Page 136 of One Last Chance

Shoot,he’d hoped Dillon would play the long game.

Dillon took him down, on top of him as he thrashed and punched. Axel touched bottom, and his feet kicked bones—he thought they might be bones. Probably sticks—please, sticks. But he grabbed Dillon’s grip, shook free, pushed him down, then kicked him away.

Surfaced.

Dillon came up spluttering, swearing.

“All day, man. All day long.”

“You’re a cocky—” And Dillon finished with a long string of interesting nouns.

“Maybe. But I’m not a murderer. So I’m going to out-survive you and watch you slowly drown, and I’m going to tame my inner hero and let you die, because you or me, pal, and I can’t save us both. Your only hope is that my team shows up to rescue me before your boots and silly hunting gear weigh you down to join the other bones at the bottom.”

Dillon’s eyes widened. He turned and clawed at the edges of the pit. Dirt and rock. And every time he found purchase, he fell back.

Axel treaded.

Dillon shouted, then lunged again at Axel.

Axel kicked him away, bloodied his mouth, kept treading.

“Does your son know you’re a killer?”

“Leave him out of it.”

“How’d this happen? How’d you start killing women?”

Dillon was breathing hard, his grip sliding off a tree root.

“No. What I want to know is why you killed Aven.” He hadn’t quite expected the question to rise inside him, take root, to stir a feeling that scared him a little.

He could be a murderer too, if he let himself get too near this guy.

Maybe he needed rescue more than he thought.

“Aven. I don’t?—”

“She was my cousin. Fifteen. You shot her in the back?—”

“The camping trip. I remember—” Dillon smiled now from the corner, an animal. He stopped fighting the water then, treading, staring at Axel. “The girl just floated by. No one saw her but me, so I ran down the shoreline, and she just kept going. And she was tough. Good swimmer. She finally got to shore and just sort of collapsed there. So I went down and picked her up. And then I realized we were near my dad’s old fishing cabin on Jubilee lake, and I thought we could have some fun.”

“Stop.”

“You’re trapped. You’re going to listen.” Something dark flashed in his eyes.

A chill threaded through Axel. He’d stuck his hand into the darkness and was trapped with a river monster.

“She fought me?—”

Axel threw a piece of floating debris at him, but Dillon batted it away.

“And she was loud?—”

He pushed off, launched at Dillon, grabbed him by the throat. Slammed his fist into his face.

Dillon jerked, looked back at him, his mouth bloody. “But she?—”

Axel pushed him under the water. Wrapped his arms and legs around him, holding on to him as they went down.

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