The door on the other side of the truck was yanked open. Must’ve swung shut in the crash. Did the kid fly out? Hunter grunted, frustrated. He wanted to kill the boy—teach Hank another necessary lesson.
His head. Ouch. Felt too big for his skull. He lifted his head, blinking back the blackness. Hank Foster, in his fancy lawyer duds, swam in and out of focus.
Hank lifted a small, limp body into his arms, hunching protectively over the child.
Hunter lunged, leading with the buck knife in his hand. But Hank stumbled back, out of range as the seatbelt stymied Hunter’s efforts. He struggled to unbuckle the lap belt and slammed his shoulder against the driver’s side door. Hank’s SUV did more of a number on it than Hunter expected because the door creaked and groaned but didn’t open. He scrambled across the bench seat and out the other side.
By the time he limped his way around the hood of the smoking truck, gravel spat into his face and the taillights of Hank’s damaged SUV slid around the curve in the road.
Hunter stared down at the buck knife in his fist.
Hank had a cell phone. He’d call the police. Hunter looked back at the truck, black smoke oozing out from under the old gal’s dented, rusted grate.
He spat into the grass, pulled out a cigarette. He lit the end and sucked in a deep drag. “Fuck you, Hank Foster. Asked me to make an easy buck. Grab a kid, hold him for a bit. That’d get everyone in a tizzy. Let him open that foundation of his.”
Sirens. Distant but getting louder. Coming for him.
Hunter smiled, the knife’s sharp blade glinting in the sun. “Smart man like Hank. Shoulda done his research, known who he was dealing with.”
He pressed the tip of the blade into his chest, hard.
The sting of his flesh parting made him reconsider for a moment. That hurt a shit-ton more than he’d expected. As bad as the bullet wound in his leg that had sliced through his femur. He remembered that pain, gasping from the stunning viciousness of it.
He tried again, pressing harder even as his hand shook, fighting with his desire to end his life. He’d done this to boys. Many boys.
He’d heard what prison folk did to kid killers. Not for him. He pressed harder, mouth wide like a trout out of water as the pain made his eyes burn and tear.
The sirens were right on him. A woman in a suit was out of the car, gun drawn, telling him to drop the blade, to put his hands up.
No damn way he was going to jail.
He was a man, a war veteran.
He had to make his father proud.
He lifted the blade from his chest, his lungs convulsing. He’d stabbed those boys more’n he’d just done to himself. It shouldn’t hurt like this.
“Drop the weapon.”
He smiled at the woman. Another car pulled in behind her, painted the black-and-white of the Mansfield police department.
Arlen Hardesty jumped out, his pistol in hand, his eyes hard as he stared at Hunter.
“You fucking bastard,” Arlen roared. “Drop that knife right now.”
“Don’t think I will, Chief.”
Hunter raised it, watching his blood drip down the blade.
The first bullet caught him in the shoulder.
He screamed, bowing back.
The second hit him in the same leg as the Viet Cong’s soldier’s had, low in his thigh. He dropped the knife, falling into a fetal position, unable to bear his own weight.
He blubbered, tears and snot mixing as he realized they hadn’t shot to kill.
He wasn’t going to be that lucky.