In a tight, dangerous voice Bethany said, “Don’t move.”

The fucker bolted.

She followed him with the rifle’s barrel. Her finger hesitated on the trigger for one second.

Another.

She couldn’t do it.

Malacek was gone.

Shit.

Run, she told herself. Run now.

Bethany rose into a crouch, clutched the rifle carefully by the stock and frogwalked down the bed of the truck. She leaped into the grass and collapsed when she tried to stand. Blood burned as it flooded back into her veins.

She threw an arm over the truck’s open gate. She dragged herself up.

Run.

JOEL

Parter crouched over Kimbra, pressed his fingers to her neck.

“Dad,” she moaned. “It hurts.”

“Christ,” Boone said to Joel, shaking all over, tears in his eyes. “You see what you’ve done? What’ll her father say?”

Parter and Browder exchanged frowns. Browder tightened his grip on the knife.

“Wait!” Joel shouted, straining at the clasps on his ankles and nearly falling on his face.

Browder grabbed a handful of Kimbra’s hair. He placed his knee in the small of her back. He brought the knife to her neck.

“Coach!”

A boy was shouting outside, pounding the trailer’s door. “Coach, there’s someone here.”

Browder pulled the knife away, sprang to his feet.

Boone opened the refrigerator and retrieved a handgun from inside (because of course, Joel thought: what Texas fantasy would be complete without a gun in every crevice?) and gave Parter a resigned nod. Boone stepped past Joel and found Mitchell Malacek waiting outside, pointing furiously to something Joel couldn’t see.

“Bethany Tanner!” Mitchell said. “Luke’s truck. She’s got a gun.”

“Where is she now?” Parter pushed Boone aside.

Mitchell’s face went white. “I—I—”

Parter let out a roar and shoved the boy off the porch. Mitchell landed on his ass in the dirt.

“Go find her!”

A cry of alarm went up outside. Boone followed Parter out the door a moment later, the gun in his hand trembling.

Browder did not. No sooner had the deputy reached the open doorway than he stopped as abruptly as if he’d struck a wall. He stood very still as boys started running and shouting.

When he looked back, Browder’s eyes were not his own. They were flat and glassy black and they were regarding Joel with the smug reptile’s intelligence that had fixed on him the moment he’d arrived back in Pettis County, that had watched him in the park ten years ago, that had watched countless boys in this place endure all manner of tender treatment.

Browder’s mouth opened in a smile and Joel saw that past his teeth lay a deep, infinite black.

A whisper slithered out from that darkness.

imissedyou

BETHANY

Blood flooding back into her veins like liquid fire, Bethany limped away from Luke’s truck, his rifle clutched to her side. Parked outside the circle of trailers was a loose cluster of other trucks, some of them unlocked, none with keys anywhere obvious. Bethany heard boys shouting. The entire camp was on alert: there were more angry men here than Bethany could hope to hold off on her own.