Page 40 of A Sublime Casualt

Shit. I struggle to get my bearings, the gun in my hand stuck in the soupy mire. Leave it to me to knock myself out as I try to make a break for it. I force myself back on my feet, and a rocket of pain shoots up my right leg. My ankle feels as if it’s on crooked, but I’m still too numb to appreciate it fully.

The hushed sound of footsteps comes this way. His erratic breathing eats up the night, and I force myself to hold my own breath. He’s right there, just outside the porch, no more than fifteen feet away from me.

“Come on, Phoebe. You can come inside. Dry off. Join the party. I hear you’ve been dying to meet Lizzy.”

My adrenaline spikes to unsafe levels. It was her. She’s here. Alive. My God, he’s had her all along. There’s a pinch of pride in the fact I managed to get this far, to find the girl. I’d say I was smarter than Neil, but then he was never looking for her to begin with.

A thunderous explosion goes off, then another and another as Neil unleashes all hell on me. I drop into the mud as low as it will take me, and just before I hit the ground, a spear of heat rips through my right shoulder. A cry comes from me, but with the constant barrage of bullets he’s firing, I doubt he heard. No sooner does the gunfire pause than the sound of a woman screaming absorbs the silence. My guess is Ashley. And right about now, I’d like to see her scream a little. What in the hell is she doing here anyway? I do my best to army crawl to the next pylon. I see his feet milling around from here. If I can roll out from under this hellhole, I might have a shot at him. But it will be do or die, and most likely I will miss and I will surely die. In all of those heroic scenarios that ran through my mind on the way up here, not once did I contemplate freezing, immobilized with fear, with my own mortality hanging in the bounds. When push comes to bullets, the reality is far graver than the superhero our mind builds us up to be.

A string of gunfire comes right at me. An explosion of light emanates from the tip of his gun, and it’s blinding, a one-way ticket to heaven, right there, pointed in my direction.

I roll out from under the porch, jumping to my feet, and steadying my gun. My legs refuse to work. My entire body is detonating in one nuclear heartbeat after the next.

Neil staggers forward, the bottom half of his shirt drenched wet, dark crimson, and it pleases me.

I don’t blink. I fire again and again and again. His body bucks with that last shot, but he’s still coming at me. Two bullets left. Holy shit. I’m a terrible shot. I steady my hands, the sound of laughter coming from him as he jumps to the side just as I fire into the blank of night.

“One more, pretty girl. You can do it.” He’s within twenty feet. His body dissolving in the murky shadows. “You sure you killed your stepfather? I’m beginning to consider your innocence. Such a waste, the messes we get ourselves into.” He’s gone, completely disappeared from view. The only thing I have to go on is the sound of his voice. His footsteps grow ever so close. He’s coming from the left, so I fire one last blind shot and run like hell. I clear the porch, and instead of heading right into the woods, the way he thinks I’m headed, I run up the porch and make a left at the door, working my backpack off and pulling out a knife in the process. It catches on a post, and I drop it. Shit. My legs keep moving without it, running down the back of the cabin, and I jump just shy of the bush I spent hours camping behind earlier.

A hard thud comes down over my shoulder, a body grunting over mine, and both Neil and I let out a hard cry. Neil is on me. Pistol-whipping me, bludgeoning my face, his thrusting force nailing me over the back and the shoulders, wild with anger. I twist around and squeeze the shit out of his balls. Neil freezes as he gives a satisfying howl into the night. I kick my way free and begin running down the hill. Freedom at last.

A gunshot goes off, then another, and my left arm falls hard against my thigh. He hit me. I try to get to the woods, and just as I’m about to feel my way down the small embankment, I hear a faint sound coming from the left.

“Phoebe!” The sound of my name, the sound of another man’s voice, not Neil’s. It’s too far. A flood of relief hits me.

“Theo!” I scream with everything in me, and just as I’m ramping up to do it again, a hand claps over my mouth and I’m dragged right to the cabin.

It all happens so quickly, Neil yanking me backward as I try to fight him off, my feet trying their best to sink into the earth. His arms have me in a vise, tossing me around like a ragdoll. The knife is still very much in my grasp. It was the smallest of the bunch, and for all I know Neil doesn’t realize I have it.

“You nasty little bitch.” He knocks his head into the back of mine as hard as he can. The world warbles in and out of existence for a moment.

“Let her go!” The sound of Theo’s voice is close, and I look to the left and see his silhouette near the trunk of an evergreen, marksmen’s stance, gun drawn. This will end in a hail of gunfire. My God, Theo cannot die. “It’s over, Neil. We’ve got reinforcements coming.”

His chest bucks with a dull laugh as he presses against my back. “Then I got nothing to lose. Ain’t that right?”

“Let Phoebe go and we’ll do this. Just you and me.”

“You want your dumpster whore?” Neil howls with laughter, his chest bucking hard against my back. “Come on, Theo, you and I both know you can do better. She’s not in your league. When did your self-confidence sink so low? Did you know I fucked her? Old truck stop past Duluth about a year ago.” He buries his lips against my cheek. “You remember that, don’t you, sweetheart?”

Oh my God. Those eyes. That greasy grin. That horrible night comes back to me in snatches. His body on mine, in me.

“I’ll be doing us both a favor by getting rid of her,” he thunders. “But then, you were never too bright, were you, Theo?”

Neil’s gun goes off, and Theo jumps to his left. Neil pulls the trigger again, and I hear the faint click of regret on his part.

“He’s out!” I scream as I thrust my elbow into him and slash the knife across his neck and chest before bolting for the cabin. I’ll need the light so Theo won’t shoot me.

Theo fires again and again, and by the time I turn around, I spot Neil on the ground, groaning and writhing.

“It’s over,” I pant, my breathing deafening the world around me.

Another figure comes from the woods and subdues Neil as Theo runs this way.

He jumps onto the porch in a single bound and wraps his arms around me. “God, are you okay?” he whispers heavily in my ear.

“I’m fine.” I glance to the door. “I just have to warn you. I think Ashley’s in there with your sister.”

“What?” Theo steps forward and pounds his nightstick over the door. “Open up!” he thunders. “Police!” His powerful blows shake the entire hillside.