage now. The high ground. She got a hold on his pinky finger and wrenched it back. He threw back his head, and she could just barely hear the howl over the ringing in her ears.

Instead of loosening his grip on the gun, he changed tactics, swinging at her with his off hand, his free hand. He clubbed a fist at her head and neck. Landing blows over and over.

But they were awkward jabs, slaps at best. He could get no leverage lying on his back with her weight holding him down.

He wriggled again, bucking harder this time and throwing her off-balance just long enough that he was able to squeeze the trigger again.

The gun blazed and popped again. Thrashed in their hands like a fish.

More shards of mirror came tumbling down. Crashing like cymbals. Cracking and exploding all around them.

She paused only long enough to confirm she hadn’t been hit, and then she was back on the attack. Clawing and scratching. Bringing her face in closer, which made his punching all the less effective.

She went for the hand on the gun, teeth bared. Her incisors grazed the edge of his knuckles as he struggled to move away, but a moment later she found purchase in the meat along the outside edge of his palm.

She bit down, sinking all those sharp points into his flesh. The skin resisted, holding tight. She pressed harder and the flesh suddenly gave, seeming to burst like a popping balloon, filling her mouth with the salty, metallic taste of blood.

He screamed. Shrill and thin. His voice cracked as it burst from his throat.

And he let go of the gun.





Chapter Eighty-Eight





Charlie snatched up the weapon. Pulled it back behind her ear. Brought it down as hard as she could. Swinging it like a hammer.

The butt of the Glock cracked as it collided with the space between his eyebrows. Hard. The back of his skull thumped into the concrete floor of the funhouse.

The reverberation of the impact stung all the way up to her shoulder. A kind of recoil.

All that force had to go somewhere. Some of it traveled up her arm. Jostled her joints as though trying to separate them from their sockets.

Thankfully, his face took the brunt of it.

After the briefest hesitation, a gash split his forehead open red, seeming to appear there in slow motion. Blood seeping out of the crease.

His eyes drifted. Stared out at nothing in particular. Something dim in them already.

But he was still conscious, at least part of the way. She could see it when his eyelids twitched.

She swung again. Again. Again.

Now she brought the gun all the way up over her head. Chopping down as though wielding an axe. His head just a chunk of wood in need of splitting.

Hatred expelled itself in each swing of the weapon. All her rage finding an outlet at last. A way out. Catharsis.

For Amber. For Kara. For Allie.

The cracks turned to wet slaps as the blood spread over his skin. Drained down over the eyes, spilling over the cheekbones. Bathtub sounds ringing out, echoing off the mirrors, off the concrete floor.

She caught one of the reflections of herself as she hoisted the gun over her head again. Froze with the weapon at the apex. Could faintly see the red spattered over her face.

From there, it was as though she took a step back, seeing all of the reflections instead of just one. All those versions of herself poised to bludgeon, fixing to kill. Warped versions of herself in all those cracked funhouse mirrors. Stretched. Widened. Bent.

Her lungs swelled as she sucked in a big breath. And she stopped herself. Let her arms go slack.

Her hands fell into her lap, folded over one another, the gun still clasped loosely in her fingers.

She wasn’t a killer. No matter what happened, she wasn’t a killer.

Todd was out. Unconscious. Eyes closed. Face all soupy with red. But still breathing.

She prodded him with the gun. Jamming the barrel into his neck a few times. Just to make sure he wasn’t faking.

Then she moved, shuffled her weight off of his body. Knelt next to him.

He had a backpack looped around one shoulder. She stripped it from his limp noodle arm. Unzipped it. Peeled open the top like a mouth.

A nervous giggle spluttered out of her lips then. Involuntary. She just couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

She shifted the bulk of the bag, angled the open flaps toward the glow of the flashlight. The objects inside slid, jostled, toppled over each other. Everything glittered faintly when the light touched it.

The collection of tools and supplies inside the bag could only be described as an anal-retentive kill kit—almost like Todd had been planning to go to serial killer summer camp.

Zip ties. Rope. Cuffs. A hunting knife. Glow sticks. Beef jerky.

Charlie cut her hands free with the blade, the knife’s tip disappearing in the tiny gap between her wrists and re-emerging as it sliced through the thin band of plastic.

She rubbed at the red welts in her skin, the grooved places where the zip tie had pinched. Neat lines etched into her flesh.

Then she bound Todd at the hands and feet. Making sure his zip ties were nice and tight just like hers had been.

She stood over him then. Considered what she saw.

His face looked strange. Bloated and tired and a little sad, she thought. In the cold, the blood had already begun to congeal there in the folds separating his cheeks from his nose. Like ketchup going gummy and then crusty on the edge of the plate.