When we hurt people just to punish them, Luanne used to say, we create a darkness that will live on long after our reasons for giving birth to it have faded.

A phone, she reminds herself. What I need is a phone. I don’t need to see Jason Briffel suffer. I just need a goddamn phone.

In each hand, she gently grips the tops of his front pockets. Then, with almost no effort, she peels the flaps away from their stitching until both pockets have been butterflied. As the stitches rip, tears sprout from Jason’s eyes. There’s nothing painful about the process; it’s the sound of it, she figures. Maybe it makes him imagine his flesh being flayed from his bones.

Poor baby.

His key ring slides out from one opened pocket. The chunky fob for a Honda hits the floor with a light thud. But no cell phone.

She reaches for the tape across his mouth, pokes through the middle of it with one thumb. A tiny gesture, but it makes a pop like smacking gum. Suddenly Jason’s breath starts whistling through the fresh hole. Slowly and carefully dragging both index fingers in opposite directions, she turns the hole into a slit. Under normal circumstances this would have required a knife. Right now she barely has to exert any pressure at all.

Where’s your phone, asshole? she wants to say. But what comes out of her mouth is, “What were you going to do to me, Jason?”

“Please . . .”

“Please, what? What did you come here for?”

His phone, she thinks. Just get his phone.

“I told you,” he whispers. “I came to set you free.”

“With rope and duct tape and my guns? You really believe that? You really think I’ll be your Abigail? That I’ll find you women to rape and then murder them for you?”

“Why is it so hard for you to see that people care about you, Trina?”

“That is not my fucking name anymore, you sick, crazy shit.” At first she thinks he’s crying out because he’s afraid, or because she’s brought her nose to his and rage quaked in every syllable she just snarled. Then she feels something crunch in her hand. It’s his right shoulder. She grabbed it without realizing it. She’s broken it.

The sounds he makes now are more barking dog than sniveling child.

Her hand feels hot. Shame clogs her throat. Before she can stop herself, she’s skittering backward until she slams into the wall behind her. For a second she thinks she paralyzed herself. Then she realizes the back of her skull punched into the wall on impact. It takes her a few seconds to pull it free. When she steps forward, plaster chips tumble down her back.

Why? How could she watch what happened to those bikers as if it were just a movie but the sound of Jason’s agony threatens to send her into a panic?

What brought her remorse back now?

Maybe it’s because Jason isn’t holding a sawed-off shotgun and calling her a cunt. Yes, he came to do her harm, but he’s not capable of it right now, and she just broke his shoulder in the blink of an eye. Without meaning to. And that means it wasn’t self-defense.

It was torture. And how will torture save her from this night? What will it do other than take her back to the Bannings’ farm in her mind?

So her soul isn’t dead. Whatever’s happening inside her body, she’s still human. She can feel shame and revulsion even moments after savoring his fear. This is a good thing, she realizes.

Then, for the first time, she notices the slender gold chain around Jason’s neck. Inside the tiny medallion attached are the stylized, painterly outlines of several flames. Flames for Burning Girl, she thinks. It’s a goddamn token celebrating the fact that together she and Abigail Banning burned the belongings of a dozen raped and murdered women, and this fucker wears it on his neck. To see her. Suddenly his agonized wails don’t make her feel so ashamed anymore.

“Where’s your phone?” she asks.

He answers with sobs.

Slowly, she lifts one foot and hovers it over the center of his chest. It’s justified, she thinks. It’s justified because she needs information. She needs help.

“Where is your goddamn cell phone?”

“M-my car. I-it’s in my car. In the a-a-a-arroyo.”

About fifteen minutes later, after grabbing a holster for her Beretta and attaching it to her hip, her flashlight beam finds the edge of the arroyo, then glints off a windshield at its bottom. She hits the key fob. Headlights flash and a car horn bleats—a combo that seems both absurd and somehow hopeless out here in the desolate darkness. It’s a Honda Civic, black, the doors caked in sand from days of desert driving.

She’s about to descend the slope when she hears a sound like buzz saws approaching through the night. They’re coming from the north, from the direction of Fisher Pit. On the horizon, headlights widen like bioluminescent fish emerging from the deep.

Motorcycles, eight of them in all.

There’s no chance these new bikers can see her way out here; the house sits between her and the highway. Still, she doesn’t want to risk being spotted, so she gets down on all fours and slides backward until most of her body is hidden. She can still see across the cactus-studded earth.

One after the other, the bikers zip past the house, headed south, toward the scene of bloodshed she’d left behind earlier. Did one of those guys manage to get off a distress call before he became cheeseburger? Or is the rest of their crew checking in on schedule? What will they do once they find those bodies? Fan out in search of anyone in the area? Will that bring them to her door?

There’s not much inside Jason’s car, but she does find a cell phone sitting inside the cup holder next to the gearshift. He probably left it because he didn’t want to run the risk of it ringing or buzzing or lighting up while he was lying in wait for her. It’s a cheap disposable. It’s got plenty of juice.

She turns it over in her hands slowly and delicately, as if it were made of crystal. After several deep breaths, she starts searching its menu options with the gentlest of button presses.

The contact book is empty. So’s the call history. There’s only one text thread, and it’s between Jason and an unidentified phone number.

The day before, Jason texted: Hi Savior, it’s J. New phone. Leaving now.

The response: E-mail when you reach Flagstaff.

Jason: Can’t e-mail. Switched to a disposable phone. Only text and call.

The response: Smart. Text when you reach Flagstaff. No calls.

He’d done exactly that at about eleven o’clock the night before.

Then, that morning, he’d texted again.

Getting ready for the last leg. All good?

The response: Everything’s good. Will let you know if her schedule changes.

Her heart hammers. So whoever this Savior person is, they’ve been watching her throughout the day. Longer than that, if they knew she was out here.

Where were they now? Why hadn’t they come to Jason’s rescue?

The next text turns her stomach. It’s from Jason.

Code is 1986474. Thanks for the tips.

What could that even mean, thanks for the tips, aside from the fact whoever this fucker is, he’s got the alarm code to her house now, too?

Call the police, she tells herself. But just thinking these words reminds her of her one trip to the Scarlet police station to register her alarm system: two deputies, a dispatch officer, and a weary-looking sheriff, none of whom seemed ready for a short jog, much less a biker gun battle.

And whoever’s helping Jason, their phone number’s right here.

If they come out now, maybe she’ll be able to deal with them as effectively as she’s dealt with Jason. Whoever they are, they’ve lost the element of surprise.

Jason texted once more. I hope I’ll make you proud.

“Jesus,” she whispers.

Proud. What could Jason have planned to do to her in her own house that would make this monster proud?

Later, around evening time, the Savior texted, She’s on her way back.

The text was sent at almost the exact time she left Dylan. She scans her memory for any lurkers outside his office. The bikers, maybe. Were the bikers a part of Jason’s plan? Did that even make sense?

She dials the number.

There’s an answer after three rings.

“I said no calls.”

The breath doesn’t leave her; instead it’s as if the air inside her lungs simply ceases to exist. Like the last breath she took was some childish idea she was foolish to put faith in. She wants to say his name, but now she wonders if it even is his name. If anything he’s told her about himself is true. If a single word he shared in that cramped second-floor office that smelled of coffee from the AA meetings downstairs was anything more than a prelude to this night.

“You’re the Savior,” she hears herself say.

“Charley?”

“You told Jason where I lived. You helped him break into my house.”

“Charley, I need you to listen to—”

“Go to hell.”

“I need you to tell me how you’re feeling.”

“Are you kidding? Are you fucking kidding me? You’re gonna try to be my therapist now?”