Dark Pursuit

They rolled to one side, Ed on the bottom. Black metal poked from beneath his thigh.

Kaitlan stumbled forward, reaching shaking fingers for the gun. The men rolled again. The gun disappeared.

Ed slugged Craig in the temple. Craig’s head ricocheted to the side. Rage flamed his face red, a vein throbbing in his forehead. He slapped his hands around Ed’s throat and squeezed.

Ed’s mouth sagged open. His eyes widened, his fingers clawing talons at Craig’s deathly grip. He dug a foot against the floor and pushed. His body jolted a few inches backward.

The gun popped from beneath his legs. Kaitlan grabbed it.

She flew up straight, weapon glued to both hands, pointed down. Trying, trying to aim at Craig, but she’d never held a gun before, and what if the bullet went through him to Ed?

Craig’s teeth clenched, spittle at his mouth. He shifted his knees to either side of Ed, clamped his fingers tighter. Ed’s face purpled. Desperationglazed his eyes.

Kaitlan folded over, rammed the barrel into Craig’s side, and pulled the trigger. The explosion was loud. Her arms jolted.

Craig convulsed and jerked up. His face slackened, his hands falling from Ed’s throat. Shock quivered across his features like the shedding of snake skin. Slowly, dumbfounded, his head rotated to Kaitlan.

Their eyes met.

Craig’s rolled up. His neck flopped to one side.

Ed shoved him hard in the chest. Craig slid off him and collapsed.

Kaitlan threw down the weapon and ran to her grandfather. He lay on his back in the hallway, feet facing the kitchen. Not moving, his face waxy. Blood stained his left shoulder. Vaguely Kaitlan registered a gun some feet away.

Kaitlan threw herself beside him and cradled his head in her hands. “No, no, please.” A sob wrenched from her lips. “Grandfather, listen to me. Please don’t die!”

Behind her—an animal cry of rage.

Something wrapped around Kaitlan’s throat. Yanked her from her grandfather. She caved sideways and slammed onto her back.

Above her, upside down, Kaitlan saw Hallie Barlow’s fury-drenched face.

sixty-seven

All breath cut off.

Time stalled, the world jerking into slow motion. Kaitlan’s hands floated to her neck, fumbling at the thing around it. Cloth …

The scene warped into normal speed.

Hallie wormed around to Kaitlan’s chest, lifted her head, and deftly wrapped the fabric strip twice. Kaitlan glimpsed a flash of black and green.

“You killed my brother.” Hallie grated the words, inhuman. “He tried to help me, and you killed him.”

From far in the back of her head, a logical voice cried out. The front door. Craig left it unlocked for Hallie to come in. She’d heard the shots.

Kaitlan’s jaw crunched open, her lungs seeking, craving oxygen. For a wild second she saw herself as Ed on the kitchen floor beneath Craig’s stranglehold. Kaitlan’s hands scrabbled through thick air, scratching at Hallie’s face.

“Why’d you come home yesterday, huh? Why’d you have to spoil it?”

Someone screamed. Margaret.

Hallie’s stone fingers tied the cloth ends once and pulled opposite directions. The world faded gray.

Thudding footsteps on the tile. Ed braying a cry, and Margaret screaming again—where was she?—and Hallie’s head swinging up, her hands firm on the cloth, mouth cursing, shouting, “No, no, get back!” and still there’s no breath, and Kaitlan’s lungs shriveling, the ceiling spotting black-red —

Hallie’s face whisked away.

Something hit flesh with a wet smack.

A body thudded.

The cloth loosened—not enough, not nearly enough. Kaitlan hands slashed at it, tearing, her lips racked apart and gurgling air.

Ed’s face appeared—“Stop, I’ll get it.” He thrust her fingers off, and his went to work, untying, unwinding, and Kaitlan’s throat expanded, her windpipe hawking, gusting in oxygen. Her head lolled, and she saw Margaret looming above Hallie, aiming a gun with iron hands, tears streaking her face.

Margaret with a gun, how crazy is that? Kaitlan thought, and then the hallway whirled into a black hole and voided to nothing.

Part 4

Truth

sixty-eight

For the fourth day in a row, Kaitlan sat in the ugly orange armchair at her grandfather’s bedside. The hospital room smelled of steel and emptiness. A setting sun slanted through half-drawn blinds, lining the floor with streaks of yellow. Feet tucked beneath her, temple resting on her fist, Kaitlan fought to keep her eyes open.

She couldn’t seem to get enough sleep. Not that the world wanted to give her any.

She’d had two long interview sessions with the San Mateo Sheriff’s Department. Not to mention dodging the media everywhere she went. And the public in general.

No charges would be filed in her shooting of Craig Barlow. Self-defense, they said.