Page 127 of A Better World

Just then came the sound of the Labyrinth door opening. Keith’s footsteps slapped the hard floors as he followed their trail of overhead lights.

“We have to keep moving,” Linda said.

But there wasn’t time. Like an elegant shadow, Keith Parson was upon them.

It happened so fast Linda couldn’t parse it. All she knew was that she and the kids were running. She could sense Keith behind them, gaining. When she felt him get close enough, adrenaline kicked in. She pivoted hard. Kicked out her leg. He tripped, landing on his knees.

Before he had the time to recover, she was on him, her thumbs over his eyes, pushing hard. He reacted fast and strong, punching her head, a real sparks-flying closed-fist punch, her soft temple taking the brunt. She went blind in pain and rolled down beside him but didn’t let go. His eyes were wet and so were her thumbs. He rolled on top of her, screaming in fury, and she thought,If I can loosen his eyes from their sockets, he won’t be able to find the kids.

He bore his entire weight on her, knees grinding into her chest. Her spine made acrunch!against the floor. At least three ribs broke with distinct pops. His hands squeezed around her neck.

Thwock!Something slammed the side of Keith’s head. His crown skittered into the wall. The bones broke apart.

After all that, she thought.A dime-store crown.

Josie was holding a rock. It took Linda a second, her brain fuzzy with pain, to understand that she must have hit him with it. Josie seemed bewildered, too, by her own violence. She stayed still and close. Keith reached up and grabbed her wrist. She dropped the rock. He squeezed until they all heard the soft, sandpapercrunchesof small bones as they broke.

In her shock, Josie didn’t cry out or fight.

But then came Hip. He slammed Keith with another rock from directly overhead—a better angle. Blood sprayed down on Linda in aerosol and also in drips. She launched again at his eyes, stabbing with her thumbs. Onepop!Then the other:Pop!Both eyes broke free from their sockets and hung loosely from their jellied optic nerves.

Screaming a wild, terror scream, eyes dangling against his cheeks, he flailed to his back. He didn’t seem to understand what had happened—that his eyes were no longer inside his skull. He could still see, she knew. But with one eye pointing down and left, the other down and right, his mind wasn’t creating a useful picture.

No longer screaming, but whimpering, he reached his hands along his face until he found and cupped his eyes. Now was the time, she knew. She ought to tear them from their nerves, smash him with a rock. Finish it.

She didn’t do these things. She scrambled up, got back near the kids.

He tried in vain to wedge his eyes under their lids and back inside their orbital nests. As he worked, he didn’t weep or keen. He uttered soft, disconsolate whimpers. His breath caught in gulps and gurgles. “Is anyone there?” he begged. “Are you there?”

Linda and the kids stayed still and close.

“Please?”

It was strange. She was tempted to help him. Josie even took a step toward him before Hip caught and held her.

Keith heard the sound and went very still.

Unmoving, they waited. It was a kind of purgatory.

Keith let go of his eyes. His hands moved to the left side of his chest, where his palms stiffened and turned to claws.

A heart attack.

They stayed that way in the silence. She guessed only a few seconds, though it felt longer. Hip broke their paralysis. Having lost all trepidation, all decorum for now and maybe forever, he took his rock and bashed that same bleeding side of Keith’s head with it.Crack!Keith went utterly still.

It’s awful to see your child do something like that. In many ways, they’re no longer your child or anyone’s child, once they’ve committed murder. She felt great compassion for him, and only wished she’d spared him this act, and had done it herself.

More than all of that, she felt relief.

Panting, the three didn’t take the time to huddle or check injuries. They ran through the nearest hall, markedPARSON PRIVATE QUARTERS, into a suite of rooms. The first room was a library with those same human-skinned chairs. The second was a small bedroom, a low cot, and shining Beltane King costumes on the white tile floor like ragged black holes. Along the faux window shelf, through which an artist had depicted mosaic caladrius, were two rows of Beltane Crowns, the back row stacked halfway over the front one. On the nightstand, a scatter of used hypodermics.

Keith’s private room.

She didn’t pity him. He didn’t deserve that. Still, she felt a pang, imagining him on this cot, alone.

They kept going into the connected room, which was five times bigger and much brighter, its mosaic windows taking up nearly every wall. The bed was sultan-sized and the furniture was all Daniella’s trademark velvet. Each side room led to large dressing rooms and studies. Linda recognized Anouk’s ugly caftan shawl hanging off the side of the bed. She recognized her father Parson’s cane on the other side.

She didn’t think about what all that meant. Now was not the time to care about what had driven Anouk Parson and her son insane.

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