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As Matthew scornfully talked, sparks of fire keep hitting Owen, forcing him to start wildly patting his clothes.
“What in the fuck? How are you doing that? Stop! That hurts!” Owen yelled, trying to step away from Matthew.
With a low whistle, Moses’s dogs ran out to growl at Owen. Every time Owen tried to move, one of the dogs would nip at him.
“I’m not hurting you one-tenth of what you did to Alanna!” Matthew’s harsh voice had her shivering. “You turned an innocent game of hide and seek into terrorizing a small child, then you raped her, destroying any chance of her becoming a mother, orme becoming their father!”
Alanna still couldn’t see Matthew’s expression, but she could see when he raised his hand high in the air to point a finger at Owen. Then he began making a circle in the air. She watched inamazement as fire shot out from the tip of his finger to land on Owen. Then Matthew started moving his finger faster, going up and down.
Alanna watched, horror-stricken, as flames consumed a screaming Owen. The snapping dogs backed away as the fire devoured him within their depths, the fire swirling around him like a tornado of heat. Then Owen crumbled to the ground when Matthew turned his hand palm up and the flame flew to him as if Matthew had beckoned them like Moses his dogs. The flames danced on his hand until he closed it into a fist. When he opened his hand again, the flames were gone.
Alanna stood there, trying to grasp what had just happened. She must have lost her mind when she had seen Elizabeth shot, which was the only rational explanation she could come up with. It was the godawful smell coming from the burnt, still smoldering spot on the ground where Owen and the fake deputy should have been, but both were gone and that snapped her out of her thoughts.
A shrill sound had her coving her ears to drown out the noise that was so loud it was mind numbing.
“Alanna, stop screaming.” Matthew surrounded her with his arms.
Frightened by what she had just witnessed, she tore herself out of his arms. “I’ve lost my mind. I didn’t just see you burn—”
“Please don’t be afraid of me.” Matthew’s grim visage turned heart wrenching. “I can explain—”
“How can you explain killing a man?”
“Because he wasn’t a man. He was a monster who preyed on the innocent. He should have been locked up when the foster system found out he had raped two other girls, beside you. He should have never been put in a home where there were females, and they didn’t even give your foster parents any clue what type of monster they had allowed into their home.”
She stared down at the smoldering ground, the stench making her want to vomit. Gagging, she covered her mouth.
Matthew took her by the arm to move her away from the stench and toward Silas’ home. Helping her sit down on the upper step, he used his hand to press her head down to her knees.
“Isaac, get her a glass of water.” She heard Silas tell his brother.
Alanna felt Isaac hurry past her and heard the screen door open.
“Just breathe,” Matthew said, sitting down next to her to put an arm around her.
“Greer and Dustin aren’t answering my calls. Is Logan okay?”
“He is fine, Tate. He was already off the bus when it went over,” Silas answered the man who had shot Elizabeth. “They’re trying to get the bus stabilized before they can get more paramedics inside to help bring the other kids out.”
“If you’ve got everything under control here, I’m going to help with the bus.”
“We’ve got it. Tate, our family owes you.” He gave the man a nod. “You’ll have to walk. Traffic is lined up and down the mountain.”
“I’ll catch a ride back with Dustin or Greer. That’s two. Don’t think Greer isn’t keeping count.”
“He never lets me forget it,” Silas said wryly.
Raising her head, she saw Tate about to move away, but then he paused.
“I expect one of you to take care of the woman in Greer’s pot patch. Can’t have Knox sniffing around.”
“She’ll be gone before you get back.” Silas nodded.
Alanna felt as if she were in a never-ending nightmare, where they were just casually standing around, talking like getting rid of a dead body was an everyday occurrence. Maybe it was.Maybe there had been so many horror movies about killers living on mountains for a reason.
Matthew taking the glass of water from Isaac to hand it to her had her flinching away. Scooting away from her, he set it down between them. “I would never hurt you.”
She pressed her dry lips together, seeing the pain in his eyes.
