Each of the dead wore a pakul hat and their skeletal hands had reached for him, pulling him down, their rotted bodies draped with crawling, buzzing flies.

They were dead because Danny had killed them, killed them all.

They’d dragged him back into the bloody earth with them where he belonged, and dirt had filled his eyes and his mouth . . .

—

AMÉ MADE A MOTION to him in the darkened apartment, indicating she was going to step out wide, near the window by the door. Danny found his holstered Colt on the end table next to the couch and drew it quietly, down by his leg. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, falling asleep upright next to Amé on the couch, but the last thing he remembered clearly was standing in the tiny kitchen, drinking a beer and looking out the window.

His reflection.

Truck lights.

That had been at least an hour ago, maybe more.

The apartment sat above Modelle Greer’s detached garage, the house itself tucked away in Murfee’s version of a historic neighborhood, not too far off Main Street. It was a neighborhood of wooden houses, watered yards, and small trees: sweet acacia, Emory oak, piñon pine. If Danny’s and Amé’s trucks weren’t parked out under that big juniper that shaded one side of the garage, someone might not even know there was an apartment here.

It was out of the way for a reason.

Amé crouched down low, moving toward the window. She was in her jeans and a dark tank top, barefoot. Danny was in his jeans, but shirtless. The tiny apartment was always hot even with the Arctic King AC unit in the bedroom window running on high. It just never quite reached the front room, and tonight was no different. He didn’t have time to search for his shirt, though he felt naked, exposed, but did grab at an extra magazine from his holster belt on the ground and saw across the shadowed space between them that Amé had two spare mags tucked in the back of her jeans.

Trapped in that apartment, he snapped back to that moment in Eddy Rabbit’s trailer, how he’d felt trapped there, too. Buried down in a small space, like a hole in the ground . . . like a coffin.

The dream was full of dead men.

Goddamn, he’d been dreaming again of Afghanistan. He’d tried so hard not to fall asleep . . .

He was already sweating a river and it had nothing to do with the shitty AC. He swore he heard flies where there weren’t any, almost brushed a phantom one away.

It was the second time in two days that the old fear had grabbed him. He needed to find a way to get free, and get his shit together.

Fast.