Edge of Collapse Series (Book 1): Edge of Collapse

by Stone, Kyla

  A footfall to his left. A boot scraped on carpet.

  Liam crouched and peered through the space between the tops of the books and the next shelf to the next aisle. A flicker of movement. A darting shadow.

  More footsteps, faster now. Two was running. Not toward Hannah or back to the entrance, but toward the wall of windows.

  Somehow, Two had figured out that he was both alone and not alone.

  He was making a break for it.

  If Two reached the rest of his group, he’d bring back twenty of his goons, maybe more. Too many even for Liam to fight off.

  Liam dashed down the row and rounded the endcap, nearly knocking several thick tomes off a shelf. He caught sight of Two fleeing across the library just as he reached the windows.

  The thug vaulted over the waist-high shelves and hurled himself through the broken window, his rifle slung across his back. Jagged shards snagged at his coat and jeans, but he went through.

  The man pitched forward and rolled with a pained grunt. He scrambled to his feet and shot off across the library parking lot toward main street, shouting the alarm, flashlight beam bobbing like a beacon for Liam to follow.

  Liam followed but angled himself to miss the glass shards raking at his boots. He hit the snow awkwardly, the jarring landing sending pain streaking up and down his spine, irritating old war wounds.

  The bracing cold struck him like a slap in the face. The wind howled mournfully. Great gusts swept the snow into drifts several feet deep.

  His eyes adjusted to the night. Everything was gray snow and dim black shapes, no moon or ambient light to aid his vision. But Two and the other thugs had the same disadvantage.

  Heavy flakes swirled into his eyes, stuck in his eyelashes. He blinked them away, ignored the pain, and forced himself to straighten. Two was a wavering shadow barely visible ahead of him. He had a fifty-foot head start.

  Liam was sorely tempted to use his Glock, but he didn’t have a clear shot. He needed to get closer. He had to chase Two down.

  He sank well past his knees with every slogging step. Liam had his go-bag with his extra ammo. His snowshoes still attached to the back with a knot of paracord.

  Fresh adrenaline dumped through his system as he pumped his burning thighs, pushing himself harder and harder. He should’ve taken the time to put on his snowshoes. Too late now.

  Two was faster than he was. No one was running in this snow. It was like a nightmare chase through thick Jell-o or deep water.

  And Liam was slower than he used to be. Once upon a time, no one could outrun or outmaneuver him. The crushed disc injury he’d sustained in Afghanistan had slowed him a step. Maybe more.

  No matter. What he’d lost in speed, he would make up for in persistence, stamina, and sheer determination.

  Two made it to main street. He floundered down the center of the road, raising his knees high, nearly jumping from step to step. Snow mounds as high as his head crowded either side of the street.

  Less than a hundred yards away, four dark shapes separated from beneath the gas station overhang. Four hostiles. All armed. He could make out the sharp outlines of baseball bats and rifles. Four wavering flashlight beams pierced the darkness.

  Adrenaline surging, Liam lunged behind a parked vehicle and sheathed his knife. He’d clean it later. He drew his Glock.

  With a round already chambered and the magazine full, he had eighteen rounds, counting the one in the chamber. Three preloaded seventeen round magazines in an easy-to-reach pouch of his go-bag. Plus, the two confiscated pistols and whatever rounds they had left.

  Noise didn’t matter now. He’d already been spotted.

  Two reached the others and gesticulated wildly, jabbing back toward the library, his voice an indistinct shout above the wind. More shouting.

  The others turned in Liam’s direction and brandished their weapons.

  Five hostiles slogged fearlessly down the center of the street. They didn’t separate. No one dropped back to cover the others.

  They weren’t trained soldiers, weren’t enemy combatants or insurgents. Just punks and low-life hooligans.

  That didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. Or wouldn’t get lucky. He’d learned that the hard way.

  Liam snuck nearer in the darkness, moving from vehicle to vehicle as cover.

  Soon, he was thirty yards closer and they’d lost sight of him in the dark and snow.

  “Where the hell did he go?” a burly Hispanic man shouted.

  “He was right here!” another one cried, this one female. “I just saw him a second ago.”

  “I’ll kill him!” Two said, enraged. “I’ll pluck out his damn eyeballs! He killed Mason and Pete! I know it!”

  “How did he get a jump on you?” said the third guy, who was so young, his voice still cracked.

  “It was dark in there!” Two whined. “He murdered Mason! What was I supposed to do?”

  “Pay attention!” The fourth man was short and fat, carrying a shotgun pressed against his shoulder, slowly scanning the surrounding buildings through his sights with each step. “He could be anywhere.”

  Liam snuck behind a Honda Accord and reached an older-model minivan. The snow drifted as high as the family stickers attached to the rear window—a stick mom, two stick kids in soccer uniforms, a little stick dog.

  He was fifteen yards away now.

  He crouched behind the engine mount, rose onto his haunches, and braced his hands against the hood. He peered through the falling snow and sighted the head of the first hostile—the burly Hispanic, an orange beanie yanked over his ears, no hood.

  Liam squeezed the trigger twice.

  49

  Hannah

  Day Eight

  Hannah huddled in the corner. Her knees were drawn up against her swollen belly, her spine pressed against the bookcase, knobby hardcovers poking her lower back through her coat.

  She shivered as she listened to the sounds outside. The cold burrowed into her skin beneath her clothes, even with the bean bags pushed up on either side of her.

  Several minutes passed. She didn’t know how long it had been. She was afraid. She missed Ghost. She hoped he was safe, hoped Liam was okay.

  A noise gradually filtered into her consciousness.

  The soft thuds of boots on carpet.

  She lifted her head, blinking in the darkness.

  A grunt. The thud of a chair knocking over.

  Had Liam returned? She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Some primal instinct kept her quiet. She wouldn’t give herself away, not until she knew for sure.

  The footsteps drew closer.

  Her pulse sounded loud in her ears. She held her breath, straining to hear.

  Screaming and shouting in the distance. They seemed louder now, more intense, angrier.

  The footsteps stopped.

  Click.

  Hannah stilled.

  Click, click, click.

  Her heart went cold as a block of ice.

  Him.

  He was here. In the library. With her.

  50

  Hannah

  Day Eight

  The sickly-sweet scent of clove cigarettes overwhelmed her senses.

  Hannah had to move. She had to move right freaking now.

  Terror glued her in place. He would find her, he would hurt her, he would do worse than he’d ever done. His worst was unimaginable, his worst was an evil she knew better than anyone.

  Her deformed fingers pulsed with familiar agony, like he was breaking them all over again, pressing down harder and harder, watching her with that dangerous smile. Snap, snap, snap.

  No! Wake up! Hannah, get up!

  She was on her hands and knees. She didn’t know how, didn’t remember doing it, but she was up and moving, crawling desperately away from him, from that devastating click, click, click.

  The lighter lid flicking open and closed and open again as he studied her, contemplated what harm he would inflict upon her next. He’d liked the s
ound of it. It excited him.

  She crawled along the far wall, perpendicular to the stacks, toward the windows. The darkness was alive, darting and shifting and scuttling into the corners.

  She didn’t want to believe it, but she knew—knew it was him with every fiber of her being.

  “Hannah,” said the familiar mocking, sing-song voice.

  Her bones vibrated beneath her skin. Her heart shuddered inside her chest.

  Blackness hovered over her eyes, the dark sucking black hole of nothingness threatening to take her under, to bring her somewhere else, somewhere numb and empty.

  But she always came back. She always came back, and when she did, he would still be here. Would still be coming for her.

  She fought to remain present, to keep her brain clear even as terror crashed through her in great cresting waves.

  She desperately wanted to curl into a ball and cover her head with her hands like a child shrouding her face with a blanket—if she couldn’t see the monster, then he wasn’t really here. He didn’t exist. He wouldn’t really tear her to pieces with his claws, his fangs.

  He would.

  This monster was real: not a figment of her imagination, not a nightmare, not even a memory. He was here.

  She had to hide, to get away.

  The books. She could count them as she moved. It was too dark to read their spines, but she knew their reassuring shape, loved the dusty familiar smell of them.

  They centered her, brought her back.

  One, two, three…Eighteen, nineteen, twenty…Forty-two, forty-three, forty-four…

  The panicked fog in her mind receded just the tiniest amount. It was enough.

  She crawled past one aisle, then another, the dark tunnel of each row harboring a monster about to leap out at her. Where was he?

  “Hannah…”

  Her head snapped up. She strained to discern the direction of his voice. Somewhere behind her and to the left. The shadows hovered and quivered all around her.

  She placed each hand and knee as quickly and quietly as she could, careful not to bang the metal shelves with her boots. Her heart thudding loud as a drum, her breaths torn from her lungs in rapid shallow pants she was sure he could hear across the library.

  She risked a glance behind her. Her backpack leaned against the yellow bean bag, two pairs of damp snowshoes stacked on the other side. She bit back a moan of dismay.

  If he’d only suspected her presence before, as soon as he found her things, he would know for sure. He would find her. And then…

  Her mind shied from that thought, threatened to go away.

  She fought her way back. Counted the books.

  Ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight…

  She crossed the fourth aisle. The fifth.

  His footsteps behind her, drawing inexorably closer.

  Click, click, click.

  Maybe she could swing around behind him and escape through the front entrance. Or make it to the broken windows. The wall of windows was thirty feet straight ahead.

  “Are you here, Hannah?”

  It sounded like he was right on top of her, like he was going to round the corner of the aisle behind her at any second. He’d see the backpack. Then he’d see her.

  She had to get out of his future line of sight. She turned left at the next bookshelf and headed down the aisle.

  Thick, blocky nonfiction books lined the shelves. She nearly bumped one sticking out too far in her haste. It wobbled.

  She twisted around, managed to snatch it before it fell.

  With trembling hands, she eased it back into place, using the palm of her left hand rather than her useless fingers.

  The stacks consisted of fifteen rows of shelves, interspersed with three perpendicular walkways so patrons could move easily between the maze of shelves. She paused ten feet deep, halfway between the outside wall and the first walkway.

  Slow and careful, she pushed herself from her hands and knees to her feet and crouched as low as she could so he wouldn’t see her through the narrow spaces above the tops of the books. Heart thudding, she prepared to run.

  Not like she could run far like this, pregnant and exhausted.

  The footsteps had stopped.

  When? Just now? Or a few seconds ago?

  She listened hard, struggling to place him in her mind’s eye. Had he reached her original hiding spot yet? Was he behind her still, or…?

  “Hannah, Hannah, Hannah…” His voice was eerily disembodied, seeming to echo off the books and shelves and carpet and brick walls, like it was coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. “You left your things behind, Hannah. You want to come and get them back?”

  She closed her eyes. Bit her chapped lower lip. Tried to remember how to breathe.

  He clucked his tongue. “I know where you’ve been, Hannah. The question is, where are you going?”

  Indecision gripped her. Head for the door. Or the window.

  Which one? Which was a mistake? Which one led to escape?

  “You thought I wouldn’t find you? You thought you were smarter than me?”

  Footsteps, heading toward the bank of windows. Toward her.

  No more time to think. She scurried down the aisle, still half-crouched, belly low and aching, her good hand touching the metal shelf for balance.

  Click, click, click.

  The sound faster, harsher. He was getting agitated. Losing patience.

  She rounded the corner of the next row and jammed her back against the endcap. White plaques at eye-height listed numbers and letters too dark too read. Her frantic brain couldn’t have unscrambled their meaning even if she’d tried.

  “Did you think I’d let you just leave? You have something of mine. I want it back. I’ll cut it out of you, and then you can watch it die while I break every bone in your miserable body.”

  She bit back a moan. Her legs were trembling and weak, her bowels watery with fear.

  “Are you listening to me, Hannah? HANNAH!”

  51

  Hannah

  Day Eight

  Every hair on Hannah’s body lifted. Chills raced up and down her spine.

  He moved closer, ever closer. “You know you belong to me. You and everything you have is mine. You won’t get away with what you did. Not this time. I’ve been incredibly patient with you, Hannah. Gracious, even. But I’m done with that. After what you did? Causing me all this trouble? I never should have let you live.”

  Click, click, click.

  Hannah clamped her good hand over her mouth, her chest hitching, tears of panic gathering in the corners of her eyes, blurring her vision.

  She pushed herself off the endcap and shuffled to the next aisle. Only three rows from the windows.

  “You should already be dead, Hannah. You will be, very soon. I would have made it pleasant for you. Or at least, not nearly as unpleasant as it will be now. You won’t like what’s coming next. I can promise you that. But you know what’s coming next, don’t you?

  “You know what you deserve. Why don’t you come out, little mouse? Stop these useless games. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make a difference. None of this does. You are mine. That thing growing inside you is mine. You will not take it from me. Do you hear me, Hannah?”

  His voice wormed inside her, writhed into her skull, her brain. She couldn’t get it out. She couldn’t get away.

  Darkness in her head. Darkness flapping in her chest with frantic, desperate wings.

  She was dying. She was breaking all over again. Shattering into a million pieces.

  “You know what? I’m a generous man, Hannah. I think you know that. I think you know how kind I’ve been to you. Too kind. Too merciful. You come out now, you show yourself to me, and we’ll start over. Maybe I can be merciful again. Maybe we can take this last week all back and pretend it never happened. What do you think about that?”

  Her whole body shaking, she faced the books, blinked rapidly, tried to focus, tried to count. One hundred and sev
en…one hundred and eight…

  “Hannah, Hannah, Hannah.”

  Her pulse racing, her breath coming in loud, ragged pants. Too loud.

  “This isn’t you, Hannah. You’ve always been so obedient. So…pliable. That’s what I liked about you. That’s what made this whole thing work. Don’t you get it? You’re ruining it all, Hannah. What I do now won’t even be my fault. You’re making me do this, little mouse. Making this happen. I know you don’t want that. I know you don’t.

  “Come on out. I already know you’re here. We both do. What’s the point of prolonging the inevitable? It’s cold. I’m cold. You’re cold. Let’s just go home. Come on, Hannah. All this? I can make it go away.”

  Click, click, click.

  She was afraid to move. Not sure which direction to go.

  “Hannah!” His furious voice bounced off the shelves, the ceiling, the floor, muffling it, sending it in all directions. He might be across the room. Or he might be whispering in her ear, right behind her.

  In the distance, a flurry of shouts and gunshots.

  She flinched. Was that Liam? Liam being shot, or Liam doing the shooting? Maybe he was dying right now in the snow, bleeding out because of her.

  She pushed that thought down, shoved down the despair bubbling up. Had to focus on getting out, no matter what.

  She mouthed a desperate prayer. If God was out there, if He was watching, she needed help.

  “Hannah! ENOUGH! Come here!” he shouted.

  She almost went. Heaven help her, her treacherous body nearly obeyed instinctively. She gripped the ridge of the metal shelf to hold herself in place, clamping down so hard her nails bent.

  Click, click, click.

  There. He was in front of her now. In the next aisle or the one after that, between her and the windows.

  How he’d gotten ahead of her, she had no idea.

  A scream pushed out from deep inside her, but she clamped it down behind her teeth, mashed her lips closed, biting her tongue. Warm tangy blood leaked into her mouth.