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The pink sun brilliant through the fissured glass.

Quiet now save for a few idling engines and the sound the bow made ripping through water, the ferry moving with its own deteriorating momentum.

I peered down through the glassless windows, saw the Kites rounding the stern. In five seconds they’d be climbing the stairs.

Rufus dropped bullets on the deck.

I rushed toward the front of the lounge.

The Kites’ footfalls on the steps now.

As I reached to open the door it swung back.

Luther faced me, smiling and unscathed, his Windex breath warm on my nose.

"You’re a lousy shot, Andrew," he said as his mother entered wheezing through the back of the lounge.

I tried to punch him in the throat.

He caught my fist and I was tumbling down the steps.

I lay dazed on the concrete deck, my head throbbing, left arm sprained or broken.

The Kites came down the stairs.

Luther grabbed me under my armpits, dragged me to my feet.

They surrounded me at the starboard bow, backed me up against the railing.

The wind cold and blasting.

Everyone squinting in the sunlight.

Maxine aiming the shotgun at my stomach.

Rufus at her side, one arm around her shoulder, the other holding his jaw.

Their son stepped toward me.

"What’d you think, Andrew? No hard feelings? We all just go our separate ways?"

"Wasn’t necessary to kill everyone on—"

"Couldn’t have you borrowing someone’s cell phone, having the police waiting for us at the dock. You killed these people, Andrew. No one would’ve died if you’d let us go. Now we’ve got a little swim ahead of us, so…"

I noticed Orson’s bowie knife in his left hand, thinking, So that’s how I end.

"What about Violet?"

"She’s amazing," he said. "I look at her and think maybe she’ll make me different."

It happened so fast.

Engine revving.

Screech of tires.

Heads turning.

Luther and I dove out of the way as the Chevy Blazer clipped Rufus and Maxine and slammed them into the railing, Violet gunning the engine, the tires pressing the crushing weight of the Blazer directly into Sweet-Sweet and Beautiful.

She shifted the vehicle into park, pinning the Kites solidly against the railing.

Stepping out, she lifted the shotgun from the deck.

Luther back on his feet.

Running.

She shouldered the twelve gauge.

He leapt over the portside railing as the shotgun bucked and boomed.

We dashed over.

Violet pumped the shotgun, trained it on the water.

"Where is he?" she asked.

"I don’t see him."

The ferry was still drifting, the spot where he’d gone in falling farther and farther behind.

We ran back to the stern, leaned over the railing.

"You hit him, right?" I said, scanning the churned water in the ferry’s wake.

"I’m not sure."

The light gleaming off the chop made it difficult to see but we stood watching, the water reflective and glimmering, a smashed liquid mirror catching all the colors of sunrise.

"Andrew," she said finally.

"What, you see him?"

"I hear sirens."

69

I hurt everywhere as I followed Violet to the bow, the Kinnakeet foundering seventy-five yards off the soundside shore of Hatteras, bottomed out on a sandbar.

The sky filled fast with daylight, the sun halfrisen from the sea.

Sirens wailing in the distance.

We approached the Blazer.

Violet stopped at the bumper, Rufus pinned at the waist, head resting on the hood, Maxine glassyeyed and fading, struggling through sodden inhalations.

I reached into the Blazer and killed the ignition.

Violet let the steaming barrel of the twelve gauge graze Rufus’s mouth.

Her eyes were glacial.

"I’m not going to ask if you know what you took from me."

Her finger fidgeted with the trigger.

"All I want to do is cause you pain."

"Do it," he croaked.

The shotgun clicked.

Violet looked down at her trigger finger, incredulous, as though the digit had acted apart from her will.

"You took everything from me."

She pressed the barrel into his face, pointed across the deck—a floating battlefield.

We could see three dead from where we stood, the crewman, the captain, and the passenger Rufus had executed.

"Why did you—"