Chapter Thirty-Five

Andrew sensed he was getting close. He no longer felt helpless and exhausted and scared.

He only felt rage.

He and Kate had been through too much just to have her snatched away by an impossible monster, left to die far from him in the woods. It wasn’t going to happen.

So he ran, each passing second, each burst of fury in his blood strengthening his legs. He ran with his trademark abandon – except this time, he knew he couldn’t stop when his body cried uncle.

A lyric from a Rage Against the Machine song from long ago, back before he and Kate had ever met, repeated over and over in his head as he ran.

Anger is a gift.

It was one of his all-time favorite lines, fittingly for a man with unsurprising anger issues. Kate hated it, and detested whenever he used it to justify things done by others in anger’s name.

“You don’t understand,” he’d tell her. “When someone is truly angry, when all they see and smell and feel is uncontrollable rage, anything is possible. There are no limitations. That voice in the back of your head telling you that you can’t or shouldn’t do something gets burned to a cinder. Nothing can hold you back. Now, you may not always do the right thing, but if you can find a way to channel that power, to use it for something good – Christ, we could all be superheroes.”

His theory had gone over like a lead balloon every time.

Right now, he was going to give his theory a field test.

You can’t hurt it, he reminded himself as he plodded with feverish urgency. You just need to take her away from it.

This time I have the advantage.

I’m not afraid.

He heard Buttons barking in the not-too-far distance.

“Buttons!” he shouted.

Keep on barking, bud! Show me the way.

Andrew hurdled over a branch that had been thrown over the trail. He was once again able to smell the horrid redolence coming off the beast. He was close.

I’m not afraid.

With every step, he repeated the words, his confidence building.

I’m not afraid.

There was a bend in the path. Andrew almost missed it, a pricker bush gouging his legs as he corrected his trajectory.

The barking beagle sounded so close.

“Buttons!”

Leaping over a rotting log, he spotted them.

The creature’s back was an open wound.

It held Kate in its arms now, only her head and legs visible.

Buttons was right on its heels. Andrew assumed he was barking to wake Kate up. He couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead, if he was on time or too late.