Opal’s shrieks abruptly faded into hoarse, rapid, pain-filled rasps. I pulled my knives out of her a second time. She lashed out with her fist, catching me in the jaw. The force of the blow spun me around and made me stagger back five feet, but the damage to her was already done.

Opal stared down in disbelief at her chest and all of the blood pumping out of her wounds. She put first one hand and then the other over her heart, then held them out, as if she couldn’t believe that there was so much blood on them. Finally, she looked over at Clementine, her light eyes already starting to dim with death.

“Mama?” Opal whispered.

Then she pitched forward, her body landing with a dull thump on the walkway. The current had dragged Dixon’s body over to where Opal was, and her hand slid forward into the water and landed on his broad back, almost as if she were reaching down to try to fish him out of the river.

Silence.

Clementine stood in the middle of the main walkway, slowly swaying from side to side. After a moment, she shuffled forward until she was standing over the bodies of her daughter and her nephew.

“Opal . . . Dixon . . .” she whispered.

While Clementine was caught up in her grief, I eased back the way I’d come, circling all the way around until I was standing in the front of the boathouse right next to the statue of the old man fishing. I didn’t want the giant to make a sudden move, charge past me, go after Owen and Eva, and try to get her revenge that way. No, this ended right here, right now. I watched her the whole time, just watched and waited for the rage that was sure to come.

To my surprise, a welling of tears cascaded down Clementine’s face, and she looked every one of her fifty-eight years as she stared down at the bodies.

“Opal . . . Dixon . . .” she said again, her voice dull and small. “They were the only family I had left.”

I hadn’t thought she would be so emotional, given how I’d seen her threaten, bully, and intimidate Opal and Dixon earlier tonight, but apparently, she’d cared about them more than I’d realized.

“You killed them. You killed them both,” she murmured.

Clementine raised her eyes to mine. Hate brightened her hazel gaze, and her mass of curls bristled around her head, giving her a wild, crazed look, like a rabid animal with its fur up, one that was about to attack. And I knew that there was only one thing that would satisfy her now: my blood.

Good. Because I felt the same way about her.