Edge of Collapse Series (Book 4): Edge of Anarchy Read online

  Limping, she shuffled across the dirt floor to the furnace. She flattened herself against the stone wall and inched past the narrow space between the wall and the furnace, holding her breath, sucking in her still-swollen belly, imagining centipedes and spiders dropping into her hair, onto her face.

  The stink of grease and dirt invaded her nostrils. She inched past pipes and wires and dim metal shapes until she reached the crawl space at the bottom of the wall.

  She couldn’t see it, could only feel it with her fingers.

  She crouched, turning her knees sideways so she could get low enough. She squeezed herself flat and dropped onto her belly. Using her elbows on the hard dirt, she wriggled forward, easing her body into the shallow crawl space.

  Her sweatshirt snagged on something and she reached back to tug it free. Her arm could barely slide in next to her torso. She squished herself as deep into the confining space as she could go.

  She could hardly move. The dirt pressed against her stomach, legs, chest, and face. The weight of the entire house bore down on her.

  Footsteps in the dirt. Slow and halting, but still coming, still relentless.

  They stopped a few feet from the furnace.

  “Well, well,” Pike said. “Here we are again.”

  She held her breath. A whiff of iron. The coppery stench of blood in the back of her throat.

  “You shot me, you know. Just a graze. Pretty pathetic, really. That hair spray though.” He swore vehemently. “You nearly blinded me, little mouse. My eyes are still smarting. I bet you’re proud of that. I bet you think fighting back makes you special, don’t you?”

  Horror surged through her veins. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Well, you’re not special. You’re nothing. You’ve always been nothing. I never should have left you alive this long.”

  Dust clogged her nostrils and irritated her throat with every shallow breath. It took everything she had not to sneeze. Her eyes watered.

  “Come out!” His voice hardened. “You think I won’t find you? You think there’s anywhere you can go in this whole doomed world where I can’t get to you? There’s nowhere to run. Nowhere for you to hide.”

  Her entire body trembled. Darkness shimmered in front of her eyes, threatening to take her under again. There was nothing to count, nothing to anchor herself to.

  “Your soldier is dead, you know.”

  Grief mingled with the fear. She hadn’t let herself think those thoughts. Now they came crashing down on her.

  Liam, the loner haunted by loss and secrets. Liam, the brave, competent soldier. Liam, who’d chosen to save her, who’d risked his life for hers.

  “I killed him. I’m sure you know that. He didn’t need to die. He came after you. He came between us. Stuck his nose in business that didn’t belong to him.”

  She bit down on a sob.

  “I wonder if he regretted helping you as he took his last breaths. What do you think? I think he did. Of course, he didn’t tell me.” Pike chuckled. “He didn’t say much of anything, actually.”

  Maybe he was lying. Maybe it was a ploy to get a rise out of her. To get her to give in to despair and come out. It was working. Despair tugged at her, threatened to overwhelm her.

  It didn’t feel like he was lying. He was here and Liam wasn’t.

  “How about this. I’ll offer you a deal.” He paused. “Give me my child and I’ll let you live.”

  She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Her heart forgot how to beat.

  “Don’t think I didn’t notice underneath that baggy sweatshirt. The baby. You had it.”

  A part of her had been desperate to believe that he wouldn’t realize she’d had the baby. That he wouldn’t even think to look for her. How wrong she’d been.

  “The last one was a boy. I wonder…did you give me a son…or a daughter?”

  She could hide here. For hours. Days, even. He would never find her. Even if he did, he couldn’t reach her. She was safe from him.

  Charlotte wasn’t.

  Her baby. Her child. Her responsibility.

  In her fear, she’d fled instead of fighting. Maybe hiding would keep her alive, but it wouldn’t protect her child.

  No one could protect Charlotte. No one but Hannah.

  “Stay here and hide like the little mouse that you are, Hannah,” Pike continued. “You’re scared and meek, aren’t you? Just like you’ve always been. A few weeks under the sun won’t change who you are. That’s why I picked you!”

  She hated her quivering, traitorous heart. Despised the fear clamping down on her like a vise, the panic that blurred her thoughts and muddied her resolve.

  She’d tried to fight back. She’d thought she was getting better. Stronger.

  What if she wasn’t? What if she’d already failed?

  18

  Hannah

  Day Twenty-One

  “I know you,” Pike said. “I know you! Better than anyone. Better than Soldier Boy. Better than your husband. Better than your son…Milo.”

  At the mention of her son’s name, she sucked in a sharp breath.

  She felt Pike perk up. Felt his attention drawn toward her like a magnet. “Ah. You didn’t like that, did you?”

  She bit her tongue until she tasted blood.

  “Sweet little Milo, with those dark eyes and dark curls. He’ll be quite the ladies’ man, if he ever grows up.”

  She could sense that he was moving by the sound of his voice growing distant, his dragging footsteps.

  “I can kill every single thing you love, Hannah. I don’t have to touch you to hurt you. Your Soldier Boy is already dead. That damn dog is next on my list.”

  A soft cry filtered through the floorboards. The distinctive wail of a newborn.

  Even in the basement, even over Ghost’s relentless barking, the sound was unmistakable.

  Her heart stuttered in her chest. A terror like she’d never felt took hold of her.

  “Ah! There it is,” Pike said. “You know, maybe I’ll leave you here to rot. Maybe I’ll kill your child first, then come back for you. Maybe you should die knowing its blood is on your hands. Is that it? Or maybe…I’ll take it to Fall Creek. I’ve been there all this time, you know. Living and working right alongside Noah. Watching Milo grow up. He’s even had dinner at my mother’s house. Did you know that?”

  Anger sprouted in her chest. Rage mingled with the fear and grief and dread. This man had stolen everything from her. From her family. From her son. Her children.

  Milo and Charlotte. The two chambers of her heart, beating in tandem.

  She’d stayed alive for five torturous years for her son. For her daughter, she’d come back to life.

  She hadn’t escaped her basement prison for this. She hadn’t bled and fought and clawed her way out for this.

  Not to cower in the dark. Not to be controlled by fear. Not to let a man destroy everything she loved.

  And that’s all he was, in the end. A man. Flesh and blood. Not an all-powerful demon who couldn’t be vanquished.

  She’d made him bleed. She could do it again.

  “Last chance, Hannah.”

  His limping footsteps faded. He was heading for the stairs. Headed for Ghost—and for Charlotte.

  Hannah’s heart nearly burst inside her chest. The ceiling of the crawl space pressed down on her, a thousand tons pushing her down. Willing her to stay in place, to stay trapped.

  She moved anyway.

  Hannah inched backward. Slowly, painstakingly. Dirt and dust stung her nose, itching her throat, crumbling against her lips. Concrete scraped against her side and back.

  She shoved and crawled and fought her way out of the confined space, feet first. In the narrow alcove between the furnace and the wall, she wriggled to her knees, then used the wall to clamber to her feet.

  She was covered in dirt, cobwebs snarled in her hair. She didn’t bother to wipe them away.

  Urgency gripped her. She had to get to Pike before he reached the top of tho
se stairs. She had to stop him.

  She wasn’t running anymore. She was coming to him.

  Despite the fear. Despite her deformed, crippled hand.

  She would fight, even if she was all alone. She would protect the ones she loved with every drop of blood that remained in her body.

  “Pike!” she shouted. Her voice felt gritty, gravel in her throat. She pushed and shoved against the tangle of wires and pipes. Sharp things scraped and poked at her. She barely noticed. “I’m right here!”

  She stepped out from behind the alcove.

  Dim light from the narrow windows cast the room in filmy shadows. She was used to the dark. She could see just fine.

  Pike was poised halfway up the stairs, one hand on the railing, one holding the kitchen knife. He stopped at the sound of her voice.

  He turned toward her, a startled look on his face. He hadn’t expected her to come out.

  She took a step toward Pike. Her legs trembled, but did not give out on her. She took another step. “Here I am.”

  An eager gleam came into his eyes. That look of cruel pleasure she remembered so clearly when he’d broken her fingers. When he’d hurt her.

  She did not cower from the memory. She pushed into it. She focused on his squinty, reddened, watery eyes, on the trail of red staining his shoulder.

  She’d done those things. She’d hurt him.

  Just a man.

  She remembered who she was now. She remembered what she’d forgotten.

  Hannah shoved her hands inside her sweatshirt front pocket, lifted her chin, and walked toward him. “I’m the one you want.”

  He hobbled down the stairs toward her. His gait uneven. Slower than she’d expected. More blood streaked his leg. A large scarlet blotch stained the right side of his winter coat.

  Maybe she’d shot him two or three times. Or maybe Liam had gotten in a good hit. Either way, Pike was wounded and hurting. More than she’d thought.

  He stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “Take your hand out of your pocket. No funny business, now.”

  She stopped a foot away from him. Well within range of his knife. It glinted in the pale light. He held it low and loose. He wasn’t afraid of her. He wanted to take his time.

  She heard her baby crying. Heard Ghost barking. Her own ragged breathing.

  She tore her gaze from the blade and trained her eyes on his. She removed her right hand, opened her fingers, showed him she was harmless.

  “I’m the one you want,” she said. “Take me instead.”

  Pike leered at her. “Oh, I will. I’ve dreamed of this moment. Haven’t you? I know you have. I know you’ve been thinking about it just as much as I have.”

  Her left hand remained inside her sweatshirt pocket. In her blind panic, she had forgotten it, just as she’d forgotten herself. She remembered now.

  He leaned in close. His breath in her face, red mouth grinning. “You know, I’ll take it anyway. Girl or boy, it’s mine. It belongs to me. Just like you. Just like—”

  Her deformed fingers closed over the handle of the pocketknife. Painfully, awkwardly, but they closed. Twisted, gnarled fingers, broken again and again.

  They worked enough. They worked for this.

  She withdrew the knife, flicking it open with an agonizing twist of her thumb.

  He didn’t even glance down. He feared nothing from the thing he’d already broken.

  With her bad hand, Hannah stabbed Pike in his stomach.

  19

  Hannah

  Day Twenty-One

  The four-inch blade angled up and sank through Pike’s coat into his stomach to the hilt. Blood gushed over Hannah’s misshapen fingers. Her hand slipped from the handle.

  Pike let out a startled gasp. He stared down at the knife stuck in his stomach, mouth gaping.

  Before he could regain his senses, she pushed him. He stumbled back against the post at the bottom of the staircase and collapsed to his knees. The kitchen knife slid from his grasp and clattered to the concrete.

  Hannah bolted up the stairs. Her feet pounded the wood treads. Her hand grasped the railing and hauled her upward, toward the door, toward freedom.

  Below her, Pike let out a groan of pain and outrage.

  At the top of the stairs, she opened the basement door. One hand on the door handle, she paused on the top step.

  She turned and looked back at him. “You’re going to die here in this basement.”

  He stared up at her. His face contorted, half grimace, half leer. That red slash of a mouth that had once so terrified her. “You think you can get away from me…little mouse? You think there’s…anything you could do to me?”

  Hannah said nothing.

  Pike staggered to his feet. He was breathing hard, a stain of dark blood spreading rapidly over his coat. With quavering hands, he pulled out the pocketknife and tossed it away. He clutched at his bloody stomach, grievously wounded. “You…can’t kill me.”

  Hannah gave a grim smile. “Who said it would be me?”

  She took a step into the hallway. Wiped her bloody hands on her sweatpants and seized the handle to the garage door. She opened it wide.

  She didn’t have to tell Ghost what to do. He already knew.

  The Great Pyrenees burst through the doorway, crossed the short hall in a single bound, and plunged down the stairs.

  He charged at Pike, one hundred and forty pounds of solid muscle, gleaming fangs, and relentless fury.

  Pike blanched. His face went bone white. “Stay! Go back! Stop! Obey, you stupid—!”

  He never got a chance to finish his sentence. He barely had time to raise his hands in self-defense before the great dog was on him.

  With a savage snarl, Ghost leapt from halfway up the staircase and pounced on Pike.

  Pike toppled backward, Ghost on top of him, teeth bared, snarling and snapping. They landed with a crash. Pike screamed, flailing wildly.

  The dog didn’t hesitate. Ghost lunged in. His sharp teeth ripped through the coat at Pike’s neck, shredding fabric like tissue paper. He closed his powerful jaws over Pike’s jugular.

  Pike let out an unearthly howl that cut off abruptly in a wet gurgle as Ghost ripped his throat out.

  Hannah sagged against the wall, listening to Ghost’s jaws tearing and slashing, listening to the terrible sounds of a man dying in agony.

  In only moments, the anguished, gurgling moans went quiet.

  There was nothing but the silence. The house still and waiting. The walls watching.

  Hannah breathed in and out. Her heart thudded in her chest. She stared down at her bloodied hand for a moment like it didn’t belong to her.

  Alive. She was alive.

  Pike, her nemesis, her monster, was finally dead.

  Ghost—beautiful, brave Ghost—had meted out justice for them both.

  20

  Hannah

  Day Twenty-One

  Ghost’s nails scrabbled across the concrete floor. He padded up the steps, limping slightly. A wet, blood-drenched muzzle pressed into Hannah’s bad hand.

  Though it hurt, she forced her deformed fingers to move. She buried them in Ghost’s thick white fur.

  Her legs turned to water and she sank to the floor in the alcove between the basement and garage doors. She leaned her head against the wall.

  Minutes passed. It could have been hours. She breathed, just breathed.

  Upstairs, her daughter had stopped crying. She must have fallen back asleep.

  She was safe. Hannah had kept her safe. Hannah and Ghost, together.

  Ghost did not move from her side. With a soft whine, he flopped across her legs, a hundred and forty pounds of unconditional love and unfailing courage.

  Her heart swelled. She thought it might explode right out of her chest. She petted him with both trembling hands. She wrapped her arms around Ghost’s neck and nestled her cheek against his giant head. “I love you, you know that, right? You are the best dog in the whole wide world!”

  Gho
st raised his muzzle and chuffed softly, as if the compliment was as obvious as the nose on his face.

  “I promise, when the world goes back to normal, if it ever does, I owe you a wheelbarrow full of beef jerky. You’ll be in beef jerky heaven.”

  Ghost pressed his head against her chest and thumped his tail.

  Upstairs, Charlotte whimpered softly.

  Hannah pushed gently on Ghost. “Let’s go get her.”

  Ghost scrambled off her legs. She pulled herself unsteadily to her feet. He stayed close as she made her way from the kitchen to the living room and then to the staircase.

  She ascended the stairs, Ghost beside her. Not ahead or behind her, but right at her side. He leaned against her, providing steady support, strength, and comfort. Just like he always did. Somehow, he sensed just what she needed, and when.

  With each step, she felt herself growing lighter. The darkness shedding like a snakeskin. Felt the strength returning to her limbs, vigor to her soul.

  Hannah rushed down the hallway, entered the purple room, and fell to her knees in front of the dresser. She had blood on her hands, but she didn’t care. She opened the drawer, picked up her baby, and cradled her against her chest.

  Smelling her mother’s scent, Charlotte began crying in earnest.

  “I know, I know,” Hannah crooned. “I’m right here. I’m here and I will never leave you. I promise, okay? I promise. I’m right here.”

  Ghost padded over and touched his nose to Charlotte’s cheek. He sniffed her from head to toe as if checking to make sure she was okay. Seemingly satisfied, he gave a low chuff of approval.

  “She’s yours now, too,” Hannah said softly.

  Ghost cocked his head, pricked his ears, and gave her a look, as if he found that fact quite obvious. He chuffed again and took up a position in the doorway.

  He sat tall and alert, keeping watch—a handsome prince of a dog intent on guarding his little flock. His plumed tail thumped the floor in a slow, contented rhythm.