Page 121 of Take Your Breath Away

I don’t honestly think it had been my intention to cut off his hand.

But I brought that blade down with enough force, and right on target, that when it connected with Matt’s upturned right wrist it went right through and into the forest floor like a cleaver going through pork tenderloin. He’d already been in the process of aiming the weapon my way, but what came up was a forearm minus a hand. A fountain of blood poured forth.

His hand, still gripping the gun, lay there on the dirt.

The scream that Matt let loose was enough to send birds scattering from the trees.

“Jesus!” shouted Norman, who was still a good sixty feet away.

I then did something that, in retrospect, makes no sense whatsoever. Intending to kick the gun away from Matt’s grasp, I booted it, and the hand looped around it, a good six feet away.

His screams persisted. Blood continued to flow from his stomach and the end of his arm. It was the latter that looked more serious.

I heard another scream, and realized very quickly that it was coming from me. A kind of primal cry, some Neanderthal reaction buried deep within me. A cry of triumph, or release. Or maybe I was just losing my mind.

But I couldn’t afford to lose it for long. I hadn’t forgotten my first thoughts, from only seconds earlier, that Norman was in on this. And if that was true, the threat was not over.

I wanted more than a shovel to deal with Norman. And there was that gun right there on the ground. I tossed the shovel, dropped to my knees, and pried the gun from the fingers of the severed hand, all to a background soundtrack of Matt’s incessant cries of pain. That man was going to die if I didn’t make some effort to save him. A tourniquet on that arm.

But that would have to wait. I had Norman to deal with. I got to my feet and pointed the gun at him.

He stopped dead in his tracks and shouted, “Christ, Andrew, it’s me!”

I must have looked like a crazy person to him. Wide-eyed, covered in dirt and now splattered with blood from Matt, and waving a gun around.

“I know who the fuck you are!” I shouted at my one-time brother-in-law. “Stay right there!”

“What the hell’s going on?” he yelled. “Who’s that—”

“Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!” I shouted.

Matt had stopped screaming long enough to crane his head in my direction and say, “I’m gonna fucking die. Help me.”

“How did you know?” I asked Norman.

“How did I know what?”

“How did you find us? How did you know about this place? You knew he’d brought me here, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know anything about this place,” he said, taking steps in my direction.

“Don’t come any closer, Norman,” I warned, pointing the gun at him.

“Andrew, what is it you think I’ve done?” He took another five steps toward me. “That man, who is he?”

“Like you don’t know,” I said. “Why? Why’d you do it?”

“Why’d I do what?” he asked.

“Why’d you hire him? Why’d you hire him to kill Brie?”

Norman’s shocked look was Oscar-worthy. “What the hell are you talking about? Brie may be back! Isabel’s told you. I know that. We saw her, from the hospital.”

“No,” I said. “She’s right back there, in that grave. Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

A moaning, dying Matt had turned over to see who I was talking to. He mumbled, “Who the fuck is he?”

That threw me. Either they were both very good at playing their roles, or Norman and this man really did not know one another.