Killers

Excerpt from Break You…

Yukon, Canada

Autumn 2004

Andy

Early October.

A cold, midnight rain pattering against the tin roof above our heads.

“We should be drinking whiskey,” Violet said. “Something to warm our bones.”

I set another birch log on the fire and crawled back onto the bearskin rug where Vi had sprawled with her wineglass.

“You’re already cold?” I asked.

“I’m a southern girl. I’m always freezing.”

“Hate to say it, but that doesn’t bode well for you this winter.”

“How cold does it get here? Worst case scenario.”

“Fifty below. Sixty on a bad day.”

“I won’t even get out of bed.”

I sipped my wine, glanced at the fireshadows flickering in the rafters over the loft—what had once been my office now converted into Violet’s bedroom and her four-month-old Max’s nursery. He slept up there in bliss, the warmest spot in the cabin, where the heat of the fire gathered.

I studied the firelight flush across Violet’s face.

I’d shu

“What is it?” Vi said.

“Nothing.”

“No…you have this look.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She smirked. “Are you crushing on me, Andy?”

I blushed through to the tips of my ears, wondering if she could see the color in the lowlight.

“Little bit, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s completely understandable. I’m adorable.”

I laughed, my eyes closing only for a second, and when they opened again, Violet had leaned forward and I could smell the wine on her breath.

Her green eyes were flecked with black. This I hadn’t noticed before.

“Violet—”

“I want this.”

“You’re sure? Because if you have any doubt—”

She shut me up with a kiss.

Soft.

Melting.

Melding.

I could’ve lived there.

We came apart, the corners of my mouth electrified with the taste of her. I ran my hand over the curve of her hip, wondering how far we were going to take this.

“I haven’t,” I said. “Not in a long time.”

“Haven’t what? What are you talking about?”

“Nothing, I just—”

“Wait.” She recoiled. “You think we’re going to sleep together?”

“No, I just thought—”

“I’m kidding, we are.”

“Why do you torture me?”

“Because it’s so easy?”

She set her wineglass on the floorboard and pulled me on top of her.

“Tell the truth,” she whispered. “How many times have you imagined this moment?”

I smiled, feeling her thighs against my ribs.

“You’ve been through a lot, Vi.”

“We both have.”

“It hasn’t even been a year.”

“It’s been long enough for me to know who you are. Stop trying to talk me out of this.”

So I kissed her, my hands ru

“Do you want to move over to my bed?” I whispered in her ear.

“Yes, please.”

And still I could barely bring myself to separate from her. Such a sweet and perfect place.

I got onto my knees and helped her up.

“God, you’re beautiful.”

I would’ve undressed her right there in the firelight if it hadn’t been so cold. I wished we’d done this in the summertime.

“I’m just going to run up to the loft for a second,” she said. “Go get under the covers in your bed and warm it up for us.”

I stood and moved across the cold floorboards toward the nook under the loft where my bed sat in darkness.

The wine had gone to my head, everything so pleasantly humming.

Violet climbed the ladder toward the loft.

My heart pounded under my sweater.

Reaching the bed, I tugged back the covers, wondering if I should be naked waiting for her, or if maybe there wasn’t something slightly sleazy about that.

I crawled under the blankets and opted to play it safe, stay dressed for now.

I could hear Violet moving around directly above me in the loft, the boards creaking, thinking how many nights had I lain here in the dark listening to her movements, hoping she was feeling what I was, that she might decide to creep down the ladder in the middle of the night and join me in bed. A part of me still didn’t quite believe that it was about to happen.

It was cold under the blankets, and I was drawing them up to my chin to keep in the heat when Violet shrieked.

I bolted up.

“Andy!” she screamed.

I jumped out of bed, rushed over to the ladder.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, climbing.

“He’s gone.”

I stepped into the loft.

Dark up here and nothing to see except where the firelight reflected off surfaces of metal and glass.

“Who?” I asked, but I understood the moment my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I saw Vi leaning over into the crib, shuffling through the blankets.

“Max,” she said.

“There’s no way he could have crawled out?”

“He’s four months, Andy. He can’t even roll over.”

I turned on a lamp and moved toward her.

“You put him down after supper, right?”

She nodded, wild-eyed, her pupils dilated, chest billowing.

“He went down fast. Ten minutes. Then I came down and we were talking by the fire for what? A couple hours?”

“Yeah.”

Vi was physically shaking. “This isn’t right, Andy. This isn’t right.”

I stepped around the crib toward the only possible exit from the loft—a two-by-two square foot window just under the pitch of the roof.

“Is it open?” she asked.

I knelt down, studied the hasps. “No. But it isn’t locked.”

“Was it?”

“I’m ninety percent sure it…fuck.”

“What?”

Vi hurried over.

I touched the floorboards.

“They’re wet.” A cold, sinking blast of panic ran through me. “Someone was up here while we were down there.”

She looked at me, her eyes flooding.

A lump swelling in my throat.

“He’s here, isn’t he? He found us and took my son.”

I headed toward the ladder.

Immediately, I could tell something was off—a softness in my knees that I realized was numbness.

“I don’t feel right,” I said as I reached the ladder and started down.

Through her tears, she said, “I’ve been getting more and more lightheaded. I thought it was the wine.”

I descended carefully, a tremor in my legs threatening to upend my balance. My mind redlined, the last sixty seconds such a nightmare I wondered if this was really happening. I’d had a dozen dreams in the last year that he’d somehow found us, and every time I’d wake sweating in the night, paralyzed by naked fear until that wash of relief would sweep over me, reality reinstated. I’d go to the kitchen sink, drink a glass of water, and wait for the nerves to recede.

My feet touched the floorboards at the base of the ladder, and Violet was still crying hysterically in the loft and the numbness in my legs still growing, and I was still in this horrifying moment, either unable to wake, or worse, there was no nightmare to wake from.

My knees hit the floor beside my bed, and I reached underneath it.

Pulled out the shotgun, but it was too light, too small, and it wasn’t black metal but orange and green plastic.

I stared at the Nerf toy in my hands and said, “What the fuck is happening?”

My voice sounded strange, as if it had been relegated to some alcove in the back of my head. I turned and the room moved slower than the swivel of my head, the firelight leaving trails across my field of vision.