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Kristen kept her expression neutral as she scanned the trash-strewn yard. “This is…”

Jake laughed without humor. “Don’t spare my feelings, Kristen. This is a dump. A redneck wasteland. And this is where I come from.”

She touched his arm. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. So am I. Fuck it. Let’s go.”

They got out of the car and began to stroll across the yard to the front door. Jake kicked a Miller Lite bottle out of his way. It skittered across the lawn and exploded against a stack of mud-encrusted old bricks. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the ground, ninety-nine bottles of beer…”

Kristen surprised him by picking the tune up: “…pick one up, throw it in the trash, ninety-eight bottles of cheap-ass beer on the ground.”

Jake surprised himself with a laugh that felt real.

Kristen put a hand on his shoulder as they stepped up onto the porch. “You shouldn’t feel so bad about this, Jake. You got out of here. You made something out of yourself.”

Jake didn’t reply.

He jabbed the doorbell and stepped back.

He heard voices inside the house. Jolene and Trey. Then he heard the lock turn. Jolene pulled the door open and stood behind the still-closed screen door. She wore her usual uniform-low-slung, tight denim cutoffs and a skimpy pink tank top. The grin on her face was new, though. Jake couldn’t remember ever seeing his mother look so smug.

She chuckled. “Well, look at this. It’s my backstabbing son come to say howdy.” She turned to Kristen. “And he’s brought his new whore with him.” She looked Kristen up and down, licking her lips in a lewd way that made Jake’s stomach churn. She caught Jake’s sickened expression and her grin broadened. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me for beating that bum rap, baby?”

“I’m not your fucking baby,” Jake said. “And you ought to be in goddamn jail. Where’s my brother?”

Before Jolene could say anything else, a shadowy figure came up behind her. When Trey came into view, Jake was astonished at the difference in him. No trace remained of his former sheepishness. He glared at Jake, his eyes wide and his nostrils flaring. The teenager threw the screen door open and strode outside. He bore down on Jake like a heavyweight champion springing out of his corner at the sound of a bell, making Jake flinch and take a step back.

Trey stopped a few inches shy of Jake, standing chin-to-chin with his older brother. “You’re not welcome here, motherfucker. You set my mother up. You tortured my dad and blamed it on her. The police know all about it. They’re gonna drag your worthless ass into jail soon.” He sneered. “That’s if I don’t kill you first.”

Jake was flabbergasted. He tried to say something, anything, for several moments before giving up. He needed to marshal his thoughts, to regroup. Of all the things he might have expected to hear from Trey-well, this wasn’t even on the list.

The best he could manage, finally, was a weak, “What?”

“You heard me.” Trey jabbed his chest with a strong forefinger. “Get the hell off our property.” He pitched his voice higher and leaned closer to Jake. “NOW!”

Jake blinked. He looked to Kristen for help, but she looked just as flabbergasted. She even looked a little afraid. “Have you lost your fucking mind, Trey? This is bullshit and you know it.” He pointed a finger at Jolene. “She’s crazy. You know that, too. I don’t know what the hell’s gone wrong here, or what’s happened to sway you to her side, but some part of you must know this isn’t right.”

Trey’s answer came in the form of a fist to the throat that sent Jake tumbling backward. Kristen screamed. The lawn’s tall grass cushioned his landing somewhat, but he landed hard nonetheless, the back of his head thumping against the ground. He winced and turned his head to the left, saw a shard of broken green glass inches from his face. He didn’t seem to be cut, so he’d lucked out in that regard, but he hurt like hell all over. He gagged and his vision misted. Then he looked up and saw his brother standing over him. Trey’s fists were clenched.

“Get up.” His voice was flat and hard, betraying only one emotion-pure hatred. “Let’s finish this right now.”

Kristen knelt over Jake, putting her body between the brothers. She glared up at Trey. “Don’t touch him! We’re leaving.” She put a hand on Jake’s face and gazed down at him. “Are you okay?”

Jake drew in a deep breath. His throat still hurt, but at least he was able to breathe again. He gripped Kristen’s hand and drew himself to his feet. He looked Trey in the eye. “I don’t know what’s wrong here, brother, but I’m gonna find out.”

Trey scowled. “There’s nothing to find out.”

“I doubt that.”

Jake spun away from his broken family and strode rapidly back across the lawn to his Camry. The world spun and he wobbled some, but he managed to stay upright. Kristen caught up with him, taking him by the hand again as they reached the car. By then he was shaking all over. She pulled him into an embrace and he allowed her to hold him as he fought to get control of himself.

“It’s okay,” she whispered into his ear. “We’ll figure this out. I promise.”

Jake nodded.

He looked over her shoulder and saw Jolene standing on the sidewalk with her arm draped around Trey’s waist. With her other hand, she waved to Jake. “Bye, baby. Tell that whore of yours to come see my other baby if she ever wants a taste of a real man.”

Jake felt another surge of nausea.

Kristen whispered in his ear: “Don’t say anything else. This is not the time. You’ll only make it worse. Let’s get out of here and figure out what to do next.”

Unable to bear the sight of his mother’s leering face another moment, Jake decided to follow Kristen’s advice. He eased out of her embrace and got back inside the Camry. Moments later they were out of the Zone and speeding back toward Washington Heights.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The name of the place was GUN CITY USA. It was a sort of firearm superstore. A Walmart for hunters and aspiring mass killers. The store offered rifles, shotguns, and sidearms of every make and caliber imaginable. Some of the rifles looked like the kind of thing a motivated sociopath might easily convert into a fully automated killing machine.

Raymond Slater was appalled.

These were the things that had haunted his pre-Lamia nightmares. Every time a story broke about some new school shooting a chill went up his spine. He lived with an ever-present dread that something similar might occur at Rockville High one day. On his worst days, a Columbine-style massacre at his school seemed inevitable, which he realized wasn’t entirely rational, and so he’d sought the help of a therapist, who’d dispensed antidepressants and antianxiety meds by the fistful. The pills helped some, but the affair with Penelope had been the real cure for his stress. But now even that was lost to him, though she didn’t know that yet.

Because the time had come for Raymond Slater to make a stand.

Following a long night of degradation and humiliation, Penelope had left him to his own devices this morning. That bitch. So smug. So certain he was again a thoroughly cowed man. He knew his place in Lamia’s scheme and would perform as required. It was a given. They thought he was a spineless, weak-willed man incapable of rebellion. The threat of torture and death would certainly be enough to keep a cretin like him in line. And if by some remote chance he should develop the testicular fortitude to oppose them, well…

Josefina.

Sweet little Jo…

Something tugged at his heart at the thought of his daughter’s name. His only child. She was all he had left. And they had threatened her. She would die in the slowest and most agonizing manner possible if he attempted to stop today’s planned mass murder at Rockville High. This was according to Penelope, who said she was relaying the message on behalf of Lamia. And though Jo was at a college hundreds of miles to the north, Raymond knew this was no empty threat. So he had been forced to weigh the possible loss of his beautiful daughter against the potential loss of hundreds of young lives.