His voice comes out quieter than I’ve heard. “No, Tempest.”

She levels her revolver at the bridge of his eyeglasses. “What did you say?”

“I said, ‘No.’ I won’t help you kill him. I’m done.”

It’s the chance I have waited for. Distracted by Jewett, Tempest has stepped within reach. I jerk my arm out from under me, grab her ankle, and pull her off her feet. She goes down hard beside me on the tarp.

Tanner, nearby, is caught entirely off guard and doesn’t know what to do.

Some of the Dows drop their bottles, others fumble for their guns. Tori lifts the screaming saw above her head and holds it there.

But none of them move because I have a knife pressed against their grandmother’s carotid artery.

It figures that the only Dow with the presence of mind to act is Tempest herself. She casts around for the .38 special she dropped. But the gun has fallen beyond her reach—beyond my reach—bounced off the tarp and into the snow.

It is Lynda Lynch, of all people, who retrieves the revolver. Her hands shake as she points it in my direction.

Tanner stands like a tree. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Tori toss away the saw as she goes for the shotgun over her shoulder.

I’m on my backside, holding Tempest Dow around the waist, using her tiny body for cover, while I press the blade of Billy’s knife against the skin beneath her ear.

One of the less drunk Dows, a woman whose name I don’t know, has managed to get an AR-15 aimed. The laser activates when she closes her hand around the pistol grip. The red dot burns a hole in my forehead.

“Back off,” I say.

“Shoot him!” says Tempest, kicking my shins with her boots. It’s like trying to hold onto a starved bobcat. “Remember he’s wearing a vest. Shoot him in the head, you stupid—”

She breaks off in mid-sentence because she’s heard something. I have, too.

Then everyone does. Sirens, approaching fast.

How do they know where we are?

Even I don’t know where we are.

I can feel the moment building. The Dows, increasingly panicked, are all waiting for a sign from Tempest, telling them what to do. Vic runs off as fast as his fat legs will carry him. Jewett collapses to the ground like a marionette whose strings have been cut.

“Shoot him, I said, you miserable—”

The gunshot has a snapping sound, typical of a .38. All at once, the old woman goes limp in my arms.

More than one person screams.

“Oh God!” says Lynda Lynch. She drops the Saturday Night Special as if it burned her hands.