Page 174 of Heartbeats & Highways

He’s alive.

The Grand Patriarch attempted to speak, but blood bubbled from his mouth and began to run down his chin and onto his bare chest.

Savage walked right up to the Grand Patriarch, raised his pistol and said, “Burn in hell, motherfucker.”

And then Savage put a bullet in the Grand Patriarch’s head. This time the back of his skull exploded, and his brains and blood splattered the bed.

His end came at Savage’s hands. Just like his wife’s came at the end of mine. Both their insides on the outside.

“Evie?” Savage’s voice was raspy in the night. He stepped closer. “Babe. It’s me, Savage.”

My mind took a moment to process that I was safe.

“Savage?”

He rushed toward me, glass crunching beneath his boots. He tucked his pistol into his jeans. “God, you’re covered in blood! Are you hurt?”

He ran his hands up and down my arms, checking for wounds.

“Not mine,” I stuttered out. I gestured with my chin to the body lying prostrate across the cot.

With a low curse, he grabbed the edge of the sheet and managed to fling it across the corpse on the bed.

“We need to get out of here,” he said. He took out his pistol again and then reached for my hand. “Stay behind me.”

Savage led the way, and I shadowed him as we went into the dark hallway.

“Hold onto the railing. I don’t want you to fall.”

He took the stairs slowly, but when we were only a few steps from the bottom, the front door opened.

Savage raised his pistol.

“It’s me,” Duke said. “We’re all set.”

Savage stuck his pistol into his waistband and then grabbed my hand again. We followed Duke outside.

Crow and a man I didn’t know appeared from the darkness like smoke in the night; they both held plastic gas cans.

“It’s done,” the stranger said.

“You want the honors?” Duke asked Savage.

“No.” He looked at me. “This is for you, Evie. If you want to.”

Savage reached into his inner vest pocket and pulled out a long barbecue lighter and held it out to me.

“If you can’t do it, I will,” he said so quietly I knew the others couldn’t hear.

“No.” I swallowed. “I can do it.”

I took the lighter from him and marched toward the house. I angled the lighter to the base and watched as fire licked the rotting wooden boards of the farmhouse.

Savage pulled me back and filched the lighter from me. It took a few moments, but then with awhooshthe flames drew sustenance and fury from peeling paint and wood.

The five of us stood and watched as the roof finally caught fire, and then I turned from the sight. I started walking away, walking nowhere, but I didn’t look behind me. Not even when I heard the glass of the windows shatter and smelled the smoke that filled the air.

I felt Savage’s hand slide into mine and squeeze my fingers. I squeezed back and left my past behind me forever.

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