Page 115 of Brimstone Hollow

“Miss Gore—” he gasps. “Miss Gore, I fell asleep. I’m sorry I…”

“It’s okay,” I say. I put my left hand to the wound.

The rain pours from the purple sky, blows in sideways, and soaks us both. Blood runs down the steps, away from us, into the ground.

“I tried—” Gavin says, weakly.

Frantic, I pat my pockets for something, anything, to help stanch the bleeding. And, in my jacket pocket, I find the rolled-up, unused maxi pad I’d borrowed from Scarlett a few days before. I pull it out, unroll it, and press it into Gavin’s chest, hold it as tight as I can.

“It’s okay,” I tell him. “It’ll be okay.”

His phone lies on the concrete beside him. He must have pulled it out after he’d fallen. I pick it up. It’s locked. I try to hold it up to his face. I have to call 911. I have to get help.

But my hands are so tired. The phone is so heavy.

A curtain of red swings in front of my vision.

Suddenly, the phone isn’t in my hand anymore. It’s gone.

My breath goes thin. My heartbeat slows.

I can’t keep my eyes open. I drift forward and, next thing I know, I feel the warmth of Gavin’s body beneath me.

“Annie-Girl…” I hear. A voice from the darkness.

I open my eyes, look up, and there’s Ezra King.

No, not Ezra.

My father. He reaches for me, his arms warm and strong.

He scoops me up—like he used to do when I was small, when he would scoop me up from where I’d fallen asleep on the sofa. Like he used to carry me to bed. I used to pretend to be asleep even if I wasn’t, just so I could be carried.

“Annie,” he whispers. “What have you done?”

No, not my father.

Chief Dishman.

I open my eyes and see his face above mine.

“No,” I say, trying to push away from him. “No, you… you killed him and you… you… lied to me…”

“What’s done is done,” Dishman says, looking straight ahead. “Now I just have to see it through.”

And then the world goes black.

THIRTY-TWO

IT’S THE SMELL OFmy dad’s car, like candy and gunpowder, that brings me back. That old Volkswagen hatchback. The soft feel of the fabric. The high growl of the engine. I shift my feet and push old soda cans and potato chip bags around.

“Annie-Girl,” my dad says. “Annie-Girl, wake up.”

“What?” I ask him. We’d left the carnival and he said he wanted to go for a drive. Now we’re on the back roads, headed home. It’s just one twisty hairpin after another, after another.

The windows are down and the scenery slips by in a blur.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh…