Karin Slaughter - Skin Privilege

'You, too,' Bart said, waving the gun at Lena. 'Get down on the floor.'

She knelt slowly. 'I never told anyone it was you in the car,' she said. 'I kept quiet the whole time.'

'I know, hon,' Bart said. 'That was really good of you.'

'Let me go,' Lena begged. 'Let me and Sara go and neither one of us will say anything.'

Bart flashed his nasty little teeth. 'The funny thing, Lena, is if it was just you, I'd believe it. I really would. But the doctor lady out there won't lie. She may give it a good try, but no way she can keep a secret.'

'She will.'

He shook his head. 'Jake, reach down there and pull that cuff through the pipe.'

'You son of a bitch,' Valentine muttered, grabbing Lena 's arm and passing the cuff through the bend in the drain.

'Tight now,' Bart instructed. 'Tighter.'

Valentine made the cuff so tight his wrist turned red. 'They will find you,' he warned Bart. 'They will find you and rip your intestines out through your asshole.'

Bart was over by the stove. He turned up the burners, as high as they would go and used the butt of the gun to knock the knobs off the stove. Satisfied they couldn't be turned down, he got the ceramic mugs and put each one over the open flame.

'You're gonna die for this,' Valentine warned. 'You think you can get away with killing me? I'm a fucking general in the Brotherhood of the True White Skin. Vengeance will rain down upon you like the wrath of the one white God.'

'Yeah, yeah,' Bart said. 'And you're gonna get ass fucked by the biggest, blackest cocksucker in hell.' He lifted his foot and kicked Valentine in the face. Bart's angle was off, but the bottom of the sink was right behind Valentine. His head slammed against the cast iron, an ominous crunch sounding from his skull. He slid down the sink, blood dripping from the back of his head.

Bart knelt down and checked Valentine's pockets, the gun aimed at Lena 's chest.

'Don't do this,' she begged. 'Please don't do this.'

He found Valentine's cell phone and broke it under the heel of his cheap shoe. He told Lena, 'I really am sorry, darlinY

'Yeah,' Lena said, thinking if her hands were free she would choke the life out of him. 'Look, no problem. I understand.'

Bart shook his head, a faraway look coming into his eyes. 'You're just like your mama was. You know that?'

Was. Lena felt her throat tighten, all the fight draining from her body. 'What happened to her?' she asked. 'Please. I've got to know.'

'She was one of the good ones that crossed over, honey.' Bart stood, checked the mugs on the stove. 'She's in a better place now.' He indicated the room, the situation. 'I hope knowing that brings you some peace.'

'Peace?' she echoed. 'Are you fucking kidding me? You think you're doing a favor killing me?'

Bart tossed the gun onto the kitchen table. 'I'm sorry, baby.' He opened the door and closed it softly behind him.

'Fuck!' Lena screamed, kicking Valentine in the leg. He moaned, rolling to the side. She saw the top of his head where his skull had been caved in. The bald spot was on display now. The bottom of what could only be a red swastika was tattooed on his scalp.

'Sara!' Lena yelled, knowing there wouldn't be an answer. 'Sara!' She leaned out as far as she could, looking past Clint's lifeless body. Sara was still propped up against the wall, her eyes staring vacantly back at Lena.

Lena dragged Valentine's arm through the pipe, groaning from the exertion. He was deadweight; she might as well be cuffed to a boulder. Pushing and pulling, she managed to get him inside the cabinet, his elbow looped around the bend in the pipe. He was saying something, begging her to stop, to help him, but Lena ignored his pleas, bracing her feet on the sides of the cabinet, gripping his hand in both of hers, pulling as hard as she could without dislocating her shoulders. When she'd dragged Valentine into the cabinet as far as he'd go, she reared back from the sink and kicked the pipe with all her strength.

'Help!' she yelled, kicking the pipe again and again, her foot slipping and pounding into Valentine's shoulder. 'Help!'

' Lena…' Valentine whispered, his hand reaching out to her. 'Please…'

Lena started coughing as a fine mist filled the room. She had bent the pipe but it held in place – it was the only fucking thing Hank had ever replaced in this falling-down piece of shit house. She screamed in fury, kicking at the pipe until her foot was so badly bruised she could hardly lift it.

'Help!' she tried again, knowing even as she yelled that no one was coming. Bart had shot the gun twice and no one had bothered to ride to their rescue. This was a working class neighborhood. No one was home in the middle of a Friday morning; at least no one who would care.

The gun. Lena saw it sitting on the table against the wall. She lunged for it, her arm nearly popping out of the socket. She couldn't reach the table. Lena rolled onto her back and kicked out her feet, trying to loop them around the leg of the table so that she could pull it over. She grazed the metal with the toe of her shoe, then stopped as she heard a bottle break. A plume of white smoke erupted over the table. The liquid dripped to the floor, sizzling like bacon as it ate through the linoleum. What was she thinking? She'd just released more chemicals into the air. And what would Lena do if she managed to get the gun? She couldn't shoot a weapon in here. Fumes were already filling the air. A spark from a gun could blow up the whole house.

'No-no-no,' she panted, sitting up, trying to make herself think. 'Oh, God, please.' She jerked the cuff one more time and screamed in pain. Her wrist was bruised and bleeding. It hurt so bad that maybe it was broken. 'No,' she whispered, coughing around the word. Her lungs shook in her chest. She felt as if she'd inhaled cotton. Lena coughed to clear them, but nothing would work. She reached up and turned on the faucet, cupping her hand underneath and bringing the water to her lips, her eyes.

So many years she had sat in this house praying to God that she wouldn't die here, that she could somehow get out of this awful town and make something of herself, yet here she was, trapped in Hank's house, living out her worst nightmare.

Lena choked back a sob. Jeffrey would figure this out. He wouldn't let a fucking dentist autopsy his wife. He'd get somebody from the state to look at the bodies. They'd see Valentine's broken skull. Maybe there would be enough of Lena left for them to see the bruises on the bottom of her foot, the bloody pulp of her wrist.

Her wrist.

Lena saw it then, saw the way out.

She reached for Clint, trying to grab the leg of his pants, his shoe, anything she could hold on to. Her fingers weren't even close. She lay flat on her stomach, her arm stretched over her head as far as it would go, and kicked out her legs, trying to use her feet to pull Clint's body toward her. He was a heavy man, but she managed to clamp one of his feet between her own, inching him over until she was able to loop her shoe through the chain that connected his wallet to his belt. She tightened her abs, screaming from exertion as his body came closer. Lena sat up, reaching for him, finally able to grab the leg of his pants and drag him close enough to get to the knife on his belt.

Lena looked at Valentine. He was staring at her, fear blazing in his eyes.

She didn't give herself time to think, taking the knife and hacking it into his wrist. Valentine's mouth opened, but he didn't scream. He gave this kind of high-pitched whine that seemed to last forever. Lena tried to close her ears to it, hacking at the skin again, trying to reach the sweet spot where bone gave way to tendon. Her stomach turned as blood squirted into her face, repulsion almost overcoming her. The handcuff around his wrist was so tight that she couldn't rear back with the knife high enough for fear of dulling the blade on the metal. She stopped, trying to catch her breath, trying not to vomit. On the stove, she could hear gurgling as the liquid started to boil.