No breathing.
All I can hear is the rush of my own heartbeat in my ears and my sobs.
“I hate you,” I yell at Patrick while I go back to throwing all of the jars. My arm hurts. My face hurts. My chest hurts. My head hurts. My heart hurts. “I hate you, and I hate you for making me hate you, and I hope you die miserable and alone after a long, miserable life of knowing you’re a useless fucking cuntwaffle. The cuntiest, fuckiest of fucknuggets.”
I gasp for breath.
Silence.
There’s still silence outside.
Until—
Until there’s a creak. A long, slow, creakycrreeeeeaaaaaakkkkk.
All falls silent again.
“Davis?” I whisper.
“Right here, love,” he murmurs above me.
Above and behind me.
And then the most massive crash I’ve ever heard in my life erupts somewhere just beyond the opening. Wood splinters. Dust billows in the sky.
I shriek.
Davis blinks at the dust cloud.
“What happened?” I whisper.
“Sloane two, Patrick zero, cabin zero.”
“What does that mean?”
“You put one of those jars through the roof of the cabin, and it’s—well, you’re gonna want to see this for yourself.”
The man pauses, and he pulls out his phone, and he snaps a picture of something.
“I killed the cabin?” I breathe.
He grins. “You got it good.”
“And Patrick?”
“You got him too.”
“I—what?”
“You got him. In the head. With a jar of what might’ve been pickled beets. A long time ago.”
I blink up at the sky and the dust cloud still billowing and bare bush branches and the beanie-headed, bearded man peering down at me between snapping pictures of what I assume is the remnants of his great-great-something-grandfather’s cabin.
“Giselle?” I ask.
“Stunned. She’ll be okay. Mad as hell, I expect, but okay.”
“You?”
