Charlie needed her sister to speak, to tell her what to do. What would Sam say right now? What would she tell Charlie to do?
Zach said, “You cover this bitch up. Lemme take the little one off for a minute.”
“Christ.”
Sam wouldn’t be talking right now, she would be yelling, furious at Charlie for just standing there, for blowing this chance, for not doing what Sam had coached her to do.
Don’t look back … trust me to be there … keep your head down and—
Charlie ran.
Her arms flailed. Her feet struggled for purchase. Tree limbs slashed at her face. She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs felt like needles were stabbing into her chest.
Breathe through it. Slow and steady. Wait for the pain to pass.
They used to be best friends. They used to do everything together. And then Sam had gone to high school and Charlie had been left behind, and the only way she could get her sister’s attention was to ask Sam to teach her how to run.
Don’t hold the tension. Breathe in for two strides. Breathe out for one.
Charlie hated every part of running because it was stupid and it hurt and it made you sore, but she had wanted to spend time with Sam, to do something that her sister was doing, to maybe be better at it one day than Sam was, so Charlie went to the track with her sister, she joined the team at school, and she timed herself every day because every day, she was getting faster.
“Get back here!” Zach yelled.
Two miles to the second farmhouse. Twelve, maybe thirteen minutes. Charlie couldn’t run faster than a boy, but she could run for longer. She had the stamina, the training. She knew how to ignore the pain in her body. To breathe into the shock in her lungs when the air sliced like a razor.
What she had never trained for was the panic from hearing the heavy tread of boots pounding dirt behind her, the way the thud-thud-thud vibrated inside of her chest.
Zachariah Culpepper was coming after her.
Charlie ran faster. She tucked her arms into her sides. She forced out the tension in her shoulders. She imagined her legs were pistons in a fast-working machine. She tuned out the pine cones and sharp rocks gouging open her bare feet. She thought about the muscles that were helping her move—
Calves, quads, hamstrings, tighten your core, protect your back.
Zachariah was getting closer. She could hear him like a steam engine bearing down.
Charlie vaulted over a fallen tree. She scanned left, then right, knowing she shouldn’t run in a straight line. She needed to locate the weather tower, to make sure she was heading in the correct direction, but she knew if she looked back she would see Zachariah Culpepper, and that seeing him would make her panic even more, and if she panicked even more, she would stumble, and if she stumbled, she would fall.
And then he would rape her.
Charlie veered right, her toes gripping the dirt as she altered direction. At the last minute, she saw another fallen tree. She flung herself over it, landing awkwardly. Her foot twisted. She felt her anklebone touch earth. Pain sliced up her leg.
She kept going.
And going.
And going.
Her feet were sticky with blood. Sweat dripped down her body. Her lungs burned in her chest, but not as much as it would burn if Zachariah pinched her breast again. Her guts cramped, her bowels had turned to liquid, but that was nothing compared to how she would feel if Zachariah shoved his thing inside of her.
Charlie scanned ahead for light, any indication of civilization.
How much time had passed?
How much longer could he keep running?
Picture the finish line in your head. You have to want it more than the person behind you.
Zachariah wanted something. Charlie wanted something more—to get away, to get help for her sister, to find Rusty so he could figure out a way to make it all better.
Suddenly, Charlie’s head jerked back with such violence that she felt like she was being decapitated.
Her feet flew out into the air in front of her.
Her back slammed against the ground.
She saw her breath huff out of her mouth like it was a real thing.
Zachariah was on top of her. His hands were everywhere. Grabbing her breasts. Pulling her shorts. His teeth clashed against her closed mouth. She scratched at his eyes. She tried to bring up her knee into his crotch but she couldn’t bend her leg.
Zachariah sat up, straddling her.
Charlie kept slapping at him, tried in vain to buck off the tremendous weight of his body.
He worked his belt back through the buckle.
Her mouth opened. She had no breath left to scream. She was dizzy. Vomit burned up her throat. She closed her eyes and saw Sam twisting through the air. She could hear the thump of her sister’s body hitting the grave like it was happening all over again. And then she saw Gamma. On the kitchen floor. Back to the cabinet.
Bright white bone. Pieces of heart and lung. Cords of tendon and arteries and veins and life spilling out of her gaping wounds.
“No!” Charlie screamed, her hands turning into fists. She pounded into Zachariah’s chest, swung so hard at his jaw that his head whipped around. Blood sprayed out of his mouth—big globs of it, not like the tiny dots from Gamma.
“Fucking bitch.” He reared back his hand to punch her.
Charlie saw a blur out of the corner of her eye.
“Get off her!”
Bon Jovi flew through the air, tackling Zachariah to the ground. His fists swung back and forth. He straddled Zachariah the same way Zachariah had straddled Charlie. Bon Jovi’s arms windmilled as he beat the other man into the ground.
“Motherfucker!” he yelled. “I’ll fucking kill you!”
Charlie backed away from the men. Her hands pressed deep into the earth as she forced herself to stand. She stumbled. She wiped her eyes. Sweat had turned the dried blood on her face and neck back to liquid. She spun around in a circle, blind as Sam. She couldn’t get her bearings. She didn’t know which way to run, but she knew that she had to keep moving.
Her ankle screamed as she ran back into the woods. She didn’t look for the weather tower. She didn’t listen for the stream, or try to find Sam, or head toward the HP. She kept running, then walking, then she felt so exhausted that she wanted to crawl.
Finally, she gave into it, collapsing to her hands and knees.
She listened for footsteps behind her, but all she could hear was her own heavy breaths panting out of her mouth.
She threw up. Bile hit the ground and splattered back into her face. She wanted to lie down, to close her eyes, to go to sleep and wake up in a week when this was all over.
Sam.
In the grave.
Bullet in her head.
Gamma.
In the kitchen.
Bright white bone.
Pieces of heart and lung.
Cords of tendon and arteries and veins and her life gone in the flash of a shotgun because of Zachariah Culpepper.
Charlie knew his name. She knew Bon Jovi’s build, his voice, the way he’d stood silently by while Gamma was murdered, the way his hand had arced through the air when he’d shot Sam in the head, the way Zachariah had called him brother.
Brother.
She would see them both dead. She would watch the executioner strap them to the wooden chair and put the metal hat on their heads with the sponge underneath so that they wouldn’t catch on fire and she would look between Zachariah Culpepper’s legs to watch the urine come out when he realized that he was going to be electrocute
d to death.
Charlie got up.
She stumbled, then she walked, then she jogged and eventually, finally, she saw the light on the porch outside the second farmhouse.
7
Sam Quinn alternated her arms, left, then right, then left again, as she cut a narrow channel through the cool waters of the swimming pool. She turned her head every third stroke and drew in a long breath. Her feet fluttered. She waited for the next breath.
Left-right-left-breathe.
She had always loved the calmness, the simplicity, of the freestyle stroke; that she had to concentrate just enough on swimming so that all extraneous thoughts cleared her mind. No telephones rang under the water. No laptops pinged with urgent meetings. There was no reading emails in the pool.
She saw the two-meter line, the indication that the lane was about to end, and coasted until her fingers touched the wall.
Sam kneeled on the floor of the pool, breathing heavily, checking her swimmer’s watch: 2.4 kilometers at 150 seconds per 100 meters, so 37.5 seconds per 25-meter length.
She felt a pang of disappointment when she saw the numbers, which were within seconds of yesterday’s, because her competitive streak glowed in white-hot opposition to her physical capabilities. Sam glanced down the length of the pool, wondering if she had another short burst inside of her.
No.
Today was Sam’s birthday. She was not going to tire herself out so much that she had to use her cane to walk to the office.
She pushed herself up onto the edge of the pool. She quickly showered off the salt water. The tips of her fingers were furrowed and rough against the Egyptian cotton towel. Somewhere in the back of Sam’s mind, her mother’s voice told her that the body’s response to being submerged so long was to wrinkle the pads of the fingers and toes in order to improve grip.
Gamma had been forty-four when she’d died, the same age that Sam was now.
Or at least would be in another three and a half hours.
Sam kept on her prescription goggles while she rode the elevator up to her apartment. The chrome on the back of the doors showed her wavy reflection. Slim build. Black one-piece suit. Sam ran her fingers through her hair to help it dry. Twenty-eight years ago, she had walked into the woods behind the farmhouse with hair the color of a raven’s feather. Almost a month later, she’d awakened in the hospital to find a shock of white stubble growing from her shaved head.