targeted.

FINAL UPDATE

My heart is pounding. I just called the police.

She's unconscious but I think she's going to be okay.

Please be okay.

I need to write this down before I forget all the details. My head is spinning and I can't stop shaking. Am I slipping into shock?

----------

When I arrived at Amberlyn's house there was a note taped to the door. I transcribed what it said:

You shouldn't stick your nose where it doesn't belong. Amberlyn is mine now.

I will release her once you leave this town. No more updates. No more attention. NO POLICE.

Defy me and she dies like your whore of a cousin. TURN BACK NOW.

I didn't listen. I slammed my shoulder against the door and barged into Amberlyn's house, ready for a fight. To my surprise, there was no one waiting for me inside. I ran to the kitchen, collected a butcher knife, then raced through every room--upstairs and down. I found nothing aside from the same unsettling quiet I had experienced in Sam's empty home.

Swallowing my reservations, I rummaged through Amberlyn's bedroom for clues. I threw open a slatted door and found what must have been her husband's closet. It was still full of drab uniforms of various hues. Tactical vests with lots of pockets. Black duffels stuffed with weird electronic equipment. Goggles. Knives. Shelves lined with ammunition of all kinds. Strangely, there were no guns. Even stranger was the book of poetry lying atop of a stack of "Soldier of Fortune" magazines. Unrequited: A Collection. I picked up the rose-colored paperback and flipped through the pages. A few lines of high-lighted prose caught me eye.

Sweet eye, sweet lip, sweet blushing cheek,
Yet not a heart to save my pain?
O Venus, take thy gifts again!
Make not so fair to cause our moan,
Or make a heart that's like your own.

-Sir John Harrington

They were the same lines from the unsent email I found in Sam's drafts. Things were starting to make sense.

I careened downstairs and caught a glimpse of something familiar through the kitchen window. My eyes stuck wide as I looked across the yard. Sam's cable knit sweater was draped across a drooping branch of that damned elm tree.

My brain wanted me to get back in my car and leave this awful podunk in the dust but my body wasn't listening. I was sprinting across the barren yard when I heard something split the air. A sharp pain radiated through my leg and I collapsed against the elm tree. I grabbed my thigh and peeked around the trunk. Something flashed atop the hill beyond the gravel road, causing the sweater to whip on its branch like a flag. Some dirt next to me exploded.

I was bleeding but not profusely. The bullet had only grazed me. I could still walk. Still run--straight up the hill, in fact. My limbs seemed possessed. Maybe I just wanted the entire ordeal to be over with, regardless of what happened to me.

There should have been more gun blasts. I didn't understand why I hadn't been shot dead while scrambling up that rocky mound. After reaching the top, I heard a heavy thump and saw a steel door slam flat to the earth--a hatch covering an underground bunker.

I called out Amberlyn's name but heard nothing in return but a series of metallic clanks. Someone was trying to seal the door but they were having difficulties. I wondered if they were panicking just as much as I was. Muffled curses slipped through the gaps in the hatch as I approached. Shutting off my brain, I stabbed the butcher knife into the door's seal and pried on it, hard. There was a scream. Digging my fingers under the heavy hatch, I threw it open and jumped down into the darkness, not knowing what to expect.