Page 146 of The Chain

She closes her eyes and feels the darkness wrap around her.

The world is diminishing, fading, falling far away…

Then she feels something else.

Something sharp. Something that cuts. Something that hurts. A long, thin shard of glass.

Her thumb drags it across the floor and her hand wraps around it.

Her hands are bloody but her grip is strong.

Rachel Klein, avoider of mirrors, has tumbled through the looking glass and taken a piece of that glass with her.

She will give it to Ginger as a gift.

Yes.

And with the last breath in her body, she arcs the splinter of glass hard into Ginger’s throat.

Ginger screams and lets go of Rachel and claws at her neck.

She fumbles at the glass and tries to save herself but the carotid is severed and a fount of crimson arterial blood is already pouring from the wound.

Rachel rolls away from her and gulps air. Ginger’s eyes widen. “I knew you were…” she says and collapses to the floor, dead.

Rachel breathes and closes her eyes and opens them again.

And now it is only Kylie hugging her.

Hugging her for twenty seconds and then getting up and pressing a rag against the wound in Pete’s abdomen.

The bullet somehow missed the major blood vessels, but he needs medical attention. Quick.

Kylie finds her mom’s phone and dials 911. She tells the dispatcher that she needs the police and an ambulance.

Kylie hands the phone to Stuart and goes to help her dad.

Stuart tells the dispatcher exactly how to get to them from Route 1A. When he sees the house behind them is burning, he tells them to send the fire department too. “Stay on the line, honey, help is on the way,” the dispatcher says.

Kylie finds pieces of tarp and puts one over her uncle Pete and her dad and another around her mom and Stuart as protection against the wind and snow howling through the abattoir.

“Come here,” Rachel says to Kylie and Stuart, and she pulls the two kids close.

She tells them it’s going to be all right in the voice mothers have used to reassure their little ones for tens of thousands of years.

“How can I help?” Marty asks, crawling toward them.

“Help Uncle Pete. Keep pressure on his wound,” Kylie says to her dad.

Marty nods and presses the rag hard against Pete’s stomach. “Hang in there, big brother, I’m sure you’ve faced worse than this,” Marty says.

Pete’s wound looks terrible, but his dark eyes still have fire in them. Death is going to have to deal with a force that is shamanic, strong, inimical.

Embers are falling onto the remains of the abattoir’s roof.

“Guys, we may have to get out of here,” Marty says.

Rachel looks at the ferocious blaze taking hold of the entire west side of the house.