Matt Hilton - Slash and burn

'Back to bed, tough guy,' Kate said, pressing me back into the room.

'There are things to be done…'

'Yes, Joe, there are.' Her eyes met mine and even in the dimness I saw her pupils dilate. She pushed me even harder and I stumbled backwards. Kate followed me into the room, pushing until my knees met the bed and I was forced to sit down. Kate stood over me. There were tears in her eyes, and she slowly shook her head.

'At first I thought that you were going to hurt my sister,' Kate said sadly. 'And I hated you for that.'

'It was only a trick…'

'I know that now. You risked your life for me and Imogen and you got shot. But at the time… God! I don't know! I hated you as much as I hated any of them.'

'But now you know the truth do you still hate me?'

'A little.'

'A little?'

'I hate you for making me hate you,' she said. Then she laughed at the absurdity of her statement.

'I shouldn't have left you alone at that motel.'

'No, you shouldn't have. You should've stayed. You know that's what I wanted, don't you?'

'I did,' I said. 'But there were other things on my mind.'

'Rink explained to me about your ex-wife. That it was your wedding anniversary. You must have loved her a great deal, Joe.'

'I did.'

'You haven't fully let go yet, have you?'

'It wasn't my idea to divorce.'

'Rink said that Diane remarried, that she has a new husband.'

'Yes. Simon. He's a decent man.'

'So don't you think it's time to let her go?'

I couldn't answer. Despite everything there'd always be a place in my heart for my ex-wife.

Kate sat on the edge of the bed. She laid her palm flat on my stomach. She looked incredibly beautiful with the light from the bathroom playing on her skin. 'If you had stayed, things would have been very different.'

'I know and I'm sorry. It must've been awful for you.'

'It was.'

'It's crazy,' I said, 'but everything that's happened since then is because I left you there alone. Makes you wonder about fate, doesn't it?'

Kate eyed me. 'Fate seems to have its own way of sorting out the order of things. If you hadn't gone out when you did, we wouldn't have got this opportunity to get to know each other all over again.'

'You still want to know me?' I leaned up and took one of her hands in mine.

'Now that we've got Imogen back safe and sound, I want that more than anything in the world.'

'Me too.'

I pulled her down beside me and we held each other. Kate kissed me; this time I didn't pull away.

Huffman had returned to the living room of his ranch. He was sitting in his wing-backed chair, silently contemplating his next strategy. He held Imogen Ballard's camera in his cupped palms, watching on the small screen as Trent and Larry Bolan beat the sheriff of Little Fork to death. Jim Aitken watched the proceedings, holding his gun levelled at the sheriff's chest so that he couldn't fight back. Not that he'd be able to, not against the Bolans. The horrendous beating culminated in Trent ripping off one of the man's ears. The microphone had picked up Imogen Ballard's sob. She'd tried to restrain herself but failed. Then the picture swept across the forest and came to a halt on a single figure standing watching the proceedings. The picture zoomed in.

'She didn't even get my good side,' Huffman grunted. But there was no mistaking his face. It didn't help matters that he'd lifted a hand and waved at her: pretty incriminating evidence. At that the picture disintegrated into a series of flashes and broken pixels as Imogen fled in panic. He could hear her ragged cries and the pounding of her feet.

A film like this could send him to prison in a heartbeat. There would be copies, despite what Joe Hunter said. It was even more important now that he kill both sisters and their champion. In reality, the sisters had become inconsequential to the feared killer named Quicksilver. He would kill them and that would be that, but with Joe Hunter things would be different. Hunter had embarrassed him in front of the other syndicate enforcers; he would be made to suffer first.

He'd allowed Wicker the pleasure of hacking Desmond Molloy to pieces, but Huffman decided that he personally would take Hunter to the slaughterhouse. Unlike Molloy, Hunter would still be alive when Huffman started cutting.

Huffman turned off the camera.

Larry Bolan was sitting in silence at the far end of the room, lost in his own thoughts. Huffman lifted the camera. 'This is more damaging to you than it is to me,' he told the giant man. 'I'm surprised that you didn't want it back as much as I did.'

'I've never been concerned about the woman or what she filmed,' Larry said. 'What was she going to do, post it on the internet? I've seen more zombie and cannibal shit on YouTube than you can shake a stick at. People don't take any of that stuff seriously. They'd have just put it down to another pile of crap that someone staged.'

'She could've put it into the hands of law enforcement. They'd have taken it seriously enough, particularly when the sheriff failed to turn up for work.'

'We had that covered, boss,' Larry explained. 'He'd have looked like he'd run off with his new woman after stealing money from Judge Wallace.'

Aitken had set that up. He exchanged a filing cabinet drawer from the sheriff's office with the one in Wallace's. There would have been no reason for Devaney's fingerprints to turn up there unless he had broken into the judge's office.

Huffman agreed that the disappearance of the sheriff could be covered by that scenario, but not when there was accompanying footage of the man being beaten to death with him as the overseer. But he let it go. He had the original footage back and copies meant very little without the original. It was as Larry pointed out: these days even an amateur with the most basic computer program could stage a convincing hoax. His lawyers would pull that kind of evidence to pieces.

Huffman put all thoughts of the video away, shelving it as a minor problem to be dealt with later. 'You still want Joe Hunter, Larry?'

'I want him so bad I can taste it.'

'I want him too,' said Huffman. 'But we needn't be enemies over this.'

Larry straightened, causing the chair to creak ominously.

'Since when did we become enemies, boss?'

'Since you shot down my helicopter.' Huffman sat back, folding his hands on his stomach.

'You knew about that?'

'The pilot got a call off before it went down,' Huffman explained. 'He said there was a giant man with a Magnum. Who do you think that sounds like, Larry?'

'But you still asked me back, even though I killed your men?'

'I did, Larry. I understood your motivation. You wanted to be the one to kill Joe Hunter. If killing the others was your way of getting him, so be it.'

Larry stood up. He towered in the shadows of the room, his head almost scraping the ceiling. 'I killed more than those punks.'

'Aitken and Wallace? Yes, I guessed that as well. Aitken's head had been twisted off his shoulders and Wallace had taken a swan dive from the top floor of the restaurant: I didn't think that was Joe Hunter's style.'

'So where does that leave us?'

'It should leave us as enemies. But, like I said, I don't want things to be that way between us.'

Larry laughed. 'Those other assholes you brought in might not have realised that you're using them, but I'm not stupid. They're getting killed one by one. When do you plan for me to die?'

'I'm planning nothing of the sort. The only thing I want is Joe Hunter. He's embarrassed me, Larry.'

'Embarrassed you? The motherfucker murdered my little brother!'

'I want to kill him personally.'

Larry shook his head. 'He's mine.'

Huffman stood up, as languid as a cat stretching. Larry tensed. Huffman waved him down. 'Relax, Larry. I want to kill him, but I don't mind having you along for the ride. We can do this together, but I take the credit.'