When I turned my head to look up, Target was standing over me, pointing the shotgun at my back. I swallowed bile and struggled to keep Darla underneath me, hoping my body would block the blast. My stomach was a leaden ball, weighting me down. Darla squirmed beneath me.

Target pulled the trigger. There was a soft metallic click.

I opened my eyes. I hadn’t remembered closing them. I’d never heard any noise quite so welcome as the click that shotgun made when it wasn’t killing me.

Target pulled the trigger three more times. Click, click, click.

I guessed what had happened. Target, the dumbass, had killed a rabbit by shooting it and hadn’t reloaded, so one of his barrels was empty. Why he didn’t wring the rabbit’s neck was beyond me. Criminals are stupid as a general rule, I figured.

I reached up and grabbed the gun barrel. It felt warm. Target tried to yank it away from me. I took advantage of his motion, letting him pull me to my feet. I launched a sidekick, using the gun for leverage and balance. I kicked him perfectly, right in the kidney. He grunted and sagged away from my foot—but only a little. Damn, but he was big and strong. That kick should have laid out a horse.

He held onto the gunstock with his left hand and stepped toward me. His right fist crashed into my side, hitting the spot where he’d cut me almost three weeks ago. I screamed and danced away, still holding onto the barrel with my right hand. I was afraid if I let go he’d use the gun to club me to death.

He tried to follow up with an uppercut. I swept it aside with my forearm and connected on a quick jab to his chest. He threw another punch. I blocked again and got in another solid body shot that seemed to have no effect whatsoever. He reached for the hatchet at his belt, so I threw a punch at his face, forcing him to block.

We traded blows this way four or five times. I blocked or dodged everything he threw my way, got in solid counterattacks to his body—and accomplished nothing. Neither of us would let go of the shotgun, and he couldn’t get at the hatchet on his belt without leaving his head open.

In a flash, it came to me what I was doing wrong. I was sparring with this gorilla. Hundreds of hours of training had taught me too well—don’t hit below the belt, no eye gouges, no groin strikes. . . .

Darla reared up behind him with Ferret’s baseball bat. Target moved, and she missed his head. There was a meaty thwack as she clubbed his shoulder. He barely staggered. I lunged forward, trying to drive a spear-hand strike into his good eye. He spun, and my fingers hit his temple instead.

Darla wound up for another strike, but this time Target stepped toward her and grabbed the bat in his right hand as she started to swing. So now he was holding the bat in his right hand and the shotgun in his left, stretched between Darla and me.

That left him wide open for a round kick. I unloaded on him: one of those perfect, sweeping kicks that, on a punching bag at Cedar Falls Taekwondo, would have produced an echoing slap. But I wasn’t kicking a punching bag—I was kicking Target in the nuts.

He screamed and doubled over, dropping the gun and bat. Darla and I both began clubbing him. He spun and ran for the door with his hands up around his head, trying to protect himself from our murderous blows.

Outside, Darla started to chase him through the ash.

“Darla!” I yelled. “Your mom.”

She turned, ran back to the doorway, and pushed past me into the kitchen.

Target got fifty or sixty feet away and turned to stare at me. “You’ve got to sleep sometime. I’ll be back. I’ll slit your throat—and your girl’s.”

I stood silently and watched him. My breathing slowed, and my body started to hurt in a dozen places. Eventually Target got tired of shouting threats and disappeared into the ashy haze. I went back to the kitchen to check on Darla and her mom. Still shaking with the adrenaline aftereffects of one fight, I went to face another—one I couldn’t hope to win.

Mrs. Edmunds was still breathing, but that may not have been a good thing. The shotgun blast had hit her head. Her face looked like fresh hamburger. Her breath burbled in and out of her mouth, blowing little bubbles in the blood welling around her shattered teeth. Her eyes were ruined—she’d never see again.

Darla was kneeling beside her mom in the cold room, wearing nothing but jeans and a bra. She’d stripped off her filthy outer shirt. Her undershirt was wadded up in her hand, pressed against her mother’s neck. It wasn’t doing much good; the pool of blood from Mrs. Edmunds’s throat grew bigger as I watched. Already it surrounded Darla’s knees, soaking into her jeans.

I doubled over, hands on my knees. Spasms wracked my body as if I were sobbing, but no tears came.

Mrs. Edmunds said something, one word so low and distorted I could barely understand. It sounded like “love.”

Darla whispered, “I know, Mom. I love you, too.”

I stood nearby and watched them, feeling utterly helpless. All my fury washed away in a wave of despair. What could I do or say? Less than a month ago I might have dialed 911 on my cell phone, asked Mom or Dad for help, or run to Darren and Joe’s house. Now none of those options were available. Darla and I were alone with her dying mother and the corpse of some guy called Ferret. Alone on a vast plain of unforgiving gray ash.

Chapter 28

I stood there with my hands on my knees for a while. Ten minutes? Maybe longer. The burbling sounds coming from Mrs. Edmunds had long since ceased. My ankle hurt. I checked it; shotgun pellets had pierced my boot in a couple places, but there was no blood.

I looked at Mrs. Edmunds. There were no more bubbles at her mouth. The pool of blood around her head had stopped spreading. I bent down and put my fingertips against her wrist. No pulse. I felt wooden, like a numb marionette that the real Alex could only observe from a distance.

“Darla?” I whispered. “She’s dead.”

“Mom? Mom, wake up. You’re going to be okay.” Darla pulled her blood-soaked undershirt away from her mother’s neck. No new blood welled out of her wounds. She’d bled out.

Darla put her fingertips alongside her mother’s perforated throat. She bent down so her cheek touched her mother’s ragged lips. She moaned, “No. No. No—”

“She’s dead. I’m sorry.”

Darla leapt up, a motion so sudden it startled me. She yelled, “This is all your fault!” She lashed out, swinging her clenched fist against my chest like a hammer. “You led him here.” Thump, she hit me again. “We were fine until you showed up.” Thump. “He said he knew you.” Thump. “Said he was happy to find you again.” Thump. “It’s your fault!”

I was bruised, sore, and tired beyond words. Hot blood trickled down my side where Target had punched me, reopening the gash in my side. But I let her hit me. Made no move at all to defend myself. What if she was right?

“I hate you.” Thump. “I hate you! I hate you!” Thump thump.

She was crying now. I reached out and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. She kept beating her fists against my chest within the circle of my arms.

Eventually her energy ran down. She quit hitting me, which was a good thing, not only because of my bruised ribs. I’d begun to worry whether Target might have already circled back.

Darla looked about ready to fall over. I took hold of her shoulders and guided her into a chair. I picked up her overshirt and draped it across her shoulders.

I wanted nothing more than to collapse into a chair beside her, to surrender to the despair, to let the world go to hell without me for a while. So what if Target circled back and killed me? Maybe I deserved it.

But Darla didn’t. I walked to the door and peered out, looking for Target.