John recovered from Gabe’s strike and resorted to his favorite safety measure. He pulled Dana in front of him, putting her between himself and Gabe’s gun.

If only Gabe had subdued John first, instead of making sure Ruby was okay.

John had the knife at Dana’s throat. She was growing paler by the minute. The fight was draining steadily out of her like the blood from her wound.

Ruby staggered to her feet.

Her hands shook. Even if she still had her gun in hand, there was no way she’d be able to make a clean shot.

She wanted John alive. A more animalistic part of her may have wanted to end him, but the logical part of her knew he was her best lead. Vallejo was involved. Ruby needed to know how he pulled it off.

“Vincent wouldn’t want you to slice her throat, John,” Ruby said, “if you can’t do something right, why do it at all?”

Vallejo had chosen John. That mentor/mentee relationship had to mean something to the knife-wielding killer. The question was whether or not his loyalty out-ranked his self-preservation.

“You know, Vincent is isolated from everyone and all sources of media. I could walk in and tell him we pinned it all on someone else. Brett Thorne maybe. I know he only fantasizes about what you actually had the guts to do, but he sure looks like a good suspect,” Ruby pressed on. Some threat or taunt would reach him. She would make him crack.

John sneered.

“Brett Thorne just wants to play pretend,” he said. So there was a chink in John’s armor. He was proud.

“Why stop there?” Gabe tentatively played along, his gun still raised. “We could tell the media it was Thorne. Or Marcia. Or whoever. They wouldn’t know the difference.”

John’s face twitched. The effort of their scuffle was beginning to wear on him. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His hand trembled, pressing the knife unevenly to Dana’s neck.

“No one will know how you outsmarted the FBI. They won’t know about the middle children or the 13s or your carefully chosen scapegoats. We’ll just tell them each death was a random act of violence,” Ruby said, “or you could let her go.”

John had chosen to follow Vallejo. A man so eager to piggyback on Lucky Thirteen’s infamy had to have an ego of his own. It couldn’t be enough to kill. People needed to know it was him and they needed to know how clever he was.

There was nowhere to run, just a stand-off.

Dana wouldn’t survive through thirteen stab wounds. If she died, John had no leverage. Gabe would shoot. There was no way for John to properly execute his ritual. Ruby was banking on that. He couldn’t risk an imperfect kill to end his run.