"Feel nice?" Roberts said. "Feel good?" But even then Cole could see the confusion in the man's eyes. "Please … ," Cole said.

Roberts nodded. "I'm sure that's what she said, too." He pulled the trigger.

Click.

Nothing. He was holding the gun as though it were dirty, resting it in his hand rather than grasping it tight.

Click.

Again, nothing.

Holy shit, what am I doing.

The man on the ground looked up at Tom, his left eye wide, breath held, his expression one of terror and outrage. Tom stared down at him—what in the name of fuck am I doing?—and almost smiled, the situation was so unreal.

Mister Wolf started to twist and writhe, and Cole knew it would only be seconds before he was toppled off, and then Mister Wolf would wrestle the gun back and reverse the situation, and he knew how to use the gun, the safeties, whatever had gone wrong with Tom's attempt to shoot someone in the face.

I almost shot him in the eye!

Tom leaned back, twisted around and swung, bringing the gun in low and hard against the side of the man's head. In the movies Mister Wolf would have been out cold with barely a mark on him, but in reality the skin of his temple split and he cried out, swearing and wriggling harder beneath Tom's weight, swinging his fists, then changing his tactic and grasping at Tom's clothing in an attempt to pull him off. Tom hit him again, this time putting all his strength into the swing. It made a sickening thunk as it hit the man's skull, and this time he did not shout as loud. His hands fell from Tom's sides, his head rolled back and forth, and beneath his flickering eyelids Tom could see his eyes turning back in his head.

Oh God, I may have killed him anyway! The gun's barrel was matted with a bloody clot of hair. Mister Wolf's temple was a mess. He twitched, and his right heel scraped at the road once, twice.

Tom stood and backed away. He held the gun in both hands, aimed at the prone man even though he was still unsure why it had not fired before. He took a good hold of the stock this time, and as he squeezed he felt the grip slide in tight. Safety.

Now, if he so wished, he could kill.

Tom sobbed out loud. Tears came, and as much as he tried he could not hold them back. He had no idea what had happened just then. He fell to his knees in the road, gun barrel resting on the tarmac.

I moved so fast. One second here, staring into the barrel of a gun. Next second there, pressing it into his eye and pulling the trigger twice, ready to see his head explode and his brains spew out all over the road. And in my mind at the time, feeding the rage … Jo? No, not Jo. Not my dead wife. Someone else …

Natasha.

Something had taken him when Mister Wolf pointed the gun at him, some unknown madness that had given him speed and strength. That had not been Tom, not at all. The anger had been his, but not the willingness—the eagerness—to kill. Tom thought he could never do that, no matter what. Not even to the man that had killed his wife.

He had moved so quickly. And with that came a recollection of the dream-memory Natasha had shared with him; the speed with which she and her family had moved through that huge basement, and the power of their bodies as they dodged bullets and shrugged off knife wounds in their state of crazed hunger.

Tom stood slowly, looked around, shook his head to bring himself back. Right now he had the upper hand, and he could not afford to lose his position of advantage by cracking up. Later, perhaps. But not now. "Natasha?"

There was no answer from the mummified girl. Still asleep after her feed. And Tom rubbed the wound on his chest again, still putting it down to flying glass when he had really always known the truth from the second her teeth touched his skin.

The BMW was still running, parked across the road so that no other vehicle could pass by. It would only be a matter of time before someone else came along. If Tom could make the most of the next few minutes—think logically, not crack up, not let what was happening get to him and drive him over the edge—then he and Natasha would be away from Mister Wolf for good. There was a car just waiting for him, though it was likely stolen. He would not be able to keep it for long, but perhaps after the next hour or two, if he drove carefully and quickly, he would be far enough away to find safety.

At least, for now. Tom was under no illusion that there would be a reckoning, a time when he would have to go to the police and tell them everything that had happened. Between now and then, however, he had to do whatever he could to move on.

He jumped the gate and went behind the hedge to where he had left Natasha. A snail had crawled onto her face in the few minutes she had been in the grass, and Tom flicked it off and stepped on it in disgust. The subtle crunch of its shell beneath his shoe felt good. He picked her up, chains and all, and was she slightly heavier than before? He could not really tell; the fight and its emotional recoil had drained him.

"Natasha?" he said again, but if she heard him she chose to remain silent. He stood there for a few moments, looking down into what was left of her face, trying to discern any form of expression there. But her living death was expressionless; everything she felt or thought was shown only on the inside.

He placed the girl on the backseat of the BMW and covered her with Mister Wolf's jacket. Back at his ruined car he carefully bent Jo's knees, hating the cool feel of her skin and the way her legs already seemed to be growing stiff.

"Jo," he said, feeling everything, able to say nothing. "Jo." He closed the door.

He ran back to the BMW and opened the boot. It was filthy inside, strewn with old sacks and dried grass and leaves, but he found what he was hoping for in one corner: a toolbox. He undid the straps holding it in and emptied it in the boot. Then he shook his head, cursed himself and hurried over to the prone man.

Got to get everything right! he thought. Got to get the order of things right. There's always order in things—the right order, and the wrong—and if I get this wrong now then I'll be caught, and there's no way my story will be believed. I've got a bloodied gun, my dead wife, a child's corpse and this pistol-whipped killer lying in a country lane. What story could the police concoct from this? And what about the army, or whoever it was this bastard worked for? Got to get this right. Jo, in the car. Mister Wolf beside the car. Then Natasha's chains. Then Misterwolf again.

Then the gun.

Dragging the man across the road was harder than he had expected. Whatever strength had come to him had drizzled away again, and he grunted and huffed as he pulled Mister Wolf by the legs. The man mumbled something as they approached the ruined car, and Tom stood over him again with the gun pointing at his face. But the mumbling stopped, the breathing became harsh and uneven, and Tom lifted him into a sitting position against the car.

That done, he returned to the BMW and started rooting through the spilled tools. All the time he kept an ear open for any approaching vehicles, wondering just what he could do if someone came along now. There was surely some believable story he could come up with given time, but right now he was not in the mood for creating stories. Right now, he simply wanted to leave.

He found a pair of bolt croppers. They were old and rusty, but still the blades had been kept sharp and oiled, and the action was smooth. He leaned into the car, uncovered Natasha and got to work on the chains. He wanted to cut them as little as possible, because he had need of them. It took four broken links before he was able to unwrap the chains totally from Natasha, taking care not to pull off parts of her body as he extracted a few sections that were buried deep with her rotten clothing. Finally the last length came away. "You're free," he said, and from somewhere far away he heard a sigh.