Free Love Lies Bleeding by Meghan Ciana Doidge

up! You! You killed Grady! Grady! You killed him! You killed … you killed … you’ve killed me!”
    Shep didn’t move.
    Pamela, suddenly as exhausted as she had been hysterical a moment before, dropped the branch. She stood for a moment and gazed into the forest. Except she wasn’t really looking at anything at all.
    Shep’s blood dripped down her legs.
    One bird called to another. Pamela had never known bird calls. She didn’t have an ear for any kind of music. Grady would have known what it was. Grady would have known what to do. Grady had always known.
    Her arm twitched, and then her leg. She turned toward her skirt.  
    She stepped around Shep, pulled the skirt off the tree stump, and pulled in back on over her blood-splattered legs. That was better. It wouldn’t do to wander through the woods only half dressed.
    •••••••••
    Retracing her route through the forest, Pamela, still rather out of it, wandered through the trees until she stumbled upon Karli lying at the base of a large cedar.
    “Karli?” Pamela dropped to her knees and tentatively touched Karli’s shoulder.
    Karli groaned and reached up a shaky hand to her head. A trace of blood had trickled down her forehead. “What an asshole,” she moaned. “I mean, I knew he wasn’t a nice guy, but … I think he threw me head first into that tree.”
    “Can you get up? Wait, do you think you should get up? What if your neck is broken?”
    Karli turned her neck carefully, one way and the other, then shrugged. She beckoned for Pamela to help her as she slowly sat up.
    “Where’s my gun? Do you see my gun?”
    Pamela stood and looked around. Karli, using the tree for support, slowly gained her feet. Pamela found the gun a few feet away and pointed down at it.
    Karli tentatively stepped away from the tree, and when she didn’t fall down, picked her way over toward Pamela and the gun. “Where is the prick?”
    “Back a ways.”
    “Uh-huh.” Karli took in Pamela’s glassy expression and bloodstained bustier. “Well. I didn’t know you had it in you.” She looked oddly grim at this revelation. She checked her gun for bullets, and, noting it was empty, her scowl deepened. She then turned and walked away.
    After a moment, Pamela followed. Not because she actually wanted to go, but as if pulled that direction by Karli’s energy.
    Karli glanced over her shoulder to make sure Pamela was behind her. Her jaw was clenched and her eyes narrowed in calculation. She looked very unhappy, and not just because she probably had a concussion as well as some sort of a spinal injury. She was tough. She could handle getting injured. The agency could handle any cleanup, but Pamela … Pamela was going to be a long-term problem.

THE NIGHTMARE

CHAPTER NINE
    The Bungalow, Kitsilano

    With the time it took for Karli to hot-wire Erwin’s car and navigate traffic across the Lions Gate Bridge and through downtown Vancouver, it was late in the afternoon before she and Pamela veered onto the cracked and grass-overgrown driveway of a ‘60s-style bungalow. Pamela was in the passenger seat, and not even remotely interested in her surroundings.
    The other houses in the neighborhood had been updated and remodeled. This should have made the rather neglected home look out of place; instead, it just made it more invisible. Real estate prices were through the roof in this area of Vancouver, which was coveted for its ocean and mountain views and its proximity to the city center. Developers often shoved letters through the bungalow’s mailbox, as there seemed to be no other way to contact the absentee homeowners.
    Karli and Pamela exited the car, though Pamela had to be coaxed out. Using a key Karli retrieved from underneath a moss-encrusted empty flowerpot, they entered the house.
    •••••••••
    The small foyer of the bungalow opened into a sparsely furnished living room. Karli pushed the pile of mail that had accumulated by the door out of her way