"Tara, you were loved. I saw the family pictures. You with your horse-"
A quick smile. "Rhonda."
"-and your brother."
A frown. "Little brat. What a loser he turned out to be."
"Tara, how can you be like this?" Every humane impulse and emotion seemed to have leached out of her. "Losing you destroyed their lives. That's how important you were. I can't believe you mean this."
"Believe it!" Cold rage disfigured her features. "I was ripped from my life and brought down here to this place where I was surrounded by thirteen men. One of them cut out my still-beating heart while the rest watched."
Gia's free hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, dear God!"
"Not one of them moved to stop him." Her tone was frigid, flat. "No one came to save me. After that they sliced my heart into thirteen pieces and ate them."
The horror of it pushed bile to the back of Gia's throat. "And you were awake... through it all?"
"No. I was drugged. But I know what was done. So don't tell me what's me and what's not. You may think you know me but you don't. I was a happy girl. I had my whole life ahead of me, endless opportunities. Now I have none."
"I'm sorry, Tara. But still..."
"The Tara you saw in those pictures is dead. Long dead. She died under that knife." She pulled open her blouse to reveal the empty bloody cavity of her chest. "The new Tara is heartless!"
Gia stumbled back a step. "But I never hurt you. Why do you want to hurt me?"
"I don't. I don't care about you. It wants you dead."
"It? What it?" All Gia could think of was Jack's Otherness.
"I don't know. I only know it brought me back to kill you."
Kill her... dear God, someone, something wanted her dead.
"Why?" What had she ever done?
"I don't know and I don't care. I'd be happy to leave you alive just for spite. All I want is your baby."
"But you tried to kill me, bury me like... like Charlie."
Gia bit back a sob. Oh, God, poor Charlie.
"I did. But then I realized that if you die here with your baby, you'll keep it. I'll never have it then."
"But the baby's just a clump of cells now. What would you do with-?"
"It would be mine! I would have something of my own then! I have nothing now!" Tara inched closer. Her voice edged toward a whine. "Come on, pretty lady. You can have another. Just let me reach inside you and squeeze, just once. You won't feel a thing. Then you can go."
Her hand darted forward but Gia slashed at it with the cross and Tara snatched it back.
"It's not fair!" Tara screamed. "You can have all the children you want and you won't give me one! I hate you!" She stepped back and cooled her mood like turning a switch. "All right. You won't put down that cross? Fine. I know a way to take it from you."
Tara disappeared, then popped into view a dozen feet away. Gia stood tense and ready, holding the cross before her, watching for a trick. Then she noticed movement to her left... Charlie's hands jutting up from the dirt... limp and cold and splayed when she'd left them... the fingers twitching now... stretching, clenching... rising from the earth...