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“He might be dead now. Not sure. Last time I saw him, he looked like a victim in a slasher film. The blood loss alone…”
“Ma’am, it’s a crime to make a prank call to emergency services—”
“The Beautiful Butcher. She escaped from Texas a few days ago. She made it here, to Pomaikai. Had help. But she’s dead now. Her sister shot her. Well, her daughter. Okay, a family member killed her. But not before plenty of carnage.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but what is the nature of your emergency?”
“Escaped serial killer. Lots of casualties. In the middle of the Pacific.”
“Where are you?”
“Pomaikai. Remote atoll. Near the equator. Send choppers, medical evac. Coast Guard, Navy, the Marines. Send everyone. We need help.”
I finally crest the incline to the site of MacManus’s lodge. All lights are still on, a fierce glow that’s nearly blinding after so much time moving through the dark.
There, on the other side of the porch stairs, a lone shape collapsed on the ground.
“Send help!” I bark one last time into the sat phone. Then I drop it to the ground and lurch my way toward Vaughn.
HE MOANS THE first time I touch him. I take that as a positive sign. His side is wet with blood. It’s too dark for me to tell how bad, but I’m already pretty sure it’s not good. I shake him hard enough to rouse him and, with a bit of coaxing, get his arm around my shoulder. Together, we crawl our way up the stairs, into the lodge.
I get Vaughn collapsed into one of the overstuffed chairs. His T-shirt is plastered against his skin with blood.
He groans again. “Tried… to go… after you. Couldn’t move.”
“It’s okay. They’re dead. Leilani and Keahi both. You don’t have to worry about them anymore.”
I leave him long enough to check on MacManus, whose slumped form is still tied to a dining room chair.
There is so much blood, so many jagged wounds. I don’t know where to touch. In the end, I drag the chair as close to the sofa as I can get. Then I saw through his bindings with kitchen shears before toppling him onto his side into the cushions.
He doesn’t moan or make any sound at all. Mostly, I hear choking gasps, but those are coming from me.
Towels, first aid kits. I gather whatever I can find, piling it on the coffee table. My movements are short and jerky. My whole leg is on fire now, and my vision swims blearily. Shock, blood loss, both.
I keep moving, packing Vaughn’s gunshot wound with gauze. Wrapping MacManus’s bloody arms in towels. Bandaging a particularly large cut on his neck.
Then I’m swaying again, staggering toward the front door. I will myself to make it out, down the steps, and over to the UTV.
This is it. One last charge. Find the others. Summon them all to the lodge.
Tell them it’s finally over.
Except, of course, it never really is.
IT DOESN’T TAKE three days for emergency medical evac. The first chopper sets down midmorning the next day, summoned by Charlie’s much more succinct call to much bigger powers that be. Ronin does the honors of waving it down to the runway.
I don’t know what he says. I’m running hot and cold, falling in and out of consciousness. My leg wound, infection, something. Trudy and Ann ply me with fluids while taking turns bathing my face with cold washcloths.
Captain Marilee and MacManus disappear into the first chopper. Soon there’s another; then it feels like there’s people in blue jumpsuits running around everywhere. I’m lifted up into a stretcher and then I’m in the sky, the sparkling ocean passing by underneath.
A brief break. Crashing waves against the hull of a ship. Then I’m up, up, up again, flying through the air.
Next time I come to, I register beeping machines, stark white corridors. Hospital sheets, hospital bed.
I close my eyes again, feeling the fever sear away my skin. But that’s okay, I think. I can always grow it back again.
Voices I know.
