Free Tempted by Molly O'Keefe Page A

wouldn’t.” He began to hit himself on the head. Over and over. Flat-handed and hard. “Shut. Up.”
    “Please,” she whispered. “Please, Sam. Stop it.”
    He turned to her, bones inside skin. Eyes so deep inside his skull they looked like holes. And madness. Nothing but madness keeping him on his feet. His clothes hung off his body like he was a skeleton.
    A chill raced over her skin and she realized the danger she was in. Steven’s fear made terrible sense now.
    “How?” Sam asked, a child in front of a parent. “Tell me how to stop it and I will. Tell me how to stop it…” He lurched toward her and she flinched away, falling back on the bed, against the body of the woman he’d beaten.
    Stella stirred beside her. She groaned, shifting her legs. “Sam?” she breathed.
    Like paper left in the rain, Sam’s face dissolved in front of Anne. And he collapsed across the bed, pulling Stella’s legs toward him as if he could climb her prone body.
    “C...careful,” Annie said, the stammer impossible to control. But he was pushing her aside and she slipped off the silk covers on the bed, landing in a heap on floor.
    “I’m sorry,” Sam said, clutching at Stella’s petticoats, her thin skirts. “Do you hear me?” he asked. “I’m sorry. Stella, baby… I’m so sorry.”
    Stella was fully awake now, and crying. Blood and tears streaming down her face. She blinked terrified eyes up at the ceiling, unable to look at Sam. Anne didn’t blame her.
    “Please, Sam,” Stella whispered, pushing his hands away. “Please. Let me go. I just want to go. I want to leave.”
    “You was the only one who was nice to me. Treated me like a person. The only one, Stella. I shouldn’t have hurt you.”
    Anne struggled to her feet. “Sam, let her go.” She pulled at his hands, trying to free Stella. The fabric of Stella’s skirt tore, and Sam’s other hand, the one with the gun, pushed Annie away. The cold steel made her skin crawl, and she jerked her hand back.
    Stella was pushing herself up the bed, struggling away. Anne got on the bed beside her, helping her sit up. She braced a foot against Sam’s shoulder, but he didn’t seem to notice.
    The gun, that instrument of death, was a black cancer against the pink coverlet on the bed. And Anne could not look away.
    Lord, protect us
, she prayed.
Please protect us
.
    Sam pawed at Stella, scratching at her legs, tearing at her dress.
    “Please, Sam, stop. Stop,” Annie said in the kind of loud, clear voice her mother used to use with her when she was throwing a fit.
    “Sam?” It was Steven outside the door, yelling through the wood. And for a moment Sam stopped his fevered groping, the feral moaning in the back of his throat was silent, and he just stared at the closed door. Like a dog hearing his owner’s whistle across the fields. “Sam, can you hear me? I’m here, Sam. I’m here. Let those women go and I will come in and we’ll talk. We can… talk.”
    “What are we going to talk about?” Sam yelled, spittle spraying Annie and Stella. He was distracted, but his fingers were still digging into Stella’s skin. Annie could feel Stella shaking beside her, and she used the edge of the blanket to cover her body.
    “Whatever you want,” Steven said. “Whatever needs talking about.”
    “It ain’t gonna change nothing.” Sam put his head down on Stella’s legs and she whimpered, lifting her chin to the ceiling like a child who by not seeing the scary thing made it go away.
    “You don’t know that,” Annie whispered. “It might help.”
    “Help what?” Sam asked. His wild eyes lifted to hers, and she saw for one second the total depths of his despair. How it filled every inch of his body, how it curled up at the edges into madness.
    “Look at what I done, Miz Denoe. Look at me.” Tears fell from his eyes, great streams of them. “Ain’t nothing going to help,” he whispered. “I'm real sorry.”
    And then he lifted the gun to his temple and pulled