"Yes."
"Good. Because I can't aim past ten feet."
He stands up. He is naked, scarred, and terrifying. He walks to the door. "We don't wait for them to knock," he whispers. "We open the door. We surprise them."
"Alaric, your hand..."
"I can pull a trigger," he says grimly. "That’s all I need."
He counts down.Three. Two. One.
He throws the door open. The wind and rain blast in. The two men spin around, startled. "Hey!" one yells, reaching for his belt.
Alaric fires.BANG.He misses. The bullet hits the truck’s fender, sparking. His hand jerked. The nerve damage.
The man laughs. He pulls a shotgun. "Bad shot, old man!"
I step out from behind Alaric. I raise the SIG. I don't think. I don't hesitate.Structure.Aim.Press.
CRACK.The man with the shotgun drops, a hole in his chest.
The second man panics. He pulls a knife. He charges. He is fast. Too fast. He tackles Alaric. They hit the wet pavement. Alaric grunts as they land on his bad shoulder. The man raises the knife.
"NO!" I scream.
I run forward. I can't shoot. They are tangling. I might hit Alaric. I switch the gun to my left hand. I reach for the knife on my thigh. The ceramic blade. I jump on the man’s back.
I am a banshee. I stab him. In the neck. In the shoulder. In the back. He screams, thrashing, trying to throw me off. Alaric gets a hand free—his good hand. He punches the man in the throat. The man gags, falling back.
I stand up, panting, the bloody knife in my hand. The man is writhing on the ground, bleeding out. Alaric scrambles up. He looks at me. He looks at the body.
"Get in the truck," he orders.
"We have to pack!"
"No time! The gunshot... the manager will call the cops. We go. Now!"
I run back inside. I grab the backpack with the drive. I grab our coats. I run back out. Alaric is already in the driver's seat. He has managed to start the engine. I jump in.
We peel out of the parking lot, tires spinning on the wet asphalt. We leave the bodies in the rain. We leave the motel behind.
"Where now?" I ask, my hands shaking as I wipe the rain and blood from my face.
Alaric drives with one hand, steering the truck onto the coastal highway. "We burned the safe house," he says. "We burned the motel. We can't hide, Elodie. Hiding doesn't work."
"So what do we do?"
He looks at me. His face is illuminated by the dashboard lights. He looks tired. Old. But his eyes are clear. "We stop running," he says. "We find a place where we can stand our ground. A place where the terrain favors us."
"Does such a place exist?"
"Yes," he says. "But it’s not on a map."
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a phone. Not a burner. A satellite phone. He hands it to me. "Turn it on."
"It will ping the satellites. They'll find us."
"Let them find us," Alaric says. "I'm tired of the quiet."
