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Bryn lunged against her straps. “You fucking bitch!”
“Oh, sure, look who’s talking. If you ask me nicely, I’ll go easy with the kids. They won’t feel a thing. Can’t promise the same thing for the parents, though, since I owe you one. Here’s something on account. ”
She tapped Bryn on the forehead, hard, and gave her that eerily warm smile again, then reached over to a gurney lying across from Bryn’s and tugged the sheet loose as she climbed out of the ambulance.
Bryn hadn’t really registered the fact that there was someone lying across from her until that moment when the sheet pulled off the body.
It was Carl. And Carl was really, sincerely dead. His head had been severed, not very neatly, and the gurney was soaked in fresh red blood. The ambulance reeked with it, Bryn realized. The loose head had been tucked beneath his left arm to keep it from rolling free, and Jane had positioned it for maximum effect, facing directly toward Bryn. Gravity had opened his mouth and made it seem as if he’d never stopped screaming.
My fault, she thought. She’d thought it unlikely she could feel shock again, but it swept over her in a cold, numbing wave. This one’s my fault. She’d left Jane out there alive and free to go after innocents. Carl had died horribly. A whole hallway full of confused old people would burn to cover up her disappearance.
Now maybe the whole Fideli family was going to pay for her mistake, too.
God, she had to kill that bitch forever.
But she couldn’t get out of the goddamn restraints.
The ambulance took off and drove for about five minutes before slowing down, and Bryn thought, They’re not bothering to dismember us very far from the crime scene; it showed a kind of stunning, unsettling arrogance that made her worry that Jane not only could keep her promises but might outdo them. Carl had gone down screaming, but Bryn decided she wouldn’t; if anything, when her head came off, she’d go down biting. Maybe she could take a piece off her killer, at least.
The ambulance came to a stop, and for a moment she thought Carl’s head would roll off the gurney, but it stayed in place. That was a strange relief that evaporated as she heard the engine shut off, the driver’s door open, and footsteps move around to the doors.
Get ready, she told herself. But how did you get ready for this final moment when all hope was gone? It seemed crazy and absurd, that she’d survived Jane only to die like this, for no good purpose.
The doors opened, and the paramedic climbed in. He pulled off his cap and crouched down next to Bryn, and she was treated to a big, toothy smile…
From Fast Freddy Watson. The man she’d shot at the marina. The one who’d killed, and then kidnapped, her sister, Annalie.
Her own original murderer.
“Hey, Bryn,” he said. “What’s shakin’, bacon?” He flipped open a long-bladed knife, hesitated for a few seconds with his gaze on her face, and then neatly began slitting open her Velcro restraints. “Welcome to your rescue party. ”
She sat up fast as he methodically finished with the last of the straps, ready to defend herself if he decided to go psycho on her…but after Jane, Freddy weirdly seemed quite normal. Her scale of crazy had definitely undergone some vast expansion.
He cast a look at Carl and said, “Guess we’ll be leaving him. ” He patted Carl’s bloodless cheek. “Sorry, buddy. Sucks for you, I know. ”
With that, Freddy folded his knife and jumped down from the back, and Bryn followed, feeling shaky with a toxic mix of adrenaline, relief, uncertainty, and decaying nanites. The ambulance was parked on a small side road off the main one leading down the hill; they were surrounded on three sides by swelling dark hills.
And they weren’t alone. A blue sedan idled nearby, and Freddy walked over to it and opened the back door. When she hesitated, he said, “The ambulance is stolen. If you go joyriding around for long, especially with your headless friend in the back, you’ll be having some fun with the local yokels real soon. C’mon, Bryn. Could have hurt you already if I was going to do it—oh, and if I leave you here, Jane’ll find you soon. You don’t want that. Trust me. ”
She really didn’t. After another second or two, she slid into the backseat of the sedan. Freddy shut the door and got into the passenger seat.
The man in the front seat said, “Hello, Bryn,” and she realized that it was no surprise, really.
Jonathan Mercer was driving the car. Fast Freddy’s boss…
And the inventor of Returné.
“I came to save your life,” he said. “How am I doing so far?”
“Great,” Bryn said. She lunged forward over the seat, put him in a headlock, and said, “Give me your cell phone or I’ll break your fucking neck, you psycho. ”
He choked, flailed, and pointed wildly at Fast Freddy…who dug a phone from his pocket and held it out. Bryn let go of Mercer’s chicken-thin throat, took the phone, and sank back against the cushions as she dialed with lightning-fast fingers.
Patrick answered on the first ring, this time.
“It’s Bryn,” she said. “I’m out. They’re coming for Joe and his family. Get everyone safe, right now. Don’t worry about me. ”
“Does Mercer have you?” Patrick asked. She could hear the tension in his voice.
