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СКАЧАТЬ and swatted at its chest, where the scatter shot had peppered its skin with bloody holes. It hadn’t stopped coming for her, but the wound had given her time to run.

      No one had ever stopped It. They knew that evasion was the best they could settle for.

      When she opened her eyes, she faced the direction she’d fled the night before. A path of ruined trees and uprooted plants showed where It had chased her, and she followed the trail. Blood stained the forest debris on the ground, volumes of it, but It had barely slowed. Its impossible strength hadn’t faded in the least, leaving it capable of destroying an entire building with its bare hands. No, not hands. Claws.

      “Jessa? Jessa, where the hell are you?”

      She startled at the voice, and nearly dropped the gun. She sprinted toward the field, resisting the ridiculous urge to look behind her as she charged toward the house. The monster wasn’t behind her, wasn’t chasing her to the safety of her own yard. The impetus to run had just called her name. Derek, the one dependable part of her life for the past five years—if she could really call him dependable—wouldn’t have missed the strange sight of a car sitting in her driveway. If he went inside and found the basement door barricaded, he would go down there. And if he found the guy.

      No, on second thought, it might not be so bad for the smug prick in the basement to get beat up by her smug, hillbilly prick ex-boyfriend.

      Once past the tree line, she slowed, tried to appear unhurried as she caught her breath. The last thing she needed was for Derek to think she would literally run every time he called for her.

      “Stop making so much racket. You’ll upset the chickens, and they won’t lay.” She raised her hand to shade her eyes from the sun and dropped the gun onto the grass as she stepped onto the lawn.

      “Jesus, Jessa. You scared the hell out of me.” Derek nodded toward the woods. “What were you doing out there?”

      Before she could answer, Derek turned, pushing his Ohio State baseball cap up on his forehead. He hadn’t gone to Ohio State, but still he wore the Buckeye leaf proudly. “Where did that car come from?”

      “That all kind of ties into the story of me being in the woods with a gun.” She laughed nervously, hating that she cared if he would be mad at her or not. She rubbed her face and took a deep breath.

      Derek turned, his confusion increasing by degrees, as evidenced by the frown that drew his eyebrows down. “You don’t look so good, Jessa.”

      “Thanks. I’ve been up all night.” She swallowed. Saying it out loud made her more tired, just like the part that followed made her more scared. “Running from It.”

      His expression frozen in shock, Derek looked to the house, then back at her. “Again?”

      She nodded, and felt her face crumpling before she realized she was about to cry. It didn’t even matter that she was crying in front of Derek, the one thing in the entire world she hated the most.

      “No, no, no, come here,” Derek said, pulling her into his arms before she had a chance to object. Not that she was entirely sure that she wanted to resist him. The instant she was there, in the comforting familiarity of his embrace, she knew it was a mistake. It was too easy to pretend again, to fall back into the fantasy that always hurt her more than it salved her wounds. More than once she’d given in to temptation with him, and it always felt wonderful until reality crashed down on her once more. She pulled away. “How’s Becky?”

      Derek couldn’t stand feeling guilty. It was his biggest weakness, and Jessa wasn’t afraid to exploit it. He knew that, and he looked away, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Damn it, Jessa.” His voice trailed away, and he glanced again at the car parked in the driveway. “Are you going to tell me where the hell that car came from?”

      She followed him as he stalked across the lawn, relieved for the change of subject. She’d brought up his wife as a stalling tactic. She hadn’t really cared to hear about her, or his kids, at all. Before he could change his mind and start telling her all about them, she started explaining. “You’re not going to believe this, but someone actually stopped at Dale Elkhart’s service station last night.”

      “Really?” Derek stood beside the car, hands on his hips. He tore his fascinated gaze away from the sleek black machine to look at her. “Why were you all the way out by Dale’s?”

      That, she didn’t want to get into. “It chased me, and that was the way I ran. I got a shot off, though. Hit it right in the chest. It just kept coming.”

      “Hell of a car,” he said, as though it didn’t matter that she’d been chased down by a monster and barely escaped with her life. That was Derek, in a nutshell. Easily distracted by shiny objects.

      She was grateful for the change of subject, though, and gestured to the open driver’s side window. “Take a look. The guy was on his way to some party or something and got lost, I guess. I don’t know why he would have stopped at the service station, though. It doesn’t exactly look like it’s in business.”

      “I’m wondering how the hell he managed to stop at all.” Derek leaned in the window and gave a whistle of appreciation. “All-leather interior. This is a hell of a car, whatever it is.”

      “Well, it’s a good thing he did stop. Otherwise, I would have been It’s dinner.” She wondered if those terrifying words would come back to haunt her in the night. And she tried not to dwell on the fact that she’d brought It up again. A hot flush flamed in her cheeks, embarrassment at herself for wanting him to acknowledge the danger she’d been in. She didn’t want to be scolded, but a sick, jealous part of her wanted him to care.

      “Hell of a car.” Derek looked around the yard, an increasingly agitated expression on his face. “So where’s this guy, now? You didn’t let him stay here?”

      “I did.” She drew herself up to her full height, which was pretty impressive for a woman, or so she’d been told. She was still shorter than Derek, but he would damn well listen to her. “I’m a grown woman. I can have anybody stay the night that I want to.”

      Derek gave her a sideways look that said, Over my dead body. “Nobody ever said you couldn’t, but how did you know this guy wasn’t dangerous or something? I mean, he could stop here … how do you know he wasn’t sent here?”

      “Sent?” She hadn’t thought of that. Maybe she should have. The creature had never sent anyone into their midst before, and it didn’t make a whole lot of sense that it would now. Such a complicated strategy for a basically ragtag monster, but then, It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, period. Nothing in Penance did anymore. “You think so?”

      “Could be. Don’t know until we talk to this guy.” Derek started for the house, and Jessa followed.

      “We can’t. Not now. He’s sleeping.”

      “Well, I guess we’re gonna just have to go and wake him up,” Derek said, his worn-out boots striking a determined rhythm on the porch.

      Jessa hesitated. It wasn’t that she wanted to protect the guy in the basement from Derek, but she didn’t want the two to meet, either. Something about the guy reminded her of the reality of her—and the whole town’s—situation. If she stood in the same room with the both of them, the safety and familiarity of another aspect of her pretend world would be fractured. If she kept losing pieces of her fantasy refuge, where would СКАЧАТЬ