Page 53 of Summer's Edge

“And he shouldn’t have messed with me,” I snarl back.

That earns me a kick in the stomach, which makes me unable to breathe for a couple of seconds.

“How you wanna do this? Just shoot her in the head and be done with it?”

“No,” the grieving brother says. “We do it right. Cut her up, make them hurt when they find her.”

The darkness in his voice makes me shiver and I can’t stop.

“Please, just let me go,” I say. “It’s not too late. I’ll tell them not to go after you. Everything can still work out. We can all still just walk away. Please.”

The guy laughs harshly and kicks me again.

“That’s not an option, you dumb bitch. Never was.”

“We did forget to take her phone,” the other one says. “They could know where we are by now.”

“Shut the hell up,” the first one snaps. “What are you? Chicken shit? We do this and then we disappear. Though I’d love to see the looks on their faces when they find her.”

He pulls a knife from a leather sheath. I don’t see it. I just heard it. And it sounds like a thousand snakes hissing at once. It sounds like death itself slithering for me.

I try to run. I do scramble away. But I have no chance of getting away from them and I know it.

I’m already dead.

At least I got to know love. At least I didn’t bring this on myself and let my father down again. At least it’ll all be over quick.

TWENTY-SIX

Edge

As I ride as fast as I can for the yellow dot that is Summer deep in the forest, a part of my mind is fixed in the memory of the wild ride Ruin and me took out of our hometown. The fear is almost the same, the nausea too, the shock and the shakes as well. But I’m riding towards something here. I’m riding to save a life, not running from death and destruction.

Though there will be that too when I reach my destination. And plenty of it.

Tuning into the killer in me helps drive all those useless, sad memories from my mind.

I’ve left everyone else behind already. No one dares drive as recklessly as I’m driving. But I feel them right behind me anyway. They won’t be late. We won’t be late.

We can’t be.

The turn off from the main road that will lead me straight to the yellow dot is so narrow and so overgrown, I almost miss it. But I don’t.

The road is not a road. It’s at best a forest lane, but more a footpath. Twice my father’s bike almost buries me under its weight.

I have to slow down. It’s the only way.

The tracker on my phone leading me to Summer starts vibrating and beeping fast as I near the spot where the dot last pinged.

It emits a single steady beep when I reach it.

But there’s no Summer here. There’s nothing but a small clearing surrounded by trees so tall I feel like they’re trying to swallow me whole. And it’s dark. So fucking dark. Darker than it was on the night my family got killed. Darker than any night I’ve ever lived through. So dark I don’t believe I’ll ever see light again.

I find Summer’s phone in the undergrowth, the screen cracked from hitting a rock. There’s a picture of me on the screen in the Joker mask she painted on my face. I remember her taking that picture right before I made her mine. That seems like a million years ago now. And at the same time, no more than five minutes ago. The heart shaped pendant she gave me to remember her by is heavier than a mountain around my neck.

“What’s happening?” Ice asks. “Why’d you stop?”

They’re all here and I didn’t hear them arrive. I didn’t hear anything but Summer’s voice telling me she loves me.

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