“Yes,” Red said, agreeing with her internal monologue. “You’re just getting yourself Into a State for no damned reason.”
She saw movement from the direction she’d come from—a group of figures, made blurry by the distance. The patrol.
“See?” Red told herself. “There they are. Everything’s fine. You just didn’t calculate the time correctly, or they were delayed by something else.”
There was some satisfaction in seeing them, too, because it meant at least some of her assumptions about their patrol loop were correct.
Except that as the group approached she could see that there were four figures instead of three, and one of those figures was very small.
Small and wearing a pink hooded coat that looked a lot like the one Red had found for Sam in the house with the pink bedroom.
She stood up, ignoring the way her heart slammed in her chest and her breath came fast and frantic. Red squinted at the group—like that would make her see more clearly. The little figure had a shaggy brown haircut
(just like Sam)
and bright blue sneakers
(just like Sam)
and the larger figures were laughing and pushing her shoulder so that she stumbled. Every time she stumbled they would laugh harder.
The group got closer and closer, and when they passed the house with the blue siding Red clearly saw their faces and one of them was small and twisted with fear and wet with tears and of course it was Sam’s.
Red was seized by a sudden and urgent thought—I can’t let them take her to the camp.
If they took Sam to their base she would be gone forever, for Red didn’t have a band of freedom fighters to liberate a child from imprisonment in a camp full of armed men.
So it was important—no, it was imperative—that she get Sam back now. And to get Sam back she would have to kill those three men who were laughing and pushing her and probably thinking terrible thoughts about what they would do with a little girl.
One of those men laughing and pushing Sam was Toothpick—the guy Red had spotted on D.J.’s lawn. Red wondered if he was the reason that Sam was taken. But if that was the case, then where were D.J. and Riley?
(not dead please not dead don’t let anything have happened to them)
No. She wasn’t going to believe in anything without evidence seen by her own eyes. And it wasn’t time for reconstructing possible scenarios. Red had to save Sam.
She would have to surprise them, which meant moving fast, and moving fast just wasn’t Red’s best thing.
“Don’t think about it too much,” she said, unhooking the axe from her belt.
Red took off the small bag of supplies that D.J. had given her and also pulled off her noisy coat. After a minute she reluctantly put her red hood on top of the coat. A bright red hood might attract attention if one of them saw a flash in the corner of their eye.
She went to the front door and unlocked it and hoped like hell it wouldn’t squeak or squeal when it opened. Red pulled the door just an inch and peered through the crack. The opening faced the direction the group was heading and she waited for them to walk by on the road, hoping that none of them observed the open door as they passed.
The brick house wasn’t right on top of the road and of course they were distracted by Sam so chances were good that they wouldn’t notice.
But that Toothpick guy, he’s pretty observant. He might notice.
They crossed into Red’s range of vision a few seconds later. She noticed that the Toothpick wasn’t quite as toothpicky when viewed from the side. He had a little round gut that protruded from his bony ribs like he’d swallowed a water balloon.
The other two men looked younger than him—late teens, early twenties was what Red figured. She thought this was kind of young to be a rapey scumbag, but then she supposed it was important to the recruiters to get them while the boys were still impressionable.
Anyway, it was the Toothpick she was worried about. He was a known quantity and he was the closest to Sam. It was possible that he might grab her and try to hold her hostage if Red attacked.
This is stupid, Red thought. The chances of her overwhelming all three of them and getting Sam away safely were absolutely minuscule. But she had to try. The alternative wasn’t worth considering.
So she didn’t think too hard about what she was doing or how she was doing it. Red just pushed the door open and ran as fast as she could down the front yard as soon as the group had their backs to her.
The yard was a little downhill slope toward the road. She felt like she would lose her balance at any moment, but luck was on her side and she didn’t trip.
Sam also chose that moment to let out a particularly loud wail, which meant that the sound of Red approaching on the road behind them was masked.
“Shut up!” Toothpick shouted, cuffing Sam across her right ear.
The other two laughed as Sam cried out. None of them were that tall—not even the Toothpick, whose extreme thinness gave an impression of more height than he actually had. She could reach all of their necks. She was sure of it.
Red swung her axe.
It sank into Toothpick’s neck and though Red had never relished the idea of killing anybody it felt deeply satisfying to feel the blade slicing through the taut stretch of his skin and into the place where his blood ran free.
She was angry. That was a surprise. She was really angry, not just scared for Sam or for herself. She was furious, actually—furious that somebody like this was still alive and walking around when her family was dead.
It was always men like this, men who thought that they could take what they wanted and leave the broken scraps of people behind. Men like the ones who’d driven up to her house with rifles with the intent to kill them all. Toothpick and his pals were just like them, just part of a club where anyone who wasn’t in it got used up and run over.
Red wasn’t sorry to kill them at all. Not at all.
Toothpick’s jugular vein opened and blood was everywhere in a hurry but Red didn’t stop to see how much. She just yanked the axe out again and did the same thing to the second guy.
Mama’s dead. Dad is dead. Adam was eaten up by a monster and here you are, walking around like you deserve to be alive, and you don’t.
She had to work fast, had to keep the element of surprise on her side, because if she didn’t then they would shoot her. Shoot her, but maybe not to kill. And then she’d be dragged off to their camp and so would Sam and she didn’t want to think about what would happen to them there.
The third guy had half a second to react and started to turn toward her, raising his rifle as he did, but she wasn’t having any of that and she embedded the axe in his neck too. The slightly changed angle meant that she got more of his vocal cords and the muscle made the axe blade stick and it took more effort to pull it out but she managed.
There was blood hot in her throat and blood hot on her face and her hands but they were down, they were all down, and all that remained was Sam standing there with her eyes as big as her face.
All three of the men had dropped their rifles as they fell, and Red picked up Toothpick’s and threw it into a ditch several feet away. Sam stared at Red as if she were an apparition while Red grabbed the other two rifles and did the same thing.