Page 112 of Turn That River Red

No wonder Ambrose wasn’t worried.

I throw the briefcase on the car and snap it open. It’s empty.

“What were you going to do?” I whisper softly, watching Gunner retreat. Pastor Sullivan had a gun. Did they think they could just shoot Ambrose?

After he shot me?

The thought turns my blood cold. Colder than it’s been.

I snap the briefcase shut and hurl it out in the desert with a scream, all my tension erupting out of me. Max nudges at my thigh. The terrible wet noises behind me stop.

“Mercy.” Ambrose’s voice is calm, soft, reassuring. “He’s not going to go far.”

“He was going to let me die.” I whirl around without thinking and then gag when I see Ambrose crouching in the dirt surrounded by glistening viscera. He frowns as he stands, wiping his knife on his pants. Roxi looks up at me, her snout covered in blood.

“What do you mean?”

“There was no money.” Blood pounds in my head. “He thought you had kidnapped me for real. You told him you were going to kill me if he didn’t pay, right? But he wasn’t interested in saving me.”

“Humanita,” Ambrose says. “This whole thing was a ruse to murder these two pieces of shit.”

“But he didn’t know that!” I squeeze my arms around my chest. “I thought—I thoughtsomepart of him would think I was worth saving.”

Ambrose frowns and walks over to me. “You are worth saving,” he says softly, brushing my hair back, smearing me with more blood. “Why do you think I’m here?”

His black eyes search my face. He doesn’t look human right now. Doesn’tfeelhuman. But for the first time since my parents died?—

Someone actually cares about me.

“I love you,” I spit out.

It slams between us, cold and electric. I know I shouldn’t have said that.

“I—I don’t expect you to say it back,” I add. “I don’t expect you to feel it about me. I mean—” I gesture over at Pastor Sullivan. “Look at you. You’re the devil.”

“The devil can love,” Ambrose says quietly. So quietly I almost think I imagine it. “But that love doesn’t look like God’s love.”

I stare up at him, taking deep breaths even though it means I can smell the coppery stench of Pastor Sullivan’s insides. Reverend Gunner’s right-hand man. They shared everything, even me.

Now they’ll share the same sort of death.

“I feel sick,” I whisper.

“Because you’re human,” Ambrose says. “I’d be worried if you didn’t.”

A beat passes between us. The sun bakes down.

“Come on,” he says. “I need to get the meat to the blind to drain.”

The meat. That was how Sullivan treated me, wasn’t it? Like meat.

“And then we’re going to hunt down Sterling Gunner, and I’m going to show you just how much I fucking love you.”

I whip my head over to him, shock rippling through my body. But Ambrose has already turned around, stalking back to his prey. He hoists Pastor Sullivan’s body over his shoulder andglances back at me. “Come on,” he says. “We don’t want Gunner getting too much of a head start.”

“I thought you said we don’t need to worry about that.”

“We don’t need to worry about him getting to safety.” Ambrose whistles and starts walking off to the west, and I jog up so I can be at his side, rather than behind him. “But the dogs are getting antsy.”

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