JACK KILBORN ~ ENDURANCE (40 page)

“
She saved me, Mom,” Kelly said. “Grandma saved my life.”

Letti blinked back the tears. Tears of pain. Tears of loss. But mostly, tears of pride. Pride in her daughter, and pride in her mother.

“
She saved
us all, baby. Your Grandma saved us all.”

# # #

Hanging from the banister, Maria heard the shotgun blast. And she knew whom Eleanor had shot.

Felix. My Felix.

He came for me.

And she killed him.

The anger in Maria took over,
like a monster invaded her body. It worked into every pore, every cell, filling her with such all-encompassing rage that Maria felt like she could put her fist through a brick wall.

Maria hooked a leg up on the bottom of the railing, pulling herself onto the third floor. Eleanor swung the gun around, but Maria was already running at her, the chain wrapped tight around her fist.

She punched Eleanor in the nose again, doing even more damage this time. Eleanor moaned, and Maria tore the double barrel shotgun from the old woman’s hands. She aimed at the bitch’s diseased head and pulled both triggers.

Nothing happened. The gun was empty.

Changing her grip, Maria brought the gun back like a baseball bat, swinging with everything she had, cracking Eleanor across the head so hard it could be heard in neighboring states. Eleanor collapsed, but Maria’s attention was already on Felix, the blood spreading across his chest.

Maria tore at the buckles
on her wrist cuffs, using her teeth, pulled her hands free. She patted down Eleanor’s body and found a packet of QuikClot. Hurrying to Felix, she lifted up his blood-soaked shirt, dumping the powder on him, pressing it into the jagged buckshot wounds on his chest and shoulder.

“
Please,” she said. “I’ve waited so long for you. Please don’t leave me, Felix.”

She put her fingers on his neck, trying to find a pulse, but her hands were shaking too badly.

“
You can’t die, honey. You can’t. Not now. Not after all of this.”

She put her ear to his chest, couldn’t hear a damn thing. Not knowing what else to do, she wrapped her arms around him, pressing his cheek to hers, rocking him back and forth.

“
I love you, Felix. I love you so much.”

This isn’t how it’s supposed to end. After all of this, it’s supposed to end happily.

A whole year I dreamed, prayed,
for this moment.

This can’t be the end.

And then Felix
mumbled something.

“
Felix? Oh my god, Felix? What did you say?

“
I love you too, babe,” he said.
“God, you’re so beautiful.”

“
I missed you so much.”

“
I missed you too. You think you can get me an aspirin?”

Maria began to laugh so hard she wept.

# # #

Deb splayed out her arms, trying to palm the sheer face of the rock, but she kept sliding. The metal spikes of her prosthetics skipped across the surface of the shelf, not any better at traction than the climbing shoes she wore years ago when she was in this very same situation.

Above her, the cougar watched her slow descent with narrow, evil eyes, swishing his broken tail back and forth.

It’s happening again. I’m reliving my worst nightmare.

And Deb knew, from past experience, that she only had six seconds left. Then she’d be over the edge, and even Mal with all of his good intentions wouldn’t be able to catch her when she fell.

Strangely, mixed in with the terror was a bit of melancholy.

Is this what I was meant to do in life? Make the same mistakes?

“
Use your leg!” Mal yelled up at her.

I can’t use my leg, you moron. They keep slipping. What I need is longer arms to grab onto that outcropping just out of
my reach.

Oh, son of a bitch!

Suddenly understanding Mal’s advice, Deb r
eached down and hit the button on her right stump cup. The air hissed out, breaking the suction, and she tugged off her leg.

Only a few seconds left! I only have one shot!

She stretched, using her leg like a climbing pick, holding
onto the cup and swinging the foot upward at the outcropping.

It caught!

Deb stopped sliding. She hung there, gripping her prosthetic, the metal barbs in the toe hooked around the protruding rock.

Okay. Now I just need to get to it.

There were no other handholds or footholds, so Deb had to slowly chin herself up. Her prosthetic wasn’t secure enough to hang from, but it was enough to ho
ld her on this incline. She raised herself gradually, bit by bit, until she was able to get her fingers on the outcropping.

From there, it was only a few inches to the seam. Once she had a solid grip, she put her leg back on, pressing the button for suction.

This route was trickier than the other one. Steeper. Fewer decent holds. But this route didn’t have a cougar waiting for her, so Deb followed the seam, keeping away from the shelf where the creature perched.

After five minutes, she found her rhythm. Hand hold. Toe hold. Hand hold. Toe hold.

After ten minutes, the lookout station was in sight. Deb kept her emotions in check, but she was secretly astonished that she was actually going to make it.

“
Deb!” Mal yelled.

Deb looked down. The cougar was a few feet below her, legs splayed out, clinging to the rock face. It thrust its entire body upward, its massive claws batting her artificial leg.

Of course it can climb. That’s why they’re called mountain lions.

Deb stuck her hand deep in a crevice, gripping the stone inside, waiting for the next lunge.

The lion jumped again, coming up another two feet, its fierce jaws locking around Deb’s stump cup.

Deb quickly reached down, hitting the release. Her leg came off.

The cougar, losing its balance, fell from the rock face. It landed a few feet below, on the angled, sheer face where Deb had slid off all those years ago.

Like Deb, the cougar couldn’t get a grip on the sheer rock. It spread out all four legs, claws scraping against stone, but couldn’t stop its inevitable slide.

“
How do you like it?
” Deb shouted at the lion.

It roared once—an angry, futile roar—and then the monster that had haunted Deb’s dreams for so long slipped right off the edge of the mountain, falling thirty long feet, smashing to the unforgiving ground below in a brilliant explosion of blood.

And it felt pretty goddamn good.

“
You okay!” Mal called to her.

“
Yeah! Are you!”

“
I am! But it’s raining cats and dogs down here!”

Deb smiled.

Next time I have a chance, I’m going to kiss that guy.

The rest of the climb, even with only one leg, was uneventful. Maria made it to the shelf, and crawled to the lookout p
ost. It was unoccupied, but the rangers were kind enough to leave a door open for her, and a fully charged radio.

“
Hello, hello?
This is Deb Novachek. I’m with Mal Deiter. We called earlier, and there’s a helicopter looking for us. Can anyone hear me?”

“
This is ranger base three. We read you, Deb. Over.”

Deb practically wept.

“
I’m at a lookout station. The number on the radio is six-four-eight-seven-two.”

“
Roger that. We’
ll send the chopper your way.”

Deb found a stash of water bottles next to the radio. She twisted the top off one, drank the who
le thing in a few gulps, and let out the biggest sigh of her life.

Then she closed her eyes and waited to be rescued.

# # #

Eleanor Roosevelt’s head hurt. She felt someone patting her cheek, and she opened her eyes, ready to tell whichever son it was to leave her alone.

But it wasn’t one of her sons.

“
I’m thinking of a number from one to ten,” Maria said, staring at her. “Guess what it is?”

Eleanor looked at her wrists. The strappado cuffs were on her.

No. Not this.

I’m royalty. I have presidential blood in my veins.

They can’t do this to me.

“
The answer,” Maria said, “Is fuck you.”

Then the man, Felix, kicked Eleanor in the face.

Eleanor fell backwards, through the gate, off the edge.

The
next thing she knew, her head was hurting again.

She looked around, saw she was on the first floor.

Those fool
s. They must not have put the chains on correctly.

My head still hurts. But other than that, I’m perfectly fine.

Eleanor reached up a hand to rub her temple.

It didn’t work, for some reason.

She tried with the other hand, and that didn’t work either.

Then she felt something drip onto her face.

Looking up, Eleanor saw Maria and Felix, staring down at her. She also saw the two lengths of chain.

Each chain
had an arm attached to it. Each arm trailed veins and arteries and tendons and torn muscles that stretched down and were still tenuously attached to the torn sockets of Eleanor’s shoulders.

Oh, lordy. Those are my arms.

Then there was pain. There was amazing, excru
ciating, unbearable pain.

Eleanor screamed through the pain for the entire four and a half minutes it took her to bleed to death. But to her it felt a lot longer.

# # #

Felix pulled his eyes away from Eleanor’s death throes and turned to look at Maria, but she was gone. Before he had a chance to panic, she walked out of one of the bedrooms, a baby in her arms.

“
Her parents are dead,” Maria said. For someone who had been through hell, she looked positively radiant. “I want to keep her.”

The baby was adorable. And Maria was beaming.

But this isn’t right.

Felix shook his head sadly. “
Don’t you think we need to do something else first?”

Maria’s smile vanished. “What do you mean?”

Felix took her hand, which hurt like hell for him. Using his thumb and pinky, he placed Maria’s pear-shaped engagement ring on her finger, the one he took off of Eleanor when he was cuffing her wrists.

“
There,” he said. “Now we’re ready to
start a family.”

They kissed, lightly because they were both so injured. Then the three of them held each other until the helicopter arrived.

One Year Later

Deb had never been so terrified in her life.

A sea of eyes watched her, judged her. Deb turned and looked at Letti, who gave her an intense stare and a nod. Beside Letti was Maria, who mimicked Letti’s gesture.

Deb’s throat was dry. Her heart was beating so fast she felt ready to faint. The oppressive silence hurt her ears.

Then someone sneezed. A child. Deb glanced at the audience, saw it was the baby Maria and Felix had adopted, sitting on Felix’s lap. Next to them, Kelly was leaning forward in the pew. Kelly spoke silently, urgently, mouthing the words so Deb could read her lips.

“
Say it!”

Deb looked down at her ridiculously expensive dress, the long train covering her prosthetics, making her appear completely normal. She looked at the minister, who was smiling patiently at her. Then she looked at Mal. So handsome in his tuxedo. So much love in his eyes.

And suddenly, Deb wasn’t scared anymore. With him by her side, she didn’t think she’d ever be scared again.

“
I do,” she said.

Then she kissed him before the minister even had a chance to pronounce them man and wife.

# # #

Franklin Delano Roosevelt sat in the talking booth at West Virginia’s Northern Correctional Facility, waiting for his visitor. Franklin missed life on the outside. He missed the food. He missed sex with women. He even missed his job as hotel manager in Monk Creek. But most of all, he missed his Momma, and his kinfolk.

Prison life wasn’t so bad. The state gave him monthly transfusions, though they weren’t nearly as much fun as the ones he used to get at the Rushmore Inn. Franklin ran a tiny black market store within the walls, selling cigarettes, drugs, tattoo supplies, candy bars. After the Rushmore Massacre, as the papers had called it, Franklin inherited a tidy bit of money from his many dead siblings. And that didn’t count all the money Momma had stashed away. It was enough to hire a hotshot lawyer, who got his charges reduced from
Murder
to multiple counts of
Accessory
. Franklin got eight years, but would be out in four for good behavior.