“Fucker! Traitor!” he yelled at me, growling like a jungle cat under attack.

“My family-where are they? What happened to them?” I shouted.

Then I punched him again, with everything I had, all the anger and rage living inside. This time he lost a tooth, but he was strong, even hurt like this, and he finally threw me off.

Then he was on me! I shielded my head with my arms and he struck my wrist, perhaps breaking it, I thought. But I didn't make a sound. I arched my body several inches. I managed to grab him around the neck and hold on. I didn't know where the strength was coming from, or how long it would last.

I tried to head-butt him, and because of the odd angle I was at, I connected with his Adam's apple. He gagged, then spit phlegm and blood.

“My family!” I yelled again.

“Fuck your family!” he cursed. “Fuck your kids! Fuck you!”

Then he got to the hunting knife. I was still thinking that I had to keep him alive-not that I had to survive this, but that he did. I held his knife hand at the wrist, but I was losing my grip. The fight was turning his way. This was it; this was how I died. I would never know about Nana, Ali, Jannie. That was the worst part, not knowing.

A shot rang in the night.

The Tiger straightened up, but then he came back down at me with the knife. “Die!” he yelled. “Like your family died!”

A second shot struck where his right eye had been glaring at me a second before.

“Where are they?” I yelled again. “Where is my family?”

He didn't say another word. His good eye was all hatred. The rest of his face was a bloody mess. The Tiger couldn't answer. He collapsed on me, dead.

“Where are they?” I whispered.

Chapter 145

BREE CAME RUNNING up as I pushed the massive corpse away from me. Even now that he was dead, I still hated the bastard with all my heart and soul. Bree knelt on the ground and hugged me. “I'm sorry, Alex. I'm so sorry. All I saw was the knife. I had to shoot him.”

I kept holding on to her and rocking. “Not your fault. Not your fault.” But then I began to shudder and shake. I knew what I had lost here, knew that the Tiger had been my last chance to find my family.

We left the body and trudged back to the farmhouse. Police cars from the neighboring towns were arriving, and the trees were lit with a crimson-and-blue glare from their domes.

Sampson came out of the farmhouse as we approached. “I've gone through every room. There's no one here. I don't see any sign of them either, Alex. No blood anywhere, nothing obvious anyway. I don't think they were ever here.”