A/N: After a ten month wait, I give you the second 'half' of Chapter 20. Let me know what you all think. Fair warning, Henry's swearing gets worse and a bit more frequent here.

Chapter 20 - The Harder You Fall (Part 2)

SOMEWHERE ELSE...

A normal day in the life of Eli Matheson was so average as to almost be considered boring.

Almost.

Not to say that hanging out with Henry and Dylan after school or on weekends wasn't exciting, or that his own kid brother, Charlie, didn't keep him on his toes it was just that after enough time, it all became routine. And in a town like Rock Harbor – large though it was – routine was the norm.

That is, until the spot storm.

Yesterday had been the biggest disruption to his life that Eli could imagine, but it had not been 'exciting' in the least. In fact, it'd been only a notch or two below terrifying. Thank God, no one had died (the media was calling it nothing short of miraculous), but there had been plenty of injuries among the fifty-plus people who had taken shelter in the basement of the church. Everyone had at least a few minor cuts, bruises, or scrapes, but none so bad as Henry, Connie, or the stranger – John Scott was his name – who had rescued them.

All Henry had to get was a few stitches and some bandages on his hands, amazingly enough. Unfortunately, Connie suffered some kind of seizure during the storm and had to be kept at the hospital overnight for observation. Henry, Richard, and their mother had stayed by her bedside well into the night. It was almost ten o'clock by the time Richard finally fell asleep – nearly two hours past his normal bedtime of eight-thirty – at which point Jack and Janice offered to take him back to the house along with Mark, who was getting pretty drowsy himself. And as for John Scott… well, he'd just straight up vanished.

At least, that's how Eli had heard it from Henry during their WebChat session this morning.

It was somewhat surprising that Henry had even been awake, let alone coherent enough to tell Eli the story.

To be honest, the eldest child of Robert and Jane Matheson – both of whom were currently down in Manhatan on a joint business trip – wasn't entirely certain how he was awake or thinking clearly at the moment. Charlie had been awake for hours by now, but their Grandpa Jim had seemingly never gone to sleep. Just like every morning over the past week, he was already in the kitchen making breakfast by the time Eli and Charlie came downstairs. And on a normal day, the boys would be eagerly asking their grandfather for more of his famous 'old time' stories, but today, both of them were still a bit subdued, though they did their best not to show it.

Over that morning's breakfast, it was plain to see even for the aging Jim Matheson that there was something wrong. Nonetheless, he'd decided to tell them of an adventure from his own childhood, a story of playing in the woods, fighting dragons and evil knights bent on taking his home away. Like he'd intended, it brought a smile to the faces of his grandsons.

Eli had long since realized just how much Grandpa Jim liked to embellish his stories, but it had yet to diminish his enjoyment of them in any way. A twelve year-old boy wasn't about to let anything get in the way of a good tall tale.

At least he was feeling better now.

It was hard to feel anything but happy and amused after hearing Grandpa Jim's stories. The man seemingly never ran out of new stuff to tell, and if he ever did, somehow it just never got old. Eli could listen to his grandfather a hundred times and never get bored.

A low humming noise reached his ears about halfway up the main staircase. At first, he dismissed it as the central H/C system kicking in again. Yet by the time Eli reached the second floor, it was still going steady. If anything, the noise was slowly rising in pitch.

But just as suddenly as it'd begun, it stopped.

Only now the hall lights were flickering, and he could feel the tingle of static electricity all around him. It was a bit unnerving.

What?! What is this?

After yesterday, Eli could only think that another storm was on the way if there was some problem with the power. The static electricity was a bit harder to figure out, but could probably be explained as well.

At the same time bewildered and frightened, he froze in his tracks just outside his room and leaned hard against the wall, clenching his fists until the knuckles turned white.

No… no… Please, God, no… Not again.

Eli listened for the distant sound of emergency sirens, or, the telltale howling of wind, as if he half expected a new spot storm to come tearing into the house at any moment. It wasn't totally out of the realm of possibility. No one had expected yesterday's storm, right?

Fortunately, he heard nothing of the sort. Instead, all that reached his ears was the welcoming sound of laughter from downstairs and a slight thud as the H/C system settled into its' hourly cycle. The hall lights finally went back to normal, and the static charge in the air dissipated, as if it'd never been there.

The boy breathed a tentative sigh of relief – satisfied, for the moment, that everything was okay – and finally walked into his room. But what was inside was far from relieving, in any way whatsoever.

He'd always left the light up at half-brightness, if only so he didn't have to turn it back on again when he came back. His parents hated that. They were always telling him to turn off the light when he wasn't in the room.

Now, Eli was especially glad he had disobeyed them, because, lying prone on the floor at the foot of his bed was a body.

Eli once again froze in fear and flattened himself against the wall. He hastily turned the light up all the way, if only to make this whole experience a bit less terrifying.

At first, he refused to look, but curiosity got the best of him (when did it not for any twelve year-old?), and pretty soon, a two second glance had turned into a stare.

It was a sight Eli would never forget.

Perhaps most shocking was that this body was of another boy, possibly even Eli's age, though a bit on the short side for a pre-teen. He sported a head of long, unkempt brown hair that looked straight out of the '70s, and wore a black and blue winter jacket – minus a sleeve – over a t-shirt and dirty sweatpants. His face was battered, bloody, and swollen, like he'd been in a nasty fight with someone.

And lost.

Badly, too, judging from the blood spattered down the front of his jacket, and pooled on the floor at his feet.

At first, Eli thought that the kid was dead, but then the body stirred, and now he could see him breathing.

He was alive.

"Grandpa!" Eli cried out.

Mark was running.

He didn't know why, or even what he was running from. It could also be that he was running after something, trying to chase it down. The only thing he knew for certain was that he just had to keep on running.

Despite it being winter, the air was not cold at all. If anything, the atmosphere was almost uncomfortably warm. Yet running at full tilt through the woods, no bitingly cold or oppressively humid air current blew into his face. In fact, there was no wind out here at all.

That struck Mark as a bit odd.

Still, he refused to let it bother him. After all, he was no meteorologist.

Let the experts figure out why there's no wind…

And somehow, the snow had disappeared as well.

…or why it's suddenly not winter any more.

Weird.

It mattered little as he passed the tree line and finally exited the woods. All of a sudden, he remembered:

Henry.

Henry had all but promised to kill Susan and Wallace – his own parents! – and Mark's father, Jack, in cold blood only moments before knocking his cousin out and locking him into an old storm cellar back in the woods. Very near a big old house, in fact. A house that seemed strangely, almost eerily familiar even, yet Mark still couldn't place it. No matter. The where didn't matter quite so much as the when.

When would Henry enact his final plan?

Mark had no idea how his cousin's demented mind worked and… well, he had no idea. Which was why he kept running, not stopping for anything. He wasn't about to give Henry any leeway on this.

Mark suddenly lost his footing on the rocky, uneven ground and tumbled sideways into a pile of dead leaves. Forward momentum meant that he kept rolling for nearly ten feet before coming to a stop.

At least, that's what should have happened.

He found himself falling into a narrow, slope-walled trench that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere in the middle of the yard.

"Ooof!" Mark gasped as he struck the rocky bottom, involuntarily forcing the air from his lungs in a loud whoosh.

Ow…

That hurt.

Once the initial shock of the fall had worn off, he slowly got back to his feet, and almost immediately Mark knew he was in trouble.

The walls of the trench were no longer sloped. Instead, they were flat, vertical dirt faces, with no visible hand or footholds to provide an easy exit. Not to mention it was so deep that he could see nothing but the sky directly overhead.

Nevertheless, Mark stood on tiptoe, stretched his arms as far as they would go, and actually managed to get a tenuous grip on the edge of the trench. Taking advantage of it, he started to pull himself up, and for a short time, Mark actually thought it would work. Unfortunately, he was proven wrong as the ground gave way under his weight, sending him falling – hard – against the opposite side of the trench and showering him with dirt.

All he accomplished was gouging a deep furrow into the dry earth, and nearly burying himself in the process.

Mark struggled out from under the dirt, and in defiance of this failure, he jumped straight into the furrow and started using it to climb out.

Not an easy task, to say the least.

He had to fight tooth and nail for every precious inch, yet it seemed that for every one he gained, he lost two more, the damp earth continually crumbling out from under his feet. And like a giant invisible hand, some kind of powerful and inexplicable force was trying to drag him all the way back into the trench.

That strange energy was once again beginning to course through his body, though the pain was now strangely absent.

Mark continued his ascent, not knowing that he was much closer to his goal than he thought.

He suddenly felt as if he were running again – no, flying – at incredible speeds. A flare of bluish-white light temporarily blinded him and…

Not entirely sure how he'd managed to get there, Mark suddenly found himself back on solid ground, lying face-first in the grass.

For a split second, the translucent and vaguely distorted image of a strange room – and a boy about his age standing over him – filled his field of vision.

And then it was gone.

Eli's mouth hung open in stunned disbelief.

One second, a strange boy was lying half dead on his bedroom floor, and the next, he had vanished into thin air.

His body…

Something…

The boy had seemed to shudder ever so slightly, perhaps like he was trying to get up, but then…

Aside from the pool of blood now soaking into the carpet, it was like the kid had never existed in the first place.

"Eli?! What is it?" his grandfather called out from the hallway.

He had absolutely no idea how to explain this.

No sooner had Mark finally recovered and stood to his feet than fiery pain lanced up his left side, leaving him doubled over and giving him a rude reminder that he'd been in a fight with his cousin.

I didn't lose. But I know I didn't win, either.

Sadly enough, the fact that Henry could be so violent and not even care about the harm he inflicted was no longer a surprise to Mark.

He had witnessed that anger firsthand.

When Henry was like this, there was no stopping him. He would keep going until he had destroyed, killed, or maimed everything he could lay his hands on.

Mark shuddered to think what that would mean for their family.

A loud, horrified cry pierced the air, interrupting Mark's train of thought. He looked up at the house, and now saw that the front door was ajar, with the faint sounds of a scuffle coming from inside.

Gathering what strength he had, Mark started at a dead run across the remainder of the yard, stopping halfway up the front walk only because something in the corner of the boy's eye had caught his attention.

Could it be?

No… He's not supposed to be back yet…

Who else could it be, though?

Mark turned on his heels and faced the driveway.

There it was!

A dark gray Jeep CJ-7 – Arizona license plate 1A3LM9 – with fading paint and a patched canvas top was parked not ten feet away.

Dad! He's back!

For a second, Mark's hopes for a better outcome soared. But then, he inadvertently started putting the pieces together, and those same hopes just as quickly turned into an abysmal fear.

Because… Henry.

The last Jack Evans knew of the situation was that Henry had nearly died trying to save Connie, who had drowned in a tragic accident at the quarry.

If Mark had been able to get in touch with his father at any time over the past several days, he most certainly would have. Unfortunately, Jack had been out of contact since Monday, and no one had been able to reach him.

This meant, among other things, that he had no idea of just how dangerous Henry really was.

Even Henry's own parents didn't know.

Susan was clearly becoming suspicious of their son's behavior; Wallace on the other hand, wasn't, yet he hadn't been quite as adamant about defending Henry since the attempted 'suicide'. Perhaps because Susan had been so quick to lash out at Mark and lay all the blame squarely on him. Wallace had probably thought it through and realized that Mark trying to kill Henry was too out of character for him, even for a boy still confused over the loss of his mother.

Sure, I've got problems. And I don't know if I'll ever really get over Mom's death. But I'm not so confused that I could never harm anyone. I might think about it, sure, like how many times I wanted to hurt Kieran or Murph for what they did to me and everyone else at school, for that matter. And I might've thought about getting back at Henry a few… dozen times, but I'm not a doer. I'm a thinker. I think before I act. It's that simple.

Unfortunately, that wasn't an advantage here.

Thinking took too long, and every moment he spent thinking about the situation, analyzing it to death, was another moment not spent trying to stop Henry.

Now that was simple.

Armed with a new and sudden determination, Mark briskly jogged up the front walk to the porch and then the door. Even though it was ajar, he could hear absolutely nothing from within.

Nothing but an eerie, bone-chilling silence.

And after that scream, silence was the last thing Mark wanted to hear right now.

Taking in a deep breath, he slowly pushed the door open. That is, until it opened about halfway and then just stopped.

Good enough.

Mark squeezed through the gap he'd opened into the surprisingly dark entryway. What he found on the other side made his skin crawl and his eyes bug out of his head in shock and horror.

Wallace lay prone on the floor in a growing pool of blood, a deep knife wound in his back. One hand was outstretched, like he'd been trying to reach for the doorknob and never got the chance before he…

He died.

"No…" Mark whispered to himself. "Uncle Wallace…"

The creaking of floorboards somewhere nearby forced Mark to tear his stunned gaze away from his uncle's body to look for the source.

It didn't take long to find it.

Not ten feet away stood a figure, cloaked in the shadows of the darkened entry hall. Any other person in this situation would have wondered who the intruder was, but Mark didn't even need to see their face.

Even before the lights seemingly turned themselves up, he already knew it was Henry.

His cousin held a long, serrated knife in one hand, blood dripping from the blade. Henry was wearing one of those masks he'd made, but now there was a dark crimson stain across the right eye, and it was almost as if the mask itself had fused to his face.

But that wasn't what made Mark gasp and shudder in horror once again.

Susan lay crumpled on the floor not five feet from her 'son', hazel-green eyes open, glassy, and completely lifeless. Her hands were clutched over her chest, as if she'd been trying to arrest the flow of blood from her body… and failed.

"Why?" was all Mark could ask. It was the only thing he was even capable of saying, through the shock of what he was seeing. Henry had…

Oh, God… he did it. He-he-he k-killed them!

All along Mark had known that Henry was serious about everything he said, and yet, somehow he just couldn't bring himself to believe the idea that Henry would murder his own parents.

It was an unforgivable and unspeakable act.

Then again, almost everything Mark had seen him do was unforgivable and unspeakable.

Henry merely cocked his head, as if in confusion, and remained silent.

"Do you know what you've done?!"

Henry's mouth curved upward in a wicked grin at the question, and only now could Mark see that his cousin's face had literally become the mask.

"Of course," Henry finally replied. "Ya shoulda known better than to ask such a stupid question, Marky. The only thing Susan and Wallace were useful for was to keep the world from finding out about me. But Wallace was too smart for his own good; he didn't completely fall for my fake suicide ruse earlier this week, and actually bothered thinking it through. Unlike Susan, the leap of logic that you had tried to kill me was a bit too much for him. And as for Susan… well… sometime in the past few days, she figured me out all on her own. Don't know how, and frankly, I don't care anymore. Figured it was about time to start with a clean slate. Forget about old Gran and Gramps, too. They'll probably die from the grief alone. We'll be put in the foster care system –"

"'We'?"

Henry snapped his fingers.

"Y'know? I knew I forgot something."

A moment later, he stepped aside, giving Mark a clear view to the very end of the entry hall.

And in that single moment, Mark's world was destroyed.

Jack Evans was slumped against the wall, surrounded by broken glass; blood still trickled from a deep gash in his throat.

Chills of horror and fear – quickly replaced by a blinding rage – shook Mark's frail body like a leaf.

Dad…

"NO!" he screamed, suddenly charging at Henry, fists raised.

Mark hit his cousin right in the nose, only Henry didn't react in the slightest.

That was when everything changed.

It was as if Henry – and the hall behind him – had become nothing more than a two-dimensional image, like a photograph. Only this one was made of glass, which began to shatter at the point of impact, flying outward in all directions; or more precisely, right at Mark.

Was this…

Could it be..?

This could be the end.

He instinctively threw up his arms, even knowing it would probably do no good.

But once again, he found himself engulfed by a blindingly bright light, and then…

Adrenaline surged through his veins, eyes snapped open, and Mark finally returned to reality. He sat bolt upright and took in a deep breath of ice-cold air, burning his lungs. But it no longer bothered him. If anything the cold invigorated him and helped his body wake from its' stupor.

His mind, on the other hand, had never been clearer.

Henry.

His latest threat.

Susan. She was in danger.

In seconds, he went from a sitting position to standing without a problem, despite Henry having beaten him senseless barely an hour earlier. Strangely enough, Mark still felt the pain, but it was far more bearable now.

Consequently, there was no time to lose.

Almost before he knew what was happening, Mark set off at a dead run, feet thudding loudly on the old wood floors, echoing throughout the abandoned Matheson estate. The hallway that Henry had chased him down, the stairs where Henry had first confronted him – and finally dropped the act for good – seemingly went by in a blur of dull colors and dim light that only ended once he reached the front doors.

Mark turned a handle and tried to bodily force one of the doors open, but it didn't move. He rammed his shoulder into it again, thinking it might be stuck – rusted old hinges and all that – and again, the door wouldn't budge, not even a fraction of an inch. Panic started to set in before Mark realized why the door wasn't opening.

The cinderblock.

Henry probably replaced it and then some, on the off-chance I might wake up and try to get out. He thinks he's got me boxed in. Does he? Am I trapped in here?

Mark frantically wound through a list of potential escape routes, and based on what he'd seen of the first floor, there weren't any; at least, no obvious ones.

The cellar was boarded shut – not that it would've offered a viable way out, anyway – as were most of the windows and probably the back door as well.

Wait…

The windows.

Yes! That was it!

Earlier, Mark had briefly glimpsed a big picture window in a room just off the entryway, a room currently less than ten feet away.

The odds that this would hurt him even more were growing by the second and yet, Mark was desperate to escape.

He saw no other option.

With barely a moment's hesitation, he entered the room, backed against the far wall – hoping to gain as much speed and momentum as possible – and charged right at the window, his eyes squeezed shut.

Fortunately for the boy, the window was in extremely poor shape. With the glass badly weathered and cracked by over sixty years of exposure to the elements and the wood lattice holding the panels in place largely rotted through, it gave way with surprising ease.

Even still, shards of glass stung his face, reopening whatever scars from last week that Henry hadn't already.

Mark tumbled into the snow, rolling several feet before coming to rest on his back.

He sprang up, not even bothering to rest, and ran for all he was worth.

Now, it wasn't just his own life on the line.

Susan jolted awake, groaning in pain from the large, throbbing welt on her forehead and the sharp kick that had just been delivered to her ribcage. She tried to move, but quickly found herself immobilized. Her ankles were tightly bound together by a length of twine, while her hands had been tied behind the garage's central support beam.

"Rise and shine… Mommy," a voice called out in a mocking, almost sing-song fashion.

Susan raised her head, slowly and painfully until her eyes met the source of that familiar voice; even partially hidden in the dim light and shadows of the garage, it was unmistakable.

She couldn't have been more shocked if she had tried.

It was…

Henry!

Her firstborn stood over her, arms folded across his chest and a very strange expression on his face. There was an almost sadistic glee, intermixed with a healthy dose of anger and disappointment.

Susan was at a complete loss. She'd only just started having suspicions about Henry and his potentially deceptive nature, yet she never could have suspected he'd do something like this, or that the lies ran this deep.

"Henry… Why?" she croaked.

Henry let out a deep, huffing sigh before responding, his words dripping with sarcasm.

"Really, 'Mom?' 'Why?' Everyone is stuck at that one word question these days. First Christian, then Connie, then Mark, and now you – Susan."

The boy practically spat out his mother's first name.

Totally flabbergasted at the open disrespect made her initially miss the significance of why Henry had listed those names in the first place.

"C-Chris-Christian? As in…"

Henry let out an exasperated groan.

"Christian Penbrook. Yes. Snot-nosed little mutant I couldn't stand from the moment I met him. Sang 'America the Beautiful' in one of the tinniest and most annoying voices ever. Really high-pitched. Grated on my nerves every time I heard that simpering wail. Or whenever he talked, to be honest. Kinda like Mark. Then… Oh, ho, ho… Then he made the biggest – and last – mistake of his pathetic life. He kept dragging his sister Samantha out on these long walks through town and along the shore. Just like you used to with me when I was little. Before Connie. Before... Richard!"

Henry literally spat out the name of his brother, face red and contorted in rage. He backhanded Susan across the face.

"Ahhh!" Susan cried out, as much from the shock as the pain. "Henry!"

"And that… Is just the beginning," Henry said, his voice filled with contempt. "I haven't even begun to pay you back for what you did to me. I went from being number one to number three, forced to play second fiddle to the likes of your little bitch – Connie wasn't even HALF the child I was!" Henry screamed. "What about her was better than me?!"

Susan simply stared at him, too stunned to speak.

"Nothing! Nothing about her was better than me! I just don't understand why you turned away from me like that when she came along. And I could tell, from the very beginning, that I wasn't going to like her; then when she was eight months old, she bit me. Guess the feeling was mutual. And Richard…"

The boy growled.

"Your little 'Blondie Bear' Richie was the absolute worst thing that could've entered my life. As if Connie wasn't bad enough, Richard pulled you so far away from me it was like I hardly mattered to you or 'Dad' those two years. Every waking moment, you spent them with the little rat, fussing over him, and every single one of those moments was one less you spent with me. I was your first, and I should always have been your first, no matter what, no matter who came along. No matter who got between the two of us. Like Christian. You started feeling sorry for the runt – namely the health problems his mother was having at the time – after meeting him at that pre-summer break school party. May 31, 1991, I believe it was. That was the last straw. You'd focused an inordinate amount of time on one too many people that weren't me. And I had to get your attention back. Not to mention Christian's damn walks had gotten between me and Samantha. I liked her – loved, even – and it went beyond just being 'friends' or having a crush. Didn't you ever wonder why I always asked for her to babysit when I was younger?"

His mother gaped, shuddering in revulsion at what Henry had just admitted. She was still trying to process this sudden flood of unwanted information, let alone respond to them; no words seemed appropriate, to be honest.

Henry was just opening his mouth to speak again when he suddenly lost his train of thought, too engrossed in Susan's reaction to think clearly. And for a time he simply stood there, first scratching his chin, then scratching the back of his head, to grinding his teeth and punching himself in the side of the head, all the while incoherently muttering to himself.

"Please, Henry…" Susan pleaded, leaning forward against the ropes. "Sweetheart, I love you. Honestly."

Appearing contemplative for a few moments, Henry finally resumed speaking aloud.

"Mom, what's it like… to feel sad?" he asked. For the first time in the past few minutes, he was dead serious.

Susan blanched, but said nothing.

Again, what could she possibly say? This was the most impossible of impossible situations. No amount of parenting advice could prepare you for your firstborn child essentially taking you hostage.

But…

He knows what being sad is like, doesn't he?

Shouldn't he?

"I…" Susan began, searching for her words, "You… at Richard's funeral service. You cried then. I saw you – so did your father. Even your Uncle Jack saw you crying, Henry. We all did. After- after Connie, too… You-you know what it's like to feel sad."

Henry nodded rather unexpectedly. "I do. I learned how from watching your reaction after the little runt got what was coming to him. What he deserved after taking what belonged to me. That toy whale was mine. Mine before it was his. And it never really was his, was it, then? All it took for justice to be done was a phone call and six inches of bath water."

Six inches of water…

For a moment, all his mother could do was to stare at him, as if he'd just spoken incomprehensible gibberish. Then the realization of what he'd just said – what he'd just admitted – struck her full force, and Susan fell back against the beam, completely deflated. Her first thoughts were ones of disbelief, that maybe, for some strange reason, Henry was making all this up.

It seemed quite unlikely.

The idea that Henry had purposefully drowned Richard – his little brother – was horrifying, to say the least.

Susan audibly gulped, revulsion threatening to overwhelm her.

And a moment later, it did as she threw up onto the floor.

Henry merely stood by, watching and waiting impatiently until she was finally done.

"Finally!" he exclaimed. "I thought you were about to start puking out your own stomach, woman. Wouldn't that have been a sight to see? Now, where was I? Ah, yes: Justice."

Wind whistled in Mark's ears as he ran almost blindly through the woods, the cold stinging his face. Underbrush and low-hanging branches whipped past him in a blur of color, scratching at the exposed skin on his face and hands. He stumbled – nearly tripping – on tree roots and fallen branches hidden in the snow.

But he never faltered.

And he never slowed his pace.

Because once again, a member of his family was in danger.

Only this time, Mark knew – really, truly, knew – just how dark his cousin was. He'd witnessed true evil firsthand.

And somehow, he'd survived.

Lord only knew how much time had passed while Mark was unconscious, but even if it was as little as half an hour, Henry already had a massive head start on him.

The words, "Hey! No fair!" echoed faintly in the back of his head.

Somehow, Henry always had the advantage.

Susan was heartbroken, angry, and disgusted all at the same time. Her mind was flooded with contradictory emotions, so many that it threatened to overwhelm her at any moment.

A single tear rolled down her face, and then another.

Henry scoffed.

What now?

Was he amused? Disgusted?

Susan had since stopped trying to gauge her son's emotional state. It was an almost impossible task now.

If he even has one…

Yet still, some part of her held out hope for her boy.

"Henry, please..." she pleaded.

"Whatever you have to say, I couldn't care less," Henry remarked rather snidely as he turned away from his mother and went to busy himself with something on the far side of the garage.

Susan's mind was going into panic mode.

In less than two hours, she had somehow lost complete control of Henry.

And Mark was dead. Jack would be devastated.

She was just beginning to wonder how this day could get any worse when she saw Henry light a match and drop it into a cardboard box full of scrap paper. At first, all Susan could see was a small wisp of smoke rising into the air. But then there was a flickering orange glow as the fire finally ignited, rapidly consuming the paper before setting the box itself alight.

A wicked grin turned up the corners of Henry's mouth.

After a moment of paralyzing fear, Susan screamed her husband's name as loud as she could.

"WALLACE!"

Henry cringed, holding his hands to his ears. Yet he kept smiling.

"He's not going to hear you, Susan. In case you were wondering about the old blankets covering the wall, that's to muffle the sounds of your pathetic cries for help. So scream all you want, woman. Help's not coming."

In that moment, an old moth-eaten blanket draped over the workbench caught fire, and, Henry took Richard's toy whale from his jacket.

He dangled it in front of Susan – taunting her.

"See? It's mine. Just like you used to be, before Mark somehow made you doubt me. I couldn't have that. Not if I'm to make my own place in this world."

He spat at her feet before turning to leave.

Susan could do nothing but stare at this boy who was once her son, but was now a stranger to her.

"Who… who are you?" she asked, her voice nearly breaking.

"I was your son. And just to make things perfectly clear, I've never loved you. I've always hated you, and this pathetic group of people we call our 'family' and 'friends'. The more pathetic of the bunch knew me all too well. Richard, Connie, Mark… and Christian Penbrook. They all saw through me. And for that, they had to die. Now, so do you."

Susan gasped in horror.

"Goodbye, mother…" he sneered.

With that, he exited the garage, slamming the door closed and bolting it behind him.

Susan fell back against the beam, overcome by despair.

She was crushed.

Twelve years of her life devoted to being the best mother she could be, and it was all for nothing.

"Henry…" she whimpered before descending into a coughing fit from the growing cloud of smoke.

Almost there… Almost there…

Jack Evans had been repeating these words to himself over and over, on and off, for the past several days.

Monday had been a bittersweet ending to this business trip. Jack's company, Phoenix Software Incorporated, was getting a breath of fresh air and a new lease on life after over a week's worth of negotiations with Japanese electronics mogul Katsuo Hashimoto had successfully netted PSI its' first foreign investor. Not only that, Jack had secured the company a $250,000 loan and received a personal check from Hashimoto for $15,000, to be used however he saw fit.

Jack had been quite surprised at the man's generosity, but also knew that he had to deliver on what he'd promised and that Hashimoto expected results fairly soon. A year was a long time for the average person, but for a business owner like Jack, to expect a significant turnaround in that timeframe – especially with how far PSI had sunk in the past six months alone – was perhaps asking a bit much. Still, Jack would do his damnedest to make up for lost time and put the company back on track.

As much as Janice's medical bills would permit, of course.

The family health insurance plan could only cover so much, not to mention that most of their hard-earned savings had been all but wiped out.

There was still a long and hard road ahead – for him and Mark – but Jack was now convinced that the absolute worst was behind them.

Or so he thought.

While his ten hour flight from Tokyo to San Francisco had been largely uneventful, his return to the States had been far from it.

To start, his flight into Boston's Logan Airport had been cancelled due to a potentially severe winter storm front expected over New England by mid-week. Unwilling to wait nearly two days for the next available flight, Jack decided to rent a car at San Francisco International and drive back to Boston himself, where he'd pick up the Jeep from long-term parking at Logan before finally heading up to Rock Harbor.

The three and a half day slog across the country had seemed quite a bit longer than the last one, possibly because Jack didn't have Mark to keep him company this time around. The icy conditions on some of the roads in the northern Plains and the lower Great Lakes' states didn't help, either. He was an experienced and very defensively-oriented driver who had been on the road countless hours before on business trips.

Yet by the time Jack had reached Boston, he was exhausted, running on little more than strong coffee and the thought of seeing his son again. A multi-car accident on the I-80 west of Chicago and the ensuing traffic jams had tested Jack's patience and skill to the limit. Somehow, he'd made it.

He went as far as getting into the Jeep and warming it up before coming the critical realization that he was in no condition to drive even the mere four hours up to Rock Harbor.

Jack knew he'd be of little use to his son if he fell asleep at the wheel, and so checked in to a hotel on the airport grounds for some much needed rest.

That was all after 9:00 last night.

Now, he was less than five minutes out from Wallace's, and already Jack's nerves were a bit on-edge.

Perhaps it was due to an overwhelming sympathy for the situation his brother's family now found itself in, or possibly a nagging feeling of guilt for leaving Mark for so long. But most of all, he was worried that Mark would blame him for leaving in the first place. Despite having explained it to his son many times over the course of their trip out to Maine – and contrary to Mark's assurance that he did – Jack wasn't certain that Mark really understood.

He was still quite young after all, and this whole situation was a bit much to ask of a twelve year-old to easily cope with.

He only said that he understood to keep me from worrying. Just like him…

Thinking of others first.

Mark was the best Jack could have hoped for in a child.

Every parent should be so lucky.

Wallace sat at the dining room table, his head bowed in worry and hands clenched about a nearly empty water glass. The near-constant misery he'd been in over the past twenty-four hours had been replaced with worry the moment Susan had bolted from the house in a panic that Henry was going to try and kill himself.

Again.

If Susan was right, this would be the second time in less than a week that their eldest – and last – child had tried to commit suicide. At least it was by Wallace's count. Susan probably still refused to believe that the 'incident' in the basement on Sunday night had been the first.

Why?

Why would Henry try to kill himself? There was no way he could have prevented what happened to Connie. None at all. And no matter how guilty Susan or I felt about Richard's accident, neither of us went so far as trying to commit suicide.

What was wrong with this family?

So much pain and anguish in so short a time…

What had the Evans family done to deserve this?

Where did it all go wrong? Am I that bad of a parent that Henry would resort to something so drastic before turning to me or Susan?

Am I?

"Are you what, Dad?"

Wallace had been so deep in thought that he all but jumped out of his skin at hearing the voice, not even realizing that he'd asked the question aloud. He knocked over the glass he'd been holding, spilling what was left of the ginger ale onto the table.

He looked up to see Henry standing just inside the dining room, looking a bit disheveled and his hair so mussed up it hid one of his eyes, but otherwise, little the worse for wear.

Not at all what Wallace had been expecting after hearing what he had from Susan, and after finding the torn up scarf, hat, and coat sleeve – all spattered in blood – lying in the entryway near the foot of the stairs.

There was still a reddish flush to Henry's face, so clearly he had been outside; recently, too, judging by the fact that he still wore a dark green bomber jacket and a red wool scarf. The boy dropped his wool cap and heavy gloves onto the table, as if he hadn't even noticed that his father had just spilled a partial glass of ginger ale, and made no move to help. Instead, he went into the kitchen and came back out with a pitcher of milk in hand, which he was drinking straight out of.

In years past, Susan would have mixed up several batches of eggnog by now, but this Christmas season, no one in this household felt like they had anything to celebrate or feel happy about. A tree, let alone decorations – both inside and out – had been all but forgotten, first in preparing for Mark's arrival, then in the chaos after the accident at the quarry. Presents for Henry and Connie, plus a few for Mark were still hidden away, unwrapped, in the closet in the master bedroom, and there they would stay for the time being.

It did not feel like Christmas Eve.

To top it all off, here was his son, casually violating several of the most basic, unspoken house rules.

What next?

Wallace hardly felt like raising his voice at the moment, or being a firm disciplinarian, yet that was exactly what he had to do, and he did it.

"Henry!" he exclaimed, rising from his chair so fast he nearly tipped it over backwards. "What on earth do you think you're doing?!"

Henry initially failed to respond; instead he finished a long drink from the pitcher and set it aside on the far end of the table before wiping his mouth off on his coat sleeve.

"Just takin' a drink," he replied rather offhandedly. "Ain't I allowed to take a drink in this house?"

Wallace stalked across the room and stood over his son, glowering. This was very unlike Henry, to be openly defiant, walking all over the house rules like they were little more than scrap paper. Under any other circumstance, Wallace might have given his son the benefit of the doubt and used a firm, but relatively gentle tone to keep Henry in line. But the forty-six year-old father had expended much of his energy fighting this stomach bug – and Susan – leaving him with a very short temper today, and was most definitely not in the mood for this kind of disobedience.

He clapped a firm hand on Henry's shoulder and sat him down at the table, all while staring daggers at the boy, who was seemingly unfazed at his father's show of anger.

"Now would you care to tell me what that was all about?!" Wallace snapped.

"Dunno," Henry shrugged, feigning cluelessness.

Wallace sighed in frustration, pinching at the bridge of his nose. Henry was seriously trying his patience…

"Don't even think of playing dumb here, mister. First off, you didn't lift a finger to help clean up the table. Instead, you toss your stuff onto it like it's your bed. Then you drank right out of the milk, which is unsanitary as hell and downright rude. Is it so hard to drink from a glass like everyone else? Apparently so, because you're acting like a slob. And that is most definitely not how your mother and I raised you. What do you have to say for yourself Henry Daniel Evans?"

"Nothing that I can think of off the top of my head," was Henry's only response, a rather smart-mouthed one at that.

Now nearing the end of his rope, Wallace snapped.

"THAT'S IT!" he roared. "Go to your room, young man! You're grounded!"

Henry rolled his eyes, and didn't budge a solitary inch from his seat.

"Why? I didn't do anything wrong."

"Disrespecting your father, for one thing! GO! NOW!"

A sigh escaped Henry's mouth as he got up to leave.

"Fine," he grumbled. "I wanted some alone time anyways."

Wallace could do little but stare after his son as Henry walked from the room.

Actually making their kids keep on the straight and narrow was Susan's job half the time, while Wallace himself was more like her 'bogeyman' or enforcer. This stemmed from Wallace having been on frequent business trips – and thus fairly often absent – the first six years of Henry's life. That very well might have something to do with his current hostility.

Wait.

Susan…

"Henry!" Wallace called out, suddenly far less angry and a little more worried.

He jogged after Henry and caught up to his son in the entryway.

"Your mother… She ran out looking for you not thirty minutes ago. She thought…"

Henry cocked his head to the side, appearing confused.

"Thought what, Dad?" he asked.

After contemplating for a moment, Wallace shook his head. It was better not to say anything in the event that Susan had been wrong.

Better not give Henry any more bad ideas…

"Did you see her outside? She ran after you like a bat out of hell."

"After me? Dad, I haven't seen Mom since I left with Mark earlier. The two of us got separated walking in the woods, so Mark must've assumed I was lost and come back looking for help to find me."

Wallace could've sworn he'd heard Henry come in earlier, yelling for Susan at the top of his lungs.

It could've been Mark… I couldn't hear the conversation all that well, so it's possible.

"So I guess, in a way, Mom did come after me," Henry continued. "Maybe she got turned around, and couldn't find her way back. After all, it is pretty easy to do. After a while every tree starts to look the same, even for someone who's grown up around here."

Wallace couldn't help but nod in agreement.

Go too deep in the woods without knowing the exact path to take, and you were liable to wind up in entirely unfamiliar territory.

"You're positive you didn't see – or hear – her out there anywhere?"

Henry shook his head.

"I didn't. Almost made it to the walls of the old Matheson estate, then all the way back here, and I didn't run into her – or Mark."

"Absolutely certain?" Wallace asked.

Henry nodded affirmatively.

"Positive," he replied.

His father sighed.

"Dad? Is something going on with Mom?"

"I'm not sure, son. I need some time to figure this out."

"If you need me to do anything, anything at all, just name it," said Henry.

Wallace did his best to inject a sense of calm into his voice as he spoke:

"Just… go up to your room. Please. I would greatly appreciate it."

Henry blinked a few times, after which a sudden look of humility crossed his face, and he nodded, almost without hesitation. Maybe even a little too quickly.

For now, Wallace did nothing to question it. He was simply relieved that Henry was cooperating.

"Okay. And I'm really sorry, Dad. I don't know what I was doing. To be honest, I wasn't thinking clearly."

That's a bit of an understatement, but I'll take it.

"I'm sorry if I overreacted. I guess with everything that's happened recently, we're all a bit on edge."

Wallace gave Henry a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

It was just enough for him to see the black eye his son had kept hidden under his normally well-combed hair.

Where'd he get that?

Wallace had little time to ponder this as the kitchen phone suddenly rang, followed by Henry turning on his heels and heading upstairs.

He'd talk to Henry later. This time, he'd give the boy the benefit of the doubt.

Could be that he just hit his face on a tree or something…

Not.

The telltale signs of a fistfight were unmistakable. He and his two brothers had seen – and been involved in – more than their share of schoolyard brawls over the years.

Wallace sighed once again.

With all that'd happened in the past week, he was certain that a phone call couldn't make it any worse.

He was so very wrong.

"Hello?"

"Wallace! It's Alice Davenport."

"Alice?"

"Wallace, I'm sorry if I woke you. I know you haven't been feeling well lately, but there's something I have to tell you."

Wallace could hear the anxiety in her voice.

It was a bit unnerving, considering almost nothing fazed Alice.

"No, no I was already awake. What is it? Are you all right, Alice?"

A few seconds of silence passed before she responded.

"Wallace, I… You…" Alice stammered nervously.

Wallace was becoming seriously concerned. In all the years he'd known Alice, he'd never heard her talk like this before.

Never.

Not even in the troubled times after Richard's death, when Wallace and Susan had both felt like their marriage was hanging on by little more than a thread.

"Alice, what is it?"

"I-I can't say… not right now. This… I can't tell you everything over the phone, is what I mean. It would take far too long, and we don't have the time. I will, however tell you this: there is something wrong with Henry."

Wallace sighed.

"Tell me something I don't know, Alice. Susan ran from the house not half an hour ago, claiming that Henry was going to try and kill himself again."

"What?!" Alice exclaimed.

"And then Henry just came back a little while ago, quite on the defiant side, and to top it off, he has no idea what his mother was talking about. I can't even begin to make sense of all this."

He groaned.

"I must be losing my mind," he said in a low, exasperated voice.

"Wallace! Listen to me! You cannot, under any circumstances, let that son of yours out of your sight. Do your hear me? He is dangerous."

"What are you trying to say, Alice?"

"I'm saying…"

Mark's adrenaline was still surging as he neared the edge of the woods, feet pounding the frozen, snow-covered earth, cold wind whistling in his ears, and long brown hair occasionally whipping into his face. He was so singularly focused on getting back to the house and stopping Henry that he very nearly missed the fact that the old garage – and Henry's demented workshop – was on fire, a column of thick, black and gray smoke crawling into the sky.

He skidded to a stop after hearing a loud, piercing scream of pain coming from the garage.

What's he done now? Set it on fire, obviously.

Okay, then what for?

And who's in there?

These last questions answered each other.

The answer was obvious, and more chilling than the air around him.

No…

It couldn't be…

And yet, sadly enough, I believe it…

Susan!

Henry had trapped his mother inside, hoping to burn her alive and obscure the evidence of his involvement all at once. No one would ever suspect an 'innocent' twelve year-old boy of such a heinous crime and everyone would assume that it was simply the latest in a long line of terrible accidents to befall the Evans family.

"SUSAN!" Mark cried.

A loud crash of falling timber from within the garage drowned out his aunt's response, but Mark knew she was there. And she needed his help.

Now.

But how?

There!

On the near side of the garage, the blaze had already eaten a gaping hole through the wall, though which billowed a cloud of smoke and tongues of flame. Even this far away, Mark could feel the heat.

He knew what he had to do.

With hardly a second thought to the contrary, Mark raised his coat up over his head, took in a deep breath of the ice-cold air, and charged headlong into the burning building.

"NO! NO, GODDAMMIT!" a voice roared through the house.

Wallace whirled around, startled.

What the…?

"LET SUSAN DIE! WHAT DID SHE EVER DO FOR YOU?!"

Wallace's eyes bugged out of his head and his face blanched in shock.

That was Henry!

He dropped the phone and ran in the direction his son's voice had come from. Henry hadn't gone upstairs at all. Instead, he was in the sun room in the southwest corner of the house, still wearing his outdoor clothes and staring out the window, gesturing wildly and angrily screaming at something.

Only when he was closer to the windows did Wallace realize that the old garage was on fire.

"Dammit, Mark! Always ruining everything! I'll kill you this time if I have to!"

"Henry!" Wallace barked.

The boy wheeled around and spat in his father's direction.

"Piss off!" Henry snapped.

"That's it!" his father yelled. He moved to grab his son by the shoulder, but the fact that the nearly middle-aged man was still in recovery and had been bedridden – without food – for the past twenty-four hours gave Henry an advantage, allowing him to escape with ease.

Wallace ran after the boy, now both angry and confused as to what was going on.

Henry darted through the foyer – this time managing to avoid slipping on the rug – making as much of a mess as he could to slow his father down, from breaking a lamp on the rug to tipping over the deacon's bench in the middle of the floor.

By the time Wallace had cleared the impromptu obstacle course, Henry was already out the door and running down the front walk like a bat out of hell.

Wallace quickly threw on a pair of shoes, grabbed his coat off the rack, and ran as fast as he could after his son.

The muted rattle of a car engine and the crunch of tires on the snow reached his ears just in time to see a faded, dark gray Jeep coming up the driveway. The vehicle skidded to a stop just behind the family van, its' brakes screeching in mild protest.

Jack had returned, and not a moment too soon.

"Jack!" Wallace called out, as much from anxiety as relief.

"Wallace, what's going on? I could see the smoke a half a mile away. And Mark. Where's Mark at?"

"Alice told me… Something wrong with Henry… He may have hurt Susan… hurt Mark…"

Even with as little information as he had on the situation, and despite his surprise, that was all Jack needed; he bolted across the yard, following in Henry's wake. Wallace followed as quickly as his fatigued, slightly malnourished body would allow.

Henry was nearing the small stand of trees that partly surrounded the old garage, but his desperate sprint from the house had left him focused on getting there, not on the once-carefully memorized assortment of potential obstacles – roots, rocks, even slight divots in the ground – scattered across the yard and currently buried under a foot of snow. Until now, he had prided himself in knowing that each and every step he took was a safe one.

His left foot caught on a root and sent Henry sprawling face first into the snow.

A moment of concern for the boy had Jack running a bit faster. Henry spluttered, spitting dirty snow from his mouth as he got back on his feet.

"You all right, Henry?"

Henry started, not expecting his Uncle Jack to be here so soon.

Back at the eleventh hour to save Mark…

Too little, too late.

The look of surprise and mild shock on Henry's face was quickly replaced by one of cold malevolence and hatred.

"Uncle Jack…" Henry said through clenched teeth, his voice dripping with venom. "Back so soon? Aren't you supposed to be halfway around the world trying to save your half-assed business from tanking? Tsk, tsk. Abandoning your son so soon after the weak-willed and sickly bag of bones you called a wife checked out for good… Bad move. And now, you're here to bail your boy out of danger. Isn't that just so adorably pathetic?"

Jack stared at his nephew, both stunned and incensed.

This was the last thing he'd expected upon returning. All Jack had known up to this point was that Henry had risked his own life trying to save Connie and nearly drowned in the process. He'd even felt a certain sympathy, knowing very much what it was like to lose a close and beloved family member.

Now the boy was being highly insensitive, hurling insults, and swearing.

The abrupt and rather disturbing change in Wallace and Susan's firstborn had left Jack in a quandary.

"You hear that, Marky?!" Henry called out. "Daddy's here to save you, you miserable, worthless little shit!"

The only response he got – aside from Jack grabbing his arm – was a loud groaning and cracking noise as the compromised structure of the garage tilted to one side at an alarming angle.

Henry did little more than laugh at the thought of Susan, and now Mark's, impending fate. Why he had been so worried that Mark would somehow rescue the woman, he'd never know for sure. Perhaps it was simply the idea that his plan had been foiled that had triggered his extreme response, which, in and of itself was a problem. Chances were pretty high that his 'good son face', as Mark had called it, had been seen through by just about everyone.

Alice Davenport had somehow figured him out all by herself, using clues likely handpicked by Mark and played up for maximum effect.

She would have to go.

Susan, too, had somehow seen through him. It was the way she looked into Henry's eyes, starting just after his return from the hospital, that'd clued him in.

I was just repeating the whole 'I love you, too' spiel, like a million times before. What changed?

Surely there was no truth to the 'eyes are the windows to the soul' crap.

Was there?

It mattered little, since she was about to die, anyway.

No one could ever know that she'd seen even a small part of his true face.

And now he'd gone and likely blown his cover in front of Wallace of all people, who, until now, had been the least of Henry's worries.

The same applied to Jack.

Both of them would need to be silenced.

The only trouble was Henry needed time to think up a way to manipulate his father and uncle into turning on each other and Davenport – kill three loudmouth birds with one stone, almost literally.

But time, unfortunately, was a luxury Henry had very little of at the moment.

"BURN!" Henry screamed. "Burn and …"

He violently wrenched himself from Jack's grip and bolted for the garage.

"…DIE!" he yelled over his shoulder.

Ignoring the suffocating heat from the blaze, Henry kicked away the long-handled pry bar he'd jammed under the door handle, took the red-hot handle in his hands and flung the door open. He was greeted by a blast of heat, smoke, and flame that turned his face red, as well as forcing acrid, smoky tears from his eyes. Henry simply stood there in the heat and smoke, hoping for a glimpse of Susan – and Mark – burning alive. Which, in and of itself was a bit of a disappointment for Henry, who had originally wanted to kill both of them with his own hands.

Still, beggars can't be choosers, he thought to himself.

Both number one targets down, three to go.

With Mark and Susan now out of the way, he could –

Wait a minute…

The unfamiliar feeling of uncertainty and, perhaps a twinge of fear, led him to backpedal as far away as he dared.

A faint, rasping cough reached Henry's ears just in time to see two bedraggled figures emerge from the smoke and confirm his suspicion.

His mother and Mark were still, somehow, alive.

The uncertainty and nascent fear evaporated, replaced by intense anger and hate welling up from deep within him. Quickly overcoming the shock at this unexpected development, Henry surged forward, only to be stopped by someone grabbing at his arm.

Jack.

Henry's first attempt to scream at his uncle merely resulted in a debilitating fit of coughing as his lungs did their best to expel the excessive smoke he had inhaled. He could take in almost as much from a single cigarette, but that was over a period of several minutes – and after exhaling most of it – not a few seconds.

Damn involuntary response.

He then lashed out at Jack, hoping to cause him enough pain to let go. Unfortunately for Henry, Jack easily avoided the wild blow and then used the brief opportunity it presented to restrain him.

In seconds, he had Henry's arms behind his back and an arm around Henry's shoulders. The boy predictably struggled, fighting Jack's grip like a savage animal, but at the moment, nothing could force Jack Evans to let him go.

"Damn you to hell, Mark!" Henry screamed in impotent rage, cheeks now flushed crimson with anger and his eyes bloodshot. "Damn you to hell!"

As Mark and Susan staggered into clearer air, beyond the choking pall of smoke that surrounded the garage, Jack inhaled sharply and his eyes went wide at the sight of his son. Mark's face was a mess of cuts, bruises, and dried blood, one of his eyes was swollen shut, and his hands were wrapped in strips of tattered, singed, and bloody gauze. And with a large black and blue welt forming on her forehead, not to mention the burns on her face, Susan didn't look a whole lot better, either.

What was going on?

I leave Mark here for less than two weeks and everything goes to hell in the meantime…

"What have you done?"

Henry struggled again, but Jack did little more than tighten his grip.

"Reclaiming what is mine," Henry hissed before launching into a tirade comprised largely of curse words directed at Mark.

"HENRY DANIEL EVANS!" Wallace roared, pre-empting Jack, who had been within seconds of yelling right in Henry's ears. "Stop it now, young man! You hear me?!"

Surprisingly enough, Henry stopped and went silent, if only for a few seconds. Then he let loose an only slightly less foul mouthed reply.

"Screw you, old man. Nah, I take that back. Fuck you!"

What sounded like a strangled gargling noise came from Wallace, while Jack was visibly shaken. The brothers were both taken completely aback, and stunned, perhaps enough for Henry to have escaped in those seconds of indecision.

But at the moment, he was enjoying their reactions a bit too much to do so, and for once, wasn't planning two or three steps ahead.

He would soon come to regret those few, wasted seconds.

Quickly recovering from his shock, Wallace raised his arm, as if to strike Henry. He'd finally had enough of the boy's insolence and vulgar language. Such radical change in less than an hour... Even yesterday afternoon, he'd had no idea that his son was capable of such things. And the kind of violence he was witnessing simply wasn't natural in a kid Henry's age.

Or any kid for that matter.

Susan probably hadn't suspected either, which was probably how Henry had been able to catch his mother off-guard. Wallace was still trying to process, and at the moment, not doing very well at it.

He was just about to bring his hand down and smack Henry across the face when someone grabbed his arm from behind.

"Wallace, no!" Susan gasped. "You're better than this!"

"Do you have any idea what this boy has been saying and doing over the past half hour, Susan?!" Wallace exclaimed. "Insulting, defying, and disrespecting me. Not to mention lying right to my face and using more curse words than any kid ought to know. He said he wanted you dead, for God's sake! Enough is enough!"

Wallace again tried to bring his hand down, but Susan held his arm back using what little strength she had left in her.

"Wallace, please!" Susan begged.

"Don't…" a voice from behind them hoarsely croaked. "It's… what he wants… to divide you..."

Wallace stopped fighting Susan, and he turned to see a beaten and bruised Mark standing in the snow not five feet behind him.

"Mark!" Jack cried out.

Mark's tired eyes – or, the eye that wasn't swollen shut – wandered past the seemingly towering figures of his aunt and uncle, and the glowering face of his cousin before settling on his own father, who currently had Henry in a restraining hold.

His lower lip started to tremble, and a tear formed at the corner of his eye.

"Daddy…?" he asked in a barely audible whisper, relieved that this whole ordeal was, at long last, over.

In that moment, the effect of going so long with so little rest, what Henry had done to him, and the stress of what he'd just put his own body through washed over the boy like a tidal wave. Mark finally surrendered to the overwhelming exhaustion, and within seconds, had drifted into a deep, almost blissful sleep. He felt nothing as his knees gave out and his limp, battered body fell face first into the snow.

Despite the fact that his plan, for all intents and purposes, had failed, Henry couldn't help but let out a set of childish giggles and maniacal laughter at seeing Mark fall once again.

Hopefully for good this time.

Just as I thought: in the end, the weak and cowardly fall, while the strong still stand. Serves him right. Little bastard ruined everything!

A look of horror dawned on Susan's face, and Henry could hear the pace of Jack's breathing increase substantially. They both suspected the same thing that Henry was hoping for:

Mark was dead.

Susan abruptly dropped to her knees right beside Mark and reached a slightly trembling hand out to feel for a pulse, silently, desperately praying to herself that she hadn't somehow driven him to this.

"Please, God, please…" she pleaded in a quiet, rasping voice.

After a few agonizingly slow moments, she finally felt it:

A pulse, somewhat faster than normal, but it was there.

Mark was still alive.

"Susan… Is… is he…" Jack stuttered, unable to form a complete or coherent thought at the moment.

"He's-he's all right, Jack," Susan replied, her voice trembling.

Jack gasped in relief, while Wallace briefly hung his head in silent prayer.

Henry's response, on the other hand, was nothing short of livid.

The boy let loose an almost animalistic howl of fury and surged forward against Jack's restraining hold, which had relaxed ever so slightly in the past few minutes. This time, he managed to partially break free and nearly caught Jack off-balance. Henry now redoubled his efforts, clawing, scratching, and even attempting to bite at the arm that pinned his shoulders. For the moment, at least, Jack held on for all he was worth.

Crack!

The shell of the old garage buckled even further as the central support beam finally gave way. For a moment, little else happened. Then, the entire thing collapsed in on itself, releasing a cloud of yet more smoke and glowing embers into the sky. The fire briefly flared up as the last remaining sources of combustible material were exposed to the heat and ignited.

No one bothered to give the whole spectacle even a cursory glance. That is, until the loose embers lit a handful of nearby bushes and trees on fire.

The family reacted as one, but all in very different ways.

Wallace bodily picked Mark up off the ground and carried him a safe distance from the tree line, with Susan following close behind. Jack started to back away, but Henry stood his ground.

The revelation of his true self for all to see had left only two options for Henry:

One of 'those places'.

Or, death.

Of the two, Henry preferred death. He would no longer be able to revel in causing pain and misery, sowing discord and dissent, or savoring the thrill of ending another worthless life. He was somewhat saddened by it, but Henry could not allow these people to lock him away.

Not now, not ever.

NEVER!

An unexpected surge of fear and a heavy dose of panic had him trying yet again to break away from his uncle's restraining hold, but he could do little more than kick and scream obscenities as Jack bodily picked the boy up under his arm and made a mad dash for safety. In a last-ditch effort, Henry bit down hard on Jack's hand.

Jack yelled in pain and abruptly dropped Henry into the snow.

This was the chance Henry had been waiting for, and he quickly took advantage of the ever-present option number three:

Escape.

Henry scrambled to his feet and started running for his life, something he'd never thought he'd have to do in a million years.

He cursed the day Mark had been born.

Head held low and his efforts focused on escape, Henry ran straight into Agent Broyles at the edge of the driveway.

The twelve year-old stumbled backward for a moment, and upon realizing who it was, his face abruptly transformed into a now ill-fitting mask of fright.

"Thank God! Please help!" Henry begged, "My family is trying to hurt me! They're all crazy!"

Broyles glanced over at Nicholas and the older agent let out a grim sigh.

"Nice try, kid," Nicholas replied.

Henry was quick to adopt a look of confusion.

"What are you talking about, sir?" he asked, now seemingly in a state of panic. "These people have been systematically abusing me for years. Even Connie was in on it. She took every opportunity possible to torment me. It's why I was so nervous when you came around. And Mark, he's a victim, too. He tried to stop-"

"It's over, Henry."

Henry looked past Broyles to see Alice Davenport standing nearing the agents' car, an unreadable expression in her hazel eyes. The boy dropped all remaining pretense of innocence and lunged at Alice.

"BITCH!" he screamed, making Alice flinch. "You…"

Broyles clapped his hands down on Henry's shoulders and abruptly yanked him back.

"You can't stop me! No one stops Henry Evans and gets away with it! No one!"

A loud wailing noise, faint at first, grew steadily louder until everyone recognized it as the sound of multiple emergency sirens, confirmed by the sight of a fire truck, an ambulance, and two police cruisers pulling into the driveway.

Wallace, Susan, and Jack all looked on in a combination of relief and dread.

Events had come full circle from two years ago.

Henry's eyes went wide and he started to shake in fear and apprehension because for the first time in his life, he had completely and utterly lost control. And now, he had no idea of what would happen next.

It terrified him.

"NNNOOOOOOO!"

A/N: Okay, not exactly half the chapter, more like 2/3rds or 3/4ths of it. A lot just happened, didn't it? I'll try to explain some of it the best I can.

As for what happened to Mark at the end of Part 1/beginning of Part 2, well... that'll have to wait. But it will be explained later on, I assure you.

As for Henry's rapid breakdown. Is it plausible? I believe so. There will never be an in-universe explanation on how or why it occurred. But I figured that upon leaving Mark at the Matheson estate and Susan locked in the garage, Henry thought they were as good as dead and quickly grew overconfident in his own abilities. He essentially tripped on his ego and became his own worst enemy.

I apologize for how very long this has taken. No promises on getting Chapter 21 out this month, but maybe, just maybe next month. And I am very much determined to finish this before the end of 2017.

To anyone who has stuck with me and followed the story all this time, I thank you for your patience.

As before, reviews, comments, and constructive criticism are all especially welcome.