AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Yeah, no shit," he said. "Listen, I'm sorry I was short with you before. Things seem to be going from bad to worse around here lately."
Alex swallowed, nodding. He didn't even know the half of it.
Trust no one but me now ... Tell no one what you saw in here, Alex. Promise me. Kade's words drifted through her thoughts as Zach watched her expectantly. "So? You've got my unpided attention, for the moment at least. What did you want to talk to me about?"
"Um ..." Alex fumbled for a reply, feeling oddly unsettled by the way Zach seemed to peer at her in speculation, maybe even suspicion. "I just ... I was concerned about Big Dave, of course. How is he? How do you, um, think he's doing?"
The questions felt clumsy on her tongue, especially when her heart was still banging from everything she'd witnessed in the clinic.
Zach's expression turned a bit more scrutinizing. "You saw him yourself, didn't you?" She shook her head, not sure she could deliver a convincing lie.
"Didn't I see you go inside--you and your, ah, new friend?" He leaned on the word, unnecessarily hard. "Where is he, anyway? Still inside?"
"No," she said, all but blurting it. "I don't know what you're talking about. Kade and I were out here the whole time. He just left."
Zach didn't quite seem to buy it, but before he had a chance to press her further, the clinic door opened and Fran Littlejohn came out onto the stoop. "Officer Tucker! Where's Zach? Somebody call Officer Tucker right away!"
Alex stared, weathering a rising feeling of dread as Fran's head bobbed, searching the crowd.
"Over here," Zach called. "What is it?"
"Oh, Zach!" The clinic technician heaved a sigh, her thick shoulders slumping. "I'm afraid we lost him. I'd just given him another dose of sedative, and I turned away for what couldn't have been more than a minute at most. When I looked back just now, I saw that he had passed. Big Dave is dead."
"Goddamn it," Zach muttered. Although he spoke to Fran, he shot a tight glance at Alex. "No one else with you in there, Fran?"
"Just me," she said. "Poor Dave. And poor Lanny, too. God bless them both." As a wave of soft murmurs and whispered prayers traveled the crowd, Alex cleared her throat. "I have to go, Zach. It's been a long day, and I'm really tired. So, unless you have any more questions--"
"No," he said, but the look he gave her was guarded, filled with a reluctant acceptance of everything he'd just heard. "Go on home, then, Alex. If I need you, I know where to find you." She nodded, unable to dismiss feeling oddly threatened by his comment as she turned and walked away.
Some five miles out of Harmony, deep in the frozen wilderness, Kade shrugged the burden of Skeeter Arnold's lifeless body off his shoulders and dropped it down a steep ravine. He stood there for a moment, after the Minion's corpse had tumbled out of sight, letting the bitter cold air fill his lungs and steam his breath as he stared out at the vast nothingness all around him. The sky was dark overhead, the snow-covered ground glowed midnight blue under the afternoon starlight. In the distant woods, a wolf cried, long and lamenting, summoning its pack to run. The wildness of his surroundings called to Kade, and for one sharp instant, he was tempted to give in to it. Tempted to ignore the chaos and confusion that he'd left behind him in Harmony. Tempted to run from the fear he'd put in Alex, and the unpleasant business of the truth that he would have to deliver to her when he got back.
Would she despise him for what he had to tell her?
Would she recoil in horror when she came to understand his true nature?
He couldn't blame her if she did. Knowing what she'd endured as a child, and now, having seen him kill a man before her eyes, how could he possibly hope that she would look at him with anything more than fear or revulsion?
"Ah, fuck," he muttered, dropping down into a squat on his haunches at the edge of the ravine.
"Fuck!"
"Problems, brother?"
The unexpected voice, the unexpected familiarity of it--here, of all places, now, of all times--shot through Kade like a current of raw electricity. He vaulted to his feet and spun around, his hand reaching automatically for one of the blades he wore on his belt.
"Easy," Seth drawled slowly, inclining his head to indicate the precarious edge of the ravine directly behind Kade. "Better watch your step."
Kade's fury spiked as he took in his twin's unkempt, shaggy appearance. "I could say the same thing to you ... brother."
He kept the knife gripped in his fist, pivoting around, cautiously following Seth as he strolled toward him to peer into the ravine. Seth grunted. "Not the most savvy way to dispose of a kill, but I suppose it won't take long for the scavengers to find it."
"Yeah, you know all about that, don't you?"
Seth looked at him, Kade's own silver eyes--his own face--staring back at him as if in a mirror. Except Seth's short black hair hung limply in dull, matted hanks, his cheeks and jaw sallow, the skin shadowed with grit and grime. His face was leaner than Kade recalled, on the verge of gaunt. He looked strung out, and there was a feral glint in his heavy-lidded gaze.
"Where the fuck have you been?" he demanded. "How long have you been carrying out your sick killing games?"
Seth chuckled, dark with amusement. "I'm not the one dumping a human into a snowy grave."
