The Hunted Girls by Jenna Kernan (best book club books for discussion txt) 📕

She cried as she tried to stand. The arrow, sun, rain, insects and days had softened her for him. She limped away and he pursued. If she moved to the right or left, he cut her off. But she was slow and the game grew tedious. He sighed in disappointment.

When she reached the shore of the lake, she paused to look back.

“In,” he said.

“¡No sé nadar, me ahogaré!”

This time her hesitancy bore consequences. He aimed and released the arrow. The point protruded from her hip, striking bone. No spine injury for this one. She’d be able to feel them bite.

Bibi fell backward into the water and thrashed. When she managed to stand, he slipped the chain about her and clipped it tight. She tried to use it to drag herself from the water and he hit her opposite leg with another arrow. Down she went again. He glanced out over the water at the ripples.

The alligators sensed prey. He knew there were several fourteen-footers here and they were coming.

He waded in, taking a risk, and yanked his arrows from her. The one in her hip left its point behind, as he intended.

She struggled, gasped and cried. She called to God for help.

He moved to the shore to watch the other apex predators, knowing he was her god now.

Ten

SATURDAY

In the morning, Nadine headed to Lawtey Correctional and Clint to Lowell Correctional, the women’s prison where his mother was held. Arlo was expecting her, and she planned to speak to him about Tina and discourage the relationship.

She suffered through the indignities of the security screening and entered the visiting area, well inside the drab interior. Did every prison smell like mildew and bleach?

Once in the main gathering room, she perched on a stool at one of the many circular tables. The seats were fixed to the frame, because you couldn’t throw a chair that was bolted down.

The prisoners entered through a metal door, transferring custody from the interior guard to the one beside the prisoner exit. She noted that this guard, though he clearly spent too much time lifting weights and guzzling protein shakes, greeted every prisoner by name.

It was only when she heard him say her brother’s name that she recognized Arlo, and stood with her jaw swinging open. He looked so different than when she had visited last month. Then, his hair had been a wild tangle and he’d grown a scruffy beard that made him look more like Robinson Crusoe than the boy she remembered from their childhood.

This Arlo had short hair, a neatly trimmed mustache and wore round wire-rimmed glasses. She gaped.

“It’s me, Dee-Dee.” At least she recognized his smile.

“You’re so polished up.”

“I’ve been working on that. Trying to make an impression. I have another hearing coming up.”

“Is that so?” He’d written her about that and all she could think was that he shouldn’t get out. She believed in her heart that he was like them, the killers in her family. The only reason he was eligible for parole at all was the deal he received in exchange for a guilty plea. She knew what he’d done to his girlfriend at the time, and it might have been more if the neighbor had not heard the fight and called the cops. Mostly affable, he had an emotional firestorm lurking just below the surface.

Emotional damage from unresolved chronic trauma, family disruption and a psychologically unavailable parent, all resulted in rejection sensitivity and socially deviant moral reasoning justifying preemptive assault. Or that was what she would report, had she been asked to evaluate Arlo.

“Well, you are sure to make a good impression.”

Arlo had been admitted into a program for inmates to train dogs over a year ago. Shortly afterward, she began to notice changes in his attitude and demeanor. He also seemed happier.

“Want something to eat?” she asked, turning toward the vending machines. She had brought small bills to buy food.

They walked together to the machines. He was several inches taller than she and muscular. This adult Arlo made her nervous and she missed the way they had been when they were kids, the two of them looking out for each other. He chose a cola and she selected water.

She worried over his release, dreaded it at a visceral level, fearing what he was becoming before his arrest. At the perceived threat of abandonment by his then girlfriend, Arlo had chosen a preemptive attack. He had been unable to handle the emotional rejection of even a possible breakup. And how much worse had his emotional difficulties become in the prison system?

She bought them each a breakfast pastry, slipped him fifty bucks, and they headed back to their table.

She handed him one pastry. “Happy Easter,” she said.

“Hmm. Will be if it’s my last in here,” he said. “You get my message about Mom?”

“I wrote and told you that I did.”

“Haven’t had computer rights since yesterday. Anyway, she’s plenty pissed at you for cutting her off.”

“She sent a killer to encourage me to commit murder. What did she think would happen?” asked Nadine.

“I don’t know, but she’s really mad. She’s got a biographer and I just know she’s going to slice you up in her version of events.”

The shiver traveled all the way from her tailbone to her face. Her mother had managed to send a serial killer after her from behind bars. Now she was writing a tell-all book. That could only be bad for Nadine.

“The guy writing for her contact you yet?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“He’s aggressive. Persistent too.”

“You’ve met?”

“Phone interview. I hung up.”

Nadine waved her hand, making a show of dismissing his concern. Meanwhile, she was certain the barbed arrows her mother might launch with that book would draw blood.

“I’ll handle it.”

“Just be careful. She’s dangerous when she gets like this.”

“Okay. I’ll be careful.”

Nadine took the warning seriously. But really, her mother was dangerous at any time. Arleen Howler could no longer write her daughter, but she was far from helpless.

The pause lengthened. She thought of her