Riptide

the front yard,
    looking upward. Then everyone was silent, still.
    There, highlighted in flames, stood Becca, in her white nightgown,
    her bare feet spread, holding the Coonan between her hands.
    "Becca," Adam shouted,"shoot the fucker!"
    But she didn't. She just stood there, pointing the Coonan at
    Mikhail Krimakov. He was holding his arm, blood dripping
    through his fingers. Blood also dripped down his cheek from a
    head wound. He was leaning over, as it was nearly beyond him to
    straighten. What had happened to his gun? Oh God, Adam
    couldn't believe what he was seeing, would have given five years of
    his life if he could have changed it, if he could even have moved, at
    least tried to save her. But there was nothing he could do. He saw
    an agent raise a rifle. "No," he said, "don't try it. He's off at an angle.
    Don't take the chance of hitting her. Where are the firemen?"
    Flames had caught the roof on fire now, licking out of the balcony
    off Thomas's bedroom. It wouldn't be long now until the
    flames ate the roof and sent it crashing into the house, until it was
    too hot on the roof for her to stand there, barefoot.
    He heard her then, speaking loudly, very clearly.
    "It's over," Becca said to the young man not eight feet from her.
    "Finally, it's over. You lost, Mikhail, but the cost was too high. You
    killed eight people, just because they were there."
    "Oh no, I killed many more than that," he said, raising his head,
    panting with the pain. "They didn't count, any of them. I used
    them, then of what possible use were they to me?"
    "Why didn't you stop when your father died in that car accident?"
    He laughed, he actually laughed at her. "It wasn't an accident,
    you stupid bitch. I killed him. He wanted me to stop this, said
    I'd already done enough, that this was just too much. He'd turned

soft, he'd become a coward. I killed him because he'd become a
    weakling. He wasn't worthy any longer. He betrayed my beloved
    mother's memory. Yes, I clouted him on the side of the head and
    drove him in his car over a cliff."
    There wasn't a sound from anyone standing below. Then, the
    sound of sirens in the distance. The flames were licking up over the
    edge of the roof now. She had to get out of there. Adam stood
    there, impotent. Becca, please, please. Get the hell out of there.
    Becca said, her voice still strong, still clear and loud, "It ends
    here, Mikhail. Since I knew you'd try to escape back through that
    roof trapdoor, you had to know I wouldn't let you get away. It ends
    here."
    "Yes," he said. "It ends here. I killed the bastard who murdered
    my mother--your beloved father. I've done what I promised to do.
    And I took pleasure along the way, cleaning out the vermin that
    had invaded my life."
    He was standing very still, this handsome young man she'd spoken
    to in the gym in Riptide. He was slowly straightening now,
    standing tall.
    "My father isn't dead, Mikhail. He'll survive. You failed."
    "The roof is going to collapse beneath us, Rebecca. It's getting
    hotter. You're barefoot. It's got to be burning your feet now, isn't
    it?"
    Fire trucks pulled up to the curb, men jumping out, going into
    action. Becca heard a man yelling, "We've got a two-story residential
    fully involved structure fire! Jesus, what's going on here?"
    "Oh shit, there are people standing on the roof! That woman has
    a gun!"
    "We can't ladder the building, it's too late. Get the life net!"
    Becca heard them, felt her feet now, the heat burning them,
    wondered if the roof would collapse under her. "We're going

down, Mikhail," she said. "Look, they're bringing one of those
    safety nets. We'll jump."
    "No," he said. "No." Then he pulled the lighter out of his jacket
    again and lit his sleeve. He rubbed it on his shirt, his pants, even
    while she watched, so horrified she froze. Then he smiled at her,
    nearly ablaze now, and ran at her, yelling, "Come away with your
    boyfriend. Come, let's fly together, Rebecca!"
    She pulled the trigger, once, and still he came, a ball of flame
    now, running toward her, nearly at her, his arms outstretched. She
    fired again, then again and again, fired until the Coonan was empty.
    He fell forward, nearly into her, but she jerked away just in time
    and he rolled over and over, a flaming ball of fire, off the roof to the
    ground below.
    She heard people yelling. A jet of flame caught the sleeve of her
    nightgown. She ran quickly to the side of the roof, stood there for
    just an instant, slapping down the