“I took the power you try to derive from your guns and your security system and your walls, and I put it in your bare hands. I put it in your bones. That’s what I gave you, Charlotte Rowe.” There’s a confidence she’s never heard in his voice before. “That’s what Zypraxon is. It literally converts your fear into strength. Into survival. That’s what you did tonight, Charley. You survived. And no matter what happened with Jason inside that house, you have nothing to be ashamed of. There is never shame in surviving.”
She’s still searching for a response when she hears a strangely familiar sound. Familiar because she heard it only minutes before, but now it’s coming through the phone at her ear. The bikers.
“Shit,” Dylan whispers. He sounds annoyed. Irritated. He doesn’t sound like a normal man would if a gang of outlaw bikers were suddenly bearing down on him as he stood over the gory corpses of their slain brethren. “Charley, I know it’s hard to trust me right now, but believe me when I say this was not my plan. Our biker friends are . . . an added complication I didn’t expect. But I need you to listen to me, and I need you to do what I say.”
“Go to hell,” she whispers.
“You’re angry. I understand.” His condescension infuriates her. She has to remind herself to keep her hand relaxed so she doesn’t crush her only connection to him. “But know this. You’re not going to the police, and you’re not going to the FBI, and you’re not going to Rolling Stone magazine. The people I work for will make sure they never believe what you say and never act on it if they do. And you don’t need their help, so why bother?”
“You’re threatening me?”
“How many are there, Charley? The bikers. This new crew. They must have driven by your place first. How many are there?”
“A lot.”
“OK. One more thing. Do not under any circumstances give Zypraxon to anyone else.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you’re the first person to take it and live.”
“You son of a bitch. You crazy son of a bitch. I didn’t know what I was really taking!”
“I know, I know. It’s a lot. Don’t try to process it all right now. We’ll have time, I promise.”
There’s that tone again. That steady, confident tone. The bikers are getting closer, and he sounds cool as a cucumber even as he reveals the extent to which he’s placed her life at risk.
Did he actually just sigh?
“Charley, I have to go and take care of these guys, but there’s something I need for you to do for me first.”
“What?”
“Run.”
He hangs up.
She tries calling him back. Once, twice. Three times. He doesn’t answer.
It’s a miracle. That’s what’s coursing through her veins now. A miracle, and it wasn’t just put there by someone pretending to be a therapist. It was put there by something . . . bigger than her. Months. That’s how long she and Dylan spent together in that office. Months. He’s had months to plan for this night. For all she knows, he played a hand in bringing the Savage Woods films to the local movie house to trigger her anxiety and create a pretext for forcing the drug on her. And then there’s the kiss. The strange, last-minute, and inappropriate kiss he gave her right before she left the office. So she would be distracted on the drive home.
Because he took my cell phone, she realizes. He took my phone so I wouldn’t know someone had disarmed my alarm system. And now he knows my code, so I’m not safe from him if I go back in the house. If the phone and Internet are still out, I won’t be able to reset the password because it won’t be able to connect to the security company’s network.
But this is only the half of it, she knows. If she goes back in the house and if he tries to come for her, even if he just tries to explain his crazy again, something far worse will happen.
She’ll kill him. She’s sure of it.
The sense of betrayal sings through her over and over again like lashes from a whip, far more painful and infuriating than her revulsion at being face-to-face with Jason’s dangerous delusions. If she looks into those eyes right now, those same eyes that held her in a consistent and steady gaze meant to earn her confidence, she just might use whatever this strength is to tear them out of his head. Maybe he knows this. Maybe it’s why he told her to run.
So maybe she shouldn’t. Maybe, if he manages to escape the latest onslaught of bikers, she should let the son of a bitch pay her a visit so he can feel the full force of whatever he drugged her with. But Jason’s agonized wails still play in her ears. What kind of awful music would tearing Dylan Whoeverthefuckheis limb from limb leave on a constant playback in her mind?
Amid this din of rage and confusion is another, clearer thought that rises above the clamor.
Drugs don’t last forever.
She starts the Civic’s engine, angles it up and out of the arroyo, kills the headlights so she can slowly roll toward the highway under the cover of darkness. But when she reaches the edge of the blacktop, she freezes.
South is Scarlet and the Scarlet police station with its four employees, none of whom seem capable of protecting her from anything bigger than a bobcat. South is also the scene of whatever fight’s about to break out between a supposed Harvard-educated psychiatrist and a bunch of cranked-up outlaw bikers.
He’s not just a psychiatrist, she thinks. The guy he pretended to be would not look at a gang of bikers barreling toward him and say, “I have to go and take care of these guys,” like he was getting ready to feed a parking meter. And he said he’d take care of Jason, too. What’s he going to do? Break Jason’s other shoulder? Or break his neck? Do I care which? The rope, remember. The rope and the tape. It was all for me.
North, on the other hand, is a whole lot of nothing until Interstate 40, which will give her a new choice: East or west?
She tells herself she’s waiting to make a decision because more bikers might come flying past. But there’s no sign of anything on the northern horizon. She’s waiting because she’s paralyzed. Amazing to realize that despite her incredible strength, her muscles can still be seized by self-doubt.
She hears what comes next before she sees it. A crack that sounds small and thunderous at the same time—two things that contradict each other. When she looks south, she sees a column of white flame shooting up into the night sky. It’s a good distance away. About as far, she guesses, as the scene where the bikers ran her off the road. Whatever its source, the explosion is a single event. It’s precise. It’s big. And even though she’s very far away, she can see pieces of debris inside it.
She lets her foot off the brake, turns the Civic north, and gives it as much gas as she can without destroying the pedal.
North.
It’s the only thought she can manage. Go north. And then possibly west, toward California, the only state she’s ever really called home. But when she tries to think any further ahead than that, her breaths grow shallow and her vision starts to shrink, so she just keeps saying it to herself over and over again. North, north, north.
A daze comes over her. She thinks it might be shock, but it doesn’t seem to affect her ability to drive, so what does it matter really? She’s not sure exactly how much time has passed when she realizes she’s forgotten to keep her grip on the steering wheel featherlight. Her knuckles look white in the dashboard’s glow, but the steering wheel’s intact. Slowly she eases her foot down onto the brake, pulls over to the side of the empty road.
She steps from the car, walks into the headlights, and picks up a jagged rock that’s about the size of a newborn baby. It’s heavy and lifting it hurts her arm. Which, in a normal world, is how it should be. When she tries to throw it with one hand, it slips and crashes to the asphalt. Her wrist sings with pain from the effort.
Whatever Dylan’s miracle provided, it’s over now.
The strength is gone.
And now, with the fears of an ordinary woman, she’s looking out into the vast emptiness where the shadows of jagged rocks and cacti are slowly resolving underneath a star-crazed sky.
She doesn’t have to be careful now as she reaches into her pocket and removes the cardboard packet. Two of the remaining pills have been reduced to orange powder inside their plastic bubbles. Another’s been cracked in half. The fourth and fifth are intact.
You’re the first one to take it and live.
She places the pills back inside her pocket and slides behind the wheel.