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Hannah

MALCOLM YELLED OUT SOMETHING behind her, but Hannah ignored him. She ran as fast as she could, following the fence line toward the voices, the sound of heavy machinery. She’d gone at least two hundred feet before they came into view around the thick trees—at least a half dozen trucks, a flatbed weighed down with rolls of chain link and tall metal poles. Some kind of tractor with a corkscrew drill as tall as her and as wide as her waist was busy chewing into the ground as at least twenty or thirty men busily worked extending the fence. Those men wore white overalls, orange vests, and hard hats. Scattered between them were soldiers—dressed in black and gray fatigues, holding large rifles.

“Help!” she screamed out. “He’s trying to kill me! Help!”

The soldiers were busy watching the workers installing the fence and seemed surprised at the sound of her voice. The one nearest her looked to be no more than early twenties. His gun hung loosely from his neck, and he was holding a bottle of water in one hand and a rugged-looking tablet in the other.

Behind him, someone shouted, “Stop her! Somebody stop her!”

Hannah followed the voice and froze.

A priest.

Dressed in a full-length black cassock, standing near a bulldozer, he raised his arm and pointed. Rosary beads dangled from his fingers. “Do not allow her any further!”

The soldier dropped the water bottle and tablet and fumbled for his rifle. He brought the barrel up, pointed it directly at Hannah’s head.

Another shot rang out, followed quickly by two more. Those came from a soldier twenty feet down the line. Hannah turned fast enough to see two red blooms in Malcolm’s chest and a black hole in the center of his burlap mask, directly above his eyes. His body jerked and dropped. The ax clattered down next to him.

Hannah screamed and shuffled back toward the trees.

The first bullet caught her in the left temple, passed through her brain, and came out the center of her right cheek. She never heard the other three shots.