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Hank had limped around the car. He stood beside Sara—not too close, but close enough. Sara could feel the threat of him like a chemical burning her skin.
Will gripped the key fob in his fist as he walked toward the BMW. He was angry, which was good. Unlike most men, fury cleared Will’s mind. His muscles were tensed. She focused all of her strength, all of her hope, onto his broad shoulders.
“Vale.” Hank was speaking to Vince. He wasn’t using their code names anymore. The pretense was over. Either Sara or Will had given themselves away or Hank had figured out that the police sirens they were hearing in the distance would soon find their way down Bella’s street.
Hank lifted his chin, indicating Vale should follow the rest of the team to the car.
“Out,” Hank told Michelle, his voice low. He had a gun in his hand. It was small, but it was still a gun.
Michelle winced as she crawled over the center console. She held up her pants with one hand. The fly was unzipped. Blood dripped over her fist, ran down her legs.
Sara’s heart turned to glass.
Michelle’s bare feet slapped the asphalt. A bout of dizziness made her reach for the car to steady herself. She had open sores between the webbing of her toes. Needle tracks. They had drugged her. They had cut her. She was bleeding between her legs.
Rape.
“Don’t scream,” Hank said.
Before Sara could react, a blinding pain shot from her wrist to her arm and into her shoulder. She was forced onto her knees. The road bit into her skin. Hank twisted her arm again. Sara had her fingers laced behind her head by the time Will reached the BMW.
He leaned into the car.
He looked up.
His jaw tightened down so hard that she could see the outline of the bones.
Sara watched his eyes track—Hank pointing a gun at her head. Michelle holding up her bloody pants. Three armed men surrounding him. No way to save Sara even if he sacrificed himself in the process.
This final realization brought an expression to his face that Sara had never seen before:
Fear.
“You let—” Michelle’s voice was hoarse. She was talking to Hank. “You l-let him rape me.”
The words were a hammer to Sara’s heart.
“You c-can’t—” Michelle gulped. “You can’t pretend it’s n-not happening. I’m telling you now. You know what he—”
“All right!” Hank shouted over her. He told Will, “I need you to slowly get your head out of the car and put your hands up.”
Sara could only watch as Will complied. His eyes kept darting around. His brain was furiously working, trying to find a way out of this.
There was no way out.
They were going to kill Will. They were going to make Sara fix them and then they were going to tear her apart.
“You let him do it,” Michelle whispered. “You let him h-hurt me. You let him—”
“We need a doctor,” Hank shouted at Will. “No offense, brother. Wrong place, right time. Let’s go, lady. Get in the car.”
Sara had been expecting this moment, but she did not realize until now what her response would be.
“No.”
She didn’t move.
Her knees were part of the asphalt.
She was as sentient as a mountain.
Sara had been raped in college. Viciously, brutally, savagely raped. She had been robbed of her ability to have children. Had her sense of self, her sense of safety, forever stolen. The experience had altered her in ways that she still, almost twenty years later, was discovering. She had vowed that she would never let that happen to her ever again.
Hank’s grip tightened around her arm.
“No.” Sara wrenched away from him. The fear had drained away. She would die before she let them take her. Sara had never been more certain of anything in her life. “I’m not going with you.”
“Lady, that wasn’t a gas main that exploded at the campus.” Hank looked at Will. “We just blew up dozens, maybe hundreds of people. Do you think I give a shit about having your blood on my hands?”
His words nearly cut her in two. All of those sick and injured people. Students and children and staff who had devoted their lives to helping others.
“No,” Sara repeated. She was openly crying. They were going to kill her eventually. All she could control was what happened between now and then.
“Get in the car.”
“I won’t go with you. I won’t help you. You’ll have to shoot me.” She stared her resignation into Will. She needed him to understand why she was refusing to go.
Will’s throat worked. Tears were in his eyes.
Slowly, finally, he nodded.
“How about I kill her?” Hank pointed the gun at Michelle.
“Do it.” Michelle’s voice was strong, devoid of her earlier stutter. “Go ahead, you spineless piece of shit.” Her fist was clenched around the waist of her pants. Sara could see a bloody bandage, popped sutures, at her bikini line.
Had they operated on her?
“You still think you’re a good man,” Michelle told Hank. “What’s your father going to say when he hears about who you really are? I heard you talking about your dad, how he’s your hero, how you wanted to make him proud. He’s sick. He’s going to die. His last breath, he’s gonna know what kind of monster he helped bring into this world.”
Clinton laughed. “Damn, girl, the way you’re talking makes me wonder how tight your daughter’s pussy is.”
There was a flurry of movement above Sara’s head. Hank’s arm swung around, pointing the gun at Clinton.
Click-click-click.
The gun had jammed.
“You son of a—” Clinton’s Glock was out of his holster.
Hank dragged Michelle down to the ground as the gun fired. Sara closed her eyes. She stayed exactly where she was, sitting up on her knees, fingers laced behind her head, and waited for the bullet.
There wasn’t one.
She heard two more gunshots in rapid succession.
Sara opened her eyes. Merle lay dead on the ground. Vince/Vale had been wounded. He fell out of the open door of the car. Blood flowered from the wound in his side.
Will had shot them. He was turning to do the same to Clinton when the man tackled him to the ground.
Sara pushed herself up to run.
She was flung back down.
Hank’s arm wrapped around her neck. Chokehold. Her vision swam. She clawed at his skin. “Let me go!” she screamed, biting, scratching, kicking.
There was a dark blur out of the corner of her eye. The distinctive, long barrel of a Glock 22. Called a man-stopper because the .40 caliber ammo would stop a man dead in his tracks.
Hank had the gun pointed at the ground. His finger rested above the trigger guard, ready to fire if needed.
It wasn’t needed.
Clinton was pounding his fists into Will’s belly. Liver. Spleen. Pancreas. Kidneys. He was using his hands like a pile driver to break them apart.
“Stop him,” Sara pleaded. “He’s going to kill—”
Will’s hand slashed out at Clinton’s face. The folding knife. The four-inch blade was razor sharp. Blood ripped a line through the air.
Clinton reared back.
Will stabbed him in the groin.
Sara stood up, but Hank kept her from running. His arm was tight around her neck. He kept the Glock pointed downward, but his finger was stiff beside the trigger. The muscles in his forearm were like rope.
“Will—” His name got caught in Sara’s throat.
He coughed up blood. He rolled to his side. He was clutching his belly, trying to stand up, looking for the revolver.
Hank told Sara, “You go with us, or I’ll shoot him in the chest.”
A sob bruised her throat. She reached out her hand as if she could help him.
Will’s legs tensed as he tried to get up again. Vomit roiled from his mouth. Blood dripped from the back of his head. He got to his knees, but fell flat.
Sara cried out as if her own body had slammed into the ground.
“Doc?” Hank finally raised the gun, aiming it at Will.
Sara walked toward the BMW. She could barely stay upright. Her knees kept locking out. Will was still writhing on the ground. She looked up the street. Her mother was standing on the sidewalk. Cathy had a shotgun in her hands, an old double barrel that had been gathering dust above Bella’s fireplace for the last fifty years.
Sara shook her head, pleading with Cathy not to interfere.
Hank dragged Michelle toward the BMW. He threw her at Vale to take care of. He was heading toward Will, his Glock at his side.
“You promised.” Even as Sara said the words she understood the stupidity of trusting a mass murderer.
“Drive.” Vale shoved Sara into the driver’s seat. She could see out of the open passenger-side door. Will was on all fours. Vomit and blood dripped from his mouth. His eyes were closed. Sweat ran down his face.
“Fuck,” Clinton muttered, climbing into the seat behind Sara. “Jesus fuck. Let’s get out of here.”
Sara watched helplessly as Hank swung back his leg. He was going to kick Will in the head.
“Will!” she screamed.
He grabbed the leg, dragging Hank down to the sidewalk. There was no struggle. Will straddled him. He started beating his face; quickly, methodically, furiously.
“Leave him!” Clinton yelled.
Vale strained to reach behind him, blindly feeling for the revolver that was stuck down the front of his pants. He was panicked from the gunshot wound in his side. Blood had soaked his shirt.
“I said fucking leave him!” Clinton pointed his Glock at Vale’s head. “Now!”
“Jesus, Carter!” Vale hoisted himself into the passenger’s seat of the car even as he said, “We can’t leave Hurley.”
Clinton. Hank. Vince.
Carter. Hurley. Vale.
“Drive!” The Glock banged against the side of Sara’s skull. “Go!”
She put the engine in gear. She swung the car around. She saw Will in the side mirror. Merle was lying dead on the ground beside him. He was still straddling Hank or Hurley or whoever the hell the man was.
Kill him, too, Sara thought. Beat the life out of him.
The shotgun went off. Cathy had aimed for the tires but hit the rear panel instead.
“Fuck!” Vale screamed. “What the fuck, Carter!”
“Shut up!” Carter slammed his fist into Sara’s seat. Blood dripped from the slash in his forehead. The handle of Will’s knife was sticking out of his thigh. “Go right! Go right!”
Sara swerved right. Her heart was pounding so hard that she felt dizzy. Her stomach was clenched. She felt her bladder wanting to release. Vale was sitting beside her. Carter was directly behind her, his shoulder pressed against Michelle’s. Dwight was passed out in the seat behind Vale, but there was no telling how long that would last. She had trapped herself with these monsters. Her only consolation was that Will was still alive.
“Fuck!” Vale rubbed his face with his hands. He was running out of adrenaline. His body was registering the shock of the gunshot wound. His breath came in sharp, panicked pants. “He got me in the chest, bro! I can’t—I can’t breathe!”
“Shut up, you fucking pussy!”
An Atlanta police cruiser was heading straight toward them, full lights and sirens. Sara prayed for it to stop. The car shook the BMW as it zoomed past.
“Go left!” Carter’s voice was as sharp as the siren. “Here! Go left!”
