Never Die Alone

Quick as a snake striking, she lunged with her whole body, her mouth open wide.

“What?” he cried as she bit, sinking her teeth as far as she could into his throat.

“AAARrrrrrgh!”

He squealed as she clamped down hard. Blood—thick, salty, and warm—rushed into her mouth and ran down her own chin as he stumbled to his knees, then stood and tried to shake her off. Flesh ripped beneath her sharp incisors.

“You fucking bitch,” he hissed, his voice destroyed, red spit flinging from his mouth.

She held on, clenching her teeth together as he roared and threw his head, this way, then the other. Screaming and stumbling, he flailed, trying to pull her off him, but she suffered his blows, thinking all the time of Zoe and knowing she would never survive.

Well, damn it, if she was going to die, this fucker was going with her!

He threw himself against the wall, rattling her bones and snapping her head back. But she didn’t let go, her jaw locked as she slithered down the wall and in a horrible tearing of flesh, part of his throat ripped and she nearly choked on the thick piece in her mouth.

He fell to the side and gurgled, thrashing as blood spurted from the gaping hole in his neck. And over the noise of his death throes, she heard other sounds, sirens screaming in the distance, and on the floor above, the damned dog barking like crazy.

Please, she thought desperately, unable to move, bound as she was. Please, please save me.

He was moaning, a rippling sound, coughing on his own blood, gasping wetly and lying not ten feet from her, the red ribbon unraveled over his body and drenched in his blood. Overhead she heard shouts and footsteps, the dog’s barking quieted, men shouting.

I don’t want to die.

“Down here!” a deep voice cautioned.

“Careful!” Female voice.

“Police!” Deep voice again. “Bridges, come out!”

“Help me!” she yelled, though her voice was faint and she had to spit against the remnants of the freak’s skin, muscle, and blood in her mouth and then as the thought gagged, causing her body to spasm and her bonds to tighten. She nearly passed out.

“Holy shit.” A man from the room above. “We’ve got a victim!”

“Police! Bridges, come out with your hands up! Throw down your weapons.”

“He’s dying,” she said, and hoped to hell she was right, because she was certain she, too, was leaving this earth. With shouting and footsteps overhead and the rasping final gasps of the man next to her, she closed her eyes and let the calming blackness roll over her.

Bracing himself, his sidearm drawn, Bentz yelled into the dark cavity beneath the Tillman farm’s cabin floor. “Bridges!” he ordered for the third time in as many minutes. “Lay down your weapons! Put your hands over your head and come out!”

No response. Just darkness and the dank smell from a basement that should never have been carved out of lowland soil wafted upward.

Damn it.

A low moan issued from the basement.

“Let’s go!” Montoya, as usual, was pulling at the bit.

This time Bentz agreed and as his flashlight beam washed over the small room below, he saw the dark stain of blood ru

Nearby, lying on her back, blood smeared over her lips, her body naked and bound was Chloe De

His heart sank.

They were too late.

“Get the paramedics! Now!” Bentz yelled to Montoya as he swung into the opening and dropped onto the blood-soaked cement floor.

He reached Chloe, checked her pulse and fought the nausea that always found him at a homicide scene.

“Come on, come on,” he whispered to the still girl, willing her heart to beat. But his pleas were for nothing.

If Chloe De

“Hey! Can’t you read?” a policeman shouted as Jase, ignoring the barricade of police cars and stretched yellow tape, strode through a swarm of cops and EMTs. He was headed toward the small cabin where he now knew his twin brother was holed up.

If Jacob was alive, he was going to meet him. If the son of a bitch was already dead, then he wanted confirmation that his twin had actually existed. Damn. How had he not known? Where the hell was all that twin karma and co

“Didn’t you hear me? Stop. There! Right now!” A cop, identified as Deputy Bill Morrison, was yelling and approaching fast.

From somewhere behind him Jase heard Bria

“It’s all right.” Another voice. Belonging to Rick Bentz. “Stand down,” he told the other cop as he walked from the direction of the cabin toward Jase.

“But—”

“I said, ‘It’s all right.’ Stand the fuck down!” Bentz glowered at the deputy and the younger cop, turning a bright red, holstered his weapon. To Jase, Bentz said, “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I need to meet my brother.”

“Too late.” Bentz was shaking his head.

“Then to see him.” Jase met the reservation in Bentz’s eyes. “I have to.”

“I don’t think—”

“I have to.”

A muscle worked in Bentz’s jaw and he glanced over at his partner. Montoya hitched his goateed chin toward one of the two ambulances on the grounds. The other was taking off, wheels spi

“This way,” Bentz said and headed toward the ambulance where the back doors were still open, a body bag within. With a look to one of the attendants, Bentz said, “We need to open it up.”

The EMT hesitated, then unzipped the bag, the sound a hiss that curled through Jase’s soul as he found himself staring into a face so like his own that if it weren’t for the unshaven jaw, mussed hair, and sightless, fixed eyes he might have been looking into a mirror. Blood was everywhere across a hairy torso and his neck, hell, it looked like it had been ripped apart by a wild animal.

Jase’s knees weakened.

This was his twin? The brother who had been conceived with him, who had grown with him in a bitter womb? A hundred thoughts flashed through Jase’s brain, pictures of a mother he didn’t remember, memories devoid of this person, so like him, so damned opposite.

All the breath left his lungs in a rush and he felt as if he’d been hit, a hard jab to the solar plexus. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered, knowing the truth, feeling something stir deep inside him, a co

His brother, the twin he’d never known, Jacob Bridges was, indeed, the 21 Killer, a psychopath who had killed at least three sets of twins and probably more, a soulless monster who bore his own face.

Bile rose up his throat and he took a step back. With a nod from Bentz, the attendant quickly zipped the bag and slid it into the back of the ambulance.

“No. Hell. No.” Jase shook his head, as if negating the truth could make it so. “Damn it!” His knees wobbled a bit but he somehow remained on his feet and a second later he felt slim fingers surround his.