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I stumble.
I bay.
I fall against the dining room table, catching the carving knife between my palm and the polished mahogany. I start to pull the blade back, aiming for Ansel’s heaving shoulder blades, but then I see a better weapon.
Some part of my screaming brain remembers the sound of the shotgun being racked. All I have to do is pick it up. Brace the stock against my shoulder. Reach for the trigger.
And pull.
39
ALIX
* * *
The sound echoes off the dining room walls, filling my ears with a deadening roar. My eyes fly open as I’m caught in a disgusting spray of warm blood and flesh that will haunt my nightmares for years. The room reeks with gunpowder.
The thing that used to be Ansel Herzog collapses at my feet. He falls face down, one hand still gripping his crotch, the other his knife. The space between his shoulders is pulped, a shattered mix of muscle and bone and blood, all black and white in the dim light from the windows.
Trap stands over his kill like a vengeful god. His right eye has swollen closed, and his hands are soaked with red-black blood. He kicks Ansel’s naked body, putting all his weight behind the blow.
Ansel’s gone. He can’t respond. But Jonas does.
Jonas clutches the knife he was scraping against my thigh. He reverses his grip so he can slash with the blade, and he launches himself toward Trap, screaming like a rocket on re-entry.
Trap tries to raise the gun, tries to get off another shot, but Jonas surges past the barrel. There isn’t time. There isn’t room. Even though he’s armed, Trap is at a disadvantage, because his hands are full and the shotgun is suddenly useless.
Not useless. Jonas’s knife slides harmlessly off the barrel. Trap is fighting for the distance he needs to set the stock against his shoulder, but he doesn’t move with his usual panther-like grace. Instead, his foot slips in Ansel’s blood, and he falls hard to one knee.
I catch the glint of moonlight on metal as Jonas tosses away his knife to grapple for the gun. Trap pulls him off his feet, kicking the blade toward the corner. Both men are rolling on the floor when Trap hollers at Leo: “Cut your sister free!”
Leo responds by grabbing his head harder and rocking faster. I can hear his moans over Trap’s harsh breathing, even over Jonas’s guttural grunts.
“Leo!” Trap bellows like a drill sergeant. “Move your fucking ass!”
Miraculously, Leo moves. He picks up the knife. He crawls toward me. He cringes as Trap and Jonas roll beneath the table. He stares in horror at Ansel’s body.
“Leo,” I try to say, but the gag turns his name into empty vowels. “Help me. Please.”
They aren’t real words. But Leo acts. He shakes like a sprung jack-in-the-box, but he slips the tip of the knife under the tie that holds my left wrist. He leans back, using his weight to pop the plastic. Without my prompting, he cuts my right wrist free too. I grab the knife from him and release my feet.
I run for the stairs, stripping off my gag to take deeper breaths. In the dark, the steps are steeper than I remember. I stumble halfway up and have to catch myself on the railing. I bruise my naked hip. But I make it to the bedroom, to the closet, to the gun safe installed inside the wall.
The keypad comes to life when I touch it, gleaming black against green. I know the number. I’ve always known the number.
I key in zero, six, two, one.
June twenty-first, my birthday. The longest day of the year. The day that changed my life. The day I met Trap.
The safe sighs open. The Sig Sauer waits for me, poised on its rest. My fingers close around the grip like they were forged for this day.
I wheel back to the stairs and the dining room.
Leo crouches by the chair where I was bound. He’s fingering the plastic ties, gazing at them like they’re jewels from a distant planet.
The shotgun lies shadowed in the doorway that leads to the kitchen. I can’t tell if Trap threw it there or if Jonas did, but there’s no way either of them can use the weapon now.
Jonas is kneeling on Trap’s chest, fingers tight around Trap’s throat. Trap is fighting, bucking, but he can’t get a purchase on the dining room floor. His face looks like it’s turning black, and the sounds coming out of him belong in a slaughterhouse.
