The Last Place

But she should agree, she knew she should agree. Perhaps the others had argued with him, rejected his counsel. He had built up Tiffani and Lucy until they were strong enough and smart enough to have their own opinions about who they were and what they should be. Then he had killed them, for the sin of thinking they knew themselves.

“The others weren’t properly grateful, then, for all you had done for them.”

“I put them out of their misery. They were imperfect, malformed. They knew just enough to know they didn’t measure up.” He put the scissors on the concrete floor, then stepped back to admire his handiwork. “Did it ever occur to you that Epimetheus hurried, while Prometheus was guilty of nothing more than having the patience to get it right?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a Greek myth-”

“I know Greek mythology. Epimetheus made the animals and finished before Prometheus, who made mankind. That’s why he had to steal fire from the gods, because his brother had given all the best gifts to the animals. But he didn’t destroy his creations, far from it. He loved them. He risked everything for them.”

“As far as we know,” Billy Windsor said. “But what if part of the reason that Prometheus took so long is because he started over again? And over. And over. I’ve come to believe he made several attempts, destroying his earlier work, until he got it right. That’s why Epimetheus was done first. Because Prometheus had the integrity to strive for perfection.”

“You think you made us? That you’re our creator?”

“Not exactly. But you would be less without me. Can you deny that?”

“I’ll concede you set some events in motion,” Tess said.

“I set everything in motion. I am motion. We’re soulmates, Tess. You can live with me or die with me. If you want to die, I’ll kill you now-and join you in death. One quick shot to the heart, and it will all be over. But if you choose life-if you choose me-it will be a love like no one’s ever known. I’ll hold you forever, the way the jimmy holds the sook, floating on the tide. We’ll be beautiful swimmers. Together.”

He was leaning in so close she wanted to shut her eyes. His breath was surprisingly sweet, minty, as if he had rinsed with mouthwash before she arrived. The Dominican man must have called Billy Windsor on his cell phone after she knocked on his door. Billy Windsor had told him to come here, knowing she and Carl would follow, improvising this plan. He could not plan everything in advance.

“You have to admit, I took advantage of those events you set in motion. I built up my own business. I got better at what I did. You don’t get the credit for all that.”

“True. But without me, you never would have crossed the starting line. What would have happened if I hadn’t killed that man?”

“His name,” Tess said, struggling for control of her voice, the one thing left for her to control, “was Jonathan Ross.”

“I know. But he didn’t matter to me. Neither did you, at first. But when I realized how you were blossoming, how you began to thrive-then I knew you were ready. And I knew what I had to do.”

He leaned toward her, his mouth open, as if he meant to kiss her. Tess swallowed hard, then parted her lips. She had no choice. She had to do what he wanted, had to stay alive every second she could. She opened her mouth, opened herself, allowed his lips to fasten on hers. His kiss was shockingly familiar, not unlike Crow’s-probing but polite, not gnawing greedily as some men did. He was waiting for permission. She opened her mouth wider still, drew his tongue inside- and then she bit him.

She drove her teeth into his lips with all the force she could muster, biting through the lower lip until his blood spurted into both their mouths. She bit down and she held on the best she could, until she tore a strangled scream from his throat, shocking him in her betrayal as he had shocked woman after woman in his. She used her teeth like knives, but the human face was surprisingly resilient. She was not strong enough to rip another person’s flesh, although she was bearing down so hard she felt a sharp, metallic pain in her molar, the one that was tender because she ground her teeth at night.

But she was strong enough not to let go, to fasten on his mouth like some vicious parasite, sending wave after wave of pain into his face, his head, his body. He slapped her, boxing her ears until they rang. Still, she didn’t let go, just kept holding on to his lip with her teeth even as she raised her right leg, the one that wasn’t hurt, and landed her knee exactly where her eighth-grade gym teacher had told her to kick a man if she was ever in real trouble.

It worked, it actually worked. He fell back, writhing. Tess calculated she had bought herself ten, maybe twenty seconds at the most. She rocked on the legs of her wooden chair, tucking her chin to her chest, hoping she didn’t lose consciousness. The chair fell backward with a thud that knocked the breath out of her-and, as she had hoped, cracked its wooden frame, so the rope was now slack and the chair in pieces. She struggled free and looked around the room. He had a gun, he had said he had a gun. Where was it?

But she was out of time. He was on his knees, those strange guttural sounds still coming from his throat, his eyes slitted in pain and revenge. She saw the glint of the scissors on the floor and dove for them. He grabbed her left leg-high, on purpose, on the very bandage he had made for her-and the pain was searing. Now he was on top of her, he had her left arm, but not her right, which she held away from him, like a kid in a game of keep-away. Her right hand had the scissors.

She didn’t want to do it. She knew the nightmares over this act would eclipse everything she had ever known before, would make her yearn for her old night terrors, where she was only a witness, not a player. But this was a nightmare too, and there was only one way to wake from it.

She drove the scissors into his left eye, plunging the blade as far as it could go. New blood-richer blood, thicker blood-flowed over her and into her eyes. He was still making those horrible noises. Which meant she had not driven the scissors deep enough. He was breathing; he was alive. But she was free, she was crawling away from him, her hands sliding along the blood-slick floor.

She stood, her legs shaking. She couldn’t run, she could barely walk, and he showed no signs of dying. He was tougher than she was, a cockroach, a scavenger. He had come back from the dead twice so far, and he would come back again if she let him. She staggered to the card table, to the gym bag from which he had pulled the scissors and razor. A 9-millimeter was on top, loaded.

Billy Windsor was sitting up, blood spurting from his face, the scissors jutting out, his voice full of pain and outrage as he screamed incomprehensible threats at her. She watched in a kind of sickened admiration as he took a deep breath, grabbed the scissors by the handle, and pulled them from his eye, releasing yet more blood. She couldn’t believe he had any blood left in him at this point. He didn’t look real to her. He didn’t look human. Good. She couldn’t afford to think of him as human.

Tess picked up the gun, held it in two hands, aimed carefully at Billy Windsor’s midsection, and fired. The 9-millimeter had more kick than her.38 and it jerked up, so her first shot tore through his throat. She held tighter with her trembling hands and the shots that followed hit him at chest level, again and again and again. She shot him first for Becca-whose only crime was to think well of herself, to believe she had a say in her own future. For Tiffani, and for Lucy. She shot him for Hazel and Michael Shaw and Eric Shivers. For Julie, the stupid little drug addict who had almost escaped him. And for Jonathan, who had been nothing to him but a shape in the morning fog, a means to an end, another person to be sacrificed for Billy Windsor’s survival. The gun had ten shells; she had two left. She shot him one more time. For Carl.