and the goat, who stood side by side.
“Don’t think I won’t shoot you, Piper,” my dad called. “Back the hell up.”
“Here’s the problem, Mr. Walker,” she responded, with no hint of concern. “If you shoot me, you might shoot the poor, innocent victim you’re trying to save.” She smiled. “You could put the shotgun down and go for your handgun, but there are kind of a lot of us, so that might not be a good idea.”
“She can probably survive a few stray pellets,” my dad said as he continued to inch closer. The rest of the Nightstruck continued to back up, but Piper just stood there like she thought she was invincible. “I’m sure she can’t survive whatever you’ve got planned for her, so I’ll just have to take my chances.”
I bit my lip and squeezed Luke’s hand so tight I was probably hurting him, but he didn’t complain. If Dad could get close enough, he could direct the spray of pellets so that they wouldn’t hit the victim—it takes distance for them to fan out and scatter, which is why sawed-off shotguns are illegal. I wondered if Piper knew that was what he was up to.
“Back away, Piper,” I prayed under my breath. I knew the person standing out there in the dark was no longer the Piper I knew, was no longer my best friend. I also knew the chances of her coming back to herself were slim. But the thought of seeing her die right in front of me—at my father’s hands, no less—was too terrible to contemplate.
“And what do you plan to do about Billy here?” Piper inquired, giving the goat a very careful pat on the head, avoiding the spines. “The shotgun won’t be much use against him.”
That was my concern, too, and I stood in agonized tension, thinking the goat might charge at any moment. But it kept standing quietly at Piper’s side. It seemed to me almost like the two of them were waiting for something.
I wrenched my gaze away, quickly looking down the street behind my dad, sure someone or something was sneaking up on him, but there was nothing. When I looked back at my dad, he was almost close enough to have a relatively safe shot. He’d already fired a warning shot, and I didn’t know how many shells his shotgun held. If the Nightstruck decided to take their chances and rush him …
I didn’t want to follow that line of thought.
Piper, the goat, and the injured victim were on the sidewalk across the narrow street from our house. Dad had been approaching them on a shallow diagonal, slowly inching his way across the street. He was now only a few steps from the curb. If he continued on his current line, he would have to step over a storm drain to get onto the opposite sidewalk.
My eyes caught on the innocuous-looking storm drain. It hadn’t undergone any strange nighttime transformation, and it looked for all the world like a normal storm drain, and yet something about it—and about Piper’s air of waiting—made the hair on the back of my neck rise. I wanted to yell at my dad to go around the damn thing, but I was afraid of what might happen if I distracted him when he was getting this close to Piper and the goat.
I should have taken that chance. I should have yelled. And because I didn’t, I’ll have to live with the what-ifs for the rest of my life.
My dad is not a small guy, and he cast a sizable shadow as he crossed under the halo of light from the streetlamp. That shadow fell over the storm drain, making its depths all but invisible in the darkness, so I couldn’t see exactly what happened next. All I saw was an indistinct whisper of movement, and then my dad cried out in surprise.
One leg slid out from under him, and he fell awkwardly on his butt, barely having the presence of mind to hold on to the shotgun. Before he had a chance to react, something unseen yanked on his leg. His foot and lower calf disappeared into the storm drain, and he had to let go of the shotgun to fight the pull.
“Daddy!” I yelled, the scream ripping out of my throat as I wrenched my hand from Luke’s and grabbed hold of one of the towel rods over the window in a death grip. Luke was yelling, too, but I could barely