Page 60 of Bird on a Blade

Something sharp and cold presses into my waist, and I finally find the will to scream, my voice echoing across the mountain.

“Shut the fu?—”

A dark blur slams into him, yanking him away from me. I stumble forward and land hard on my hands and knees, panic and terror slicing through my body.

Scott really is going to kill you.

I don’t have time to dwell on the thought, a confirmation of what I already knew. Greer shouts behind me, but it’s cut off with a heavy, metallic thud. I flip around and am not remotely surprised by what I see:

Sawyer in his grey Halloween mask, one hand clutching his hunting knife, the other clutching Greer’s brown hair.

“Who the fuck are—” Greer sputters out most of the question before Sawyer slams his head against the frame of my car. Greer lets out a wet choking sound.

Sawyer glances over at me.

I can’t see his eyes, only that twisted, snarling demon face. But I know what he’s doing.

He’s giving me the opportunity to leave. To not see him do what he does.

I should take it. I know I should take it. But I can’t move. My body feels weighted in place, my fingers digging into the cold damp earth. I’m too scared, and I don’t know who I’m scared of:the ex-husband who nearly strangled me, the man he sent to kill me, or my boyfriend.

Sawyer turns away from me and slams Greer’s head against the car again. Then he flings him down and steps over him. His knife catches the sunlight.

“I wasn’t gonna touch her!” Greer shouts. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I was just lost, man! I was just?—”

Sawyer bends down and picks a knife out of the grass. It’s smaller than his. A switchblade.

He slams it into Greer’s left eye.

Greer screams, a horrible and inhuman sound, his hand scrambling frantically at his face. His blood is bright red, so bright it doesn’t look real.

Sawyer looks at me again. That bright red blood splatters across his mask. I wish, suddenly, that I could see his face.

I still can’t pull myself up to standing. I’m petrified by fear.

Sawyer’s shoulders hitch, ever so slightly, and then he draws back his hunting knife and slams it down into the still-screaming Greer. I jolt at the suddenness of it, and then feel dizzy when Sawyer yanks the knife back out with a spray of blood and does it again, and again, stabbing and slicing. Greer’s screams turn to gurgles and then fall silent, but Sawyer’s still slashing at him, bathing himself in Greer’s blood. I can smell it, a wet coppery scent that makes my eyes water.

It reminds me of that night at Camp Head Start, cradling Gavin’s head in my lap as he died, offering him a kindness he never once showed me.

It reminds me of Blake’s body in the food hall, the way Sawyer turned me around so I couldn’t see it.

It reminds me of my own blood when Sawyer sank his teeth into my shoulder as he fucked me.

Sawyer straightens up. He’s drenched in blood, and I know, seeing him like that, how I should react. I should be frightened. I should be disgusted. I should be retching into the grass.

Instead, I just feel a strange, terrifying calm. It’s the same feeling I had that night fifteen years ago when I found Michelle Evan’s body. A hollowness. An absence of emotion.

That’swhat scares me.That’swhat drives me up to standing, my legs wobbly and weak. The knowledge that I am okay with this, this bloody, mangled corpse, because I’m in love with the monster who did it.

Andthatis why, when Sawyer reaches out to me, I run.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

EDIE

Iburst into the church, tears streaming down my cheeks. I’m not sure if I want Sawyer to follow me or not. But it was too much, being out there with Greer’s corpse, the scent of blood drowning out the autumn scent of the forest. I was afraid that scent would follow me if I ran into the woods.

I stumble down the aisle, my thoughts cottony and numb. Tears drip off my chin. I’m hardly even aware that I’m crying. I just feel this crush of guilt and fear and confusion. How many times have I thought I should call the police but didn’t? They were all building to this moment of understanding.

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