His legs sped up as he passed the school on his left. The houses were all still dark.

He kept Hadley on the line until he burst through his own front door. Kimber and Kyle appeared on the stairs as Hadley ran toward him and threw herself in his arms.

“How long ago did they leave?” Brick asked Hadley.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” Kimber asked, running down the stairs to meet them.

“About ten minutes,” Hadley told him, ignoring her mother. “I tried calling you, Uncle Brick, and you didn’t pick up. So I kept calling while I stayed with William,” Hadley reported.

“Ten minutes,” Brick repeated. He handed Hadley to her mother and raced down the hall.

It was worse than he feared, the scene that met him. The air smelled of the metallic tang of blood. White was dead. His shirt was saturated dark brown. Glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling, frozen in surprise. A pool of blood spread out beneath.

“Dad,” Brick yelled, racing down the ramp. His father sat with his back against the wall. There was more blood there. On the drywall. On his shirt. On his pants.

He looked old, pale, fragile.

“I’m okay,” William panted. “Go after your girl.”

Brick searched his father’s torso, tearing his shirt in two. There was a neat little hole in his chest above his heart.

“Can you breathe okay?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about me,” William insisted, his voice weak. “I’m sorry I let you down. He got White in the yard, and White came to the door begging to be let in. The girls let him in, and Vorhees got a shot off at me as he came inside. I went down. Passed out. I think he clipped me in the leg too. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

There was a commotion coming from the main house.

“Dad,” Brick said again. But none of the rest of the words would come.

“I failed you again. You put your trust in me—”

“This was my fault, Dad. I shouldn’t have left. I should have known it was a fucking trap.”

“Brick!” Chief Ford’s voice cut like a razor blade. “This is nobody’s fault but that motherfucking monster. Now both of you get your goddamn heads out of your sorry asses and figure out how to get my daughter back.”

Orders delivered, Darlene whipped out her phone. “Yeah, I’m gonna need that ambulance down here ASAP.”

Brick picked up the bloody towel he saw next to his father and pressed it to his father’s chest.

But his head and heart were already gone. He couldn’t stay here. He needed to tear this island apart. He needed to find Remi.

“Uncle Brick?”

“Hadley, don’t come out here,” Darlene snapped.

“Oh my God,” Kimber gasped, coming up behind her daughter and viewing the carnage. “Is he... Is that...”

Kyle grabbed her before she could step into the room.

“Hadley’s the one who was holding the towel on me,” William said with a note of pride. “Girl’s got one hell of a head on her shoulders. Told her I’d hire her as an investigator. After college of course.”