What if I just try again?
What if I do.
13
HUMANITY ERODED
SLOANE
FOUR MONTHS LATER…
“D amn. Am I too late? Did you win?”
Rowan shoots a fleeting glance my way as I approach on the worn path, dust coating my sneakers in a roan-colored film. His arms are crossed over his chest, the sleeves of his t-shirt straining against his taut biceps. There’s a flash of trepidation in his eyes, their scrutiny cataloging the details of my face before he turns his attention back across whatever lies beyond the rolling hills of prairie grass.
“Nope. Didn’t win.”
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to psych myself up.”
My head tilts with a question, but Rowan doesn’t look at me. I follow his line of sight when I stop at his side.
“Whoa… That’s just… Yikes.”
I take in the dilapidated two-story Texas farmhouse set beyond the gentle rise of the hills, letting my gaze roam the battered and bleached wood of the siding, the shattered and boarded windows on the second floor. A hole on the right side of the roof gapes at the sky like a screaming maw calling to the thunderstorm that darkens the horizon. There’s an assortment of junk on the covered patio—broken chairs and boxes, diesel cans and tools, the items strewn on either side of a clear path leading to the screened front door.
“Well…that’s a homey place,” I say.
Rowan hums a low and thoughtful note. “If by homey you mean nightmarish, I agree.”
“Are you sure he’s in there?”
Maniacal laughter and a man’s piercing scream precede the growl of a chainsaw that starts up inside the house.
“Pretty sure, yep.”
The screams and the unhinged laughter and the roar of the chainsaw crack through the air that suddenly seems too heavy, too hot. My heart rate spikes. Blood hums in my ears, a steady percussion to the symphony of madness.
“We could just go for beers,” Rowan says above the chaos emanating from the house. “That’s what normal people do, right? Go for beers?”
“Yeah…”
Part of me thinks that’s a wise idea, but I can’t deny the excitement that floods the chambers of my heart with adrenaline. Harvey Mead is an enormous brute, a beast of a man, and I want to take him down. I want to nail him to the floorboards of his horror house and carve out his eyes, knowing I’m the one who stopped him from ever taking another life. I want him to feel what his victims felt.
I want to make him suffer.
Rowan releases a heavy sigh, glancing down his shoulder at me. “We’re not going for beers, are we.”
“Sure we are. But after.”
Another desperate scream slices through the air, startling a murder of crows and a lone vulture from the thin copse of trees to the left of the path. They don’t go far, probably already aware that the sounds in the house signal an upcoming meal.
The pitch of the chainsaw rises and the scream grows weaker. There’s a hazy quality to the anguish in it. A hopelessness. This isn’t a scream that begs for mercy. This is only pain, little more than a reflex. Humanity eroded, stripped away, reduced to an animal caught in the clutch of distress.
Harvey Mead’s maniacal laughter dies. The cries of his victim grow thin until they fade away. The chainsaw continues, its pitch climbing and falling as it works, until finally it ends too, blanketing us in stark silence.
“New rule,” I say as I clear the gravel from my throat and turn to face Rowan. He stares down at me, his cheeks flushed, his navy eyes burning like the core of an alkane flame. Though he nods, I can’t find any excitement in his expression, his lips set in a grim line as a crease deepens between his brows. “If you catch him first, I get to take something.”
Rowan nods again, just once. His presence bleeds into my space. His heat. His scent. Sage and pepper and lemon envelop me.
“Just one,” he says, his words raw as though their edges have been debrided. My breath catches as he raises a folded hand to my cheekbone, drifting his thumb across my lashes as my eyes close. Everything seems more vibrant in the momentary darkness—the silence from the farmhouse, the scent of Rowan’s skin. His gentle touch. The thrum of my heart. “Just one,” Rowan says again as his hand lifts away. When I open my eyes, his gaze is trapped on my lips.
My voice is a thin whisper. “Just one what?”
“Just one eye.” Rowan drags his hard stare from my face as he turns toward the decaying farm. “I want him to suffer. But I want him to see every moment of it.”