Prologue
The Jeep scuttled up the hill, tires slipping a little in the mud. The rain and runoff had washed out the dirt trail here, baring a mix of rocks and a reddish layer of clay that lay beneath the topsoil — a craggy wound slit into the earth.
His whole body rattled along with the bumps, hands strangling the steering wheel as if gripping it hard enough could steady the vehicle, help it find traction.
He hit the steepest section, the windshield pitching to point him straight into a lifeless gray sky. A dead swirl of clouds above. The heavens totally without shape.
And then everything evened out again. The Jeep reached the flat ground of the hilltop, and it was over. He was there.
He killed the engine and sat a moment.
His skin sheened. Glistened. The surface of his arms and face moist from the heat inside.
It didn’t feel real.
All of the planning. All of the hours of fantasy and frustration. All of his will channeled into this.
One moment. One time and place to make his mark.
It almost felt like going into battle.
He lowered himself from the vehicle, careful to avoid the mud. Though the rain had died off hours ago, the ground was still soggy underfoot, water puddling around his shoes with every step.
The roar of the traffic on the highway was loud but somehow indistinct. The distance smeared all of the noises together into an endless drone like the sound of the ocean in a shell.
He walked to his spot under the transmission tower — 180 feet of latticed steel that hoisted the power lines up above the tallest of the trees. From the vantage point on top of the hill, he could look into the distance at the line of identical towers, a strange path of grass slashed into the woods to make room for the steel structures, to make way for electricity.
He lowered himself to the ground, belly down, and the wet saturated his jeans up to the shins straight away. The military issue rain poncho kept the rest of him dry. He was thankful he’d worn it after all. He’d felt silly taking it to the counter at the army surplus store — the oversized, hooded thing almost looked like a green Klan robe — but now it felt right.
He’d always wanted to be a soldier when he was a kid, had planned all through school to join the Marines. He dreamed of a lifetime spent fighting for his country, for his people. The feel of the rifle settling into place against his shoulder brought those old feelings back all the way. An old dream. An old version of himself. The someone he used to be.
But things change. People change. And the world wasn’t worth fighting for. The people weren’t worth saving. Not anymore.
The wind kicked up, moaning softly where it cut against the metal of the transmission tower. He waited for it to pass.
He sucked in a big breath, and his chest felt clammy inside and out. Heavy with the wet.
He peered through the scope, pinching the off eye closed.
Traffic swarmed. Sedans and mini-vans jockeying for position on the strip of asphalt below. He watched them, measuring out how much he’d need to lead his moving targets. Predictable targets weren’t too bad. He’d practiced for it.
His hands were blocks of ice gripping the rifle. Cold and moist and dumb. But he could feel the trigger, if only a little.
If the people weren’t worth saving, what did that mean? He’d let the thought twist his guts into knots until the tension got to be too much. The pressure inside him ached to find release. He had to do something about it. Had to.
So here he was. It was time.
He squeezed the trigger, and the gun cracked and bucked against his shoulder. His chest lurched and pulled in air, wet lips and throat and lungs greedy for the wind, some attempt to fill the strange emptiness between the shot and impact, and then the bullet punched a hole in the windshield of a Ford Explorer.
The opening was small. Neat. It looked to be in line with the driver — possibly even a headshot — but it was hard to say for sure.
The SUV remained steady for a moment and then careened off to the right. Black lines of rubber trailed behind as the vehicle dumped itself into the ditch, rolling onto its side, the windshield spider-webbing from the fall.
He could read the panic in the movements of the surrounding vehicles like a pack of animals jerking away from some horror.
It felt good. It felt right. The clammy nervousness fled his body, and heat flushed his face.
He fired again and again and again, a burnt smell surrounding him, the stock battering the hell out of his shoulder.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK
Hatred focused him. His movements gained confidence. Quickness. Machine-like precision.
The damaged vehicles swerved, and the frenzied cars behind them bashed into each other, the lanes of traffic like serpents lurching and slowing before him.
Chaos achieved. Just like that.
He hesitated. Licked his lips. Stared through the scope.
An older Escalade jammed its passenger side fender into the median wall and scraped along it a while before it veered back to sideswipe a Prius, pushing it across the other two lanes. The hybrid’s door crinkled and folded around the hood of the SUV, and black smoke fluttered out of the wounded place where the two vehicles meshed.
And now the traffic stopped entirely. All four lanes rendered motionless.
Everything quiet. Everything still.
And he waited. And his heart thundered, restless in his chest. And the darkness inside of him seemed to grow, seemed to reach out now to touch the face of the deep.
His finger found the trigger. Brushed it lightly like a butterfly kiss.
When the first good Samaritan climbed out of the driver’s seat of his Mustang, he squeezed. The man waddled out of the sports car in the distance and stood, graying hair pruned into a crew cut, sunglasses adorning the pudgy face, and the gun cracked and kicked and sheared off most of that flat-topped head all at once, body toppling to the blacktop totally limp.
And the heat flooded him again. Hate pulsing in his face. Blotching his vision with floating pink spots.
He scanned the highway for movement. For targets.
If mankind wasn’t worth saving, it should be destroyed.
Chapter 1
Violet reached for the champagne bottle and filled her flute. A groomsmen took the stage and began tinking his fork against his glass. Nearly everyone in the room followed suit, a musical clamor filling the space like hail rattling against the windows of a house. The bride and groom kissed for what had to be the twentieth time, completing the ritual.
It had been a weekend full of strange formality. It started with the bachelorette party — complete with Jell-O shots, feather boas, and penis-shaped paraphernalia. Next came the rehearsal dinner, which seemed less like a rehearsal for anything and more like a mini-wedding before the real wedding. Then came the wedding day itself. The morning started early with the bridal party being shuttled to a nearby salon to be primped and prodded and manicured.
She couldn’t help but think of one of Leonard Stump’s journal entries:
Human beings like to think of themselves as sitting higher up the chain than animals. More evolved. But what is a social custom other than an animal habit meant to serve some baser instinct? If things were reversed, if we sniffed each other’s asses in greeting and dogs were the ones that shook hands, we would surely still consider ourselves the superior beings.
As much as she was loath to admit it, some of Stump’s observations about human behavior resonated with her. She wondered if that’s what Loshak meant when he referred to the journal as “educational.” Educational or not, she didn’t like feeling in communion with a serial murderer.
Violet took a swig from her glass. She wasn’t sure why she was in the bridal party to begin with. She and her stepsister had never been close. When Jenna first called and asked her to be a bridesmaid, Violet wondered if her mother and stepfather had put her up to it. An attempt to bring the family closer together or some other such misguided logic. Was she supposed to be flattered? Was it an honor being bestowed upon her? Violet tried to feel it but couldn’t. Standing at the front of the church during the ceremony, all she could think was that she would have much preferred being one of the nameless faces sitting in the pews. At least then she probably wouldn’t have gotten blisters.
She looked down at the strappy torture devices masquerading as footwear. The blasted shoes had rubbed away the flesh on her feet in at least three places already. At this angle, she also couldn’t miss the dress. It was a short, empire waist number in pistachio green with wisps of chiffon that billowed about the skirt. The other bridesmaids cooed with joy when they stood to admire themselves in the mirror earlier that day. When Violet saw her reflection, all she could think was: Ice Capades.
The excited chirping of the bridesmaids continued throughout the day, and the other women might as well have been speaking a foreign language as far as Violet was concerned.
Currently, the one named Morgan was saying, “So I was waiting for my order at Panera, and this woman standing next to me started asking about my bag. It was the new Chloe Faye-”
“Did you get the mini or the medium?” Lauren interrupted.
“The medium. Tan leather and suede.”
“Ohmygawd, jealous,” Lauren said.
“Yeah so, this lady turns to me and goes, ‘I love your bag. What kind is it?’ I told her it was a Chloe, and she’s like, ‘Oh, is that like Kate Spade?’ I almost choked on my iced tea. Like, seriously. To first of all not know Chloe bags? But then to think that a Kate Spade would be on the same level? Um, no.”
Lauren snorted.
“Snob.”
“I’m not denying it,” Morgan said with a shrug.
Violet downed what was left in her champagne glass and reached for the bottle on the table. Upending it, she found it was empty. Damn.
Just as she turned to see if the table behind them had a bottle she might be able to snatch, she heard a flurry of activity from the birds, err, bridesmaids. Morgan’s chair squeaked over the floor as she pushed it back from the table and rose.
“You coming, Violet?”
“Huh?”
“She’s about to throw the bouquet,” Lauren said.
“Oh,” Violet said. “That’s OK. You guys go ahead.”
The two women exchanged a glance.
“But you’re single, aren’t you?” Lauren asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then you have to come,” Morgan said. “All the single ladies!”
Lauren and Morgan began singing what Violet figured to be some popular song. She wasn’t familiar with it.
“I’m good. Really,” Violet said, but it was too late. They descended upon her like robins defending a nest from a crow.
They each took an arm and yanked her in the general direction of the dance floor where a crowd of young women gathered.
“Alright, alright!” she said, nearly tipping out of her chair.
Really, they should have been happy to let her stay in her seat. If they were so eager to catch the damn bouquet, it would be one less person competing for the prize. Tradition defied logic, she supposed. That was what made it a tradition, wasn’t it? We do it because we do it. Not because it makes sense.
Christ, maybe she had been reading too much of that Stump journal. She was starting to think like him. Or had she already thought like him all along?
The two women stood guard while Violet got to her feet. Like they thought she might try to make a run for it. She took one step in agony and stopped, tearing the evil shoes off and tossing them back under her seat.
When they reached the group waiting for the bouquet to be thrown, Lauren and Morgan immediately elbowed and jostled their way closer to the front. Violet hung back.
Jenna clicked across the dance floor in white satin heels, bouquet in hand. Standing with her back to the gaggle of women, the rest of the crowd counted down in chorus.
“FIVE! FOUR! THREE! TWO! ONE!”
Violet watched the cluster of flowers somersault through the air, stepping sideways as it passed over her head. Half a dozen women dove for it. Violet saw a flutter of mint green chiffon among the scuffle as Morgan set her sights on the bounty. Violet wasn’t sure if the women were just playing at being so enthusiastic or if it was genuine. She wasn’t sure if it mattered.
She took advantage of the momentary distraction to edge closer to the bar. The bartender was stooped over a cardboard box, organizing the empties. When he saw her approaching, he straightened and gave her a broad smile. She wagered he earned himself a lot of tips with those big, perfect teeth and that dimpled chin.
“What can I get for you?”
“Is there more champagne? Our table is out,” Violet said.
He reached under a table and produced a fresh bottle, then set about opening it for her.
“Got anything stronger back there?” Violet stood on her tiptoes in an attempt to peek over the edge of the bar.
“Not having fun?”
The bartender’s eyes twinkled as he asked the question. He was pretty cute, despite the ridiculous man-bun he was sporting on top of his head. Darger figured him for maybe 25, at the oldest. Cute, but too young for her.
“I’m not really a wedding person, I guess,” she said.
Without a word, he set a shot glass on the bar and filled it with tequila.
“Straight to the Patron, huh? You must have dealt with my kind before.”
He winked and slid the glass toward her. “I don’t like to half-ass these things.”
“A man who takes his job seriously,” she said, lifting the shot to him.
Violet threw her head back and downed it, almost choking when the burn hit the back of her throat. A tear escaped the corner of her eye, and she wiped it away before replacing the glass on the bar top.
“Don’t you?” Manbun asked.
“Don’t I what?”
“Take your job seriously?”
Violet smirked. “It’d be bad news if I didn’t.”
“Why? What do you do, fly planes or something?”
She thought about telling him the truth — that she was an FBI agent, one who specialized in profiling violent criminals, one who’d made national headlines just last year for her fight to the death with a serial killer — but decided against it.
“Something like that.”
His eyebrows reached up in an attempt to high-five his bun. “For real?”
She nodded, and the million-dollar smile returned.
“Wow. Sounds bad-ass.” He tilted the bottle side to side, liquid sloshing gently against the glass. “Another?”
Violet held up a hand. “I think I’m good.”
A cheer erupted toward the front of the room. The groom had a garter clenched between his teeth. Violet turned back to the bar.
“For now,” she added.
The bartender grinned at her, and she made a mental note to return with a generous tip for him. She grasped the fresh bottle of champagne by the neck and hoisted it.
“Thanks for this,” she said, then nodded at the shot glass. “And the other.”
“My pleasure.”
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