“The plan,” Tara responded with a smirk, holding the knife John gave her.
“Plan? What plan?” Jane noticed the knife and stepped back.
Tara lunged at Jane. Jane sidestepped the blade as it ripped a piece of flesh from her shoulder.
Tara lost her balance, stumbling into the wall. Jane swiftly jumped on Tara, placing one hand on the blade and the other around her neck.
Jane got the upper hand on Tara when they both fell to the floor. Jane felt something hard and cold in the back of her head. Then a gun cocked.
“Don’t move, bitch!”
Steve had barged in on too many couples making love in his search for Jane. Maybe they didn’t care that a bomb just went off. Maybe they thought it was the end of the world and said, “Fuck it.” He didn’t really know nor care.
Jane had to be here somewhere.
He looked through the guest cabins, smashing in the doors or breaking windows to get inside.
“I gotta save Jane. I gotta save Jane,” Steve kept repeating as he ran through the compound.
Finally, he kicked in a door and spotted Jane pressed against the wall, eyes wide.
“I’m here, Jane,” he said, stepping through the door.
“Steve, stop!” she screamed.
Steve felt something make contact with the back of his head, and he flew forward, stars exploding in his vision. He managed to catch his fall and spun around.
John and Tara had been waiting for him.
“You know what, Steve?” John drawled, turning a gun on him. “I’ve decided that you’re bad luck.” John cracked a smile.
“I wish David had never fucked your whore of a mom,” Tara drawled.
“We would have been happier . . . I would have been happier without you.”
Steve clenched his fists. “I didn’t know about your situation, Tara,” he said. “You can’t blame me for that. I did the right thing anyway. John is no good and I don’t care if he’s my uncle.”
“Uncle?” Jane questioned, looking confused.
Steve turned to Jane. “It’s a long story. I just found out myself.”
Tara interrupted the reunion. “But I do,” she said, her eyes glittering with hatred. “If you hadn’t been on that fucking run . . . if you hadn’t reported what you saw to the police . . .”
“You’re sick, Tara,” Steve said. “My dad, John . . .
they’ve poisoned your mind. They don’t care about you. They only want to use you. I’m sorry.”
Tara slapped Steve hard across the face.
“You don’t know me,” she hissed.
Nothing about her was the strong, sweet girl he had taken in for the weekend. Her gentle touch, her skin sparkling with passion and desire . . . it was all gone.
Steve hated himself for falling for her trap. They got him right where they wanted him. Tara’s revenge plot and John’s quest for power.
Tara kneed Steve between the legs. He crumpled onto his knees, floored by the pain. Tara punched him again. His lip split and blood started to leak from his mouth.
“You’re a piece of shit, Steve,” she said, increasing the speed of her punches.
“Get him, cupcake,” John purred at the door, relaxing his grip on the gun. “Beat the shit out of him.”
“Stop!” Jane cried, jumping on Steve’s back to defend him.
“Tara, listen . . .”
Tara threw Jane off Steve. “John, shoot her, will you?” Tara yelled while she continued her attack.
Steve watched as John turned the gun on Jane, cocking it.
“No!” Steve screamed.
The door banged back open. Tara stopped punching Steve. He struggled with consciousness, lifting his head enough so he could see through his swollen eye. David stood in the doorway, arms outstretched. “John, Tara,” David said, voice calm. “Why all this violence?”
Steve’s heart jumped. His father had come after him. His father came to rescue him and Jane.
Maybe he wasn’t a piece of shit after all. John turned the gun to David.
“Well, look what we have here. Is it my no-good half-brother, Dave? Daddy’s favorite son.”
David tried to console his brother. “Father loved us both.”
“Bullshit,” John yelled at David. “He put you in charge of this village. To run the colony. I’m the bastard son. I’m the screw-up, right? He never cared about me when he was in prison and I was getting my ass beat by Grandpa. Where was he when I was in foster care? Where was he? Your damn step-sister should have kept her legs closed. He gave you everything and left me to fend for myself. It was all about David. David, David, David.”
John and Tara exchanged glances. Tara drew out her gun.
Without another word, they fired round after round into David, unloading on him.
Steve watched in horror as his father staggered back with each blow, his eyes wide, his shirt soaking through with blood.
As if in slow motion, he fell to the ground, collapsing a dead man.
“Ha!” John danced. Blowing on the top of the barrel like in the wild west. “Got him!”
Tara let out a triumphant cry, leaping into John and wrapping her legs around his waist. “We did it, baby,” she said, planting kisses on his face.
As John and Tara celebrated, Steve stared in mute horror at his father, blood pooling around his still body. Jane’s hand settled on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Steve,” she whispered.
Every movement hurt, but Steve crawled to his father’s body. He thought he might throw up.
“Dad?”
David didn’t respond. He lay face-down, arms splayed out the way they had been when he entered the cabin.
John and Tara’s cries of victory were drowned out as Steve crawled his way to his dad, unable to believe he had found him and had him ripped away from him just as quickly.
He touched his father’s back and noticed the gun in his back pocket.
He could end this. Here and now.
Steve pulled the gun out of its
