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  Herne knew the robber saw him move—saw him grab something from underneath the cash register—because the young man raised his gun and pointed it at him with his outstretched hand.

  But the robber was too slow.

  Herne slapped at the gun, pushing its aim away from him, ignoring the deafening explosion at his ear when the weapon was fired. Feeling detached—almost completely unemotional—Herne’s mind registered that the bullet struck somewhere behind him, and the shattering sound of glass suggested it had broken the refrigerator case in the back of the store.

  No one had been hurt. And in that splintered moment in time when the hostages screamed and the robber recovered from the recoil of his gun, Herne attacked.

  Hard.

  And fast.

  The headache didn’t matter. The hangover didn’t matter. The extra weight in his midsection didn’t matter. Herne attacked with the same speed he had possessed as a rookie cop. The same strength he had back when he forced drug dealers to the ground. The same fury he’d felt when slamming an abusive husband against a wall.

  It was like coming home.

  He stabbed first at the robber’s face, feeling the strain of his muscles as it pushed through the soft flesh. Herne’s senses heightened, and he heard the soft plop as he pulled the screwdriver out of the young man’s cheek. The robber screamed and the blood flowed, and he fired his gun again—a wild shot that went into the ceiling. As bits of drywall fell down around them, Herne ripped the revolver from the young man’s hands.

  But Herne didn’t keep the gun. He didn’t use it against the robber. He just tossed it to the side.

  Herne’s world was colored by the red haze of his attack. He saw nothing. And everything. Like a boxer with his opponent against the ropes, Herne struck again and again. The robber’s face. And then his body. And then his face again.

  The screwdriver was no longer a tool. It wasn’t a weapon. It had become an extension of Herne’s body, the part of him that contained all of his anger. All of his rage. All of his madness.

  He punctured the robber’s eye. His neck. His belly. From the whistling sound in the young man’s breath, Herne realized he had also managed to puncture a lung.

  And he kept stabbing the robber, mindless of the blood that spurted onto his own face and clothing, filling the room with its copper scent. Mindless of the whimpers and cries of the young man. Mindless of the looks of horror worn by the rest of the hostages.

  Herne didn’t stop until the robber lay motionless on the floor in a puddle of blood. Then his hands hung limply by his sides, and he could see the holes he had made in the young man. He saw the dark patches of blood on the robber’s clothing, thick and brown and wet. The screwdriver dropped from his hand and clattered on the ground.

  For a moment there was nothing but silence.

  And then, as if released from a prison, the other hostages moved.

  They cried. They hugged. They made phone calls.

  Herne moved to the side of the store. He leaned against a display case, his shoulders slumped and his hands thrust into his pockets, knowing he would have to remain on the scene to answer questions about the incident. The other hostages avoided him. They wouldn’t make eye contact with him. They shunned him.

  He didn’t blame them.

  In a matter of seconds, the police came. A sergeant stood with Herne while another talked to the other hostages. As they described the incident, he heard the words they used. Vicious. Maniac. Uncontrollable. He didn’t know if they were talking about him or the robber. And he didn’t care.

  He knew why the sergeant stood beside him. Because when the cops walk into a crime scene and see someone soaked in blood, that someone should probably be guarded. Herne didn’t blame the sergeant. He just kept watching the door, waiting for a cop he knew to walk through.

  The sergeant—young and thick and tough—had probably been ordered to guard Herne and stay quiet. But natural curiosity must have overpowered his obedience to his superior officers. “Any particular reason you felt the need to perforate this guy?” the sergeant asked.

  Herne shrugged. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

  A few minutes later the Chief of Police, Rex Tucker, walked in through the front door. Herne relaxed. Tucker had been his best friend since college. He’d been the reason Herne moved to the crappy little town of Hurricane, Pennsylvania, after his wife died. Herne had needed a friend. And Tucker was the only one he had.

  “Damn,” Tucker said as he approached. “This is one hell of a mess, Art. Why didn’t you just knock the guy out and let us take care of the rest?”

  “He deserved it,” Herne said. “He was going to rape a young girl.”

  “Fuck. You killed the guy with a screwdriver. Do you really think he deserved to be turned into a human sieve?”

  At that moment, the young Mennonite girl walked up to Herne. She didn’t meet his eyes—her gaze looked over his shoulder—and she didn’t smile. Her voice, so low it was almost a whisper, was barely audible. “Thank you,” she said. Then she turned and scurried off, her head down.

  Herne looked at Tucker. “Yes,” Herne said. “He deserved it.”

  Tucker shook his head. “I’ll do what I can to keep this out of court,” he said. “But I can’t make any promises. The District Attorney may decide he wants you to pay for this.”

  Herne looked down at his blood-stained shirt. His mind echoed with the whimpers of the robber. He could see the look of horror in the eyes of the other hostages.

  I’m already paying for it, Herne thought. I’m paying for it in regret. In nightmares. In fear.

  He closed his eyes and remembered the ripping of the young man’s flesh as the screwdriver penetrated his skin. He tasted the blood that had spurted onto his face. He smelled the terror that had soaked the room. He knew those memories would last forever.

  I’ll pay for it for the rest of my life, he thought.

  Read More of Artemis Herne’s Story in PHOBIA

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