His breathing has changed, though. It isn’t gasping and labored anymore. His breaths are deep and steady.
The hair at the back of my neck prickles.
Something isn’t right.
Bryan stops swaying against me like he’s going to collapse.
A quick glance reveals that he’s still clutching both bloody knives in his hands.
“Why don’t you put those down,” I whisper, taking a step backward.
When he looks up at me, his expression sends a cold wave of dread washing over me.
There is no trace of pain on his blood-spattered, sunburned face.
If anything, he’s smiling.
16
I want to believe that his strange half-smile is some kind of trauma response, even as I take another quick step backward.
My eyes move to the knife in his left hand, remembering the camo pattern and pearl inlays I saw last night. Its blade is longer than any pocket knife I’ve ever seen.
At the sight of it, my mind works like a clock, ticking back minute by minute to fill in the details, slowing time as that long blade arcs toward my chest.
I see the replay in reverse—the real one.
It was Bryan who killed Josh. It was Bryan who killed the poor woman in the collapsed tent. It was Bryan who killed Gracie.
And the only reason he hasn’t killed me yet is because I’m the one calling all the others back.
I hear Macy on the beach. “Get it all the way on shore,” she demands. “Take the first aid kit,” she says to someone else. Her voice is so clear. They’re climbing out of the raft, maybe thirty feet behind me.
I’ve called them back here to die.
We’re all going to die now.
Bryan raises his arm and swings the knife.
I let myself drop at the knees, my head swerving to miss the blade as it flashes past my eyes. “No!” I scream over my shoulder to Macy and the others, darting sideways and nearly tumbling into the tent behind me.
“Leave! Run! It’s Bryan, it’s Bryan!” I cry, knowing it’s too late for me.
I trip on the cord of a rain flap where it’s staked into the ground, flying forward and catching myself right before crashing.
In another second, Bryan is on me.
“Shut the fuck up,” he hisses, lunging forward to chase me and bringing the knife down hard in a second swing.
I make myself go flat on the sand, dropping against a tarp. The blade dives over my head while I roll sideways, kicking out at him, screaming.
My foot connects with his shin as the knife arcs down toward my chest.
I gasp in anticipation of the blow—right as another figure leaps from the shadows.
I catch the silhouette of a bearded face in the split second before he makes contact with Bryan’s back, tangled hair flying like a cape behind him.
River Jesus.