She was right-handed, and the gun felt awkward in her other hand, but she found the hammer with her thumb and cocked it and fired all at once. The gun was pointed toward the muscled, hard flesh in Blue Dog's hip, but he was already moving when she got the shot off. He bellowed in pain and dove off the cot, landing heavily on the floor and scrambling backward away from her. She fired again, but the shot went wild and took out one of the rear windows in the shanty with a burst of glass. The smell of burnt metal and smoke filled the space.
He danced from wall to wall, his hand pressed against his side. A small trickle of blood oozed through his knuckles. She followed him with the gun, but didn't fire. She only had two shots left and didn't trust her aim from her left hand.
"You're good," he told her.
"If you leave now, I won't shoot," Serena said. "Just get the hell out of here."
"I don't think so."
Her head was pounding. The hot spot in her skull where the gun had landed on her temple throbbed and made her vision wobble and then refocus. She wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn't. Something warm ran on her skin, and she realized blood was leaking from her shoulder where he had stabbed her. She could see her flat stomach, too, which was a gooey mess of red streaks, and when she moved, the muscles in her abdomen howled with pain.
She swung the gun back and forth, left and right, until she was dizzy. She couldn't keep this up forever, and he knew it. He was waiting her out.
"Drop it, and I promise I'll make it quick," Blue Dog said.
"Fuck you. Come close, and watch me blow your head off."
"You're bleeding," he told her.
"So are you."
She watched his eyes as they locked onto a shelf in the middle of the shanty, and she saw her own gun there and the magazine of bullets lying next to it.
"Go for it," she said. If he got that close, she knew she could nail him.
He bent and scooped a glass beer bottle off the floor. The cap was still on; the bottle was full. He held the bottle by the neck and made circles with his wrist like he was slinging a lasso. Foam hissed and fizzed from under the cap. Serena gripped the gun tighter and aimed at the shelf, knowing that's where he wanted to go. Blue Dog zigzagged the other way and flung the bottle underhanded at the cot. The glass shot over her head, missing her by inches, and shattered against the rear wall, cascading over her skin in a storm of beer and hail. Involuntarily, she flinched and closed her eyes. It took only a second, but the second was too long, and she heard him dive for the gun.
She had no choice. She had to fire. The gun recoiled, and her bare skin burned. The shot missed Blue Dog, but he had to hit the floor before his hand reached the shelf, and he was smart enough to know he didn't have time to try again without winding up in her sights. He skittered backward like a bug. She kept her eyes open, despite the beer leaching into her tear ducts and trickling down her face. Some of it found its way to her lips, and she lapped it with her tongue.
Sam Adams. Good stuff.
He was at the rear of the shanty again, but he was slowing down. He couldn't keep moving forever, and she couldn't stay conscious forever, and sooner or later, one of them was going to slip.
"One bullet," Blue Dog told her. "You only have one bullet left."
"That's all I need."
But she knew the odds were against her. She glanced around, hunting for another weapon, and her eyes landed on the knife he had used to torture her, which was lying on the floor just beyond the reach of the cot. If she could free her right hand, she could stretch her arm out and grab it. She knew the fish hook was somewhere under her body, and it would be easy to reach around and slash the cloth that tied her down, but that would mean putting down the gun first. She couldn't do that.
He smiled at her dilemma. "You're running out of time."
"You're not looking so good yourself."
His voice was casual, as if they were two friends talking over old times. "Back in Phoenix, I knew you got into it sometimes. A man can tell."
"Yeah, I really got into it. Sure. You stupid bastard."
"Some women get off on it. Like Tanjy."
"She got off on fantasies. I guarantee you, she didn't like the real thing."
"She wasn't supposed to like it. It was supposed to be punishment."
"What?"
He made his move, surprising her. He feinted toward the gun and then jerked in the other direction and dove across the width of the shanty. His fingers clawed at the wall switch. Before she could get off a shot, he slapped the switch, fell back to the ground, and rolled away.
The light went off. She was so blind that she couldn't even see the gun in front of her, and all she could do was listen. Where was he?
The storm was loud, and the wind leaked through the tear in the tape and the broken window at the rear of the shanty. Water kept dripping and falling on her body through the ceiling. She stared into the blackness and tried to remember what it was like in the light, so she could guess where he would go and how he would attack her. She pricked her ears for every creak and groan in the metal floor, but she didn't hear a thing other than the blizzard. He was waiting somewhere. Not moving.
One bullet.
She took a huge risk. If she couldn't see him, then he couldn't see her. She put the gun down on her chest and felt around the cot silently for the fish hook. When she heard a shriek of metal, and felt the shanty sway, she grabbed the gun again and pointed at nothing. He was creeping, moving, getting closer. She didn't have much time. She tried to find the hook, but she realized it must have fallen back to the floor as she struggled with Blue Dog. With the gun on her chest again, she reached back down and skated her fingers along the metal floor and found the hook. Quickly, she slid it into her hand. She eased the gun off her body, so it didn't slide away, and then she craned her body around, trying to stretch her left arm until she could reach the strip of cloth that tied her right hand.
The frame of the cot squeaked. She hoped he didn't realized what she was doing. The distance down to her right wrist was farther than she realized, and her body strained in protest as she twisted. The cut in her shoulder sent out ripples of pain and heat. Glass pieces from the beer bottle cut her skin and sprinkled loudly on the floor. Her head spun, and the darkness turned upside down.
Somewhere, he took two hurried steps, very close by, and before she could take up the gun again, he moved away and she heard the sickening sound of the clip being shoved into the grip of her own gun.
His voice came out of the night.
"Guess what I have?"
She had to move fast. She reached out again, pulling every inch of distance out of the muscles in her back, and her fingers trembled so much that she almost dropped the fish hook. She stretched as far as she could with her right hand in the other direction until the binds pulled her back. She didn't know how far away she was, but it may as well have been a mile. She couldn't get close enough. She couldn't free herself.
Blue Dog fired. The noise rocked the shanty. The bullet missed her head by no more than six inches; she could feel its heat as it streaked by. Bits of metal ricocheted off the wall behind her. She scooped up the other gun again and aimed where she had had seen the flash of the barrel, but she could hear him moving.
"I've got plenty of bullets," he said.
He fired again, and he was gone again, before she could return fire. This time, the bullet seared across the top of her thigh before burying itself in the wall, and she gasped loudly as her leg seemed to catch fire, and the fire spread through her body. He knew where she was. There was nowhere for her to go.