Page 90 of Girl, Fractured

Nathan’s face transformed before Ripley’s eyes.It was the kind of transformation she’d witnessed in a hundred interrogation rooms when lies crumbled into dust.First came disbelief, then the rapid eye movements as his brain frantically searched for alternative narratives.

Finally, the blood drained and left a white mask in place.

‘No,’ he whispered.‘I heard you that day.You saidligature marks, restraints.’

Ripley knew this moment.When you stripped away the foundational lie that held someone together, you didn’t get truth.Throughout this interaction, Sarah had remained oddly passive.Ripley guessed that was their relationship dynamic embodied.

‘Yeah, I said there weren’t any.’The comment came out more deadpan that Ripley intended.‘If you don’t believe your dad committed suicide, look at the obvious thing here, Nathan.’

Nathan wasn’t pacing as such, but he was moving in a strange circular motion.He was wielding the shovel like a sword.‘Which is?’

‘Don’t listen to her!’Sarah tried again.‘I’ll shoot you right here!’

‘You could shoot the ocean and still miss.’

‘Quiet!Both of you.What’s theobvious, Agent Ripley?’

Nathan tried to word it like he was humoring her, but Ripley knew he was genuinely hooked.What was she trying to do here?Ripley didn’t know.She was buying time, but infuriating both of her potential killers in the process.Was there a chance Nathan Taylor would see the light and let her go?Unlikely.But the longer she stayed alive, the more chance she had of someone finding her here.

‘The obvious, Nathan, is that your dad was damaged.And he passed that damage down to his offspring.’

‘It doesn’t change what we’ve done,’ Sarah said, desperation threading her voice.‘Nothing changes what we’ve accomplished.’

‘Shut up!’Nathan screamed.‘Why didn’t you tell anyone this?How come even the woman who wrote the book on this didn’t even know?’

‘Out of respect for the families.Ironic, right?’

Nathan stormed closer and held up his shovel like he was about to attack.‘Respect?Are youkiddingme?’

‘Insurance doesn’t pay out for suicide.’Ripley reached out and put one hand on the shovel.‘We thought murder at first, then the truth became clear.We didn’t want to devastate the families twice, so yes, Nathan, Ididlie to you, because it was kinder to let a young boy think his dad was murdered than to tell him his dad took his own life.‘

Nathan’s transformation manifested physically, the way crisis always did.Blood vessels in his neck corded like steel cables.Shoulders bunched.Weight shifted to the balls of his feet.Thirty years of law enforcement had taught Ripley to read this primordial language fluently.The human body betrayed intent milliseconds before action, and Nathan Taylor had just crossed the threshold from thought into deed.

He was going to attack her.

And then he exploded into movement, but Ripley was already a step ahead.She reached forward and rested a hand on shovel, and then, in a motion born of pure survival instinct – a motion she didn’t even know her fifty-something body still possessed – shemoved.

Ripley yanked the shovel from Nathan’s grip and jumped towards Sarah Webb.She swung in a violent arc with the shovel outstretched, and the world reduced to a blur.Her head went light with the sudden rotation, but found its mark with a sickeningwhack.Sarah screamed, and the gun in her hand flew towards the ocean just as the tide came in and swallowed it whole.

‘Fuck!’Sarah yelled.The woman looked like a deer in the headlights, and for a brief moment, Ripley nearly felt sorry for her, because before this monster saw the inside of a cell, she’d be seeing the business end of a shovel.Nathan Taylor appeared beside her, looking equally as lost as his girlfriend.He might have taken three lives, but he was clearly out of his element in a clean fight.

And that made Ripley’s job so much sweeter.

‘Two against one.You’re trapped!’Nathan said.

It was a bad intimidation tactic.A genuine laugh tore from Ripley’s throat.This one was going to be for Max, for her family, for her mentor who’d lost his life to this pair of freaks.

‘I’m not trapped with you,’ she said as she inspected the head of the shovel.She tapped a nail against it.‘You’re trapped with me.’

Without hesitation, Ripley became a human wrecking machine.She stormed towards Nathan Taylor with her weapon held high, and while she briefly registered movement on his part, it was futile against a crazy woman with a metal shovel.She moved with such intensity that it stung her shoulders, and she brought the weapon down at what her subconscious brain guessed was close to a hundred miles per hour.

Bone splintered.Flesh gave way.The rules of physics were in motion; energy must be displaced, and that energy dispersed throughout Nathan Taylor’s skull.His pupils dilated as blood vessels ruptured beneath his scalp, and created a crimson halo that birthed itself from hairline to jaw in the span of two heartbeats.His body performed the grotesque choreography of massive neurological trauma: arms splayed outward, fingers hyperextended, legs buckling as opposing muscle groups received simultaneous and contradictory commands from a command center now reduced to fragmenting hardware.

And Nathan Taylor stumbled backward, backward into a hole that had been meant for Ripley.The sand-grave had already filled it a quarter way with water, and if Ripley didn’t intervene, Nathan would drown within the next few minutes.

‘That’s for Frank, you son of a bitch.’

Ripley suddenly broke free from her frenzied fugue state and spun in search of Sarah Webb.

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