“JASPER?” I ASKED, though I already knew the answer.
As his name slipped between my dry lips, I felt the thrill. It crackled along my back, down my arms and legs, settling in the hollow of my stomach. At the same time, something triggered in the deeper shelves of my brain. A message was sent. It fought its way across channels storming with adrenaline. Danger, it pulsed, over and over again. Though even it knew I was powerless to heed my own warning.
“Take this,” Zora said.
My eyes focused on her hand as it pulled free from the pocket. Shining silver flashed between nails painted a red so deep it almost appeared black. Like a puzzle coming together, shapes merged. A trigger guard. A snub-nosed muzzle. Shadowed dimples along a jutting cylinder. I just stared as the word gun slowly formed in my charged brain.
I had never in my life held one. In fact, I had emphatically claimed I never would. My hesitation, however, set the rage off in Zora’s eyes again.
“No you fucking don’t, Theo. You got us into this. Take it!”
“I—”
“Take it!”
My hand shot out. My fingers encircled the warm metal.
“Careful,” she hissed. “Jesus.”
I let go. Quickly, Zora adjusted her grip, holding it by the barrel, which pointed at the floor.
“Have you ever—”
I shook my head. She motioned, and I took the gun by its black handle, making sure my finger stayed away from the trigger. From outside, I heard the scuffle of shoes across pavement.
“You take it,” I whispered, my voice quaking.
Zora ignored me. She squared off, facing the doorway. Every muscle in her body seemed to tense at once. I found myself slipping to the left, just a hair, so that her body rested between me and where, I assumed, he would enter.
“Theodore?”
The whisper filtered into the tiny outhouse, and I felt the hairs on my arm stand straight. It was him. I had no doubt. In just the utterance of my name, I heard his high-pitched lilt. I saw his birdlike face. The Halo Killer had come for us.
“You’re not alone,” he added.
Zora put a finger to her mouth. Like a stalking leopard, she padded closer to the door. She pressed her back against the wall beside it and nodded to me, making a gesture toward the gun. I held it up like some kind of 1980s television cop, a cheap imitation of T. J. Hooker.
His footsteps inched closer. I held my breath. Zora waved a hand at me, telling me to take aim at the doorway.
“Is she here with you?” Jasper whispered.
My head shook. The door rattled softly. Without intending to, I shuffled back a step. Then it swung open so suddenly that I startled. The gun swung upward as I slipped on the tile floor.
At the exact moment, Zora pounced. She leapt through the swinging door. Leveling the pistol, I looked out. No one was there. Just Zora, lunging from the outhouse, disappearing in a flash around the side of the building.
“Zora!”
In response, I heard more footsteps, this time slapping madly against the surface of the parking lot.
“Zora!”
A sound shattered the stillness. Like the call of a fox. Or the scream of a dying rabbit. Impotent, I swung the gun around, pointing it directly at the mirror above the sink. The shriek echoed in the tiny space, bouncing off the thick cinder block walls, off the inside of my skull. The pistol swung wildly in my shaking hands.
Then something hit the other side of the wall, like a wet thump. I jumped back. More footsteps, this time running off.
“Zora?” I pleaded.
But there was still no answer. Holding my breath, I pushed through the numbness of panic. And I stepped out into the growing darkness.