"Are you all right?" the trucker asks. She nods. "Where you heading?" She shrugs. The driver pulls onto the highway and keeps glancing over at her as she leans against the seat, one hand on her bandaged abdomen, now a barren wasteland. "My name's Bill," he says.
"Samantha," she says. "Samantha Young."
"That's a pretty name." She nods and then passes out.
A little boy stood in the doorway, hair falling into his eyes and snot running down his nostrils. "Mom?" he said again.
Samantha crept towards him, taking him by the shoulders. She looked into his eyes and said, "Mom's gone to Heaven." Little Joey collapsed sobbing into Samantha's arms. She took him into the living room, setting him down on a chair. "I want you to be a good boy and stay right here. Can you do that?"
He nodded. With weak knees, Samantha staggered back into the kitchen. She bound Veronica's hands and feet with duct tape and then knelt over her former best friend, the one who had murdered Andre, Aunt Beth, and Samantha's unborn child. She picked up the butcher knife, letting it hover over Veronica's chest. I should kill her now, she thought. Why turn her over to the police? They'll put her in jail or a mental asylum. She deserves to die.
But then I'm a killer, she thought. I'm no better than her. I'm worse than her. She dropped the knife to the floor.
She found Joey still in the living room where she'd left him. "Come on," she said. "We have to go." She picked him up and carried him away into the night, away from the horrible scene inside.
At the bottom of the hill, she knocked on the door of the Pryde's neighbors. An old woman came to the door in a flowered nightgown and curlers. "Do you have any idea what time it is? Wait, who are you? What are you doing with Joey?"
"FBI, ma'am. There's been an accident. Can Joey stay with you tonight?"
"Yes, of course. What's happened?" Samantha didn't answer her. She left Joey in the old woman's arms and then took off running to her car. Police cars passed her on the highway, none bothering to stop her. She drove faster and faster, but she couldn't get the sight of Joey's face out of her mind. I failed him, she thought. Just like Andre and her own child.