When Devils Sing(111)
Nothing quite conveyed God bless America like sacrificial murder.
There was no telling how many people chased behind Sam and Dawson in the dark of the woods. She didn’t look back, not once. Seconds stood between them and survival. Between her and Ben and their beach house far away from Lake Clearwater. This was it—this was all she had left to fight for.
More guttural screaming rang from behind them. Sam pushed her legs harder until her lungs threatened to give from the exertion. Her burns had already begun to blister, and now they bled from the frantic movement. She was a mess of wounds and sweat and blood.
A crowded lake peeked through the cluster of pine trees that lay ahead. Just barely, she made out the sheen of glossy boats on dark water. They were so close.
“Samantha!”
Sam whipped her head in the direction of the sound. She faltered, tripping over her own feet, as the boom of her daddy’s voice carried through the trees nearby. Her reaction was innate, learned from her eighteen years beneath Wiley’s roof. He was determined to finish what he’d started. To rid the world of his daughter. She collapsed in the dirt, hidden among the trees.
Dawson was beside in her in an instant. “Sam, get up,” he begged, frantically pulling her limbs. “We’re almost there, please.”
“Samantha!” Wiley yelled again. “Come on out, girl.”
Sam shook her head, frightened tears welling up in her eyes. Her daddy was drawing near; she could sense him, even if she couldn’t pinpoint the location of his voice. It was over. “I can’t,” she choked out. “I can’t—I can’t face him.”
Dawson’s own eyes had turned teary. “It’s okay,” he breathed. He materialized a knife used in the ritual, the blade still stained with blood. Gently, he unfolded Sam’s hands and folded her fingers around the hilt. “I’ll distract him. You just need to run, all right?”
Sam blinked. “What?”
Dawson was already on his feet, letting out an obnoxious whoop in Wiley’s direction. Sam could just barely see her daddy’s figure stalking through the trees a few yards away. Dawson bolted straight toward him, screaming like a wild animal.
Sam counted down from five, tempering the paralyzing fear that had wound through her, then she ran. A moment later, she burst through the trees, treading down a slope, and found herself on a small shore. Hundreds of boats spread out before her on Lake Clearwater. But there was no one near enough to call for help. The island was blocked off with floating buoys that signaled boats to keep their distance.
Where was she meant to go? She spun in a circle, taking in the length of the island. She could only see so far in the dark, briefly blinded by the fireworks shooting off overhead.
Then Sam noticed a bass boat, the edge of it peeking out from a black tarp on the shore. Was this the boat they were all meant to escape to? As she sprinted toward it, her feet sank in the wet, gravelly sand, slowing her down. She was ripping away the tarp when someone grabbed her from behind, pulling her to the wet ground.
Daddy?
With the hunting knife Dawson had given her, Sam stabbed blindly behind her until she pierced flesh. She buried the knife deep.
It was Jonah Langley who screamed.
Sam crawled away along the shore as Jonah clutched his stomach, the knife embedded in his abdomen. His eyes were lit with rage. Sam crawled backward on her cut hands, reaching for something—anything to fend off Jonah with. He lunged for her. They tussled in the water as Jonah’s hands went for Sam’s throat.
“You don’t get to escape this,” Jonah panted as he squeezed her neck. He shoved her head beneath the lapping water.
Sam’s vision went spotty, the edges going black. Water overwhelmed her as it pooled in her throat. Her fingers searched the ground for something to use—something to save herself with.
It can’t end like this, Sam thought as she began to choke on the lake water. Blackness crept forward at the edge of her vision. After everything I’ve fought for, this can’t be it.
Then she felt it. The edge of a rock in the water. Fist-sized. She grasped it with the last of her strength, then bashed it into Jonah’s head. He collapsed in the shallow water.
Not giving him a moment to recover, Sam crawled on top of him and raised her arm to swing again.
“Stop!” Jonah yelled, shielding his face with his hands. “Please! I’ll let you go.”
In the brief lull between fireworks, screams rang from deep in the island. The screams of those who hadn’t run fast enough. There wasn’t any time left to waste. Sam stared down at Jonah’s whimpering face. She thought of her brother, of how Jonah must’ve seen them in their wrecked car a week ago, and left them to die. He hadn’t cared whether Ben would live.
Sam dropped the rock, then twisted the hunting knife as deep as it could go in his stomach. Jonah cried out, flailing beneath her as blood sputtered from his mouth.
Yards away, a handful of the captives swam in the water toward an unmanned pontoon boat near the shore. The only survivors?
She spotted Dawson among them, then Reid at his heel, followed by Wiley still chasing after them. He had an uneasy, lumbering gait, as if injured, but the survivors were faster. They didn’t hesitate before climbing into the boat, then taking off, leaving Wiley in their wake. That’s when Sam smelled smoke. Her gaze was drawn back to the woods, and to the inferno that began to build from the center, crawling toward her.