“It’s not my fault you’re poor,” Linda snarls.
Ava takes the car keys from the table. “Agree to disagree.” She’s not looking at Mack, deliberately avoiding her gaze as they get into Linda’s massive sedan, Ava driving. Mack can see the pain around Ava’s eyes, the strange bravado that has settled in now that Ava has accepted her fate.
Maybe Mack wishes Ava had decided to leave them, had opted to get into the car and drive away from all of this madness that has no claim on her. Ava didn’t see the monster. She can’t understand, not really, why Mack has to go back in.
Ava backs up recklessly, knocking over Linda’s floral-painted mailbox and taking out several of her flower beds. Linda hisses in displeasure, but apparently thinks better of calling her on it.
Once on the road, though, Ava drives with a steady hand in spite of her pain and her painkillers. She knows Linda and her cronies will try to kill her. She’s looking forward to it, actually. At least that’ll be an enemy she can face, can make bleed.
How can she fight back against Mack’s decision to self-destruct though? Ava gets it. When she was in the hospital, alone, being pinned back together, she had wished more than once that her life had ended on that road next to Maria. She nearly drifts off the road, remembering Maria. She’s going to watch Mack die, too.
She course-corrects roughly. No. She’ll come up with a plan. Something. Something. But she can help only if she stays with them. She grits her teeth against the fading pain, steels her head against the impending disconnection of the really good drugs.
Either way, Mack’s been alone. So long. And so has Ava. They’ll have a last few hours of not being alone, and then Ava will figure something else out. She will because she has to.
LeGrand stares straight ahead into the night and sighs, so tired. At least this way he’s being consumed, and not consuming others. In another life, he would have grown. Become an elder. Become the same as his father, a devourer, a small, petty god of a small, pathetic world. It’s in the blood of this town, after all. Rulon Pulsipher just went a different route than Linda.
None of it matters. Almera will be safe, and that’s all he ever wanted. Though now that he’s flying through the night back toward the park, he has to admit: He would also like to live.
“Where did you climb out?” Linda asks as the road turns to dirt and gets bumpy.
“Ray’s guard tower.”
“And I suppose that’s where you left his body, as well.” Linda sounds cross.
“Sure is!” Ava chirps.
“Pull over here, then, before the gate guard sees us. You can go back over the fence that way.”
Ava pulls to an abrupt stop, then climbs out of the car. She leads them through the woods, her sense of direction unerring. At the base of the empty guard tower, she points to where Ray’s body is.
“Drag him out,” Linda says.
“Drag him out yourself. You’re not my boss.”
“Leave the rifle,” Linda snaps. “Otherwise they’ll know something happened.”
LeGrand holds it out, but Ava grabs it before Linda can. Rifle in hand, she briefly considers holding Mack and LeGrand hostage. Forcing them back to the car. But she knows they won’t go, and she won’t shoot them. She should dump Linda into the park, let the monster eat her. But LeGrand is depending on Linda to protect Almera. He wouldn’t allow it.
Okay, so, make it so that they don’t need to bring in new sacrifices. Get Linda into the park. Then somehow find three more guards, and, not getting shot, lure or throw them into the park, too, all while going undiscovered by the rest of the guards and the town. And without full use of her leg, and this crescendo of pain, and maybe having to fight LeGrand and Mack, who seem bent on self-sacrifice, and—
It’s all hopeless. Ava pulls out the firing pin of the rifle, instead. “Just in case you decided to shoot me in the back as soon as we’re over the fence.”
“Such a nasty girl,” Linda mutters, taking the rifle. “What will they think if they examine the gun?”
“That Ray didn’t know how to handle one. Don’t know, don’t care. Good luck with the body, he’s a big dude.” Ava grits her teeth. She’s in hyper-focus mode, one task at a time, not letting herself think about tomorrow, what will happen, what she’ll do. She’s so mad, she wants to strangle them all. All she knows is she has to stay with Mack and LeGrand. She’s their only hope. So she climbs, up into the tower and then back over and down into the fucking murder monster park.