She knows she’s crying. But she can’t feel her tears.

What she does feel is the knife.

Bodie’s there with the blade, and he sticks it in the meat just below her collarbone. She doesn’t know how deep, but it feels deep—at first it doesn’t hurt at all, like her flesh is just an old car seat and he’s sticking his finger through a rip in the leather. But then the pain shows up—late to the party but there just the same, a bright flash of hot agony with long tentacles that wakes her up full tilt. The pain is a hard wind that blows away some of the clouds of the tranquilizer, but she knows it doesn’t matter now.

She’s able to wriggle her hands free from the chains, but then they just lie there like dead fish—free from the net but useless.

The dog growls. But still doesn’t move.

“There you go,” Bodie says. “Get that blood stink up in your nose.” She sees him present the knife under the dog’s flaring nostrils. “No? Not yet. Fuckin’ retard. Let’s stick her again and see.”

Flash of the knife, wrist back, blade pointed forward.

He moves to stick her again.

White flash. Avalanche. The dog growls and moves fast, and suddenly Bodie’s screaming, a blood-curdling banshee wail as the dog’s mouth clamps down hard on his hand and wrist. The knife drops. The dog’s head shakes like he’s got a whistle pig in his mouth whose neck he wants to break. With every shake, Bodie screams louder, beating at the dog with one open hand at the same time he’s trying to crab-walk away.

Then Tressa starts to scream, and Bird makes a scared noise and runs off into the woods.

The Cooch grabs the knife, goes for the big white ghost-hound ripping up Bodie’s hand, ready to stab the dog in the neck.

Atlanta focuses everything she has on moving. She pulls her hands completely out of the chains just in time to give a clumsy shove, pushing Tressa Kucharski to the ground. Again the knife falls. And this time, Atlanta grabs it.

She hooks the knife blade under the collar around her neck. She feels a nip of pain, but then she saws back and forth and the collar pops off. When she stands, the dog lets go of Bodie’s hand—and all she sees is a red mess at the end of his arm. He’s still got fingers and a thumb, but everything south of them looks like crow-picked roadkill.

Tressa’s getting to her feet.

Atlanta doesn’t know what to do.

So she runs. She runs hard and she runs fast, passing Bird in the woods—he’s just sitting there against a tree, crying into his hands like his mother just died.

The dog is chasing her.