“Get back!” Zion yelled, raising the vodka bottle like a bat. He never had a chance.
With a hand like a manhole cover, Seabass rammed his palm into Zion’s nose, breaking it with a crack. Blood splattered like juice from a popped cherry.
Zion stumbled, wobbling, letting go of the vodka bottle, which smashed at his feet, glass scattering across the kitchen.
“I need him conscious,” Reagan announced.
Seabass made a face. Like we’ve never done this before?
Wrapping his tree-trunk arms around Zion, Seabass bear-hugged the kid, pulling him against his chest and squeezing the air from his lungs. Unable to breathe, Zion raised his chin, his neck now exposed.
That was all Reagan needed.
From her pocket, she pulled out what looked like piano wire, though it was really a thin chain with tiny metal teeth—a camping tool from Reagan’s favorite days, when she was little, back before her dad’s arrest, when he used to take her on hunting trips.
With a metal ring at each end, the mini saw was perfect for slicing branches and firewood. Too thin for bone or taking off a ram’s horn. But, boy, did it tear through flesh.
In one quick movement, like she was doing cat’s cradle, Reagan looped the saw around Zion’s exposed neck, pulling it tight against his skin.
“Zion, we know you’re the one who shot Archie Mint. In a dumb rage, you also shot a valet named Anthony Wojowicz. So choose your next words very carefully,” Reagan explained, tugging harder on the thin saw, letting it dig into Zion’s Adam’s apple. “I need to know who hired you.”
27
The globus was back.
That was the doctor’s word for it—the lump in Zig’s throat, like a stuck pill, that Zig had for a full year after Maggie’s death. It made it hard to breathe, even harder to sleep. Someone called it a “grief lump,” affecting those who have been through wrenching despair. Whatever it was, one day, Zig woke up and it was gone.
Now, at just the sight of this video . . . of Maggie at twelve years old, right before she died . . . the globus was back, wedged in his windpipe. His head was buzzing, like he’d lost a minute of time. He looked around. He was somehow standing in his kitchen, one leg propped on the bench, though he had no memory of getting up.
“Wh-Why is she crying?” he asked, already crying himself.
Across from him, still sitting, Charmaine shook her head, tears in her own eyes. She had no idea.
The phone screen went black with a final burst of static.
The End.
“That’s it?” Zig asked. “Where’s the rest?”
Charmaine shook her head again. She looked gutted, her shoulders sagging.
Grabbing the phone and swiping his finger, Zig rewound the video, back to where Maggie first appeared. There was a loud, warped sound—loads of static—and then . . . there she was.
“Magpie,” Zig whispered, not even realizing he’d said it.
Onscreen, Maggie’s head was down, her hands clutching her face, like she was trying to hide. Even as a kid, Maggie wasn’t a crier. At three years old, while spinning in circles outside the local ice cream shop, she’d tripped and landed on her wrist. She went quiet—dead silent—but never shed a tear. A woman who saw it happen said she’d probably just sprained it, but Zig suspected otherwise. To test his theory, he held up Maggie’s favorite lovey, a plush purple monkey named Banana, directly in front of her. When Maggie refused to reach for it, he knew something was wrong. Sure enough, Maggie had broken her wrist in three places. “She’s tough,” the nurse in the emergency room said. “A little bag of nails.”
In the years after her death, Zig carried that around with him. Little bag of nails.