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But worst of all, if they all give blood for the bait, then he might never know if his heart is the one the monster truly wants.

Do you really want to know, Tommy? Can you even handle knowing?

Kimi’s voice snaps him out of it. “Are we all in agreement?” she asks.

Something gnaws in Thomas’s stomach now when he looks at the cashier—something hiding beneath the surface of her intensity that he keeps waiting on to jump out at them. But as Ashley and his sister both give strong nods, Thomas knows there’s no time for another choice.

“We’ll have to put the blood in something,” Ashley says then, searching around the room before her eyes fall back on the open first aid kit sitting beside her on the table. She picks up a pair of disposable gloves, fingering the material. “We could fill these up like water balloons. They’d be easy enough to throw.”

“We could mix the blood with lighter fluid,” Thomas adds, envisioning the dirt parking lot in his mind. “We need to get the Mimic by Jim’s truck.”

“Why there?” Kimi asks.

“There’s a propane tank in the truck bed. If we lure it close enough, we can blow the fucker to smithereens.”

The others are silent, seeming to consider this. “What about the bait, though?” Kimi interjects. “It’d have to land in exactly the right spot by the truck. Not to mention how far you’d have to throw from the rooftop.”

Thomas looks down at his right arm; for weeks, it has been only numbness or pain in some shape or other.

Give it your best, because your best is all you’ve got, his dad would always tell him before the start of every game. He’d always envisioned his greatest performance would come during a World Series with the Braves, but tonight on this hell mountain would have to do.

“I can do it,” he says. When he looks up, it is his sister’s gaze he meets.

“He can,” Jane confirms, and the words seem to chisel away at something in his chest. Thomas gives her a small nod of appreciation, while Ashley clears her throat.

“What about the cast?” she asks.

“You’re gonna take it off,” Thomas tells her. He sees no reason to wait until Monday, not when the future he’s spent his life working toward has already slipped between his fingers.

Not when I might not even make it to Monday.

Ashley’s eyes widen only slightly at the determination in his steady gaze and the firm set of his mouth. “Alright,” she agrees, carefully shifting off the table. “But I can’t promise it won’t hurt.”

“I can live with it,” Thomas replies before turning toward Kimi. “You were a good shot earlier. We’re going to need someone to hit the propane tank.”

Kimi immediately shakes her head. “I’m not that good. I just got lucky earlier—”

“Then get lucky again,” he says, searching the cashier’s face. “This might be our only chance, Kimi. No one else in here can shoot, and I don’t trust that drunk out there not to fuck us over again.”

Jackson’s limp body flashes behind Thomas’s eyes like an omen. There’s nothing stopping Jim from deciding to barge in at any moment, gun raised and pointed at Jane. His attention drifts seamlessly to his sister, where she frowns again at the broken handcuffs on the floor, lying partially in the pool of blood.

A memory floods him, warm and soft around the edges, of the two of them as children: her waking from nightmares of monsters and him taking off his socks to put on a puppet show until her fears turned into sleepy laughter.

Only now, the monster has turned them all into its own puppets.

Kimi leans back against the wall, chewing on her thumbnail again. She glances up at the two photos on the wall as remorse briefly flashes in her eyes. “I’ll shoot,” she says finally, looking around at each of them. “You guys start gathering everything we need. I’ll go get Jim’s—”

A gunshot booms once, followed by thick, deafening silence.

Twenty-one

and well into the night.

The car moaned against the trees that were keeping it suspended some ten feet above ground, like a twitching fly caught in an intricate web. Thomas tried to shift in his seat, though every movement pumped his vision full of red spots.

“We can’t be stuck down here,” he hissed.

Hot tears sped down his cheeks as he eyed the bloody carnage of his arm. The thick tree branch came out clean through the other side of him, then out through the back of the driver’s seat, pinning him in place. “I think I can get it out,” he said, eyes wide with adrenaline and panic. “It really doesn’t hurt that bad.”