Chapter 7
Kolby blinked, trying to clear the fog in his vision. The figure standing in the moonlight looked like a hallucination.
"Jane?" he slurred.
Jane didn't speak. She released the string.
The arrow hissed through the air. It struck Kolby in the fleshy part of his thigh, pinning his jeans to the muscle.
Kolby screamed. It was a high, wet sound that tore through the forest. He grabbed at the shaft, his hands slick with sweat and panic.
"You shot me!" he wailed. "You crazy bitch, you shot me!"
Jane walked closer. She nocked another arrow. "Quiet. You'll scare the game."
Kolby tried to scramble backward, dragging his injured leg. "I'll tell Dad! I'll tell everyone!"
"Tell them what?" Jane asked calmly. "That you got high and shot yourself? That's what the police will think."
"No... you..." Kolby's breathing was shallow. The drugs were making his heart flutter like a trapped bird. "Why?"
Jane stopped five feet from him. She looked down, her face impassive. "Do you remember the golden retriever I found when I was twelve? You used him for target practice."
Kolby's eyes widened. "That was... that was a long time ago. It was a dog!"
"And you're just a junkie," Jane said. She aimed the bow at his other leg.
"Wait! Money! I have money!" Kolby sobbed. "I can give you the safe combo! The watches!"
Jane lowered the bow slightly. She used the tip of the arrow to lift his chin, forcing him to look at her.
"I don't need your money, Kolby. I'm here to collect a different kind of debt."
Kolby froze. "What?"
"You think this is just about a dog?" Jane's voice was a low whisper, colder than the night air. "You think I forgot what you and your sister did? The things you laughed about? The people you broke for sport?"
The accusation hit him harder than the arrow. His mouth hung open. "No. That wasn't... I didn't..."
"You did. You stood by. You laughed." Jane leaned in. "And your father won't care. He hates weakness more than anything."
Kolby began to hyperventilate. The shadows around him seemed to lengthen, twisting into monsters. The drugs were inducing paranoia.
He stared at Jane, a dawning horror in his drug-addled mind. This wasn't a random act of revenge. This was a reckoning.
"It was her!" Kolby shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at the darkness. "Alejandra made me do everything! She hated you! I didn't care! I'm innocent!"
Jane's eyes narrowed. The temperature in the clearing seemed to drop.
"Innocent?" she repeated. "When Susan Miller lay dying in the hospital, begging for the medical funds Conrad promised, you were there. You laughed. You said, 'Let the leech die.'"
Jane drew the bowstring back to her ear. The tension in the wood creaked.
"Susan was my mother," Jane whispered. "And you are the disease."
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