His voice was thick, harsh; it was a physical thing, penetrating, like the root of an obscene tree snaking deep into the ground.
I flailed and managed to sink my teeth into his flesh. But he pressed my injured arm back until I screamed.
Then he pushed some more.
“Yes. Fight me, Sydney. Hurt me if you can. You and I, we live for the fight. For the pain.”
I heard a snick and felt the cold press of steel around my left wrist. The handcuffs. With my free hand I flailed behind me, searching for anything to use as a weapon. But I found only air.
He thrust out his tongue and laid it hot upon my throat, dragged it up along my jaw and over my cheek and pushed it into my ear.
I gave up my search and worked my fingers into my pocket, praying for a miracle.
Anything at all.
My fingers closed around the lighter I’d purchased a million years ago, on the way to Donovan’s autopsy. I wriggled it out, snapped the wheel.
A tiny yellow flame appeared.
I held the fire to the wound in his arm. At first, he didn’t react, just kept pushing his tongue into me. His weight was crushing, squeezing my lungs, forcing my sobs back into my throat.
Then he jerked and reared back. His eyes fell on the lighter, and he smacked it out of my hand. I heard it hit the wall with a dull clank.
He leaned back in. A knife appeared in his hand. The light in his eyes was wild and distant. Nothing remotely human dwelled there.
I would be raped and murdered by a monster.
“Why?” I whispered.
I wasn’t asking why he did the things he did.
I was asking why it was possible for a man such as this to exist in the world.
He pinned my legs with his, grabbed my blouse, and used the knife to slice it open. His hand went to my pants. Fabric fell apart. I twisted, trying to heave off his weight. The wound in my leg began to bleed again in a rush, pain dancing up and down my nerves. I shoved the heel of my hand against his face, working to get a thumb into his eye. I found something soft. Pushed. He bellowed and knocked my hand away. The distant light in his eyes turned darker, drew nearer. He gave a slow, heavy-lidded blink and peered at me the way a lion might examine a downed gazelle, wondering how long it would take to stop kicking.
He wrapped one hand around my throat; with the other he brought the knife to my eye.
“This will make your pleasure greater,” he said. “And mine.”
A great, thundering crash sounded behind him—the door slamming open—and air rushed into my windpipe as Craze threw back his head and roared in pain. I caught a glimpse of black-and-gold fur, and then the bed shuddered as the force of Clyde’s attack drove it against the wall. The handcuffs jerked, and I felt a sickening pop as my shoulder dislocated.
Craze released me and spun around, the knife held high, as Clyde danced away, preparing for another leap.
I watched as Craze’s wrist cocked, ready to flick the knife.
“Clyde!” My voice was raw. “Geh nach links.” Go to the left.
Clyde skittered to the left, and the knife smacked into the wall where he’d been only seconds before and clattered to the floor.
My partner lunged forward and buried his teeth in Craze’s leg. The two of them shuffled around the room like old boxers, Craze trying to reach the knife, Clyde locked on.
Enraged, Craze threw himself at the wall, smashing Clyde against the concrete. He backed up, did it again. Clyde’s growl changed to an odd, soft whimper.
“Out!” I coughed. “Out!”
It must have taken everything Clyde had to release his target. But he pulled away. Circled to Craze’s right and made as if to lunge forward before dancing back.
The movement of the bed when Clyde leapt had driven it closer to the objects I’d noticed before. The sharp, ugly things laid out on a table. While Clyde darted in and out and Craze lunged, trying to get his arms around him, I grappled again for a weapon.
My hands closed around cool plastic. I hoisted up a red-and-gray drill. Printed on the side was the word CRAFTSMAN. And below that: 350 FT-LBS MAX TORQUE.
A half-inch diameter bit protruded a foot from the drill.
Craze landed a kick on Clyde, and my partner flew backward, slamming into the wall. El diablo whirled back toward me. I read death in his eyes as he leaned in close and reached once again for my throat. He found it, laid his thumbs against my larynx, and closed his eyes in ecstasy.
I raised the drill, pressed the point of the bit to his temple.
I said, “Adios, fucker.”
And pulled the trigger.
EPILOGUE
We are all trying to create a good place in the world. That place where maybe we give a little more than we get.
—Sydney Parnell. Personal journal.
I sat with Clyde in the chill quiet of the fog-drenched beach, waiting. We had come here every morning for a week so that I could celebrate one small fact.
That the sun would rise, and the world would go on.
The sand was damp beneath us; moisture dewed my skin, beaded on Clyde’s fur. Mere feet away, the Atlantic alternately rumbled and hissed in the darkness. The air smelled of salt and seaweed and fish. Primal things.
Soon, dawn would seep into the world.
Clyde leaned into me, and I wrapped my good arm around him. He nosed my palm, then licked my fingers. I ran the fingers of my other hand gently over his ribs. He didn’t flinch.
“That’s my boy,” I whispered. “Stronger every day.”
Between the bruised ribs caused when Craze slammed him into the wall and the food poisoning, Clyde had been miserable for a few days. But he’d bounced back quickly. My partner had been through a lot worse. And he was tough.
I was
