Reeves opens his mouth to speak when there’s a loud bang. Reeves’s face is distorted in shock and disbelief as Artemis pushes him into the hole.
Donnie’s screaming now: “You ain’t getting’ away with this, man! The FBI agent, he’s on to you.
He knows about those psycho chicks and about Benny and about all of it.”
“You mean the FBI agent in that hole over there?” Artemis directs his chin to the far end of the knoll. “One of those chicks found out everything he knows and took his files. You’re lucky she won’t be extracting your secrets.”
Terror vibrates through every part of Donnie.
“Mr. Danger, Mr. Adakai, I’m afraid it’s the end of the line. Get in the hole.” Artemis looks down at the grave. “Go without trouble and I’ll make it quick. If not…”
Well, this is it, Donnie thinks. They say your life flashes before your eyes when you experience a near-death experience but all that Donnie can see is Benny. A montage of him reciting Johnny Cochran closing arguments, lounging in the tree fort with his nose in a book, riding that bus to Philly.
Donnie’s about to jump into the hole when he hears a roar. In a blur, Donnie sees Nico charging Artemis and both men fly into the grave. Donnie is shell-shocked, but he makes out the words. Nico’s voice:
“Run, Donnie!”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
JENNA
Jenna races through the woods making sure to leave an obvious trail of trampled brush and snapped branches along the way. As part of her time with Sabine, she underwent survival training. They dropped her in a remote wilderness area, in a dangerous neighborhood, in a war zone, and forced her to fend for herself. Each time she emerged bloodied but stronger.
Unseen insects flick against her face. Her muscles are sore, wrists raw. There’s a bump on the back of her head from one of those awful twins. They called each other Casey and Haley. She thinks Casey is the one with the tube weapon, which means she’s the one who’d threatened Jenna’s family.
The other twin, Haley, is the one in business attire, the one who’d masqueraded as Artemis’s real-estate manager and lured Derek Brood to the house.
She hears movement behind her, not far now, and drops to her belly behind a fallen tree. She inches into some shrubbery growing up against the dead tree.
Against the soundtrack of her heartbeat, she hears voices.
“I say we kill him too.”
“Who?”
“That bald asshole. He killed young girls—the world will be a better place.”
“I don’t think he killed them.”
“You weren’t there. I dug up those bodies.”
“He said it wasn’t him. Said it was the neighbor. The judge said the same thing … at least when he wasn’t screaming.”
The women go silent as their footfalls grow closer.
“I’ll think about it. But killing him will bring a lot of heat.”
“No more heat than killing a federal judge. When did you get so timid?”
“Whatever. But he’s only paid us half, and we could use the rest.”
They stop in front of the fallen tree, mere feet from Jenna on the other side. Jenna holds her breath. It took them less time to find her than anticipated, but that’s okay. Jenna’s thoughts go to Willow’s terrified face in the Jeep as they hid from one of these dreadful women. Both will pay for that.
The voices grow even closer. Jenna will have only one chance. She steadies her breathing and rises quietly to her feet, crouching low.
“When I find that bitch I’m gonna—”
The words are stolen from the woman’s throat as Jenna springs up from behind the downed tree, her arms extended like a T, and hits both twins in their throats with knifehand strikes.
The twins reach for their necks and double over in unison, like some twisted TikTok video.
They’re barking coughs as Jenna knees the one on the right, Haley, in the face, taking her to the ground. That should hold her for the moment. Jenna knows her right-handed strike was the strongest, but in unison neither is the crippling blow a single thrust would have been.
Which means she needs to move. It’s Casey that Jenna is most worried about, the one Jenna struck with her weaker hand.
As she turns to look, Casey is coming at her, brandishing the cattle gun like a fencer with a rapier, the device whooshing, the steel rod retracting and firing, sliding in and punching out.
As the tube gun comes back around, Jenna takes a swipe at it with her arm, pushing it aside, then leaps forward and goes for the eyes, presses her thumbs into the sockets. Casey screams, dropping the cattle gun and clawing blindly at Jenna’s hands and arms.
Out of the corner of her eye, Jenna sees the other twin groping for something in the folds of her jacket.
Jenna digs her thumbs deeper into Casey’s eyes, then grabs her head and slams it into the closest tree. Casey staggers sideways and falls, moaning, both hands cupping her eyes.
Haley has pulled a gun from the jacket and is getting to her feet. As the weapon and woman come up, Jenna charges, running-back-style, and they tumble into the undergrowth. Jenna grapples for the gun with one hand, repeatedly slamming her free elbow into the woman’s face until she goes still, the weapon falling into the dead leaves.
Jenna hears movement behind her. These fucking twins. It’s almost as if they feed on the violence—live for it.
Casey has abandoned her cattle weapon and drawn her own gun. One eye is swollen shut, blood trickles from the other. Squinting, she aims her weapon at Jenna, but it’s wobbly.
“Shoot her, Casey!” her sister shouts. “Shoot her!”
Jenna dives right as the gun fires. She looks at her own torso. She isn’t hit.
“No! ” Casey cries.
Jenna takes a quick glance back and sees a large red stain blossoming on the blouse of Haley’s once immaculate business getup. Casey accidently shot her twin. Without wasting another second, Jenna scoops up Haley’s gun from the leaves and takes the shot, hitting Casey in the forearm, which spins her around. Jenna races over and pistol-whips Casey. She collapses to the ground again.
Jenna knows she should take care of both of them, finish this. But that’s not the person she wants to be anymore.
As she works through the options, despite being shot, Haley is miraculously on her feet, her blouse soaked in blood. She’s found her sister’s cattle gun and wields it with a renewed vigor. She stabs it at Jenna, who dodges around the deadly bolt. Jenna raises her pistol, but the cattle gun swings back the other way and knocks the gun loose. Jenna dodges a third pass and is about to charge when she is grabbed from behind, and her arms pinned to her sides.
Casey grips Jenna as she bucks and kicks, trying to free herself. “Put this bitch out of our misery,” Casey says to her sister. “Finish her.”
Brandishing the cattle gun, Haley grins.
Jenna is reined in once more. The tube gun is rising, stopping at Jenna’s abdomen, then rising again. To Jenna’s solar plexus, her chest, her chin.
The rest seems to unfold in slow motion.
Still pinned from behind, Jenna shifts her head to the side, twists her body down and around, thrusting her hip back. At the same time, she plants her leg just beyond Casey’s foot and pulls forward. The twin falls forward onto Jenna, who twists more until Casey’s head comes front and center and directly into the barrel’s sight as Haley pulls the trigger.