The Survivor

Nate hung up, and Janie sprang back into motion, hauling the bag to the Jeep. Nate took the steps up three at a time, Casper at his feet, calling Cielle’s name as he charged down the hall. She was in her room, clutching an armload of photo albums, phone pressed to her ear.

“No, Jason.” She tugged at a maroon streak in her hair. “I told you. Do not come over right now.”

Nate grabbed her arm. “We gotta go.”

“He’s almost here, Dad, and-”

Casper’s head jerked toward the door, his tags jangling. The patch of hair rose at the base of his ridge. His ears lifted, squaring off at the tops, then flattened back against his skull. He took several slow, stalking steps toward the hall.

Cielle still hadn’t moved, but the cell phone bobbed beneath her thumb, giving a barely audible click as it turned off. Nate raised a finger to his lips and flattened a hand: Stay here.

He crept down the stairs, Casper a half step ahead, slinking like a great cat. The door to the garage was closed, and he could not hear Janie beyond. He started for her, but Casper moved swiftly across the kitchen and growled at the sliding glass door. Nate followed, flipped the lock, and had barely tugged the door open when Casper skimmed through. The dog stopped ten feet away at the near edge of the lawn, snarling down at something.

Nate moved out into the night air, took a few steps across the brief patio, and stared down.

Two oversize footprints crushing the grass, facing the house.

With mounting dread, Nate turned slowly and looked over his shoulder.

Yuri finished slipping inside and stood in the kitchen, staring out at Nate through the narrow gap in the door.

No gloating. No anger. Just an empty, gray-eyed stare.

A shushing noise as he tugged the sliding glass door closed.

The glass threw back only a reflection of the yard, the porch light a scorch mark in the corner of the pane. Before Nate could move, Yuri’s chalky hand ghosted into sight behind the double panes and flipped the lock.

Chapter 38

Casper sprang before Nate did, swiping at the glass, barking furiously. Nate unlocked his legs and charged, crashing into the sliding door with his shoulder and bouncing back, landing on his ass. In the pane, he saw only a few feet of reflected patio, the uniform black sky, and his own expression of abject terror. Rising, he shoved his face to the glass to see inside, his breath clouding the view at quick intervals.

Indistinct in his massive dark coat, Yuri reached the door to the garage just as Janie passed into the house again, gun in hand, nearly colliding with him. Her expression clicked instantly from worry to horror, and then Yuri’s massive hand palmed her face like a basketball and shoved her out into the garage, the gun spinning from her grip. She tripped, striking the still-opening door, tumbling off the step and out of sight. The door banged wall and wobbled back, slamming shut. Calmly, Yuri reached over and threw the dead bolt.

Crouching to retrieve the fallen gun, he turned and looked across the kitchen, fixing his glinting possum eyes on Nate.

Then he rose and headed up the stairs.

Nate’s skin caught fire, every nerve ending, every cell.

Casper’s barks elongated into rumbling howls as he jabbed at the sliding door with his front paws, gouging up curls of wood from the frame. Nate spun, grabbing the nearest thing he could lay hands on-a wrought-iron patio chair. He hurled it with all his strength. It struck the pane, rippling the reflection, sending out a warbling sonar cry and bouncing back, narrowly missing his head. A thumbnail-size chip marred the perfect pane. Nothing more.

In a fury Nate swatted aside another chair, then kicked over a table, at last laying eyes on the cast-stone umbrella base waiting patiently for springtime. Squatting, he hoisted it, his compromised left hand useful only as a grappling hook. His back straining, he lifted the base above a shoulder and barreled at the sliding glass door, rotating to let the cast stone hit first.

The sound was limp, a muted cracking as the safety glass webbed. He punched through, sprawling onto his back, the umbrella base rocketing dangerously to bite up a chunk of kitchen tile.

From upstairs he heard Cielle’s scream, “Dad, help me!”

Her voice, the terrified plea, the word at last-Dad-had him back on his feet as if he’d been yanked up by the collar. Trapped in the garage, Janie slapped and pounded on the door. Hurtling past to the foyer, he leaped at the stairs. In full gallop, trying to make the turn behind him, Casper skidded out, nails scrabbling helplessly across the floorboards. Nate seemed to fall up the stairs, four, five at a time, and then Cielle’s door rocked into view, funhouse-tilting back and forth as his legs pounded the carpet. “Dad! Daaad!” He crashed through, catching one frenzied glimpse of Cielle recoiled against her window before Yuri’s fist swung into view from nowhere, firmed around the handle of Nate’s own gun, reverse brass knuckles flying at his forehead with dizzying speed.

A blip of blackness.

Then Cielle’s ceiling staring down, a blank screen. Somewhere a fuzzy voice. Blood in his eyes. He tried to lift a hand to wipe it away, but his muscles did not respond. Blinking away the blood seemed to be the only movement he could muster. On the far side of the closed door, Casper was at the wood like a vampire, fangs and nails. The unique agony of face pain and the stunned moment of laid-out paralysis transported Nate to that dune, his mouth pressed to the sand, his eardrums thrumming, the heat of the helo explosion roiling across his back.

But no. This was worse.

Even over the snarls, Nate could make out the voice now, across the room, addressing Cielle: “I am bigger. I hold the power. This is way of the world. You will learn.”

His head felt filled with concrete, the weight pulling at him. He let it fall to the side. The stepstool carved with his daughter’s name had been kicked over, the letter puzzle pieces crowding his field of vision. Across the room Cielle was sobbing, black eyeliner streaking. Her round face lit with disbelief and shock.

Yuri spun her and pushed her brusquely against the window. “Undress.”

She tried to look over her shoulder, a crescent of flushed cheek coming visible. A tiny voice. “Dad?”

Nate moved to rise, and daggers of pain shot through his skull. He coughed up a mouthful of vomit.

Yuri pushed the steel gun barrel against Cielle’s shoulder blade so the skin dimpled. “Your father not help you now. Undress.”

She crossed her arms weakly, gripped the hem of her sweater. Then she stopped, sagging against the wall, her knees giving out. “No,” she said. “No.”

“Relax.” Yuri lowered the pistol’s tip, grazing her kidney, menacing her. “I just want to see your insides.”

Nate shoved himself up on his elbows, but static blotted his vision, and he knew that if he rose too quickly, he’d black out. He paused on trembling muscles, panting, the scene unfolding right across from him.

“I come right back, pryntsesa.”

Yuri’s footsteps creaked the floor, and then an enormous boot pressed down on Nate’s trachea, pinning his head to the carpet and denting his windpipe closed. A long view up to that expressionless, tilted face. Nate gagged for air, his legs writhing like snakes. Nausea swelled, blotting out sensation, the breath gone from his lungs. His fingers curled around Yuri’s boot, but his grasp was weak, his left hand worthless. In seconds he’d lose consciousness. Cielle’s sobs kept on, a horrible background murmur.

Helpless, he rolled his head an inch or two toward the door, an arm’s length away. The dog hurled himself against the far side, snapping and howling, but there was no way Nate could reach the knob to let him in. A rush of white noise hummed in his ears. The static came again, filling his eyes. Through the black and white specks, he noted a band of color running down, kissing the carpet.

Cielle’s purple-and-green scarf. Hooked around the doorknob.

The lever doorknob.

He strained to reach the scarf. The tips of his fingers brushing the soft wool. Yuri smirked, amused. “You are going to hit me with scarf?”