Eli Aaron kept the hand heavy around her throat, her windpipe beginning to crush as she kicked out and thrashed.
Her gun settled behind her, by the door.
“Poetry,” he whispered it.
She caught snatches of a face too calm and ordinary, like he was juicing an orange, his forearms locked tight like his mouth.
Saint brought her knee up hard. He took it, his grip slackened only for a moment.
She caught flashes of her surroundings, more girls photographed, the pictures hanging from wires like a mirror of the barn all those years before.
He leaned fully on her, no hint that he was satiating, that he had lost control.
Harder, the veins in his neck like earthworms, the smallest grunt like something wild lived inside him.
Saint kicked again, thrashed and scratched his face.
Her eyes red, bulging and fading.
There was no moment for reflection, no time to surmise her wins and failures, her gains and losses. To think of Charlotte and her grandmother, and Jimmy, and Patch.
Instead there was gunshot, and there was Eli Aaron losing part of his skull.