Sam
A FREEZING HAND slapped her. Sam’s cheek stung. She opened her eyes and blinked. Headlights illuminated a snowy winter wonderland and the hood of the loaner car crumpled around a tree trunk. She swatted the airbag away and brushed her aching temple. Blood coated her shaking fingers. Her chest hurt from the impact of the airbag.
“You are okay.” Eli’s voice was shrill, which didn’t instill confidence. “A bump on your head. That is all. You are okay.”
She rubbed her bloody fingers across her lips and swallowed. Reaching down, she pressed her seatbelt release but nothing happened.
Eli dug a knife from the front pocket of his jeans and leaned across her. He sawed through the webbing.
The belt snapped and she fell against the wheel. Cautiously, she moved her legs. It was tight but Eli could drag her out of the driver’s seat. Assuming he could quit marching in place and flapping his arms.
“Grab my shoulders and pull,” she said.
He grasped hold of her. She shoved her feet against the crushed footwell for leverage. They fell into a heap on the snow.
Eli stood and reached out his hand. She took it and he hauled her to her feet. Other than the bump on the side of her head, she was fine. Based on the smashed side window, she was lucky.
“Can you walk?” Eli asked.
She unholstered her gun. “Stay here.”
“No.” He plowed through the snow ahead of her, holding a flashlight she’d put in the glovebox.
They trudged through knee-deep snow until they hit the lane. It was easier to walk in the tire tracks and they quickened to a jog.
When they reached the clearing to the log house and saw Reece’s car, Sam grabbed Eli’s shoulder to stop him. “Stay in the treeline. There’s a camera on the porch,” she said. “Aleksia will be in the cellar. We can access the storm doors.”
They circled the house and found a white Freightliner Sprinter van. There were no side or back windows. Hannah’s speculation was right. The freezer van was how Aleksia administered the lethal gas and froze her statues.
Eli plodded through deep drifts to the cellar doors.
“They’re locked,” he said.
Sam tugged her gloves off and handed them to him. She holstered the Glock and removed her lock pick set from her pocket. Terrible memories of the last time she’d picked the same lock flooded over her. She couldn’t bear it if something had happened to Reece. She would not lose the love of her life in this damn cellar. Homicidal hate calmed her. With steady hands, she unlocked the deadbolt.
Eli clutched a handle on the door. Sam unholstered her gun and reached for the other handgrip. She nodded. Together they wrenched open the doors. No one lay in wait to pounce. Eli handed her the flashlight, and she led the way into the abyss.
A gunshot rang out, deafening in the rock-walled passage. Sam thumbed off the Glock’s safety. Holding the gun in her right hand and the flashlight in her left, she crossed her right wrist over her left forearm to keep the gun steady and the beam of light straight. At the first room, a ribbon of bright light poured from a narrow crevasse beneath the closed door. She paused. This wasn’t Incubus’s kill room. Aleksia should be in the other room, following the traditions of her murderous stepfather. A second gunshot blasted and Eli gasped. She wrapped her index finger around the gun’s trigger and kicked open the door.
In a split second, the scene inside the room registered.
Reece lay in a pool of blood. Beside him was a dead woman. One accusing brown eye gazed lifelessly up at Sam. Bart was sobbing inside a metal cage. A thin young man stood in silent shock in a second cage.
And in front of a vacant pen, a tall woman with long dark hair, porcelain skin, and stone-cold eyes was raising a gun. Sam shot her in the arm. Aleksia’s gun clattered to the floor. She smiled, as if inviting an honoured guest to a party.
Eli rushed over and grabbed the gun, handing it to Sam. He went to Reece and knelt.
“I cannot find a pulse,” he yelled. He tore off his jacket and used both hands to press it on Reece’s bloody chest. “He is not breathing. I need help.”
Aleksia dangled a set of keys enticingly. “Come and get them.”
Keeping the Glock trained on her head, Sam snatched the keys and threw them to Eli. She never shifted her eyes but heard Eli scrambling and a cage rattling. Aleksia politely stepped aside, giving Sam a sightline to Reece. The girl’s emotionless eyes reminded Sam of the black stones Aleksia put in her frozen statues.
Eli straddled Reece and began CPR. “Keep pressure on the wound,” he shouted at Bart.
“It’s pointless. He’s dead,” Aleksia said pleasantly. “You take from me, I take from you.”
Sam was cold and empty, but one hot ember of hate burned in her heart. Reece’s long black lashes lay against his blood-spattered face. His body jerked every time Eli pounded his chest.
“This isn’t how I imagined it ending,” Aleksia said. “I needed a tad more time. His blue eyes would have been fabulous for my collection.”
Sam stared at the creature. There was no fear in Aleksia’s face. If anything, she was smug.
As if she could read her mind, Aleksia said, “We aren’t quite done here. I assume the cavalry is coming. What do you think will happen to me?” She laughed. “After all, you’re the budding psychologist. Go ahead—take a guess.”
Sam said nothing. Her finger twitched against the Glock’s trigger.
“I’ll never see the inside of a prison cell. I was an innocent child, the product of a psychopath’s twisted influence.” She batted her eyelashes and said in a childish voice, “I didn’t want to hurt those boys. My stepfather made me. He used to do terrible things to me. Please help me.”
“No,” Sam said. “I can prove you worked with Incubus.”
“Did I?” Aleksia asked with wide eyes. “Did I listen to your sister scream as her life drained from between her legs?” She laughed. “I have a secret,” she sang. “Well, it was your sister who had the secret.”
“There’s a pulse,” Eli exclaimed.
Above them was the roar of a helicopter.
“When we tore out her insides, guess what we found? Come on, take a guess.” Aleksia laughed.
Let’s just say we’re hoping to have a baby, Joyce had told her that night at her mother’s house. Her sister had winked and giggled.
“No,” Sam moaned.
“Hush little baby, don’t you cry,” Aleksia sang.
Heavy footfalls crashed on the floor above them. The air around Sam grew still. White noise roared in her head.
“Stop,” Reece whimpered, his voice gurgling with blood. “It’s what he wants.”
A baby. Her sister had been pregnant.
Powerless to stop herself, Sam fired. She felt a warm, almost dreamy surge of intense pleasure and satisfaction as the weapon recoiled and the bullet slammed into Aleksia’s head. In slow motion, she dropped Aleksia’s gun beside her dead hand. The cellar door crashed open. SWAT officers bounded down the stairs. Sam placed her gun on the ground and knelt. She laced her hands behind her head and closed her eyes. Only then did she remember Incubus’s final words at the prison.
You believe you’re nothing like me, Samantha. But all humans have the capacity to kill for pleasure. One only needs to break them.