The headlights of the pickup truck bounced off the rock walls as Colten sped up the mountain. His head swam with unrestrained rage. He had whipped himself back into a fury since leaving Goodwell, and now was in the state of mind he wanted to be. Dark shadows leapt from the paths of the halogen lights as they skirted across the jagged edge of the two-track. Faster and faster up to the cave.
He arrived at the clearing and slammed on the brakes, creating a cloud of dust that whipped up into the ever-growing wind. He was back. Now it was time to kill the girl. To complete the macabre waiting and move on. The slam of the truck door reverberated all around him as he strutted to the cave.
He had often thought of the taglines the villains used in film. There was the infamous “Here’s Johnny!” that he thought was cool. Colten always thought he should make one for himself, a way of heightening the drama each time he stepped into this cave to do a kill. But he had never been creative that way. It would be imitation. He could never live with that. Besides, it was too much energy to devote to such a stupid thing.
No, he would enter the cave as he always did, silently. Without words, walk over to her, and kill her. That was the way he liked it. No explanation. No grand soliloquies. Quick and brutal and beautiful.
Colten stepped into the room and his blood boiled as he looked across the shadows and saw . . . nothing. He ran over to the far wall and felt for the chain. He found its empty clasp and threw it against the wall.
“No . . . NO!” he screamed as he ran around the small cave like a frat boy searching for a lost phone number. But it was pointless; the cave had no secret spaces, no hiding places. The girl was gone.
He ran out of the cave, back into the clearing where the chaos of the wind punched his face. His panicked eyes searching all over for her, around his truck, up the sheer walls of the mountain, down the two-track. She was not there. She had simply disappeared.
Suddenly the wind began to calm as Colten stood staring down the path he had come in on and out onto the desert floor several miles away. It was the only escape route. She had gotten out and now was trekking across no-man’s-land. He heard a quiet laughing behind him but did not turn around.
“Should have done it earlier” Seth said, reveling in Colten’s anguish.
“Shut up.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Find her.”
“You better. She knows what you look like. All she needs to do is tell.”
“I know that.”
“She can’t get far—look at that,” Seth said, pointing out across the wide expanse of the desert. “She’ll probably die within a few miles of here.”
“I need to find her.”
“You will. But first, you need to collect yourself. Put your mind in order. Release some of this tension you’ve built up.”
“Not now,” Colten snapped.
“Yes, now. You’re crazed! You’re of no use in your condition.”
Colten took a step back and turned to face the man behind him. “All right. What do you suggest?”
“Drive home. Get some sleep. Get something to eat. Start out early and find her.”
Blood pumping through constricted veins. Pneumatic pulses in the eardrums prevented Colten from hearing Seth’s directions.
“You listening to me? You need to focus.”
Rage.
Uncontrolled.
Colten turned and made for his truck, got in, and tore down the mountain.