Sound of Darkness

“You don’t know the half of it! You don’t know the half of it!”

“They’re coming,” Colleen said with relief.

Mark heard the sirens moments after she spoke. Relief was coming. Officers had been out in the area searching for a cabin.

Just like this one.

Within minutes, several local sheriff’s deputies had arrived, and an ambulance was on its way.

But Megan woke up in Ragnar’s arms.

She stared at him in alarm and flailed her arms.

“Hey!” Ragnar protested. “I’m the good guy!”

“Oh. Oh!” Megan said, realizing where she was. “Oh, my God, but—”

She looked around the room, blinking, shaking, and clinging to Ragnar. She realized the area was filled now with brush, bracken—and officers.

For a moment, she fell back in his arms with relief.

Then she tried to scramble out of his hold.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”

“Oh, Megan, it’s all right,” Colleen assured her. “You held it together when you needed to. It’s fine. You inadvertently helped catch two killers.”

She tried to ease to her feet and started to falter again.

But this time, the paramedics were there, ready to catch her and help her out to the ambulance.

Jim Carver and Rory Ayers were taken away with Ayers still screaming they didn’t know the half of it.

There were more bodies buried in the woods, Mark thought.

And they might never find them all.

But for now, he looked at Colleen, standing still, trembling inside.

They were professionals.

But he took her into his arms anyway, holding her.

Until her trembling ceased.