Wide Open (29 page)

Martin looked at the shotgun, looked at her.

Then he smiled.

32

Hallie’s grip tightened on the shotgun. She could do it—that’s what she told herself—she could shoot him right now, while he stood there and smiled. She could. She counted up everything he’d done, all the people he’d already killed. He needed to die, right?

“Hallie, don’t,” Boyd’s voice practically in her ear. She’d forgotten how close he was, surprised she hadn’t felt his breath against the back of her neck.

“No.” Not sure whether she was talking to Boyd or Martin. She took a step—toward Martin—away from Boyd.

Martin held up his hand. “I’ve tried to explain to you,” he said.

“How many women have you killed?” She didn’t have to listen to this.

Thunder rumbled ominously above them. A flash of lightning bright enough to irradiate bones momentarily scattered the mist and half-blinded Hallie. She blinked. Blinked again. Afterimages danced like ghosts before her eyes.

Martin held out his hand, palm upward. Just above this outstretched palm was a small irregularly shaped ball of blue white fire. “This is the power I have,” he said. “I can bring rain to people who have none. I can stop a downpour, prevent a flood. As my power continues to grow, I’ll be able to change the paths of hurricanes, to reroute hailstorms away from precious crops, to fill lakes and streams. The world will be a better place.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Hallie said.

Martin frowned.

“You kill people.” Hallie couldn’t believe she actually had to explain this.

“For the greater good.”

Pete stepped forward and stood behind Martin’s left shoulder. His pistol was nickel plated with a leather grip and fancy scrollwork on the barrel. Hallie wondered if he’d ever used it before.

“I won’t let you kill anyone else,” Hallie said.

“Stop me.”

With no more warning than that, he flung the fireball at her. Before it left his hand—before Hallie even realized it was going to leave his hand—Boyd grabbed her around the waist and dived for the ground. The fireball slammed into the hood of Boyd’s car and exploded with a shriek like a wounded cougar. Hallie rolled, bright pain where her hip had hit the ground, and fetched up behind her pickup truck, leaning against the fender.

She could hear crackling fire, the acrid smell of plastic burning. “Boyd?” she called in a loud half whisper.

“Right here.”

His voice came from three feet directly behind her. She almost shot him, so surprised/relieved/pissed off to hear his voice.

“Shit,” she said.

“Stay here,” Boyd said in a tight hard voice.

“Wait—fuck!” Because he was up and walking around the edge of the truck while Hallie scrambled, cursing, to her feet. She slammed herself tight against the pickup cab and pointed her shotgun across the hood of the truck to cover him. Because what the
hell
did he think he was doing?

Then—fuck. Fuck! Because suddenly she got it—she did. What he’d been saying earlier, what he’d been trying to tell her, what his dreams had no doubt been telling him for days.

He thought he would die here
.

Well, fuck him.

Not if she could help it.

“Stop!” she yelled. By which she meant everyone.

Boyd’s hands were out to the side, away from his pistol, which he had holstered once more, though Hallie noticed that the flap was still unsnapped.

Martin’s hands were half-raised, too, and Hallie’d be damned if he was going to have the chance to make another one of those fireballs. She fired her shotgun over his head. Everyone, except Boyd, looked at her.

“I said stop.”

“We need to talk,” Boyd said.

“Enough talking,” Hallie said.

Boyd continued as if Hallie hadn’t spoken. “You’re in a bind,” he said to Martin. “I get that. I do. Even if you’ve covered your tracks perfectly, even if you kill us.” He gestured in a way that encompassed him and Hallie both. “Even if you save the world.” He took a step forward. “Someone will be looking. Hallie’s dad? He’s going to notice that she’s gone. Ole? Even if he thinks I’m a pain in the ass—which he doesn’t—he’s going to come looking.”

He took another step forward.

Hallie wished she knew what in hell he was doing.

“What are you saying?” Martin asked.

“I’m saying we can make a deal.”

“No, we can’t,” said Hallie.

“Fuck that,” said Pete. He waved his gun at Boyd. “He doesn’t want to make a deal,” he said to Martin. “What kind of deal is he going to make? Neither one of them is going to keep their mouths shut. Hallie—hell—you know she’s never shut her mouth her whole life. And this guy?” He waved the gun again, actually waggled it, like he’d forgotten he was even holding it. “Hell, he’s the goddamned Boy Scout of the fucking century, this one. You think he’ll walk away? It ain’t gonna happen.”

Pete’s voice rose, but the more agitated he became, perversely, the more rock steady he held the gun in his hand. When he finished, he was pointing it directly at Boyd’s head, though he was looking straight across the road at Hallie.

“Come on out from behind that truck,” he said to her. “I want to see you.”

Boyd half turned without taking his eyes off Martin. “Stay right where you are.”

“Boyd…”

“It’s all right,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

Hallie took a half step to her right, still partly concealed by the bumper and the gloomy morning mist. “Don’t
worry
about it?”

Boyd looked pale but determined, and Hallie realized she was every bit as pissed at him as she was at Pete and Martin—for playing his hand, whatever it was, without her.

Pete took a step closer to Boyd. “I’ll shoot him. Goddamnit, Hallie, I mean it.”

“You shoot him,” Hallie said, “I shoot you. Simple.”

Pete grinned. “Damn, Hallie,” he said. “You’re something else, you know that? Martin here, he wanted you to be the first sacrifice, you know. Way back. But you left too soon. He had to find someone else. But it should have been you.”

A chill ran down Hallie’s spine, and she knew it wasn’t from a ghost. Dell drifted toward Pete, like she was drawn on a string. She reached out and touched his face. He shifted his head against his shoulder, like brushing away a pesky fly.

Hallie was so angry, she was surprised she could still function. So amazingly pissed at everyone: at Martin for every single woman he had killed, at Pete for helping him, at Boyd for playing out a hand he hadn’t let her in on. She was even—maybe most—pissed at Dell for dying and leaving this mess behind.

“Did you kill her?” Hallie asked. The wind rose sharp and dry, eating away the mist like it had never existed. Green-black lightning, like the glow of a black light, cracked a dozen yards above their heads.

“I don’t—,” Martin began.

“Not you,” Hallie said. She nodded at Pete. “You. Did you kill her? Because she wasn’t a sacrifice. It wasn’t about the ‘greater good’ or making the world a better place. She didn’t disappear. She was killed. Because she found out something. She tried to tell the sheriff, maybe she tried to tell me, I don’t know. She had to be stopped. So, I want to know, Pete.

“Were you the one who killed her?

“Because she liked you, you know. I always thought you were an ass. But Dell actually liked you.”

“Hallie.” Boyd’s voice was full of warning.

She ignored him.

“Seriously, Pete,” she said. “Dell liked you.” Each word like a pistol shot, satisfaction in the way Pete flinched like he’d been hit.

“Shut up,” he said, his growl like a wounded wolf.

“Enough,” Martin said.

“It had to be you, Pete,” Hallie continued relentlessly. “Did you get right up close to her? Did you kiss her? Did you tell her everything would be okay?” She moved to the front of the pickup as she spoke, could feel the rumble of the idling engine in her forearm as it rested on the hood.

Pete’s hand trembled, the gun shaking. Lightning and thunder above them, the rumble rattling so deep in Hallie’s chest that it felt as if the ground were shaking, as if they were on a badly lit carnival fun ride.

“I didn’t kill her,” Pete said, his eyes wide and white rimmed. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t have killed her.”

“I said stop!” Martin shouted, and raised his hand, filled with fire.

Hallie shot him full in the chest. The impact knocked him backwards off his feet.

Pete roared. “I did not
kill
her!” He fired wildly, not caring whom he hit. His men dropped their guns and crawled behind Pete’s pickup.

Boyd winged Pete in his gun arm, but not before Pete got off a final shot, hitting Boyd in the leg. He collapsed to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Shit
.

Boyd’s hands were on his leg, blood seeping through his fingers, spreading across the crisp fabric of his khaki pants. Hallie crossed the short distance between them, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him backwards—no conversation, no ceremony—get it done.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Martin struggle to his feet, and she realized with horror that although his shirt was shredded, he wasn’t bleeding.

“You can’t shoot him,” Boyd said through gritted teeth.

“Jesus Christ!” Hallie said. “You might have mentioned that earlier.”

“That was a mistake, Hallie,” said Martin.

“Can you get in the truck if I cover you?” Hallie asked Boyd.

“Leave me,” Boyd said. “It’s the only way you’ll get out of here.”

“I’m not leaving you, you stupid ass,” Hallie said.

Martin took a step toward them.

“Fuck!” Hallie yelled. She rose and stood between Boyd and Martin.

Boyd levered himself to his feet, leaning heavily against the door of the pickup. “Hallie—”

“Shut up.”

She raised her shotgun. Maybe it couldn’t hurt him, but it would buy them a minute, maybe two. Maybe it would be enough. Though she knew that it wouldn’t.

Behind her, Boyd’s breathing was sharp and quick. Dell had left Pete, was beside her again, like they were finally in this together, finally standing against Martin. Together.

Then, the rest of them were there, too, all her ghosts in front of her, like the first wave, like Hallie’s own ghostly suicide squad, which would be funny under other circumstances—a suicide squad of the dead. The ghosts didn’t look at Martin or Pete, who was still on the ground swearing. They looked dead-on, straight at Hallie, like they’d never looked at her before, like she was the only interesting thing on the whole empty prairie, like she was the world.

Martin closed the gap between them, his hands working intricately, drawing a symbol in the air. Hallie raised her shotgun. The ghosts stared at Hallie. Boyd put his hand on her shoulder. It trembled from shock.

“Just go,” he said.

“No.”

The fireball formed in Martin’s hand. He made a pass with his other hand, and it grew. It flickered, burst frantically forth like a miniature sun flare, and died. He looked from his hand to Hallie, puzzlement writ large across his face. He stepped forward. The ghosts widened their semicircle around Hallie until they floated exactly halfway between Hallie and Martin. Dell put her hand on Hallie’s arm, a white-hot shock but comforting in a way.

Martin took another step forward and stumbled before catching himself up sharp, his face pale. He raised his hand and—Hallie assumed this wasn’t by design—thrust it into the center of the ghosts.

It felt as if a needle had been plunged into her brain, like she was burning from the inside out and freezing at the same time, all of them connected in that moment, like a chain—Hallie to Dell to the other ghosts to Martin. Hallie’s knees buckled. She caught herself and looked up in time to see Martin stumble backwards with a look of shock and pain on his face.

He shook his head, like a dog shaking off river water. He raised his hand again, the ball of fire re-formed, but this time it was sputtery and tiny, more pale pink and orange than bright blue white. He lifted his arm to throw it. It fizzled and went out.

Hallie didn’t hesitate. She shot him again, then turned and wrenched open the door of the pickup and wrestled Boyd inside. She turned back, thinking to shoot out the tires on Pete’s pickup. Martin was already back up on his knees. He held a dark cloth—soaked in blood? His hands wove a quick intricate pattern. Sparks, little more than the snap of static electricity spit from his fingertips.

Hallie raised her shotgun. If she shot him now—

The window next to her head shattered. Dull thump of a bullet right into the seat cushion. Pete was on his feet again, as likely to shoot one of his own men as Hallie or Boyd, but dangerous all the same.

Hallie reluctantly put up her gun, dived into the cab, and got them the hell out of there.

33

Hallie didn’t stop until she was five miles, three section line roads, and a dry creek bed away. Her hands were shaking, which pissed her off. Pissed her off
more
. And she was actually all right with that. Pissed off was better than scared or helpless.

They were on a long stretch of county road, heading west. Hallie scanned the highway east and west, scanned the surrounding fields, too, because you never knew—maybe Martin could fly. Seeing nothing, not a single vehicle, not even a few head of cattle, she pulled onto the first faintly outlined lane she came to, down to a tiny creek with an old barn that leaned at least thirty degrees in the direction of the prevailing winds and dead brown grass that came halfway up the windows of the truck.

Boyd’s hands were still clamped tight around his upper leg, his breathing harsh in the closed space of the pickup cab.

Hallie dug behind the seat and came up with a couple of T-shirts, old but clean. She ripped his pant leg open and laid the T-shirts over the bleeding bullet wound like two thick pads, then put his hands back so he could continue to apply pressure. There was no exit wound, which made things both more and less complicated. He needed a hospital, and the nearest one was over thirty miles away.