The Last Child

CHAPTER TWENTY

Johnny woke to a nightmare stained gray. He saw the sky through glass, then dishwater eyes dashed with blood, fingers tipped with yellow plaster. He knew it was a nightmare because he’d seen it before-same face, same broken nails. Johnny blinked, but nothing changed. The dirty man stood there, fingers going tight, and Johnny realized where he was. The scream tore out of his throat and Burton Jarvis came through the window so fast Johnny barely had time to move. He shoved himself away, but bone-hard fingers caught an ankle. Johnny screamed again and Jar grunted, the sound coming from the same deep, foul place of Johnny’s dreams. Another hand closed around his ankle, and Johnny flew across the seat.

He lashed out with the knife, cut one arm and then the other. Red lines appeared, then opened, and Johnny tried to cut him again; he jerked Johnny so hard his head slammed into the wheel. The door clanked, and then Johnny was on the street. His head struck pavement. A foot slammed down on his hand and the knife clattered away.

He tried to get under the car, but Jar caught him by the neck and flipped him onto his back. Gravel dug into his skull. The fingers squeezed and Johnny felt a long line of ice form on his chest. For an instant, it was that cold, but then the heat came, the pain, and Johnny knew that he’d been cut with his own knife. Jar screamed in his face, dirty words and insanity, ropes of spit. Another cold line opened and turned to fire. Johnny was dying, he knew it. The old bastard was killing him on the street.

The knife flashed. “You like that?”

He cut Johnny again.

And again.

“You like that, you little bastard?”

He was insane, raging; then the sky thundered and he was flying, a red flower on his chest. Sound compressed Johnny’s eardrums, the cotton push of thunder and the wet thump Jar’s body made when it hit pavement. Johnny closed his eyes and saw how the old man had come off the ground, the whiplash that left a strand of spit in the air. None of it made sense, but it hung there-fresh paint on Johnny’s mind-then the pain hit. Johnny sat and agony sheeted his chest. His hand came up stinging red. He looked at his fingers, then away. He saw the bottom of Jar’s feet. A twitch in the old man’s leg.

What happened?

A stone rasped on the street behind Johnny. He saw the gun first, big and black and shaking in fingers squeezed white. They were small fingers, grimed at the nails. Her arms were skinny, the muscles taut and barely able to hold the gun. The muzzle cut wild circles in the air. A dirty blue shirt hung to her knees. Jar’s name was on a patch over the pocket. There was an oil stain and a button missing near the bottom. Handcuffs clattered on her wrists. Her lips bled where she bit them.

She did not look at Johnny as she stepped past him. She looked at Burton Jarvis, whose leg still thumped, whose fingers curled.

Johnny understood. “Tiffany.”

She ignored him. He saw the welts on her legs, the angry gashes under bright cuffs. “Tiffany, don’t.”

Her thumbs found the hammer. Metal clicked twice, and Jar’s leg went still. When Johnny stood, he could see Jar’s face, the eyes wide and silver. The old man’s hand rose. “Don’t,” he said.

Blood rolled from one nostril and trembled on the edge of Tiffany’s lip.

She was going to do it.

“I need to talk to him.” Johnny lifted his hands. “He knows where my sister is.”

Tiffany hesitated. Blood ran from her lip to one perfect tooth. Her arms straightened.

“No,” Johnny said.

But she pulled the trigger. The bullet tore through Jar’s palm and blew through his teeth. The head rose and bounced. The leg went still.

Tiffany sat down on the road and stared into space. She placed the gun beside her as Jar’s blood pooled against her leg. Johnny ran to the old man’s side and dropped to his knees. He grabbed Jar’s shattered head as if he could hold in all of the things that leaked out, but the eyes were dull and empty, the silver turned to lead. For a second, Johnny saw black, and then he screamed. “Where is she?” He screamed the question, kept screaming it, and then he was beating Jar’s head against the road, slamming it until the sound went from hard to wet. Eventually Johnny stopped.

He was too late.