Endings by Linda Richards (e ink manga reader txt) 📕

And scream.

I know I can take him out easily, but I also know there is more here at stake than the life of a single dog. And I am thinking that, whatever happens here, the killing time will come before long. But for now, he is better to me alive than dead. It is the chance I take.

Knowing the risk—knowing that missing this poisonous target might mean I’d kill him anyway—I calculate and aim for the shoulder of the arm that holds the knife. I always underestimate the severity of the Bersa’s kick. There’s a price you have to pay for her small size. The shot is true, but the gun bucks in my hand. I have to hold on tightly so I don’t lose my grip. It’s a good thing another shot isn’t required. I don’t even really have time to think about anything, but I know in my heart I’ve hit my target.

Atwater is on the ground screaming, in that moment not realizing how lucky he is that my aim is accurate.

“You crazy bitch! Look what you did to my arm!”

I motion for Arden to follow me. There is relief on her face now, washed in with the fear. Her ordeal might be nearly over but she fears that, maybe, it has still just begun. Perspective is everything, yes. And luck rides a white horse.

“Get Ashley,” I say to her quietly beneath the din as we move forward. “I’ll just shut him up.”

I don’t have to tell her again.

While she springs instantly towards her daughter, I move in the direction of the van and recoil at first from what I see. Inside, it looks a torture chamber. If I had time to think about what I’m looking at, I would weep. But I don’t have time, so I close my mind and grab the first thing that will suit my purpose: a rubber mallet. The handle fits neatly into my hand. I go to the screaming man and hit him on the head with it. A solid whap, stronger than a tap. I know I risk killing him with the blow, but it is yet another calculated risk. And, as I’d hoped, for better or worse, it shuts him up. He’s out for now. I know we don’t have long, but we have priorities. And, in truth, his death would not be the worst thing in the world. Not the worst thing, at all.

Now Arden has her daughter untied. I see joy on the woman’s face, but also fear; like something might happen that turns the whole thing south again. She can’t believe her good fortune, that’s what I see.

I wonder how close by the police are. Wonder if they are within easy calling distance. Wonder even if I want them to show up or stay away.

Along with all the other stuff in the van, I find a blanket. I toss it to Ashley so she can wrap the child in it. The rough material envelopes the tiny form. With the warmth and proximity of her mother, Ashley’s cries subside. They are no longer screams of terror, just the hiccuppy burbles left behind after your body has forgotten for the moment how to do anything other than articulate distress.

“She’s okay?”

Arden nods, visibly sagging with her relief. “She’s perfect. Nothing broken.” And then, just above a whisper, a thought she is almost afraid to articulate: “I think we got here just in time.”

“I think so, too. Listen, pop her into the passenger seat of the van, okay? Then come help me.”

A fledgling plan is beginning to form. Atwater’s van has everything I need. I find rope, several knives, handcuffs, leg irons, bedsheets. I work quickly, trying hard not to think about what this vehicle has seen. I know we don’t have much time.

I find a couple of T-shirts in the van and tear them into strips to bind his shoulder. It is going to hurt like hell when he wakes, but I don’t care about that. Maybe something even less than care. Compassion is not the reason I want to stop the bleeding. Having him bleed out will not suit my purpose.

I stop the bleeding with an efficiency that surprises me. Once that happens, I bind his hands and feet then ask Arden to help me move him into the van. It is easier said than done. Atwater is probably two hundred pounds, and, at the moment, he is dead weight. At one point as we work, he gets a little restless and I think he might wake up, so I give him another knock on the head. Gentle-like, though, not a full-on bash. Just enough to send him back over. Again, the risk to him is real, but it is necessary. Even damaged, he is dangerous to the two of us: we are much smaller creatures. We have to do everything we can to even the odds.

When we are done, when he is once again out cold and has been secured in the back of the van, I indicate that Arden should join Ashley on the passenger seat. She clutches the child to her in a relieved-mother’s death grip, and we bump back through the forest to my rental car.

I look at Arden and hope I can trust her with this next part, realizing that I have no choice and maybe it doesn’t matter anyway. From here, the success of the plan that is forming will be a matter of timing and fate.

I meet her eyes. “I need you to help me get him into the trunk of my car,” I say, glad that the car rental company had upgraded me to a full-sized vehicle at the airport, not the compact I’d initially ordered.

She looks startled for a second, regards me with big, questioning eyes, which, on this day, have seen too much. But when she speaks, all she says is, “Okay.”

Her agreement is