I jump on the stranger’s back and I throw my arms around his skinny neck. He smells like death in a moldy trench coat as I try to tighten my arms around his throat. He claws at my arms, tripping over Clay in the process and we fall. My body hits the floor and pain snaps up my spine. A second later his weight lands on top of me. All the air slams out of my chest. As I gasp for air, his scent of urine, sweat and decay gag me. My arms go limp. He squirms out of my grip, his elbow digging into my chest. The stranger rolls away and staggers up.

“You came to take the castle.” His hands shake as he pulls the bolt on his rifle to reload. “But I’m not going give it ye. No, no. No, siree. You brought the bugs and the blood and thought it’d do me, but no. I survived.” He strikes his fist against his skull once, leaving a red smudge there like a third eye. “Now you come to drag me down to hell.” He swipes blood from his lip before he lifts his rifle. “You’re going along first.”

I need to run, but I can’t get my breath. I scramble on my hands backwards in a strange crab crawl. The gun fits into the grove of his shoulder. He squeezes one eye shut as he aims for me.

Please don’t let the end hurt.

“Riley?”

Ethan. I whirl around. He’s standing in the hallway, staring in horror at the scene before him. The man swivels the rifle away from me. He points it at my baby brother.

“No!” I croak. I lurch upward. The gun goes off with a sickening crack. A massive force punches my stomach. Any air I had is knocked away. I crash to the floor, a gun blast ringing in my ears.

Time slows. The world dulls until everything has soft edges. I want to move, but the world’s far away. I close my eyes, and when I open them, the stranger leans over me. I see the sweat mixed with blood on his upper lip. Deep in my brain something tells me I should be concerned, but all I feel is a warm, tingling ache.

When I open my eyes again, the stranger’s gone. I manage to slide my head over and there’s Clay. He pounds his fists into the stranger, who’s lying in a bloody mess on the ground. At least that. At least he can’t hurt anyone else.