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Her shoulder burned like live embers. It took a minute for comprehension to filter in. A mini stun gun. Her head still lolled to the side, she looked at her colleague. He was motionless. But Thorne must have thought he was a threat a moment ago. She clung stubbornly to the fragile hope. Maybe he’d moved. Made a sound drowned out by the clashing and discordant acoustics. A moment later, something clattered onto the metal stand. Then, the music was again threaded with inhuman screams.
Dully, she struggled to bring Thorne into focus. He was bent over a stainless steel table, blocking her view of the prone figure stretched before him. The weapon in his hand was slim. Metallic. It flashed and darted in the garish flickering neon. The screams throbbed like the wound in her neck, going on and on until Reese clapped her hands over her ears, knees drawn up as she huddled against the wire wall behind her.
Long minutes later, the shrieks stopped abruptly, as if someone had muted the sound, leaving only the music to batter Reese’s ears. Thorne fiddled with the table and then carelessly pushed the now-still body to the floor, turning back toward her. She curled up, as if she could make herself smaller, her gaze darting to Autry. But he didn’t seem to be conscious.
“Now, you’ll get that front-row seat you’ve been wanting.” He unlocked Autry’s cage, and tried to pull the man from the kennel by his leg.
“No,” Reese screamed. “Autry, fight!” But her words didn’t seem to register with the unmoving man.
Thorne swore and crouched down, pulling him from the cage. Rolling him over, he kicked him hard in the side. “Get up. Get fucking up. It’s your turn.”
For a moment, Reese was hurtled back to the short time she’d spent on the bus next to the killer. Snippets from the killer’s fragmented brain spilled a dark stain across her mind.
Can’t unsee what you saw. Can’t undo what you done. Can’t put off what you got comin’ so boy, you better run. Come out come out wherever you are, you little shit. Won’t change nothing. You’re just making it harder on yourself.The screech that sounded then came from the depths of Thorne’s childhood.
“You stabbed him thirty-two times.” Thorne froze. Straightened to jerk around toward her. “Your first kill, wasn’t it? It still brings you joy. And…guilt.”
The man ran a shaking hand over his long, unkempt black beard. His T-shirt was darkened with the stain of the unknown woman’s blood. “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” He kicked her cage once. Again. “You don’t know me.” He leaned down to scream into her face, flecks of spittle spattering her. “You don’t know shit.”
Everything in her shrank from his fury. She didn’t want to be attuned to his feelings. Didn’t wish to wade through the evil flotsam of his mind. But Reese’s desires had never mattered. Guilt always sought an audience.
She glanced at Autry. Froze and stared harder. Had he just moved his hand ever so slightly? Thorne was partially blocking her view, but she was almost certain. Maybe her friend just needed more time to regain consciousness. Time she could give him.
Refocusing on the killer, she moistened her lips. Revulsion filled her as she let the poisonous morass of his thoughts swamp her. “You’re sacrificing them. But that won’t erase that first death. It won’t bring absolution.”
“Shut. Up.” His roar split through the din of music. Her cage shook as he yanked open her kennel, fury making him clumsy. Reese had a brief flicker of relief that his attention had been diverted from Autry. Until his hand reached inside and clamped around her arm, yanking her out of the wire enclosure and hurling her against the metal table. His fist drew back and she managed to duck, the blow still connecting with her temple, knocking her to the slick cement floor. She sprawled there, dazed for a moment, and the man straddled her, his frenzied blows raining down. Reese struggled, one hand fighting to free the knife from her waistband. Grasping the handle, she drove it up blindly, catching him in the shoulder. His howl sounded like a fiery beast from hell. He wrenched the blade from his flesh, andthrew it to the side before grabbing her head in both hands and slamming it against the floor. Once. Twice. Again.
By the time consciousness returned, Reese was prone, her arms restrained. Thorne flashed in and out of her view, painted by the flickering neon glare of the NO KILL SHELTER sign. He looked monstrous…a cartoonish larger-than-life figure pulsing in the barrage of heavy metal strains bouncing off the walls.
A strap tightened around one of her ankles. A surge of panic gave her the strength to bend her free leg and kick out, catching him full in the face. Blood spurted from his nose. He reared back with a moan, clapping his hands over it. Her surge of satisfaction was brief before he lunged toward her, bloody fists pummeling the last ounce of resistance from her body.
When she went limp, he straightened, his breath sawing in and out. Reese groaned, her gaze searching for Autry. Her view was limited, but a shudder seemed to work through his body. Just a few more minutes. She could buy him that.
Seeing her helpless seemed to calm her attacker. And hearing his continuing mewls of pain almost, almost drowned out her own. Thorne reared back and carefully worked his T-shirt over his torso, then wadded it in one ham-like hand. He pressed it gingerly against his nose and to the blood pouring from his shoulder. He sounded like a wounded animal, snorting and snuffling as he swung away, moving around the table and out of her line of vision. Reese slanted her gaze back to Autry. The flashing sign painted him with pulsing slices of neon, like a garish Christmas display. But he was alive. Reese knew it. There. Hadn’t his back risen a fraction as he took a breath?
Thorne approached her, blood still smeared on his face, strips of duct tape holding a cloth over his knife wound.
“Patti should have protected you. That’s what mothers are supposed to do, right? Or her friend, Layla. There was no one to help you back then.” Reese’s litany was a mixture of her researchinto Thorne and glimpses into his dark and tortured thoughts. “So you took a butcher knife from the kitchen and hid with it under your bed. And when he reached under there to pull you out by your ankles, you were ready.” He was frozen, staring at her as she picked through the memories in the dark caverns of his mind. “Thirty-two blows. But killing him didn’t fill up your emptiness, did it? It’s still there. No matter how many people you kill, the hole inside you gets bigger and bigger. Someday it will swallow you up.”
“You don’t know shit!” He slammed his fist on the metal table beside her.
“I know everything,” she whispered. “Iseeeverything.Hollow man.” He reared back as if her words burned him.
“You don’t know me! You can’t see inside me!”
“I can. I do.” Reese moistened her lips, courage flagging under the wildness in his gaze. “Murder can’t replace what Severin took from you. The inner void is getting bigger and bigger. Someday there will be nothing left of you.”
“No!” His screech cut through the cacophony. “They will fill it. You will…” He turned then, disappearing from her view, leaving her with the ear-splitting raucous music that battled with the hammering in her head. Reese closed her eyes against the strobe of neon.
“Get up, Autry. You need to get up now.” Her voice was pleading. “Before it’s too late.”
She didn’t hear Thorne return but sensed his presence. He paused at the small metal stand, busying himself with something. Dread spilled a toxic pool in her chest. He shoved the hair away from her face, then reached toward the tray. Brought something toward her. Reese tried to pull away, but the strap around her throat made it impossible. With bloodstained fingers, he pushed one of her eyelids upward. She tried to squeeze her eyes closed, but he affixed something to her skin.Reached for another segment and applied it. And then another. Tape.
“Fixed you, bitch,” he chortled. Blood had saturated the cloth and duct tape he’d used to stanch his wound. But he seemed impervious to it. He reached for more tape and pried her other eyelid open.
She remembered the flash of a scalpel when he was attacking the other woman. The horrible, inhuman sounds of agony.
“Now you won’t see. You’ll never see again.”