Toward the abattoir.
One cow hung her head over the edge of her stall door, her deep brown gaze fixed on the human procession. It wasn’t the first time she had seen creatures making the trip to the killing room.
“Don’t do this, Quinn,” Clare said under her breath. “You’re seventeen. You can turn yourself in and testify against him and you’ll be out of juvenile on your twenty-first birthday. But if you kill again, there’s no way they won’t prosecute you as an adult.”
“Shut up,” Quinn hissed. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“I know he’s eighteen. No matter what happens, he’s going to go up against the death penalty. He’s trying to suck you in with him.”
“Q, for godsakes, can’t you control her?”
“How?” Quinn’s voice nearly cracked.
“Belt her the next time she talks.”
She twisted her head to catch Quinn’s reaction. He gawped at Aaron, then frowned in disapproval. If she hadn’t been so scared, she would have laughed. Pretending you were some sort of secret warrior and killing in a surprise ambush was okay. Hitting a woman was not.
“What are you going to do when you get caught, Aaron? Do you have a plan for that?”
She gritted her teeth, expecting a blow. He surprised her by turning his head and regarding her disdainfully. “I always have a plan.”
“Was that why you took me aside yesterday and told me about Quinn going into the Van Alstynes’ house alone? Was that why you said Quinn told you to lie to cover up for him? Was that part of your plan?”
She registered his arm drawing back, Elizabeth stumbling forward with a cry, the knife swinging free, and then Aaron’s fist smashed into her jaw and her head snapped sideways in an agony of bone and motion. She reeled, half-blind from the pain pinwheeling through her skull, half-suffocated by the blood and tears and phlegm in her throat.
“God damn! That hurt!” Aaron’s voice shrilled with outrage. Clare wiped her eyes with the arm of her parka and spat blood onto the cement. She blinked hard. Aaron was cradling his hand, tears of pain and fury in his eyes, the first genuine expression she had ever seen on his face. “That fucking hurt! I think I broke something!”
The knife.
On the cement floor.
Clare lurched toward Aaron. Unsteady, off balance, the best she could do was throw herself at him. He went down on his backside, with Clare sprawled atop him. “Run, Elizabeth, run!” she screamed, and damned if the deacon didn’t finally listen to her.
Aaron was thrashing, swearing, trying to wrestle Clare off him. She couldn’t see Quinn, but she could hear him, his noise of protest, a cry of, “Hey! Stop!” then the slap of hands on wood as he tried to get the rifle in position.
“Stop her, you asshole!” Aaron howled. He finally heaved Clare onto the floor and staggered to his feet. She rolled onto her back in time to see Aaron snatch the gun away from Quinn, chamber a round, and fire.
The report tore through the confined space. The pens erupted in a bedlam of clanking, kicking, and confused bawls.
“Damn! God damn!” Aaron slugged Quinn in the middle of his chest. “You let her get away, you stupid waste of space!”
Quinn stared toward the west end of the barn. “Whadda we do now?” he asked in a panicked voice. He rubbed his chest one-handed. “Whadda we do?”
The two boys stared at each other, one desperate and scared, the other desperate and enraged. Finally, Aaron tipped his head toward Clare. “Get her up,” he snapped. “I’ll take the gun. It doesn’t do you any good if you won’t fire it.”
This time Quinn used both hands on her, dragging her to her feet. Aaron stepped toward her. Put both barrels of the shotgun under her chin. Pressed hard, so she could feel them bite into the soft flesh, smell the tang of oil and metal.
“I could blow your head off right here,” he said.
This time, Clare kept her mouth shut.
“Get my knife,” Aaron ordered.
Quinn ducked down and snatched it off the cement. “What are we gonna do? That other one’s gonna go for the cops, you know she will!”
Suddenly, Clare felt the weight of her car keys like a curling stone in her pocket. Oh, no.
“Open it up,” Aaron said, gesturing to the wide door that separated the warm and living cattle from the cold and sterile processing room. “We’ll do her like we did the other one and then we’ll take off.”
“But… but they’ll know! That we did it! They’ll come after us!” Despite his protests, Quinn released his grip on Clare’s coat and started tugging on the handle.
“Grow some balls, will ya? Jesus, this whole thing has been about proving to ourselves what we can do. If I knew you were going to be such a goddam pussy about it, I would have picked someone else to join me.”
“No!” The door rumbled open on its tracks. Quinn dashed to one side and snapped on the lights. “I can do it.”
Without moving the rifle barrel from Clare’s neck, Aaron leaned forward. The intensity in his eyes seemed to suck Quinn toward him. “I chose you, man. We’re brothers in arms.” Aaron’s voice was low, persuasive. “Don’t let me down. All we gotta do is get through this part. Then we’ll be on our way.”
Quinn nodded.
“We can do what other people only dream of,” Aaron whispered. “We’re fucking masters of the universe.”
“Yeah,” breathed Quinn. Face shining, he reached out and tugged Clare across the lintel into the abattoir. “Where do you want her?”
“Right over there.” Aaron followed, the rifle never wavering from Clare’s head. “This time, you’re going to get to do it. The killing cut.”
The expression on Quinn’s face wavered. “Uh,” he said.
Aaron’s eyes gleamed. “It’s amazing, man. You’ll never know what power is until you do it.”
Quinn looked down at the knife in his hand. Clare looked at it, too. It came to her that despite her professed belief in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, she really really really didn’t want to die.
“Hey,” came a voice from the barn. They all looked. Russ Van Alstyne stood in the doorway, relaxed and unhurried, hands open and unthreatening. “What say we talk about this?”
FIFTY
He had already been heading across the road toward the barn, after a fruitless search through the house, when he heard the rifle shot. He reached for his service weapon, which, of course, wasn’t there.
Cursing under his breath, he waded through the snow that was drifting deeper and deeper into the leeward side of the road. He was struggling up the ramp when a body hurtled out of the barn straight toward him.
He could feel, as soon as he caught her, that it wasn’t Clare. She screamed. He clamped a gloved hand over her mouth. A terrified woman looked up at him. Tears were freezing along her cheeks.
“I’m Chief Van Alstyne of the Millers Kill Police Department,” he said. “What’s going on? Where’s Clare?”
“Downstairs. With the cows. Hurry, please hurry! They have a gun and a knife!”
“How many?”
Her brow knitted up into confusion.
“How many bad guys?” he clarified.
“Two. Um… Quinn Tracey and his friend.”
