She heard Zach say, “Why you actin’ like you don’t know how this is gonna end?”
Sam tugged at Charlie’s arm. “Charlie, get up.”
Zach said, “We ain’t leaving this place without you getting some blood on your hands, too.”
Sam repeated, “Charlie, get up.”
“I can’t.” She was trying to hear what Bon Jovi was saying. “I can’t let—”
Samantha practically picked her up and put her back in the chair. “Run when you can,” she whispered to Charlie, the same thing Gamma had tried to tell her. “Don’t look back. Just run.”
“What’re you two saying?” Zach walked back to the table. His boots crunched something on the floor. He pressed the shotgun to Sam’s forehead. Charlie could see pieces of Gamma stuck to the barrel.
He asked Sam, “What did you tell her to do? Make a run for it? Try to get away?”
Charlie made a noise in her throat, trying to divert his attention.
Zach kept the shotgun on Sam, but he smiled at Charlie, showing a row of crooked, stained teeth. “What’d she tell you to do, baby doll?”
Charlie tried not to think about the way his voice changed when he talked to her.
“Come on, honey.” Zach stared at her chest. He licked his lips again. “Ain’t we gonna be friends?”
“S-stop,” Sam said. The shotgun was pressed so hard into her forehead that a trickle of blood seeped out. “Leave her alone.”
“Was I talking to you, bitch?” Zach leaned into the shotgun. Sam’s head tilted back from the pressure. “Was I?”
Sam’s jaw tightened. Her fists clenched. It was like watching a pot finally come to boil, except it was rage bubbling up inside of her. She shouted, “You leave us alone, Zachariah Culpepper.”
Zach shifted his weight back on his heels, startled by her defiance.
Sam said, “I know exactly who you are, you fucking pervert.”
He gripped the shotgun in his hands. His lip curled. “I’m gonna peel off your eyelids so you can watch me slice out your sister’s cherry with my knife.”
They glared at each other. Sam wasn’t going to back down. Charlie had seen her like this before, that look she got in her eyes when she wasn’t going to listen to anybody. Except this wasn’t Rusty, or the mean girls at school. This was a man with a shotgun, with a temper, who had almost beaten another man to death last year.
Charlie had seen the photos in Rusty’s files. She had read the police report. Zachariah had fractured the guy’s skull with his bare hands.
A whimper came out of Charlie’s mouth.
“Zach,” Bon Jovi said. “Come on, man.”
Charlie waited for Sam to look away, but she didn’t. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
Bon Jovi said, “We had a deal, all right?”
Zach didn’t move. None of them moved.
“We had a deal,” Bon Jovi repeated.
“Sure.” Zach tossed the shotgun to Bon Jovi. “A man’s only as good as his word.”
He acted like he was going to walk away, but his hand moved fast, like a rattlesnake striking. He grabbed Sam’s face and pushed her so hard back into the sink that her head clanged against the cast iron.
“No!” Charlie screamed.
“You think I’m a pervert now?” Zach was so close to Sam that his spit globbed onto her face. “You got something else to say about me?”
Sam’s mouth opened, but she couldn’t scream. She grabbed at his arm with her hands, scratching, clawing, but Zach’s fingernails were digging into her eyeballs. Blood cried down like tears. Sam’s feet kicked out. She gasped for air.
“Stop it!” Charlie jumped on Zach’s back, punching him with her fists. “Stop!”
He threw her across the room. Charlie’s head smacked into the wall like a clattering bell. Her vision doubled, but then it sharpened on Sam. Zach had left her on the floor. Blood streamed down her cheeks, pooled into the collar of her shirt.
“Sammy!” Charlie cried. She tried to look at Sam’s eyes, to see the damage he had done. “Sam? Look at me. Can you see? Look at me, please!”
Carefully, Sam tried to open her eyelids. They were torn like pieces of wet paper.
Zach said, “What the fuck is this?”
The bathroom faucet hammer. He picked it up off the floor. He winked at Charlie. “Wonder what I can do with this?”
“Enough!” Bon Jovi snatched away the hammer and threw it down the hallway.
Zach shrugged. “Just having a little fun, brother.”
“Both of you stand up,” Bon Jovi said. “Let’s get this over with.”
Charlie didn’t move. Sam blinked away blood.
“Help her up,” Bon Jovi told Zach. “You promised, man. Don’t make this worse than it has to be.”
Zach yanked Sam up so hard that her shoulder made a popping sound. She bumped against the table. Zach pushed her toward the door. She bumped into a chair. Charlie grabbed her hand to keep her from falling.
Bon Jovi opened the door. “Go.”
Charlie went first, shuffling sideways to help Sam down the stairs. Sam had her other hand out in front of her like she was blind. Charlie saw their shoes and socks. If they could put them on, they could run. But only if Sam could see where to go.
“Can you see?” Charlie asked her. “Sam, can you see?”
“Yes,” Sam said, but that had to be a lie. She couldn’t even open her eyelids all the way.
“This way,” Bon Jovi indicated the field behind the HP. The soil was freshly planted. They weren’t supposed to walk on it, but Charlie walked where she was told, guiding Sam behind her, helping her navigate the deep furrows.
Charlie asked Bon Jovi, “Where are we going?”
Zach dug the shotgun into Sam’s back. “Keep walking.”
“I don’t understand,” Charlie said to Bon Jovi. “Why are you doing this?”
He shook his head.
Charlie asked, “What did we do to you, mister? We’re just kids. We don’t deserve this.”
“Shut up,” Zach warned. “Both of you shut the fuck up.”
Sam squeezed Charlie’s hand even tighter than before. She had her head up, like she was a dog trying to get a scent. Instinctively, Charlie knew what her sister was doing. Two days ago, Gamma had shown them a topographical map of the area. Sam was trying to remember the landmarks, to get her bearings.
Charlie tried to, too.
The neighbor’s acreage went past the horizon, but the ground was completely flat that way. Even if Charlie managed to zigzag as she ran, Sam would end up tripping and falling. Trees bordered the far right side of the property. If she could lead Sam that way, they might be able to find a place to hide. There was a creek on the other side of the forest that went underneath the weather tower. Beyond that was a paved road, but people didn’t use it.
There was an abandoned barn half a mile north. A second farm was two miles east. That would be the best bet. If she could get Sam to the second farm, they could call Rusty and he would save them.
Zach said, “What’s that?”
Charlie looked back at the farmhouse. She saw headlights, two floating dots in the distance. Not Lenore’s van. “It’s a car.”
“Shit, they’re gonna make my truck in two seconds.” Zach jammed the shotgun into Samantha’s back, using it like a rudder to steer her. “Y’all keep moving or I’ll shoot you right here.”
Right here.
Charlie stiffened at the words. She prayed that Sam hadn’t heard them, that she didn’t get their meaning.
“There’s another way out of this.” Sam’s head was turned toward Bon Jovi, even though she couldn’t see him.
Zach snorted.
Sam said, “I’ll do whatever you want.” She cleared her throat. “Anything.”
“Shit,” Zach said. “You don’t think I’m gonna take what I want anyways, you stupid bitch?”
Charlie swallowed back the taste of bile. She saw a clearing up ahead. She could run with Sam there, find a place to hide.
Sam said, “We won’t tell them it was you. We’ll say you had your masks on the entire time and—”
“With my truck in the driveway and your mama dead in the house?” Zach snorted again. “Y’all Quinns think you’re so fucking smart, can talk your way outta anything.”
Charlie didn’t know any places to hide in the woods. She’d been stuck unpacking boxes since they moved, no time for exploring. Charlie and Sam’s best bet was to run back to the HP where the policeman was. Charlie could lead Sam across the field. Her sister would have to trust her, the same way she kept saying Charlie should trust her with the blind pass. Sam was a fast runner, faster than Charlie. As long as she didn’t stumble—
“Listen to me,” Sam said. “You’ve got to leave town anyway. There’s no reason to kill us, too.” She turned toward Bon Jovi. “Please, just think about it. All you have to do is tie us up. Leave us somewhere they won’t find us. You’re going to have to leave town either way. You don’t want more blood on your hands.”