Rubber squealed on pavement, the shriek of a hungry leopard. Car doors opened, rain ticked off the metal roof, and the engine mewled.

“David!” the woman screamed.

They had her, but David didn’t care. That was exactly what they would expect: for him to play hero again.

He hadn’t saved her last time, and Susan was going to die again, but it wasn’t his fault.

He plunged toward the dark, wet wedge between buildings, willing his legs forward. His heart knocked mallets against his temples. Sharp-toothed things would be waiting in the darkness, but they would be the lesser of two thousand evils.

A kinder, gentler evisceration, because those monsters would do it from the outside in.

Not from the inside out, like the people from the car would.

Her shriek rose against the oppressive sky and shoe soles spanked the asphalt.

“Stop!” someone shouted. Were they really dumb enough to think he’d obey them at this point? After all they’d done to him, all they had taught him?

After what they had made him become?

He ran into the alley, assaulted by the odors of rot, bum piss, and motor oil. A chain-link fence, ripped and curling away from its support posts, blocked his escape.

David clutched the links, praying for the strength to climb. He dug the tip of one shoe into the fence and launched himself up. He slipped and hung as though crucified for a few seconds, time enough for one deep breath before collapsing.

He lay with his face against the fence, the links imprinting blue geometry against his cheek. He listened, waiting.

Rain, tick tick tick.

No footsteps, no shouts. No car engine.

They had taken her. And spared him.

No. That’s just what they wanted him to think. That he was safe, so the next game would be even more disturbing.

Or maybe they wanted him to cower, to doubt, to face his monsters alone.