Glenn’s shallow respirations sounded like a breeze blowing through dry leaves. Sonny saw tears running down his pale cheeks. He seemed to struggle on the bed, his movements spastic.

“You drugged me,” Glenn said, his accusing eyes searching out Wilma in the darkness. “You … you helped them kill me. God sees you, Sister.”

Wilma’s slippers hissed on the parquet floor. “I’m gonna wait in the kitchen,” she said. “Ya’ll don’t hurt him no more’n you have to.”

“Can’t stand to see your handiwork?” Glenn cried, his eyelids falling, rising, falling again.

Sonny motioned for Wilma to leave, but she leaned over her brother with bitter anger in her eyes. “You broke faith. You didn’t leave me any choice.”

“Not with God, I didn’t!” Morehouse bellowed.

“Blood first, Glenn,” she said with utter conviction. “God after.”

Wilma gave her brother a glare of challenge, but he said nothing. As she turned to go, Sonny caught her arm and whispered, “When was the last time a nurse stuck him for blood?”

“The home health nurse pulled some this morning. They poke him all the time now.”

“Where? Has he still got a good vein in the elbow?”

“He’s got a PICC line in.” She slid her arm from Sonny’s grasp. “You can inject whatever you want in there.”

“I didn’t tell Henry half of what I should have!” Glenn cried with newfound strength. Sonny heard righteous anger, and saw the fear draining from Glenn’s face like life from a dying body.

“I didn’t tell Henry nothin’ about Forrest,” Glenn vowed. “Or Brody. But I’ll say it now. The hell I’m going to tonight is nothing compared to what awaits you two with them.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Snake growled. “He’s gettin’ off easy, you ask me.”

“Let’s just get it over with,” Sonny said. Unzipping his camo shoulder pack, he drew out a syringe prefilled with a lethal dose of fentanyl. “You want me to do it?”

“No. Just hold it till I’m ready.” Snake walked around the hospital bed and took hold of Glenn’s forearm—an arm once strong enough to snap a man’s cervical spine—to examine the PICC line. When Glenn started to struggle, Snake passed his knife over the bed to Sonny. “He keeps fightin’, sever his jugular.”

“Don’t fight it, baby,” Wilma said from the doorway, shocking Sonny. Apparently she meant to stay to the end. “You’re just making it worse.”

Glenn stopped struggling at the sound of his sister’s words, but his eyes had taken on a sudden alertness. They had been dull before, but now they glinted with … what? Triumph?

“Something’s wrong,” Sonny said, and Snake looked up sharply.

“His hands!” Wilma yelled. “Check his hands!”

Sonny ripped back the coverlet. One of Morehouse’s fists was clenched around a chunk of plastic with a chain on it.