She circled wide around the front of the mill. Pausing. No sign of Garrett. No sound at all except for the flushing of the diverted stream water into the ruddy swamp.

Five more feet, ten.

Come on, angel, she thought. Stay with me a little longer. Help me get through this. Please … Just a few minutes and we’ll be home-free.

Oh, man alive, that hurts. She wondered if a bone was broken. Her ankle was swollen and she knew that, if it was a fracture, walking unsupported like this could make it ten times worse. The color of the skin was darkening too—which meant broken vessels. Blood poisoning was a possibility. She thought of gangrene. Amputation. If that happened what would her boyfriend say? He’d leave her, she supposed. Their relationship was casual at best—at least on his part. Besides, she knew, from her job in oncology, how people disappeared from patients’ lives once they started losing body parts.

She paused and listened, looked around her. Had Garrett fled? Had he given up on her and gone to the Outer Banks to be with Mary Beth?

Lydia kept moving toward the path that led back to the quarry. Once she found it she’d have to move even more carefully—because of the ammonia trap. She didn’t remember exactly where he’d rigged it.

Another thirty feet… and there it was—the path that led back home.

She paused again, listening. Nothing. She noticed a dark-skinned, placid snake sunning itself on the stump of an old cedar. So long, she thought to it. I’m going home.

Lydia started forward.

And then the Insect Boy’s hand lashed out from underneath a lush bay tree and snagged her good ankle. Unstable anyway, hands useless, Lydia could do nothing but try to twist to the side so that her solid rump took the force of the fall. The snake awoke at the sound of her scream and vanished.

Garrett climbed on top of her, pinning her to the ground, face red with anger. He must’ve been lying there for fifteen minutes. Keeping silent, not moving an inch until she was within striking distance. Like a spider waiting for its next kill.

“Please,” Lydia muttered, breathless from the shock and horrified that she’d been betrayed by her angel. “Don’t hurt—”