"Don't you know?" he said. "Doesn't anybody understand?This ismy territory."
Oh.Oh ...
So it was as simple as that. After all their brainstorming and arguing and detective work. In the end it was something as basic as an animal protectingits range.
"For a hunting range, it is small," Rowan had said.
"They were taking my game," Jeremy said. "My deer, my squirrels. They didn't have any right to dothat. I tried to make them leave-but they wouldn't.They stayed and they kept killing...."
He stopped talking-but a new sound came fromhim. It started out almost below the range of MaryLynnette's hearing-but the deep rumbling of itstruck some primal chord of terror in her. It was asuncanny and inhuman as the danger-hum of an at tacking swarm of bees.
Growling. He was growling. And it wasreal.The snarling growl a dog makes that tells you to turn and run. The sound it makes before it springs at yourthroat....
"Jeremy!" Mary-Lynnette screamed. She threwherself forward, ignoring the white blaze of pain in her shoulders. But the cord held. She was jerked back. And Jeremy fell on Ash, lunging down, head darting forward like a striking snake, like a biting dog, like every animal that kills with its teeth.
Mary-Lynnette heard someone screaming "No!"and only later realized that it was her. She was fight ing with the cord, and she could feel stinging and wetness at her wrists. But she couldn't get free andshe couldn't stop seeing what was happening in frontof her. And all the time that eerie, vicious growling that reverberated in Mary-Lynnette's own head and chest.
That was when things went cold and dear. Some part of Mary-Lynnette that was stronger than the panic
took over. It stepped back and looked at the entire scene by the roadside: the car, which was still burning, sending clouds of choking white smokewhenever the wind blew the right way; the limpfigure of Ash on the pine needles; the blur of snarling motion that was Jeremy.
"Jeremy!" she said, and her throat hurt, but hervoice was calm-and commanding. "Jeremy-before you do that-don't you want me tounderstand? You said that was what you wanted. Jeremy,help me understand."
For a long second she thought in dismay that it wasn't going to work. That he couldn't even hear her. But then his head lifted. She saw his face; she saw the blood on his chin.
Don't scream, don't scream, Mary-Lynnette toldherself frantically. Don't show any shock. You have to keep him talking, keep him away from Ash.
Behind her back her hands were working automatically, as if trying to get out of ropes was something they'd always known how to do. The slick wetness actually helped. She could feel the cords slide a little.
"Please help me understand," she said again, breathless, but trying to hold Jeremy's eyes. "I'm your friend-you know that. We go back a long way."
Jeremy's whitish gums were streaked with red. He still had human features, but there was nothing at all human about that face.
Now, though-slowly-his lips came down tocover his gums. He looked more like a person andless like an animal. And when he spoke, his voicewas distorted, but she could recognize it as Jere my's voice.
"We do go back," he said. "I've watched you sincewe were kids-and I've seen you watching me."
Mary-Lynnette nodded.She couldn'tgetany words out.
"I always figured that someday, when we wereolder-maybe we'd be together. I thought maybe I could make you understand. About me. About everything. I thought you were the one person who might not be afraid...."
"I'm not," Mary-Lynnette said, and hoped hervoice wasn't shaking too badly. She was saying it to a figure in a blood-spattered shirt crouching over a torn body like a beast still ready to attack.
MaryLynnette didn't dare look at Ash to see how badly hewas hurt. She kept her eyes locked on Jeremy's. "And I think I can understand. You killed Mrs. Burdock, didn't you? Because she was on your territory."
"Nother; " Jeremy said, and his voice was sharpwith impatience. "She was just an old lady-she didn't hunt. I didn't mind having her in my range. Ieven did things for her, like fixing her fence andporch for free.... And that's when she told methey were coming. Those girls."
Just the way she told me, Mary-Lynnette thought, with dazed revelation. And he was there fixing the fence-of course. The way he does odd jobs for everybody.
"I told her it wouldn't work." Mary-Lynnette couldhear it again-the beginnings of a snarling growl.
Jeremy was tense and trembling, and she could feel her self start to tremble, too. "Three more hunters in thislittle place ... I told her, but she wouldn't listen. She couldn't see. So then I lost my temper."
Don't look at Ash, don't call attention to him, Mary-Lynnette thought desperately. Jeremy's lips were drawing back again as if he needed something to attack. At the same time the distant part of hermind said, So that's why he used a picket=Ash was right;it was an impulse of the moment.
"Well, anybody can lose their temper," she said, and even though her voice cracked and there were tears in her eyes, Jeremy seemed to calm a little.
"Afterward, I thought maybe it was for the best," he said, sounding tired. "I thought when the girls found her, they'd know they had to leave. I waited for them to do it. I'm good at waiting."
He was staring past her, into the woods. Heart pounding, Mary-Lynnette grabbed the opportunity todart a look at Ash.
Oh, God, he's not moving at all. And there's so muchblood....I've never seen so much blood....
She twisted her wrists back and forth, trying to find some give in the cords.
"I watched, but they didn't go away," Jeremy said.Mary-Lynnette's eyes jerked back to him.