My Sister's Keeper

Chapter 54

54

IN MY MIND, I SAW MYSELF LEAP from the shadows and lock my hands around his neck. I saw the shock in his blood-streaked eyes as I choked the life out of him with my bare hands. I felt panic ripple through his body as he realized that he was going to die and there was nothing he could do to stop it. In one glorious flicker of thought, I watched him die in my hands. But death would be too good for Scott—or Dane Bonner—or whoever the hell he was. I wanted him to suffer as my sister had, to know her pain, to curse my name every time his cell door closed for the rest of his tortured life.

As his shadow followed him into the barn, I grasped a chunk of firewood, flattened myself against the rear of the building, and treaded on quaking legs to the edge of the doorway. Drunk on hate, I didn't care about the law. I didn't care about the other lives he'd torn apart. He had destroyed my sister and I wanted to punish him for it. I wanted to be the one that did it, to be the one to tell her, to see the sparkle return to her eyes when I gave her the news.

I could smell his sweat and the burnt gunpowder that lingered in his wake. I listened to his footsteps as he moved about on the dirt floor inside, dragging something, bumping something, and another heavy thump. My heart pulsed in my neck as his steps came near the door. I waited with the wood cocked, ready to swing. It would be quick and there'd be no compassion as he'd given none to Martha. Wind blowing in off the river chilled the perspiration on my skin as I waited, until his footsteps faded off in another direction and a door elsewhere squeaked and bumped.

I dared to peer into the room, into the stabbing silver light from the lantern consuming its fuel in a perpetual inhale. Scott was gone and so were Ashleigh and her gun. I leaned farther into the room and heard a frightened scream.

Sydney?

Running past the door as fast as I could on my swollen ankle, I rounded the other end of the barn and tripped over a body in the grass landing face down in the dirt, my camera under me.

Clutching my hip, I rolled to the side and bent low over a warm body. It was Sam. There was a dark stain in the dirt beside his head. I laid an ear to his chest, detected a slight heartbeat, and shook him. "Sam." He didn't respond. I searched him for a gun, but found only an empty holster and a flashlight. I left the camera, took his flashlight, and ran beyond the house to where I'd left Sydney.

I whispered in the dark, "Sydney?" There was no answer. "Sydney!" I switched the light on and I could see that there'd been a struggle. One of Sidney's shoes lay in the grass and there was a distinctive odor in the air that I recognized from having my tonsils removed as a child. Ether!

I felt a clamp squeeze down on my chest. I clutched the shoe. The heat of her foot was still in it. I tracked footprints around the back of the house, through waist-deep weeds and soggy earth, ending in standing water that seeped into my shoes. I hobbled back toward the barn spotting a young woman frozen on the pier, her eyes wide with fear as she gazed toward the light coming from the barn. Turning the corner, I glimpsed Scott lugging an unconscious Sydney into the back door of the barn.

I bent forward gasping for air, trembling. I had to do something, and I had to do it now! I took a deep breath, tightened my grip on the flashlight, and charged through the doorway throwing every ounce of weight and strength I could muster into Scott as he held Sydney over one of the polyethylene tanks. Knocking him forward, I fell on him beating him relentlessly with the steel light. I swung with both hands chasing after him as he tried to crawl away on his back, drawing blood from his face with every blow. Insane with rage, I unleashed a vicious barrage onto him—a blow for every bully that had ever taunted me. I kept banging and smashing until he locked my arms with his legs and wrestled the light out of my hands. Dragging me to the ground, he rolled on top of me crushing the air out of my lungs, jamming an elbow into my throat cutting off my air.