“She’s just a fucked-up kid,” Deborah said. “She’ll get over this—she has a family that loves her, and she has a life ahead of her.”
“And so, overcome by remorse and the beauty of all that, I should let her go,” Alana purred. “Family and church and puppies and flowers—how lovely your world must be, Sergeant. But it’s somewhat darker than that for the rest of us.” She looked at Samantha. “Of course, it does have its moments.”
“Please,” Deborah said, and she looked both desperate and vulnerable in a way I had never seen before, “just let her go.”
“I don’t think so,” Alana said crisply. “In fact, with all this exc
itement, I find that I’m getting a bit peckish.” She picked up a very sharp knife from the table.
“No!” Deborah said in a violent, hissing voice. “Goddamn you, no!”
“Yes, I’m afraid,” Alana said, looking at her with cold amusement. Two of the guards held Debs in place and Alana watched them struggle, clearly enjoying it. And with one eye still on Deborah, Alana stepped over to Samantha and held the knife up indecisively.
“I could never really do the butchering part properly,” she said. Bobby and his posse gathered around, jiggling with barely suppressed excitement like kids sneaking into a movie. “This is the whole reason I put up with tardiness from that saucy bastard,” Alana said. “He’s very, very good at this. Wake up, piggy.” She slapped Samantha’s face, and Samantha rolled her head upright and opened her eyes.
“ ’S it time?” she said dopily.
“Just a snack,” Alana told her, but Samantha smiled. It was very clear from her drowsy happiness that she had been drugged again, but at least it wasn’t ecstasy this time.
“Great, okay,” she said. Alana looked at her, and then at us.
“Come on, go for it,” Bobby said.
Alana smiled at him, and then snaked out her hand and grabbed at Samantha’s arm so quickly I saw almost nothing but a blurred gleam from the blade, and before I could blink she had sliced off most of the girl’s triceps.
Samantha made a sound that was somewhere between a moan and a grunt, and it was neither pleasure nor pain but somewhere in between, a cry of agonized fulfillment. It set my teeth on edge and made all the hair on my neck rise straight up and then Deborah exploded into an insane fury that sent one of her guards spinning to the deck, and the other one dropped his shotgun and held on until the huge ponytailed bouncer stepped in and clubbed Debs to the floor with one gigantic hand. She went down like a rag doll and lay there unmoving.
“Take the good sergeant below,” Alana said. “Make sure she’s very well secured.” The two lackeys grabbed Deborah and dragged her into the cabin. I did not at all like the way she hung between them, so completely limp and lifeless, and without thinking I took a step toward her. But before I could do much more than wiggle my toes in her direction, the enormous bouncer picked up the dropped shotgun and pushed it into my chest, and I was forced to do no more than watch helplessly as they took my sister through the doorway and into the cabin.
And as the bouncer prodded me back around to face Alana, she lifted the lid from the barbecue and placed the slice of Samantha-flesh on the grill. It hissed, and a tendril of steam rose up from it.
“Oh,” Samantha said in a muted, faraway voice. “Oh. Oh.” She rocked slowly against her bonds.
“Turn it in two minutes,” Alana said to Bobby, and then she came back to me. “Well, piglet,” she said to me, and she reached over and pinched my cheek; not as a doting grandmother might, but more like a shrewd shopper checking the cutlets. I tried to pull away, but it wasn’t quite as easy as it sounds, with a very large man pushing a shotgun into my back.
“Why do you keep calling me that?” I said. It sounded more petulant than it should have, but I really didn’t have a terribly strong position at the moment, unless you count the moral high ground.
My question seemed to amuse Alana. She reached forward again, both hands this time, and she grabbed my cheeks and shook my head fondly from side to side. “Because you are my piglet!” she said. “And I am going to absolutely devour you, darling!” And a small and very real gleam showed in her eyes this time, and the Passenger rattled its wings in alarm.
I would like to say that I had been in much tighter spots, and I had always found a way out. But the truth was that I could not think of any time I had ever felt quite so uncomfortably vulnerable. I was once again taped and helpless, with a gun in my back and an even more lethal predator in front. As for my companions, Deborah was unconscious or worse, and Samantha was truly being put over the coals. Still, I had one small hole card left: I knew that Chutsky was out there, armed and dangerous, and as long as he was alive he would never let any harm come to Debs or, by extension, to me. If I could keep Alana talking long enough, Chutsky would be here to save us.
“You have Samantha,” I said as reasonably as I could. “There’s more than enough of her to go around.”
“Yes, but she wants to be eaten,” Alana said. “The meat always tastes better if it’s reluctant.” She glanced at Samantha, who said, “Oh,” again. Her eyes were wide now, wild with something I could not name, and focused on the grill.
Alana smiled and patted my cheek. “You owe us, darling. For escaping and causing all this trouble. And in any case, we need a male piggy.” She frowned at me. “You look a bit stringy. We really should marinate you for a few days. Still, there’s no time left, and I do love a nice man chop.”
I will admit that it was a strange time and place for curiosity, but after all, I was trying to stall. “What do you mean, there’s no time left?” I said.
She looked at me without expression, and somehow, the complete absence of emotion was more unsettling than her fake smile. “One last party,” she said. “Then I’m afraid I must flee once again. Just as I had to flee England when the authorities decided that too many undocumented immigrants had gone missing there, as they now have here.” She shook her head sadly. “I was just getting to like the taste of migrant worker, too.”
Samantha grunted, and I looked. Bobby stood in front of her, slowly working the point of a knife across her partially exposed chest, as if he were carving his initials on a tree. His face was very close to hers, and he wore a smile that would wilt roses.
Alana sighed and shook her head fondly. “Don’t play with your food, Bobby,” she said. “You’re supposed to be cooking. Turn it now, dear,” she said, and he looked at Alana. Then he reluctantly put down the knife and reached onto the grill with a long-handled fork and flipped the flesh. Samantha moaned again. “And put something under that cut,” Alana said, nodding at the growing pool of dreadful red blood dripping from Samantha’s arm and spreading across the deck. “She’s turning the deck into an abattoir.”
“I’m not fucking Cinderella,” Bobby said happily. “Stop the wicked-stepmother shit.”
“Yes, but let’s try to keep things a bit neater, shall we?” she said. He shrugged, and it was very clear that they were as fond of each other as two monsters could ever be. Bobby took a pot from the rack under the grill and placed it underneath Samantha’s arm.