Intensity

Tatta-tatta-tatta…
        Perhaps a minute had passed since she'd slid aside the padded panel on the view port.
        The son of a bitch bastard freak was still in his shower, naked and defenseless. And now that Chyna knew where Ariel was, she didn't have to worry that the cops would need him to lead them to the girl.
        The gun felt good in her hand.
        It felt wonderful in her hand.
        If she could have freed Ariel and gotten her out of there, she would have done that rather than take the violent option. But she didn't possess a key, and that inner door was not going to be easy to break down.
         Tatta-tatta-tatta…
        She had only one choice. She went to the cellar stairs.
        Blue steel gleaming in her hand.
        Even if he finished showering and shut off the water before Chyna was able to reach him, he'd still be naked and defenseless, toweling off, so she would go in there, into the bathroom, and open fire on him point-blank, shoot him down, empty the revolver into him, the first shot right through his fucking heart, then put at least one round in his face, to be sure that he was really done for. Take no chances. No chances at all. Use every round, squeeze the trigger until the hammer click-click-clicked on the expended cartridges in a totally empty cylinder. She could do it. Kill the crazy freak, kill him over and over again, kill him until he stayed killed. She could do it, would do it.
        She climbed the steep stairs, treading on wet footprints that she'd left in her descent: Chyna Shepherd no longer hiding, up and out of that hole, untouched, alive, coming out of Narnia forever.
         Tatta-tatta-tatta…
        Thinking ahead as she moved, Chyna wondered if she should shoot him through the shower curtain-if it was, in fact, a curtain instead of a glass door-because if she didn't shoot him through it, then she would have to hold the revolver in just one hand while she yanked the curtain or the door aside. That would be risky, because a strange and dismaying weakness was creeping into her fingers and into her wrists. Her arms were shaking so badly that already she had to grip the weapon with both hands to prevent herself from dropping it.
        Her heart rattling like the copper pipe, scared about the coming confrontation even if the crazy geek was naked and defenseless, Chyna reached the upper landing and entered the laundry room.
        She couldn't shoot him through the curtain, because she wouldn't know whether she'd hit him or not. She'd be shooting blind, unable to aim for his chest or head.
        Past the dryer and the washer, through the fragrance of laundry detergent, she reached the open door to the kitchen. Crossing the threshold, she belatedly registered the important thing that she had seen on the landing at the head of the cellar stairs: wet shoeprints larger than her own, among her prints, overlapping her prints, where he had stood only a short while ago.
        She was already rushing into the kitchen, with too much momentum to halt, and the killer came at her from the right, past the dinette set. He was big, strong, a juggernaut, neither naked nor defenseless, the shower having been a ruse all along.
        He was fast, but she was marginally faster. He tried to drive her backward and slam her against the cabinets, but she slid out of the way, raising the revolver, with the muzzle three feet from his face, and she pulled the trigger, and the hammer made a dry, stick-breaking sound as it fell on an empty chamber.
        She backed hard into the side of the refrigerator, dislodging the kittens-and-lilies calendar, which clattered to the floor at her feet.
        The killer was still rushing at her. She squeezed the trigger, and the revolver clicked again, which made no sense- shit -because the clerk in the service station never had a chance to fire it before he had been blown away by the shotgun. No cartridges should be missing.
        This was the first time that she had seen the killer's face. Always before, she'd glimpsed just the back of his head, the top of his skull, the side of his face but from a distance. He was not what she had expected, not moon-faced and pale-lipped and heavy-jawed. He was handsome, with blue eyes that were a beautiful contrast with his dark hair-nothing crazy in his clear eyes-broad clean features, and a nice smile.
        Smiling, he continued to come straight at her as she squeezed the