Nick sucked on his cigarette and exhaled, sending a sliver of smoke into the air, then, like a whirlpool, out into the drafty bunker. 'Nothing. Nothing compared to what's been done to me'
Emily struggled even harder to stand, to get a better look, but it was useless.
'What are you talking about? Let me help you'
Nick looked at her, blank eyed. 'I'm not helping anyone. No one ever helped me'
He continued to smoke and Emily strained to get a better view of her daughter. Jenna was within a few yards of her, and she could see in the dim light that her breathing was rapid and shallow. But she was alive. Relief mixed with the fear that seized Emily. She wriggled in the cording, but it was too tight. 'Look,' Emily said, her tone gentle, 'I know about Bonnie and Dylan. No one will blame you for any of it. You've been through so much. I'll help you'
'You don't have a clue about what I've been through. I've been alone my entire life.'
Emily was unsure how to play it. Play him. Her instincts failed her. Her head hurt. Her heart ached. What to say? 'That's not true. Your parents loved you. They wanted you. They chose you' It was weak and she knew it. She was fir ing off a list, hoping that she'd trigger something that would bring him back to what she hoped was really there. 'You were wanted'
'You didn't live in my house with my family,' he said. He dropped the cigarette butt and twisted it with the heel of his shoe.
'I know. But I did know your mother.'
'You think you knew her. She was ten times worse than my dad. Everything was about Donny. Donny reminded Dad of his father. Donny had Mom's eyes. Donny was a chip off the old block. I was nothing to them. I was the boy they picked up from an agency because Mom couldn't get knocked up'
'Don't talk like that, Nick.' Emily felt wetness at her temple. She couldn't reach it, of course, but as it dripped down she wondered if it was blood or sweat. She was unsure of how badly she was hurt by the scuffle. She saw a length of rebar by his tennis shoe-clad feet.
'Why are you doing this to me, to Jenna?'
'Dan says that Jenna's collateral. Just like you. He's just pissed off at you for screwing up everything.'
'What? His place in the serial killer hall of fame?'
Nick laughed. 'It's a little like that. Dad says that God told him that he had a special plan for him and that his son, me, would help him get there. I'm willing to do for him what needs to be done'
'But killing Jenna, me? What's that?'
'Collateral, Mrs. Kenyon. You ruined my dad's rhythm. You cost him what was rightfully his when you killed that dumbass Tuttle.'
'What are you talking about? That was an accident. I was trying to save Kristi. She was just a little girl. She didn't deserve to die.'
Nick Martin was unmoved. His eyes, cold like a doll's eyes.
Like his father's.
'Maybe so,' he said. 'But you're really the one responsible for her death anyway. You killed her by killing Tuttle. When you did that you messed with my dad. You stole from him.'
'Stole what?'
'His rhythm, his plan to be more famous than Bundy.'
There was no point in arguing the merits of his bio dad's sick run to be some kind of serial killer superstar. She'd heard of people like that, people who sought infamy over fame. People who cared to make a mark, no matter how dark, how evil. There was no arguing. No defending the other side of it.
Emily changed the subject. 'Jenna needs water,' she said. 'Please give her some'
'Water? She's gonna die. Why make her comfortable? That's stupid. You researched me. You know I'm no dummy. Yeah, my grades weren't as perfect as Donovan's, but he wasn't an artist.'
The wind whistled through the bunker. Emily didn't want the conversation to track there. Talking about Jenna not making it was not anything she'd even ask about. No fuel for whatever sickness drives this boy.
'Nick, that's right,' she said stiffiy. 'You're special. You're an artist. What's going on here isn't you. I know that'
His eyes, his father's eyes, were black voids. 'But it's who Iwanttobe'
'No, it's who you've been forced to be. This is wrong. It doesn't have to be. I'll help you. We can repair all of this. Nothing's gone too far. Yet'
Jenna's breathing had appeared to slow and muffled sounds of her coughing came through the gag. Every neuron in Emily's body fired. She was hyper alert, with the kind of rush that allows a desperate mother to pick up a car crushing her child.
'Nick! Take that out of her mouth right now! Jenna can't breathe!'
He dropped his cigarette. 'Jesus. Where did that come from?' He winced at the increased volume of Emily's voicethe 'mom' voice that women can summon when they needed it. 'All right. I'll get her some air. She's gonna die anyway, but you don't have to yell at me.'
He loosened the gag and Jenna coughed.
'You don't have to yell, you know. I can hear all right.'
Emily detected the tiniest fracture in the teenager's practiced veneer and she went for it.
'Yelling? Did your parents yell at you?'
He blinked. 'No shit. Every chance they got'
'How did it make you feel?'
'Like I was worthless.'
Chipping away. Making him feel something. If not for denna, for himself. Good.
'You aren't worthless. You know it. Didn't Jenna see it in you? See your worth? Your talent?'
Nick's eyes were downcast. 'I don't want to talk anymore,' he said. 'You're not some school counselor trying to make me happy. My dad's coming. My real dad. We're getting out of here' He sat down next to Jenna, her pale, pasty skin now alarmed her mother even more.
'Please,' Emily said, 'let my daughter go'
'Shut up. That's not the plan.'
'What is the plan, Nick? I wasn't aware of a plan.'
He shot her his best FU look. His eyes were cold, his stare hard. 'Wouldn't you like to know?' He allowed a brief smile come to his lips. 'You're gonna die. Just like Kristi Cooper. You're gonna die because no one can find you'
'You know about Kristi?'
'I know what my dad tells me'
'Which dad?'
'The one that matters, Dylan Walker.'
'Don't you know he killed all those people? Doesn't that mean anything to you?'
'You killed someone'
He was referring to Tuttle, of course, maybe even Kristi Cooper. But Emily didn't go there. She couldn't. She had to keep him talking so that just maybe she could find a way to talk them out of the bunker. To daylight. To freedom. To safety. The wind sent another blast of air against the bunker's openings. It sounded like the whistle of a train, the rolling of the tracks.
'I never meant to kill anyone'
'Good for you. I never killed anyone'
'Not even Bonnie.'
'Dad took care of her.'
`But she was your biological mother.'
'She was a breeder and that's all. She was stupid, too. My dad tried to get rid of her for years. I would have killed her, but instead, I just helped clean up the mess. Dad never liked working alone.'
Emily was reeling. It was as if all that Dylan Walker had done was now being revealed by his biological son, a son no one knew about.
'There were others, too. Bonnie took care of them. Just like she did to the Martins. Other mistakes he made that he wanted cleaned up'
