BooksBarbecue
Back The Missing Season Save as PDF
Chapters (36)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. About the Author
  34. Books by Gillian French
  35. Back Ad
  36. About the Publisher

My gaze is riveted on the last four ties. Can’t let him put those on me. “Nobody’s going to believe Hazel and I both ran away.”

He smiles slightly. “Maybe they’ll think the Mumbler did it.” He looks at me from the foot of the cot, expressionless, zip ties held loosely in his hand. Blinks rapidly, pulls his glasses off, pinching the bridge of his nose for a second. “I just—I always wonder—you know, if it would be different. If we could just be together before. Let you get to know me. Instead of those other boys.”

I clear my throat, words coming slowly. “Just you and me?”

“Or any of the others.” His gaze works over my skin by the millimeter. “I really am good with kids.”

I swallow. “I think you are.”

His brown eyes, so close, as he leans farther over the bed. “You do?”

That’s when I jam my thumb into his eyeball.

Twenty-Eight

image

HIM, YELLING. ME, throwing my free arm up to block my face, trying to roll to the side before he comes down on me.

His fist slams my head, sending cascades of stars through my vision, but he’s off target—can’t see yet. I grab at the bench, trying to knock the tools down. I make contact, dragging the heavy thing to the side.

He clambers onto the cot, cursing, straddling me, one hand still pressed to his leaking eye. I scream, jerking my left leg up between us, lunging at the bench again as he draws back to hit me.

A groan of wood over wood, and tools rain down from the surface above, bouncing all over the floor and cot. This time, his fist hits me square in the mouth—lips jammed into teeth; ripe, blossoming pain; bright taste of blood—but my left hand’s latched on to a heavy metal thing, and I heave my entire body into the swing.

I catch him drawing his arm back for the next punch; he doesn’t have time to move. The hammer claw connects with his left temple. I think maybe I scream, horrified by the blood it brings, splitting his skin, splattering me, dragging across his forehead in a vivid streak.

His fist hangs in midair. No time—I sweep my arm back, hit him with the business end.

Mr. Mac’s eyes squeeze shut, contorted look of pain, and I jerk the hammer back. He doesn’t need it. Sways, eyes still closed, then slides over, a slow collapse onto the floor beside the cot.

Hyperventilating, breath sobbing out of me, I roll onto my right side, stretching my free hand for the sharpest thing I see—a hacksaw—and manage it with my fingertips.

Three saws and the zip ties on my wrist snap, then the ones on my ankle, and I’m over the cot. He’s up on one knee already, head hanging low, clinging to consciousness.