'What others?' It struck a nerve that he now had referred to his family by its surname. His split from them was so complete. Emily wondered if he held any emotion for Peg, Mark, or Donovan.
'What happened to your family,' she asked, hesitating, before shifting her words, 'to the Martins?'
He looked downward. A trickle of feeling? Emily studied him through the murky light of the bunker. What was he thinking? What was he feeling?
'It was planned,' he said. 'Everything. But the storm. The storm wasn't planned.'
Jenna was wide awake, listening to Nick Martin spin a slightly different and darker version of what had happened in the hours before the tornado. She listened without moving a muscle while her mother surreptitiously struggled to break free. Jenna knew she'd been played. It had been a setup from the beginning. Nick hadn't just come home to find them dead.
Nick had known what he was going to find.
'Okay,' he continued, 'I didn't know that Donny was going to be home'
As she fought her binding, Emily's eyes beamed through the darkness at Nick. It was as if she willed his attention to hold on her face only, not her hands. 'But your mom called him to come home,' she said.
'No. Peg didn't call him. Bonnie did. Dylan, Dad, said that Bonnie really messed up. She came to get me. Take me out of Cherrystone. My dad was important. Famous. She was my birthmother, but the Martins didn't want anything to do with her.'
He called his parents by their names, Emily thought, no longer Mona and Dad. It was like he d dissociated himself f ona then. No ties. No connections.
'By the time I got home, they were all dead'
Tears welled in his eyes. Emily saw it as a hopeful sign. Maybe this kid has a soul after all, she thought.
'I don't know why that bitch called Donny home,' he said, sniffing a little.
'Maybe she didn't want any loose ends to worry about?' Emily tried to sound unthreatening and helpful. She was more mom than cop just then, at least she hoped that's what Jenna's friend-turned-captor would think.
Instead a little defiance followed. 'He wasn't a loose end. Even though the Martins couldn't stop yapping about how great he was, he was my brother.'
'Right. And you loved him.'
'I love my dad. He's coming for me. We're going to live in Mexico. He says I get my creativity from him.'
And your taste for blood, she thought. 'He's not coming for you. You were a loose end. All of them. The kids. The families.'
'You don't know anything,' he said.
Emily caught Jenna's eye. She could see that Jenna had made some progress. No words were needed, just the look of desperation giving way to hope.
'I know enough,' she said, her calming tone barely in check.
'Too bad. You're gonna die, Mrs. Kenyon. Jenna, too. 'Cause you're my loose ends'
'No,' Emily said firmly. She wouldn't allow one drop of fear color her words. He was just a goofy kid. A mixed-up, goofy kid. In another time or place he could have been a Columbine student skulking under a table as bullets sprayed over a cafeteria. He could have been a chess champion, making his final move, winning the prize. Or just a plain old kid waiting at a bus stop or laughing and pushing and shoving his friends in a movie line at the Cherrystone Cinema. Anything. Anything-but a monster.
He was a lost boy.
'Yeah, that's what you are,' he said, looking for a smoke, then pulling one out of a twisted pack and poking it into his mouth. 'A loose end' He spat out the words as he felt for his lighter.
Jenna's hands were free now. She tried not to let her excitement show on her face, or become audible through her breathing. As quickly as she could, Jenna untied the bindings that held her legs. The cords had cut so deeply into her skin that the wave of pain that came with their release was nearly unbearable. It felt as if she'd been cut with the jagged edge of a hunting knife. Her feet were numb. Had she lost blood? Had gangrene set in? She wanted to cry. It took every bit of strength she had to just swallow that pain as she scanned the darkened space of the bunker.
Where did Nick put my mother's gun?
Jenna saw the rebar by Nick's feet. While his hands were in his pockets searching for his lighter, she lunged for the metal rod.
'Jenna!' Emily screamed.
Still on her knees, Jenna grabbed the bar, started to swing. Nick looked down, his eyes fixed with terror as the bar smashed into his kneecaps.
'Hey! Damn you. Leave him alone!' a voice, a man's voice called from the other side of the bunker.
It was Dylan Walker. He'd been there the whole time, watching as if the whole series of events unfolding were some kind of a performance. A play. A crazy, horrific skit.
Nick let out a scream. But he was clearly more than startled. He was also hurt. His face was warped with pain and he finished the little scream with a growling moan.
Dylan Walker leapt across the bunker. But he didn't really intervene. It was as if whatever was happening was just fine with him.
Jenna didn't stop, even after Nick fell to the cement floor, doubled over in pain. There was enough adrenaline pulsing through the teenager's veins to keep her going. He had sounded weak. She knew she could hurt him more. Hurt him enough so that he couldn't hurt her or her mom. She closed her eyes and she pounded him with the steel bar, not like some girly girl who'd been featured in ballet recital back in Cherrystone.
Far from it.
'You're a liar,' she said, tears streaming down her face. 'I hate you. I wish you were dead' Now, as he crumpled over his stomach, she brought the bar down hard on the back of his skull. Suddenly there was a lot of bright red blood soaking his hair. Jenna remembered hearing her mother talk about head wounds being 'big bleeders.' Good. She'd open up that wound even more.
Nick was a limp heap but Jenna kept waling on him.
'Jenna, stop it!' Emily struggled to free herself, to stop her daughter from doing what she had done once. There would be no more blood on their hands, no matter the reason. 'Honey, stop!'
Jenna froze in a semicrouch, her bloodied weapon held like a baseball bat, droplets of blood dotting her face like scarlet freckles. She looked at her mother with wide, scared eyes.
'Stop, Jenna. Now'
'But, this is my fault .. °'
'Now! Drop it!'
Jenna let the bar fall; its heavy steel clatter echoed. Nick lay still on the dirty cement floor. He was curled up in a fetal position. A rivulet of red ran from his blood-matted hair down onto his pale, white cheek. His breathing was labored and raspy.
Jenna was sobbing now. 'I want to go home, Mom'
'You're not going anywhere' Dylan kicked the rebar out of the way and brandished his gun, the gleam of black barrel visible in the dark bunker. 'Nice work, kid,' he said to Jenna. 'Nick told me you were tough. Tough like your mom'
'Dylan, Nick is your son. He needs help.' It was Emily. She knew it was a last-ditch effort to try to wheedle some sympathy from the man. Was there anything in his DNA that tied him to his son? A bond? Any connection whatsoever?
'You're confusing me with someone who gives a shit. Nick served his purpose. I don't care if he lives or dies.'
It dawned on Emily that Dylan Walker might be one of those serial killers who didn't like to get his hands dirty. Killing someone only brought a rush when he could manipulate someone else to do it. It was a coward's way to kill.
Killing Tuttle had been a manipulation.
He pointed his gun at Jenna.
'Leave her alone!' A familiar voice called out.
Emily looked up and saw a figure backed by a halo of light coming into the bunker.
'Leave her alone!' the voice repeated.
