Ethan pulled the pistol out of his holster, held it at his side.
Alas, empty.
“That’s a big gun, Sheriff. You know what they say about guys with big guns.”
“It’s a Desert Eagle.”
“Fifty caliber?”
“That’s right.”
“You could kill a grizzly bear with that beast.”
“I know what you did to Alyssa,” Ethan said. “I know it was you and Pilcher. Why?”
Pam ventured a step toward him.
Eight feet away.
She said, “Interesting.”
“What?”
“I’ve now closed the distance between us. Two steps—two big steps—and I could be all up in your personal space, and yet you haven’t even threatened me.”
“Maybe I want you in my personal space.”
“I made myself available to you and you would rather fuck your wife. What’s bothering me, the rub if you will, is that you’re a pragmatist.”
“I’m not following.” But he was.
“A man of few words and less bullshit. One of the things about you that make me want you. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if there were any bullets in that gun, you’d have drawn down on me at first sight and wasted my ass. I mean, that’s really your only move at this point, right? Am I onto something?”
She took another step toward him.
Ethan said, “There’s something else you haven’t considered.”
“Oh?”
“Maybe I want you in my personal space for another reason.”
“And what might that be?”
Another step.
He could smell her now. The shampoo she’d used this morning.
Her minty breath.
“Shooting is so impersonal,” Ethan said. “Maybe instead of that, I want to pin you down and beat you to death with my bare hands.”
Pam smiled. “You had that chance before.”
“I remember.”
“You got the jump on me. Wasn’t a fair fight.”
“For who? I was drugged, for fuck’s sake.”
Ethan raised the pistol and pointed it at her face.
She said, “That’s a big hole at the end of that gun.”
Ethan thumbed back the hammer.
For a beat—hesitation in her eyes.
She blinked.
Ethan said, “Think long and hard. Out of all the moments you’ve experienced, is this the one you want to be your last? Because it’s heading fast in that direction.”
She was wavering.
Not exactly fear in her eyes, but uncertainty.
Disdain for a situation she was not controlling.
Then it passed.
That steel resolve returning.
A smirk curled her lips.
She had balls. No way around that fact. She was about to call his bluff.
When her mouth opened, he squeezed the trigger.
The hammer snapped down into the firing pin.
Pam flinched—a split second of am-I-dead self-doubt.
Ethan spun the pistol in his hand, gripped it by the barrel, and swung with everything he had, four point five pounds of Israeli-made steel on a collision course with her skull, and it would’ve smashed it in, but Pam weaved at the last conceivable second.
As the momentum of Ethan’s swing turned him sideways, she hooked him in the kidney with a blow of such stunning and direct force it brought Ethan to his knees, a bright release of incendiary pain flashing through his lower back, and before he could even fully appreciate that pain, she punched him in the throat.
He was on the ground, face against the forest floor, world askew, and wondering if she’d crushed his trachea because he couldn’t draw breath.
Pam squatted down in front of him.
“Don’t tell me it was that easy,” she said. “I had this all built up in my mind, you know? But two shots and you’re asphyxiating on the ground like a little bitch?”
He was fading, his vision igniting with oxygen-deprived pyrotechnics.
There.
Finally.
Right on the cusp of uncontrolled panic, something gave.
A trickle of precious air slid down his throat.
He tried not to let on.
Made his eyes bug out as he inched his hand into his back pocket.
The Harpy.
“As you lay there suffocating, I want you to know something.”
Ethan worked his thumb into the hole in the blade.
“Whatever you were trying to pull off, you failed, and Theresa and Ben…”
He produced a wet, choking sound that made Pam smile.
“What I do to them will make what we did to Alyssa seem like a day at the spa.”
He flicked the blade open and shoved it straight into Pam’s leg.
It was so sharp, he only knew he’d aimed well when she gasped.
He turned his wrist, turned the blade.
Pam shrieked and jerked back away from him.
Blood darkened her jeans, ran down over her shoe, into the pine needles.
Ethan struggled to sit up.
Came painfully to his feet.
His kidney was throbbing but at least he could breathe again.
Pam was dragging herself away from him with her good leg, seething, “You’re dead! You’re fucking dead!”
He picked up the Desert Eagle and followed her.
As she screamed at him, he bent over and brought the heavy pistol down on the back of her head.
The forest was quiet again.
The evening gone deep blue.
He was fucked.
Absolutely fucked.
How long could Pam be AWOL before Pilcher sent out a search party? Strike that. There wouldn’t even be a search. He’d just dial in on her chip and come right to the fence.
Unless…
With the Harpy, Ethan cut out a large swath of Pam’s jeans, exposing the back of her left leg.
A shame she couldn’t be conscious for this.
21
Superstructure
Wayward Pines, Idaho
New Year’s Eve, 2013
Pilcher closed the doors to his office behind him.
Giddy.
Practically vibrating with energy.
Moving past the architect’s miniature of the future Wayward Pines, he opened the closet, where a pristine tux hung from the rack.
“David?”
He turned, smiled.
“Sweetheart, I didn’t see you there.”
His wife sat on one of the couches that faced the wall of screens.
He started unbuttoning his shirt as he walked toward her.
Said, “I thought you’d be dressed by now.”
“Come sit with me, Dave.”
Pilcher took a seat beside her on the plush leather.
She put her hand on his knee.
“Big night,” she said.
“Does it get any bigger?”
“I’m really happy for you. You did it.”
“We did it. Without you, I—”
“Just listen.”
“What’s wrong?”
Her eyes welled up. “I’ve decided to stay behind.”
“Stay?”
“I want to see the end of my story in the present. In this world.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Please don’t raise your voice with me.”
“I’m not, I just… tonight, of all nights, you choose to tell me this. How long have you felt this way?”