I sat down heavily on the sofa. My stomach churned. Alison had been taken.
“Do they know when she disappeared?”
“Sometime this afternoon,” Mom replied.
“Nobody saw anything?”
“No,” she said. “But the police have been brought in. I’m sure she’ll be just fine.”
Fine, right. But I knew different. I couldn’t let it happen.
“They should search the woods,” I said.
“Honey, I’m sure they’re doing everything they possibly can to find your friend,” she replied, but I cut her off.
“There’s a lean-to a couple miles west of here,” I said. “It’s covered in newspaper clippings of the animals that went missing.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Dad said, angry.
“They have to search the lean-to. Whoever killed those animals may have Alison. If I’m right, he means to kill her, too.”
“When were you out in those woods?”
“That’s where I’ve been going. Not to Ben’s. Not to Steve’s. Not for a while. You have to listen to me. We don’t have much time.”
Dad slapped me, hard. My face stung, and tears welled in my eyes, but I bit them back.
“You expect us to listen to you when you’ve been lying to us all summer? When you’ve been sneaking off to God-knows-where?”
“David, don’t,” Mom said.
“He brought this on himself,” he replied. “We trusted him and he lied to us.”
“Punish me if you want,” I said, shaking with rage. “But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s out there and if they don’t find her she’s going to die.”
“I’ve heard all I need to hear from you,” Dad replied. “You scared us half to death. Go to your room, and don’t come out until I say you can, you hear me?”
I looked at Mom. She looked away.
Without a word, I climbed the stairs to my room.
I crouched low to the ground, invisible in the darkness. Ahead was the lean-to, black in the failing light.
I hefted the pocketknife in my hand. It wasn’t much, but it’d have to do. I wondered if my parents had noticed yet. The empty room, the screen pried open. I hoped they had. They knew where I’d be going, and angry or not, they’d have to follow.
I crept toward the lean-to, knife held ready. My heart thudded in my chest. At the edge of the plywood, I stopped, listening. There was no telltale sound, no flicker of lamplight. I wondered if I’d been wrong. I half hoped I was. With a breath, I wheeled around the corner, knife held high.
There, lying on the ground, was Alison. Her hands and feet were bound with duct tape. A thick strip of tape sealed shut her mouth. Her eyes flitted behind closed lids. She was still alive.
“Alison,” I whispered, shaking her gently. “Alison, it’s me, Tim. I’m here to rescue you.”
From behind me, I heard the snap of a twig in the darkness. Sudden, close. I spun, slashing wildly. Blade caught fabric, and my attacker screamed in pain. Too late I saw the rock in his hand, swinging toward me. It connected with my temple, and I went down.
My vision swam. I forced myself to my knees, tried to stand. Then the rock came down again, and everything went dark.
I woke by degrees. My head throbbed. My stomach roiled. My tongue felt too big for my mouth. Alison lay beside me, unconscious and still bound. I flexed my arms beneath me. They were leaden and stiff, but free.
I lifted my head and looked around. A lantern flickered in the center of the room. Beside me was a set of chipped, yellowed plates, arranged according to size. Hunched over the cot at the far end of the room was Isaac, his back to me. As I watched, he lifted his arms above his head, fists clenched together, and brought them down, hard.
I climbed unsteadily to my feet. On the cot lay a boy. Isaac raised his fists and brought them down again. They slammed into the boy’s rib cage with a dull thud. I winced. He raised his arms again.
“Isaac,” I said. The word felt foreign in my mouth.
“You’re not meant to see this,” he growled, not turning.
“Isaac, leave him alone,” I said, creeping closer. Isaac’s knife lay beside him on the floor, glinting in the lamplight.
“You’re not meant to see this!” he shouted, spinning toward me. I lunged for the knife. Isaac just watched.
“Get away from him,” I said, brandishing the knife before me.
“Tim—”
“Now, Isaac.”
Isaac backed away. I circled toward the cot, my eyes never leaving Isaac. Once he moved beyond arm’s reach, I turned my attention to the boy.
Billy McMahon lay still on the cot, eyes closed. His nose was bloodied and crooked, and he wasn’t breathing. Across his chest was a single shallow gash, streaking his shirt with blood. The gash of a pocketknife.
Isaac’s knife clattered to the floor beside me. “Billy?” I said.
“That’s what she called him,” Isaac said, nodding toward Alison, “right before he gagged her.”
“Is he dead?”
“Yeah.”
“You did this?”
He nodded. “I was waitin’ for dark,” he said. “Figured if he saw me comin’, he might hurt her. But then you showed up, an’ he...” Tears shone in Isaac’s eyes. “He was gonna kill you.”
I thought of Isaac, hunched over the boy. Fists against chest. Pounding out a rhythm. A heartbeat. “You were trying to save him, weren’t you?”
“Way I see it, he wasn’t mine to take.”
“Isaac, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I expect that’s true.”
Suddenly Isaac straightened, cocking his head. I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, and then froze. I heard it, too. Dogs. Distant, but approaching fast.
“Isaac, you have to go,” I said.
“The girl needs help,” he replied. He collected his knife from the floor and crouched over Alison, cutting her free.
“Isaac, they’ll be here soon. You have to get out of here, give me time to explain...”
It was too late. They were just outside the shack.
“We know you’re in there! Send out the children!”
“They ain’t gonna let me go,” Isaac said.
“I’ll tell them what happened. They’ll understand — they’ll have to.”
“They won’t.”
“You don’t know that,” I said.
“I do, an’ so do you.”
“Then I’ll stall them,” I said. “Buy you time to—”
“To what? Ain’t no other way outta here.”
“Damn it, Isaac, I don’t know!”
Outside, the dogs brayed. The man called out again. “Release the children now!”
“Look,” I said. “You have to let me try.”
Isaac smiled. “You’re a good man, Timothy.”
“Sure,” I said. “Now help me get her up.”
Isaac lifted Alison and handed her to me. I got my arms under her back and knees and held her tight.
“Tim?”
“Yeah?”
“Be safe.”
“You, too,” I replied.
I approached the door. “We’re coming out!” I shouted. I kicked open the door and stepped outside, stopping just beyond the threshold. A half-dozen lanterns pushed back the darkness. The search party was maybe twenty feet away, mostly uniformed, guns at the ready. My father was there, and Alison’s as well.
“Is the girl hurt?” shouted one of the officers.