Page 48 of His to Burn
“No way,” Jack said.
He spoke with a certitude that made me bristle.
“How can you be so sure?”
“His spine was crushed. Even if he managed to break away—which would require him ripping himself in half—he can’t walk. So if he hurts someone, it’s because they wanted to be hurt. We need to focus on where we need to be and not get distracted,” he said.
“So it’s just that simple, huh?”
“Yeah. Just that simple.”
He said nothing else, but I could tell he wanted to. But he’d probably decided now wasn’t the time for a debate on morality.
I didn’t want to talk anyway.
The plan to go to Judge Hanlon’s gave me hope, a purpose. But seeing all this? It showed me what this really was.
Reminded me I couldn’t slip.
I told myself I was ready.
That resolve lasted about four more blocks.
“We can cut through the neighborhoods. More trees. Less through traffic,” I said.
Jack nodded, no doubt remembering the map I had drawn.
As we cut through one of the neighborhoods, I looked at the houses—each of them adorable and worth more than I’d probably earn in a lifetime.
Or at least they had been.
Something told me that the dead returning to life would be hell on property values.
I let out a low, grim chuckle, but my gallows humor didn’t distract me from thoughts about the people who’d lived here.
I wondered if the owner of the douchey extended-cab pickup got away.
Wondered the same about the owner of the even douchier electric car.
Wondered if the busybody who put the matching Private Residence signs on each lawn had?—
“Down there! Help! Please!”
A frantic scream burst through the relative quiet of morning.
I spun, searching for the source of the voice.
Spotted a woman waving wildly as she practically hung out of the top window of a two-story house. Mid-forties, blonde, wearing a shirt with the logo of a boutique local gym. Her clothes, her hair, diamond earrings that glinted in the sun, all screamed rich.
But at that moment, the thing that struck me was her fear. The kind of terror that was foreign to me before yesterday but now felt familiar.
I knew better than to go to her.
I moved anyway, my heart lifting when she smiled through her fear.
“Thank you,” she called, her voice lifting. “My daughter—someone attacked her!”
And the next instant, another figure appeared.
