“Don’t s’pose it matters now, does it?” Mr. Renshaw replies as I give Sophie one last squeeze.
I can’t leave through the back door in the dining room because they’ll see me, so I turn and tiptoe back over to the garage, pressing my finger to my lips as Sophie watches me go.
I slide through the door and close it behind me with the quietest click, relieved to see that Mrs. Renshaw’s body is right where I left it.
But horrified to see a spot of blood forming on the concrete next to her head.
My stomach lurches violently, but there’s nothing in it to throw up.
I realize that if I hit the garage door button, Jimbo and Carter will hear that rusty old motor and come running, and I need more time if I’m gonna grab my supplies out of the tree house.
That only leaves me with one choice.
I have to open it myself.
Pressing my vanilla-scented hoodie sleeve to my mouth and nose, I tiptoe over to the chair where I spent most of the day restrained in the dark and climb up onto it.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look down, I think as I teeter over Mrs. Renshaw’s lifeless body and reach for the emergency release cord hanging from the metal track above my head. I tug on it, like Wes did on April 23 when we had no power and needed to get Mama’s motorcycle out of the garage, but it’s stuck. So, using both hands, I yank on the cord as hard as I can.
The release mechanism pops open, knocking me off-balance and causing my feet—and the chair—to come out from under me. I swing from the cord wildly, legs flailing and teeth gritted as I wait for the crash, but it never comes. Just a soft thud. I realize before I even drop to my feet what must have broken my chair’s fall.
Agnes Renshaw.
I don’t even look as I dart past her and hoist the heavy garage door up by hand. Then, once I duck underneath and slide it back down, I tear around the side of the house and through the backyard. The sun is setting behind the trees, but there’s enough light left that anybody who happens to be looking out a window right now would see me dashing up my tree house ladder. All I can do is hurry and pray that they don’t.
I chuck all of the cans and vitamin bottles back into the Huckabee’s Foods bags and give my parents one last glance as I sprint through the knee-high grass toward the front yard. The wind chimes on the back porch tell me goodbye as I round the side of the house. I pass my daddy’s rusted old truck and Mama’s motorcycle—that hopefully no one here knows how to drive—and set my sights on the silver GMC at the top of the driveway.
With my heart in my throat, I reach out and grab the driver’s side door handle, seconds away from being home free, but instead of feeling the door unlatch and swing open, I feel resistance followed by sheer terror when the headlights begin to blink, and the horn begins to blare.
Shit, shit, shit!
I scramble to shift all the bags I’m carrying to one hand as I dig in Mrs. Renshaw’s purse for the car key with my other. I glance at the window next to the front door where I can see Carter and Jimbo on the other side, sitting on the couch, facing the TV. Both of their heads turn in my direction, and Carter shoots to his feet.
Come on!
My thumb grazes the jagged comb on the crystal rooster’s head as the front door swings wide open. Carter’s furious gaze lands on me as I yank the keychain out and frantically begin mashing buttons. I tug on the door handle and push and push and push every rubbery square as Carter leaps down my front porch stairs and runs at full speed up my driveway. The door finally flies open, and I dive inside, slamming it shut just as Carter’s fingers wrap around the edge of it. He screams as I pull harder and harder, trying to get the door to latch. The moment it does, I hit the lock button and jam the key into the ignition.
“You bitch!” Carter screams, cradling his smashed fingers while he kicks the side of the truck, but I don’t look at him.
I shift into reverse and peel out of there, feeling a bump under my tire just before Carter screams again.
I risk one last glance at the house as I shift into drive. Mrs. Renshaw is in the garage, facedown under a wooden chair. Carter is hopping on one foot in the driveway, screaming every swear word he knows at the top of his lungs. Mr. Renshaw is standing on the front porch, using the railing as a crutch while he shakes his head in disappointment. And above the garage, where the blinds on my bedroom window are spread apart, I’m sure two big brown eyes are watching me go.
I tear my gaze away from that house of horrors and focus solely on the double yellow line stretching out before me.
“I ain’t sorry for what I done.”
Well, Agnes, that makes two of us.
Rain
Franklin Highway cuts through the hundred-foot-tall Georgia pines like it’s always been there. The smooth curves and rolling hills help calm me down, much like the glowing blue lights on the instrument panel of Mr. Renshaw’s fancy new truck. There’s one red light that catches my attention, and as soon as my brain is able to process information again, I slam on the brakes and come to a screeching stop right in the middle of the highway.
“Oh my God,” I mutter, lowering the parking brake that I’ve driven over five miles without realizing was still on.
My hands shake as I wrap them around the steering wheel again, and I wonder if it’s from adrenaline or hunger. Probably both. I pull the flattened burger out of my hoodie pocket and peel back the crumpled yellow paper. It looks like roadkill, but my mouth waters at the sight of it anyway.
I devour it as I drive downhill through the darkening woods, careful to avoid all the twisted metal and broken glass that Quint’s bulldozer didn’t clear.
Quint.
I wonder how he and Lamar are doing.
Stuck at the mall with that psychopath, Q.
I bet she’s gonna make ’em scout for her now that Wes is gone.
Oh God. They won’t last five minutes outside of the mall. The Bonys are gonna eat them alive.
The truck’s headlights illuminate a charred, blackened bulldozer up ahead, right in front of the mangled, overturned eighteen-wheeler that exploded when Quint and Lamar tried to push it out of the way. Visions of yellow sparks and orange flames flicker before me in my mind. The sound of flying debris landing all around us fills the quiet cab. My heart begins to race as I remember finding Quint and Lamar, unresponsive in the wreckage, blanketed with broken glass. And when I pull off onto the Pritchard Park Mall exit ramp, I know what I have to do even before I drive over the flattened chain-link fence surrounding the mall.
The whole reason Wes was sentenced to death is because he helped me save Quint’s life.
If I leave him here, if Q makes him start scouting, all of that will be for nothing.
I turn my headlights off as I drive across the empty parking lot, pulling up to the curb directly in front of the main entrance. If I didn’t know better, I’d think this place was just as abandoned as it had been when they boarded it up ten years ago. But I do know better. There’s a whole community of armed runaways living inside, a whole farm’s worth of food growing on the roof, and a whole pecking order of power that starts with Q and ends with whoever is at the bottom dying at the hands of Bonys while trying to fulfill her list of demands.
I shut off the ignition, pocket the key, and pull the gun out of my waistband. Taking a deep breath, I look around to make sure there isn’t a murderous, spray-painted motorcycle gang coming my way. Then, I hop out of the truck, lock the doors behind me, and dash inside.