Deacon emerged, bent and weak, from the trees. He staggered for the garage’s rear wall and collapsed against it, breathing heavily. When he twisted the doorknob, it was locked, but he pressed his gun against the bolt and fired, busting the door inward. He fell inside. The three-car garage was sticky and dark, and he could see vehicles in each stall. He limped beyond the cars and threw open one of the big doors. Turning back, he spotted a door leading inside the house, and next to it were three sets of hooks, which glistened with car keys. He dragged himself across the concrete floor, trailing blood. He grabbed the keys and threw himself inside the closest vehicle, which was a monstrously sized ebony Cadillac Escalade.

He tried the first set of keys. They didn’t fit. The second set made the engine growl to life. He shot backward, weaving, dinging the side of the Audi in the adjoining space. The rain swirled down as he backed into the cobblestoned turnaround, spilling over onto mud and brush. He gripped the wheel with one hand like a vise. His insides were a blowtorch that didn’t cool when he shoved his other hand into the wound. He had to remind his brain what to do next.

He shoved the gear into drive. His foot jammed the accelerator, and the truck fishtailed. He couldn’t keep straight. He fingered the dashboard and found the switch for the headlights, and the bright beams lit up the driveway like searchlights. Through the driving rain, he caught a glimpse of Cab Bolton running toward him across the estate’s sodden lawn. Deacon headed for the iron gates, which snapped open and shut, and he crashed through them, tearing them off their hinges, skipping them like beach stones onto the street.

He was free. He swerved down the neighborhood street, throwing up waves, barely clearing the trees on either side. Debris clung to his windshield. He squinted to see. He felt the way he had a decade earlier, bitter, his head swirling, going faster and faster.

And then there she was. In the middle of the street. In his headlights.

Just like back then. An innocent girl, about to be thrown aside, crushed by the tons of steel. His foot lurched to the brake, and he heard a voice screaming in his head: Stop stop stop stop stop stop.

It wasn’t Alison. He was in the present, not the past.

It was Peach.

*