I CAME TO the clearing suddenly, a small patch of treeless sandstone reaching out over a shallow valley. Regan had stopped just short of the cliff edge, taking a moment to glance over its rim before he noticed me standing there. His lower half was soaked in blood from the bullet in his guts, and yet he carried on, a machine built for violence.
He didn’t wait. Regan strode to the edge of the forest and grabbed my throat, slamming me into the rocks in one swift motion. My brain was still tangled up in the idea of finding him and was unprepared for what I would do now that I had.
I reached up and punched him hard in the head, twice, three times, but his strength was inhuman. A frantic thought pushed through the madness, that perhaps our fight in the barn had just been play. He was serious now. I had turned away from him. I had betrayed him. I had failed to be that perfect other he’d been searching for, to surrender to the lessons he’d been trying to teach me. He had been lonely, just as Tox said. And now he was enraged.
Regan straddled me, pinning my legs with his, and wrapped both hands around my throat.
I scratched and clawed at his hands, grabbed at his ears and face. The cartilage in my throat was creaking and crunching, and my eyes flooding with tears. I was only seconds without air, too early for hallucinations. But I was sure that what I was seeing was not real when Edward Whittacker’s face appeared behind Regan’s shoulder.
The knife in Whitt’s fist came down hard, the blade sinking into Regan’s shoulder. Whitt tried to yank the blade back, but it snapped at the hilt.
Regan rolled, staggered to his feet, holding the wound.
Whitt and I moved together, a silent agreement made. We ran at the big man at the cliff edge.
Our hands met at the center of his chest, a hard shove, both our bodies almost rocketing over the cliff with him.
Regan fell into the darkness.