James

She calms when she sees me.

A wave of guilt crashes through me, like rancid oil. Kristy sits up in her new bed, shuddering and hugging herself. It's been so long since the accident that the physical scars, the mark on her head, are obscured by her hair. One would have to massage her skull to feel the old lumps left by the lines of dissolving sutures.

The blow to her head caused massive bleeding in her left frontal lobe, forever robbing her of the memory and command of the English language that she wanted to apply as an English teacher, working on her degree part time while she worked cleaning the nearby Super 8 Motel while her meth-head boyfriend made and pissed away drug money. I should have been there. I should have been a good big brother and not halfway around the world wallowing in the shit.

She looks at me with her mismatched eyes—the bleeding seeped into the left one and permanently changed the color of her iris, besides making her legally blind on that side. Ever since she was hurt she's worn thick goggle glasses despite never needing them as a kid. I bought her an iPad a while ago and she clutches it the way a kid would hold onto a favorite present.

She mostly watches movies and TV shows with it. Whenever she gets into one of those mobile games and runs up a bill, I don't care, I pay it. Whatever makes her happy.

Whatever distracts her from being unable to read. Books were her world growing up, and now she can barely read a sentence and if she tries to read a book, she gets frightened and confused because she forgets what the paragraph prior was about by the time she reaches the end of the next one.

She's shaking and afraid. I need to have a talk with someone here. Why was she left alone?

"James?" she squeaks when she sees me.

I rush to the bed before she has a chance to get up—her balance is very bad, and worse when she's agitated. She's a permanent fall risk, so I hug her before she can put her feet down. This place was supposed to take better care of her. Better food, companionship, activities, and less worrying about her wandering off and getting lost or picked up by some trucker in the middle of nowhere.

I guide her back onto the bed and sit next to her.

"Hi, Sis."

"Hi," she says in her oddly childlike voice, so different from the way she used to talk, an imitation of Mom's smoker’s brogue.

"How are you doing?" I ask her.

"I don't like it here. I want to go back. They lost my charger."

She holds up the dead iPad and my chest clutches tight.

"I'll get you one, promise. How about some TV?"

She nods, and I rise to hunt up the remote control. Damn me to hell. She gets agitated when I'm gone, but when I'm here, her memory problems make it as if I never left—and I take advantage of it to soothe my guilt. As soon as I get back, it's as if I'm never gone.

"Are you going to stay for a while?"

I nod. "Yeah, hon."

I end up sitting with her for an hour watching some reality show about competing bakeries until she gets too sleepy to stay up, then give her a kiss on the forehead.

"I'll be able to see you more often soon, I promise."

"Come back," she says, smiling.

Walking out of the room, it feels like there's a hook in my guts, but then it always does. Outside, I slump back in the seat of the Land Rover and groan, eyes pressed tightly shut. It's almost eleven. I won't be back at the cabin until one in the morning.

Best get going.

On the drive back, I tune to some weird AM radio show about UFOs and keep the windows down to stay awake. The route back is all back roads, and I have to take my time lest I turn a corner and hit a deer. I've seen enough shit in my time not to worry about aliens, but it can get eerie out here in the deep dark. Most people don't know that Pennsylvania is one of the most rural states in the union, with huge swathes of emptiness.

Finally, I pull into the gravel lot out in front of the cabin, lurch out, and head up to the door. It takes me a moment for my instincts to catch hold when I grab the door and it opens freely, unlocked.

Snapping into motion, I pull my sidearm and tuck it low, ducking inside. I have a light slung under the barrel, but I won't use it unless I spot an intruder, so as not to give away my position.

Long practiced instincts take over and I clear the place room by room, then grunt as I climb the ladder to the loft one handed.

The bed is empty. He's not here.

Wait. It's not empty.

Rose petals. It's covered in dried, dead rose petals, and there's a bundle of thorny sticks...rose stems resting on what would be my pillow. My chest seizes, flash freezing to ice.

Think. Think.

I need to get the police out here, but that might take an hour, or longer. I flip on the lights and clear the house again to be sure, then slip outside and circle the cabin. Stupid. I'm exposing myself.

He's been kidnapped. Kidnapped.

Some distant part of me thinks: It's been less than two weeks!

I have to stop to think. Check the cabin again.

Careful not to disturb anything, I crouch and examine the bed. Rose petals and stems. A dead bouquet. How morbid. They must have been waiting for him when I dropped him off earlier, which means they knew where we were and slipped in after we left for the diner but before we returned.

Phoenix said no one knew where we were staying, but—

I freeze.

They knew one place he was going to go.

I couldn't have been tailed. Unless I was distracted with him pawing all over me. Damn it, this is my fault!

Stop. Think. Shake it out.

The production facility we toured earlier. If the stalker saw us there, ID'd the car, it wouldn't be hard to pick out. $110,000 SUVs aren't exactly in hot demand around here. I have to get back there.

Rushing back out to the car, I drive hard, biting my lip. If I called the police, I'd have to wait for them to show up, explain the situation, explain my theory. They'd want to get a warrant for the facility or drag their feet some other way. I'm better working on my own.

I might not be real popular with the law after this, but it doesn't matter. I'm not going to let something happen to someone I care about ever again.

After a tire-screeching turn that makes me doubt my sanity, I haul ass around the corner up to the security gate. The guard inside jerks upright from sleeping in his chair when I run up to the hut where he controls the lift gate.

No, he wasn't sleeping. He's watching a porno on his phone. I knock it out of his hand and stare at him.

"Dude, what the fuck!" he shouts, then he spots the gun on my hip, his own eyes darting towards his taser and flashlight.

"I surrender!" he squeaks. "I only make eleven an hour!"

Seizing his collar, I haul him to his feet.

"I'm the head of Phoenix Breslin's security."

"Okay?"

"That makes me your boss. Is there a camera set up here?"

Even before I finish asking him, I have my answer and dump him back in his chair. There's a pair of monitors with cameras watching the entrance and the road.

"Can I play these back here?" I demand.

He blinks. "What now?"

"The video feeds," I snarl.

"No, Carl is in the booth in—"

"I need to see those feeds. Now."

"I can't just—"

"Yes. Yes, you can."

He swallows, hard, and hits the button to buzz me in.

I hop in the car and drive hard to the building, where another security guard has come out to greet me, and by greet me, I mean put his hand on his stupid taser and hold up the other in a “halt” gesture.

"Look pal, I don't know who—"

"I'm your boss's security detail. I need to see the video feeds from out front from this afternoon."

"I..."

"Now! Inside!"

After this is done with, I need to tell Phoenix he needs new security guards. These guys are pushovers. He scurries inside ahead of me and leads me into the security office. I push him aside, not too roughly, and scroll back through the video feeds. The cameras show vehicles approaching from the road, as well as the plates when they pull up.

"Do you have a record of the employees' plates?"

"Yeah, why—"

That'll take forever, but I need to know what I'm looking for.

Wait.

A car pulls up to the gate, then backs out and turns around. Briefly, I get a shot of the plate and scribble it down. It's a blue Ford. Not much help.

I ran all the way here for this. It's time to get the cops involved.

Then, my phone chimes. I have a text message. A photo. It's blurred, but I can make out a road sign and an exit number. I have a location. His phone, damn it, I should be able to track his phone.

"Uh, mister man?" the guard says.

I stare at him.

"Call the cops," I say, "and give them this."

I scrawl out a note and shove it in his hands.

"I have to go."

Racing back out to the car, I pull up to the gate. The other guard stares at me for a second before he jabs the button and lifts it to let me out. I know where that exit is, I've been there before. As a matter of fact, I was there tonight.

A sick feeling in my gut coils tighter and tighter as I drive. The adrenaline leaves frayed nerves in its wake, like a full body muscle ache. I'm driving to a road sign based on a text from Phoenix. What the hell am I doing? I should be bringing the cops in on this. They'll probably end up putting an APB out on me anyway.

There's no time to explain. Driving in the dark, heedless of running into an animal on the road, I roar onto the interstate and drive, hard, before coming to a screeching stop a half hour later at the sign.

Now what the hell do I do? Take the exit, or keep going? If I take this exit...

I'm about to say the hell with it and just pick one when the phone chimes again, another text from Phoenix. What the hell?

It's another picture, this time of the bottom of the off ramp where I've just stopped. I get in the car and roll down to the bottom. After less than a minute of waiting, it chimes again. Another photo, this time from the parking lot of the gas station up the way.

They're giving me directions.

Oh hell, this is a trap.

I know it's a trap, so at least I have that going for me.

Pulled into the parking lot, I sit in the car and wait nervously. I'm completely exposed here, with no real protection. Glass windows might as well be paper. Head on a swivel, I look every way at once.

They must be watching me, or know where I am somehow, but if I'd been followed, I'd know it.

Another text comes in with a picture of another gas station. It must be further up the road. Pulling back out onto the highway, I swallow as a cold ball forms in my stomach. This could be leading me away from him, on a wild goose chase. If I'd stopped to think...

I mull over calling Phoenix's phone. That might set them off. The gas station from the picture is about ten miles from the last stop and it's pitch dark, only the pumps lit up for wayward travelers in the middle of the night. It's past one already.

Fed up, I'm about to tap the button to respond to the texts with a call when my phone rings in my hand.

"Hello?"

"Is this James?" A woman's voice.

Then, behind her, Phoenix.

"James mmmph!"

My whole body clenches. The sound of my teeth grinding can probably be heard on the other end of the call.

"Who is this?"

"Listen to me very carefully," the woman says. "I want you to drive for another six miles. You'll see a sign for the national forest. The second left is Crookbank Lane. Take it, drive for two miles until you hit gravel, and look for a forestry service building. Call me when you get there. No cops."

She hangs up.

I have to stop myself from crushing the phone in my hand. Frustrated and weary, I drive. When the sign comes up, I almost miss it, slowing just in time to spot an aged sign for Crookbank Lane, bent and pockmarked from some bored kids out here with shotguns. Not the most inviting sight. Cautiously, I roll down the narrow lane at about twenty miles an hour, stopping for a moment to shut off my headlights and let my eyes adjust to the dark before going on. I can't be limited to a cone of visibility directly ahead.

Watching the odometer carefully so I know how far I've gone, I slow when I near the two-mile mark.

The forestry service building melts out of the dark. A metal barn with three big roll up doors, it sits silent in the woods with some old tractor or other equipment sitting outside under a canvas tarp.

Before I make the call, I pull my sidearm and lay it on my lap.

Someone answers Phoenix's phone. It's her.

"Are you there?"

"I'm here. Now what? This better not be a scavenger hunt."

"Or what? Huh? Or what?" Her voice is high-pitched, unhinged, growing louder with every syllable.

"I'm here," I repeat.

"Good. Get out of the car. I want you to hold the phone to your ear and hold up your gun, barrel up."

I flinch. No time to think.

"You better hurry. Listen."

A muffled hrrmprhrpph from Phoenix has me out of the car without thinking, my pistol aimed at the sky.

"Eject the magazine."

Grimacing, I hit the button with my thumb and it tumbles out, thudding in the gravel at my feet.

"Rack the slide and empty it, then lock it back."

"Alright, hold on," I say.

Huffing, I tuck the phone under my armpit and yank the slide three times. The chambered bullet kicks out into the dirt. I lock it open and hold it up.

"Now what?"

"Throw it away from the car. Don't throw like a girl, either."

Grimacing, I do as she orders, tossing the gun into a pile of leaves about fifteen feet away. It bounces between the roots of a tree.

"Alright, I'm unarmed. Now what?"

"Walk up to the door."

After a brief moment of hesitation, I take a few crunching steps across the gravel and stand in front of the nearest door. Light moves around inside, flashing under the foot of the door. It unlocks with a dull thump, and footsteps scuff on the far side.

This could be my shot.

"Open the door and step inside."

Need to be quick. No thinking, just movement. I throw the door open and take a few steps inside, ready to grab or throw a punch, but there's no one there. Phoenix is sitting in a chair a few feet away, tied at the ankles and wrists with a sock stuffed in his mouth and held in place with a second one knotted behind his head.

The distinctive cha-chunk of a shotgun racked a few feet away turns my guts to water. That is just about the worst sound in the world, unless you're behind it.

Hands still up, I turn slowly.

"Don't lower your arms," she says.

I blink a few times. Not what I expected. A redheaded girl, maybe two years younger than Phoenix, skinny in an unpleasant way and bony beneath her baggy clothes. Her cheekbones stick out so sharply that my first thought is you poor thing, even though she's got a shotgun pointed at my chest, close enough to blow a fist-sized hole in me if I make a wrong move.

"Listen," I say. "I'm not going to hurt you."

She hefts the gun to her shoulder, pulling the stock in tight.

"I know you aren't."

"This doesn't have to end badly. I can get you some help."

"Help!" she snarls.

"Mmmph!" Phoenix agrees.

"You think you can help me?" she snaps, taking a threatening step forward.

"Sure," I say. "You're in trouble right now, but I can help you out."

"Mmmmmmph!" Phoenix says, or tries too, his eyes huge over the knotted cloth in his mouth. Is that his sock?

This girl can't be the one Phoenix told me about, the college stalker. She's too young. The stalker was supposed to be at least two years older. Unless she's so bony and skinny she looks younger than she is.

She circles me, moving behind Phoenix, and presses the barrel of her gun to the back of his head. I tense as she takes one hand off the forend. It's too big and heavy, awkward in her hands, and if she reflexively squeezes to balance it, she'll turn his head into tomato paste.

I keep my hands up, fingers spread in a gesture of surrender.

"Take it easy. You don't want to do that."

She yanks the sock off of Phoenix, and the other one falls out of his mouth, followed by spittle as he hacks and coughs.

"Do you know who I am?" she demands. I'm not sure which of us she's asking.

Phoenix shakes his head. "I've never seen you before in my life. Whatever this is about, I can—"

"SHUT UP!" she screams.

He freezes.

"Lauren was my sister," the girl growls.

Was?

"Wait—" Phoenix starts.

"You don't know, do you?" she barks at him.

I stare into his eyes, silently pleading for him to stay quiet; let me handle this.

"You ruined her life," the girl says, her voice rising in pitch with every word. "She got kicked out of school, she lost everything. Because of you. She didn't get to buy her way into a fancy college, she had to earn her place. She was destroyed, because she loved you."

"I didn't do anything to her," Phoenix says calmly. "She was obsessed—"

"Why couldn't you just let her be obsessed, then?" the girl demands, thumping the gun against the back of his head.

"Why don't you put that down?" I say.

"Maybe because I'm going to blow his head off and I'm going to make you watch, asshole."

I take a furtive step forward.

"I don't think you want to do that. You didn't go to all this trouble just for that."

"I didn't do anything to your sister," Phoenix says. "Whatever happened to her is not my fault. I just wanted her to leave me alone."

She pushes the gun into him hard, bowing his head forward.

"You had her expelled from school. You—"

"I didn't do any of that. I left."

"Shut up!"

"What's your name?" I ask.

"Amy," she says.

"Amy, look at what you're doing."

"I know what I'm doing. This is revenge. After I do this, Lauren can rest easy."

She snaps the gun up suddenly, aiming it at me. The sight of the dark hollow in the wide bore freezes me in place. I'm fast, but I'm not shotgun blast to the face fast.

Keep her pointing it at me.

"Amy, I want you to untie him. I'll stay with you."

"I know you will," she says, calmly now. "I've been watching you two. So in love. I watched you fuck, too. Going at it like regular rabbits."

Phoenix turns beet red, gritting his teeth.

I take a step forward, and she lifts the gun, aiming down the barrel at my face.

"Stop right there, damn it."

"I'll stay, he can go."

"Why would I do that?"

"This doesn't have to end badly."

"It already ended badly! My sister is dead!"

"How?" Phoenix says, perking up.

"After you ruined her life, she got hooked on heroin. Left home. They found her dead in a bathtub in a shitty motel in Albany. Because of you!"

He presses his eyes shut and shakes his head. "I never wanted that to happen, Amy, but she couldn't make me love her. And I promise you, I never took any action against her after I left school."

"You went to the dean!"

"Once," he says, "and she could have stopped then. Everything that happened was her choice."

"She wasn't right," Amy blurts, "she needed help. No one helped her. She just wanted to be special like you are."

"Amy, put down the gun," I say. "It's time for you to make a choice, now. Not anyone else, you."

"No," she says, pushing the barrel hard into the back of his head. "It's time for you to make a choice, Phoenix. You get to choose. I pull this trigger and it's lights out for you, or I shoot this man you love so much, and you get to watch him die. Pick one."

"No," Phoenix says calmly.

"I said pick one!" she shrieks.

He shakes his head. "You won't make me choose."

"Shoot me," I say.

She raises the gun.

"Don't!" Phoenix screams.

He kicks his heels with all his might, bowling the chair over backwards on top of her. They go down in a tangle of limbs and he cries out as she snarls in fury.

For a deadly second, the shotgun is pointed right at my throat until I wrench it away and out of her hands. Acting on pure instinct, I yank the pump back and open the action.

No shell kicks out. The chamber is empty, and so is the magazine. The gun is unloaded. It still has a goddamn price tag on the trigger guard. Despite that, I throw it to the other side of the room, drag her out from under the chair, and pull her hands behind her back. She kicks and writhes, but the fight seems to have gone out of her.

Using her own zip ties, I bind her wrists and ankles, then turn to Phoenix.

He cries out when I touch his arm. He went down bad. I think his wrist is broken. I'm going to have to splint it, but first, I free him from the chair. Amy lies on the floor behind me, sobbing.

"That gun didn't have any bullets in it," Phoenix blurts out. "Why?"

"I didn't want to hurt you," Amy whines, "I just wanted you to know what it feels like. She gave me the gun and the shells, but I didn't put them in, I chickened out."

I freeze, turning to her, but Phoenix is the one who says, "She?"