She pulled a blade from a sheath tucked in her boot and brought it down like a hammer. I caught her wrist at the last second, but my arms shook as the blade pressed closer.
Look for a weakness.
With all her energy focused on the knife, she left her side wide open. Using my grip on her wrist as leverage, I brought my knee up and into her ribs. She cried out and shrank away.
I scooped up my gun, shot. One bullet to the head. She dropped where she stood.
I slid my gun in the waistband of my pants and ran to the row of four-wheelers. There were keys already in the ignition.
“Thank you,” I muttered to no one. I climbed on and started it up, throttling the gas.
I sped out the bay door.
Wind cut through my clothes and bit at my exposed skin. The tire tracks of the four-wheeler were easier to follow than Will’s footprints, and before long, I’d left the town behind. I followed the tracks through a patch of dense woods and came out the other side on a railroad line. I could just make out Will’s figure up ahead, maybe a mile and a half away at most.
I twisted the throttle and the four-wheeler shot forward. Will noticed me with a quick glance over his shoulder.
The tracks curved inward, hugging a sandhill covered in patches of snow. Rays of sunlight shone over the top, blinding me, so that when I finally drove into the shadow of the hill, I didn’t notice the figure leaping toward me until it was too late.
Will knocked me from my seat. We slammed onto the ground, and the four-wheeler careened down the tracks before hitting one of the rails and flipping over on itself.
I bucked Will off me and reached for my gun, but he caught me with a backhanded slap, and the gun flew out of my grasp. Stars winked in my vision. I scurried over the tracks, fingers scraping against the old railroad ties. A loose one wobbled beneath me, and I felt the sharp pressure of a sliver in my index finger and another in my thumb. I bit back the pain and reached for the gun, just inches away, when a shot went off behind me and a burning, flaring sensation raced up my thigh, vibrating through every nerve in my body.
I screamed and clutched at my leg, my hand coming away wet with blood.
Will loomed over me. He had a cell phone in his hand. “Riley,” he said, “I’m on the railroad tracks about a mile south of Neason Road. I need a truck.”
Tears streamed down my face. My leg throbbed with the pulse of my heart, and the pain only seemed to get worse, sinking through muscle and bone, aching in a place that was both physical and mental.
“Have they been taken care of?” Will asked. He waited for the reply. “Well, get on it, then.”
He hung up and slid the phone in his pocket. He crouched beside me. “Let me see,” he said and pushed my hands away. “I tried to get a clean shot, something that wouldn’t cause too much permanent damage.” He pressed against the wound with his fingers, and I arched back, sobbing as the pain laced its way to the center of my gut.
“You’ll be fine,” he decided. “Look at me, Anna.”
I sucked in a breath and glanced over at him. “I will take care of you. I promise,” he said, the sharp angles of his face softening in the golden light. “I fixed you once before. I can do it again.”
“Don’t kill them,” I said. “The boys. Please.”
Will shook his head. “You’re better off without them. We all are. I never should have let Connor talk me into rehabilitating them. We should have cut our losses and—”
I wrapped my hand around the loose railroad tie, sand gritting beneath my fingernails.
Anger and pain and heartache and hope all mixed together and cannoned up my body.
I swung, hitting Will on the side of the head. He fell back. I grabbed my gun, buried the burn of the gunshot in my leg, and stood to my feet.
Will looked up at me, sadness etched in the space between his eyes. He parted his lips as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t even know where to start.
Instead, he said only, “I’m sorry, Anna,” right before I pulled the trigger.
Sam found me first. I don’t know how long I sat there staring at Uncle Will, but it seemed like a long time. Like forever.
The snow turned black with Will’s blood. The wind slowed and the clouds opened up and snow began to fall. I couldn’t feel my fingers or my toes. I couldn’t feel my injured leg, which seemed a good thing at the time but was sure to be a problem later.
When Sam appeared around the bend in the railroad track, I thought for a moment he was a figment of my imagination, that I was dying. Or dead already.
He started running when he spotted me, pausing only long enough to make sure Will was no longer a threat before grabbing me in his arms and squeezing until I couldn’t breathe.
“Are you okay? Did he—”
I took Sam’s face in my hands and kissed him. If I lost feeling in every other part of my body, I’d be all right as long as I could feel this: his lips on mine, his breath on my face, his fingers brushing the tears from my chin.
“I love you,” I said when I pulled away.
He pressed his forehead against mine and ran his hands through my snarled hair, his fingertips kneading at the base of my neck. “I love you, too.”
I smiled and closed my eyes, all the tension running from my body.
And then I was out.
My head lolled against Sam’s chest. I thought I could feel his arm beneath my legs, and the other wrapped around my waist. I heard the beating of his heart. Or maybe that was mine.
I couldn’t be sure.
“She all right?” That was Nick.
“I think so. We have to get her to a hospital. Will shot her.”
“Ginger prick,” Nick said.
Sam tightened his hold on me. “Did you take care of—”
“Yeah,” Nick cut in. “Cas and Trev moved Arthur to a safe place.”
“And Riley?”
He hadn’t ever shown with the truck Will had asked for, and I’d waited. I’d been ready.
“No sign of him. I hope he ran,” Nick finally said. “Good f**king riddance.”
33
I WAS IN AND OUT FOR SEVERAL days. The few times I was in, I heard the distant murmuring of nurses, sometimes a doctor. Shock, they said. Infection. Poor girl, they said.
I wondered if it was a way of my body telling me it needed rest. Not just because it’d been shot. But because it’d been through too much too soon.
When I finally opened my eyes and felt well enough to speak, Sam was by my side.
“Hey,” he said as sunlight poured from the window over his shoulder.
“Curtains,” I mumbled, my throat raw.
He got up and tugged the curtains closed, plunging the room into semidarkness. “Better?”
I opened my eyes slowly. “Much.”
Seeing Sam beside my bed was enough to put a smile on my face.
“What happened?” I asked. “Did the gunshot wound heal all right?”
“Drink this first.” He offered me a bottle of water. I started to object, but he shook his head, so I drank. And then guzzled the whole thing down. I guess I was thirstier than I thought.
After, with Sam’s help, I managed to pull myself into an upright position. When he settled back into the chair at my bedside, I looked him over. The skin beneath his eyes was shadowed and heavy. Stubble covered his face, hiding some of the cuts and bruises that were still healing. His hair stuck up at the crown, like he hadn’t showered yet today. Maybe not the day before, either. There was a long scrape running from the side of his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his navy shirt.
“How are you?” I asked.
He let out a breath. “How am I? I’m not the one who got shot.”
I looked down at my legs and wiggled my toes beneath the blanket. Everything seemed to be in working order. Thank God. “How long was I out?”
“Five days.”
“Five days?” I shrieked.
“You had a minor infection. The doctors took care of it. You’re fine now.”
I laid my head back against the mountain of pillows beneath me.
“And Nick and Cas?”
“They’re fine. They’re getting something to eat right now.”
“My dad?”
Sam went quiet. That old, guarded expression I knew so well returned.
“Sam.”
He shifted his gaze to the floor, folded his hands together. “They wiped his memory before we got to him.”
Crying first thing upon waking after a five-day coma didn’t seem like the proper way to start the recuperation process. And my sides still hurt more than I could describe, and crying would only make it worse. So I bit my lip until the sensation died away.
Dad, I thought. I’m so sorry.
“Where is he?” I finally asked.
“He’s safe.”
“Where is he, Sam?”
“A place for senior citizens. He seems happy there.”
“You put him in a home?”
Sam straightened, gave me a sad, regretful look. He took in a long breath before answering. “He has lung cancer, Anna.”
“What? But—”
“He let it slip when I called him, when we were looking into the coded program.”
When I’d seen him after leaving the boys, I’d thought he looked unwell. I hadn’t realized it was that bad.
“He’ll be taken care of,” Sam went on. “He had money set aside for retirement, so the bills are covered. He’s in a good place.”
I nodded. After everything he’d been through, a home for senior citizens did seem like a vacation.
“I have to see him.”
“You will. Soon. You have to rest for now. Geez, Anna, take a break. Everything has been taken care of.”
We fell into silence. The machines behind me beeped and chugged.
“Thanks,” I said after a while. “For taking care of my dad.”
Sam shrugged. “He took care of us while we were in the farmhouse lab.”
Mention of the lab brought on another thought. A question I wanted to ask but was afraid to admit to Sam that I cared what the answer was.
He met my eyes, and a veil of worry eased over his face. “Trev?” he asked quietly.
“What happened with him?”
A baby cried out in the hallway, making Sam and me pause. When it was quiet again, he said, “He helped us escape and then plot your rescue. He helped save you, but I haven’t seen him since that day. I’m assuming he’s all right.”
“Trev was the one on the roof with the rifle, wasn’t he? The one who shot out the tires?”
“Yeah.”
“Were you guys at least nice to him?”
Sam smiled. “What do you think?”
“I think Nick was an asshole, Cas gave him a hard time, and you gave him the silent treatment.”
Sam didn’t say anything.
“You did, didn’t you?”
The door to my room opened. I thought it’d be a nurse to check on me, but it was Cas and Nick. I was glad to see them. I wasn’t ready to answer questions for the hospital staff. Or to be poked and prodded.
“How long has she been awake?” Nick asked, the ever-present scowl deepening on his face. “How come you didn’t call us?”
“She just woke up,” Sam said.
“Just now,” I said.
Cas came straight over to my bedside. “My love. I’m so glad you’re awake.” And then he planted his lips on mine, cradling my head in his hands.
I pushed him off. “Cas!”
Sam reached across me and whacked Cas on the side of the head. “Quit being an idiot.”
Cas frowned. “Don’t you remember? She said she didn’t love you. She realized she loved me instead.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nice try.”
He grinned and pulled himself into the windowsill across the room, an open bag of chips in his hand. “You can’t blame a guy.”
Look for a weakness.
With all her energy focused on the knife, she left her side wide open. Using my grip on her wrist as leverage, I brought my knee up and into her ribs. She cried out and shrank away.
I scooped up my gun, shot. One bullet to the head. She dropped where she stood.
I slid my gun in the waistband of my pants and ran to the row of four-wheelers. There were keys already in the ignition.
“Thank you,” I muttered to no one. I climbed on and started it up, throttling the gas.
I sped out the bay door.
Wind cut through my clothes and bit at my exposed skin. The tire tracks of the four-wheeler were easier to follow than Will’s footprints, and before long, I’d left the town behind. I followed the tracks through a patch of dense woods and came out the other side on a railroad line. I could just make out Will’s figure up ahead, maybe a mile and a half away at most.
I twisted the throttle and the four-wheeler shot forward. Will noticed me with a quick glance over his shoulder.
The tracks curved inward, hugging a sandhill covered in patches of snow. Rays of sunlight shone over the top, blinding me, so that when I finally drove into the shadow of the hill, I didn’t notice the figure leaping toward me until it was too late.
Will knocked me from my seat. We slammed onto the ground, and the four-wheeler careened down the tracks before hitting one of the rails and flipping over on itself.
I bucked Will off me and reached for my gun, but he caught me with a backhanded slap, and the gun flew out of my grasp. Stars winked in my vision. I scurried over the tracks, fingers scraping against the old railroad ties. A loose one wobbled beneath me, and I felt the sharp pressure of a sliver in my index finger and another in my thumb. I bit back the pain and reached for the gun, just inches away, when a shot went off behind me and a burning, flaring sensation raced up my thigh, vibrating through every nerve in my body.
I screamed and clutched at my leg, my hand coming away wet with blood.
Will loomed over me. He had a cell phone in his hand. “Riley,” he said, “I’m on the railroad tracks about a mile south of Neason Road. I need a truck.”
Tears streamed down my face. My leg throbbed with the pulse of my heart, and the pain only seemed to get worse, sinking through muscle and bone, aching in a place that was both physical and mental.
“Have they been taken care of?” Will asked. He waited for the reply. “Well, get on it, then.”
He hung up and slid the phone in his pocket. He crouched beside me. “Let me see,” he said and pushed my hands away. “I tried to get a clean shot, something that wouldn’t cause too much permanent damage.” He pressed against the wound with his fingers, and I arched back, sobbing as the pain laced its way to the center of my gut.
“You’ll be fine,” he decided. “Look at me, Anna.”
I sucked in a breath and glanced over at him. “I will take care of you. I promise,” he said, the sharp angles of his face softening in the golden light. “I fixed you once before. I can do it again.”
“Don’t kill them,” I said. “The boys. Please.”
Will shook his head. “You’re better off without them. We all are. I never should have let Connor talk me into rehabilitating them. We should have cut our losses and—”
I wrapped my hand around the loose railroad tie, sand gritting beneath my fingernails.
Anger and pain and heartache and hope all mixed together and cannoned up my body.
I swung, hitting Will on the side of the head. He fell back. I grabbed my gun, buried the burn of the gunshot in my leg, and stood to my feet.
Will looked up at me, sadness etched in the space between his eyes. He parted his lips as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t even know where to start.
Instead, he said only, “I’m sorry, Anna,” right before I pulled the trigger.
Sam found me first. I don’t know how long I sat there staring at Uncle Will, but it seemed like a long time. Like forever.
The snow turned black with Will’s blood. The wind slowed and the clouds opened up and snow began to fall. I couldn’t feel my fingers or my toes. I couldn’t feel my injured leg, which seemed a good thing at the time but was sure to be a problem later.
When Sam appeared around the bend in the railroad track, I thought for a moment he was a figment of my imagination, that I was dying. Or dead already.
He started running when he spotted me, pausing only long enough to make sure Will was no longer a threat before grabbing me in his arms and squeezing until I couldn’t breathe.
“Are you okay? Did he—”
I took Sam’s face in my hands and kissed him. If I lost feeling in every other part of my body, I’d be all right as long as I could feel this: his lips on mine, his breath on my face, his fingers brushing the tears from my chin.
“I love you,” I said when I pulled away.
He pressed his forehead against mine and ran his hands through my snarled hair, his fingertips kneading at the base of my neck. “I love you, too.”
I smiled and closed my eyes, all the tension running from my body.
And then I was out.
My head lolled against Sam’s chest. I thought I could feel his arm beneath my legs, and the other wrapped around my waist. I heard the beating of his heart. Or maybe that was mine.
I couldn’t be sure.
“She all right?” That was Nick.
“I think so. We have to get her to a hospital. Will shot her.”
“Ginger prick,” Nick said.
Sam tightened his hold on me. “Did you take care of—”
“Yeah,” Nick cut in. “Cas and Trev moved Arthur to a safe place.”
“And Riley?”
He hadn’t ever shown with the truck Will had asked for, and I’d waited. I’d been ready.
“No sign of him. I hope he ran,” Nick finally said. “Good f**king riddance.”
33
I WAS IN AND OUT FOR SEVERAL days. The few times I was in, I heard the distant murmuring of nurses, sometimes a doctor. Shock, they said. Infection. Poor girl, they said.
I wondered if it was a way of my body telling me it needed rest. Not just because it’d been shot. But because it’d been through too much too soon.
When I finally opened my eyes and felt well enough to speak, Sam was by my side.
“Hey,” he said as sunlight poured from the window over his shoulder.
“Curtains,” I mumbled, my throat raw.
He got up and tugged the curtains closed, plunging the room into semidarkness. “Better?”
I opened my eyes slowly. “Much.”
Seeing Sam beside my bed was enough to put a smile on my face.
“What happened?” I asked. “Did the gunshot wound heal all right?”
“Drink this first.” He offered me a bottle of water. I started to object, but he shook his head, so I drank. And then guzzled the whole thing down. I guess I was thirstier than I thought.
After, with Sam’s help, I managed to pull myself into an upright position. When he settled back into the chair at my bedside, I looked him over. The skin beneath his eyes was shadowed and heavy. Stubble covered his face, hiding some of the cuts and bruises that were still healing. His hair stuck up at the crown, like he hadn’t showered yet today. Maybe not the day before, either. There was a long scrape running from the side of his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his navy shirt.
“How are you?” I asked.
He let out a breath. “How am I? I’m not the one who got shot.”
I looked down at my legs and wiggled my toes beneath the blanket. Everything seemed to be in working order. Thank God. “How long was I out?”
“Five days.”
“Five days?” I shrieked.
“You had a minor infection. The doctors took care of it. You’re fine now.”
I laid my head back against the mountain of pillows beneath me.
“And Nick and Cas?”
“They’re fine. They’re getting something to eat right now.”
“My dad?”
Sam went quiet. That old, guarded expression I knew so well returned.
“Sam.”
He shifted his gaze to the floor, folded his hands together. “They wiped his memory before we got to him.”
Crying first thing upon waking after a five-day coma didn’t seem like the proper way to start the recuperation process. And my sides still hurt more than I could describe, and crying would only make it worse. So I bit my lip until the sensation died away.
Dad, I thought. I’m so sorry.
“Where is he?” I finally asked.
“He’s safe.”
“Where is he, Sam?”
“A place for senior citizens. He seems happy there.”
“You put him in a home?”
Sam straightened, gave me a sad, regretful look. He took in a long breath before answering. “He has lung cancer, Anna.”
“What? But—”
“He let it slip when I called him, when we were looking into the coded program.”
When I’d seen him after leaving the boys, I’d thought he looked unwell. I hadn’t realized it was that bad.
“He’ll be taken care of,” Sam went on. “He had money set aside for retirement, so the bills are covered. He’s in a good place.”
I nodded. After everything he’d been through, a home for senior citizens did seem like a vacation.
“I have to see him.”
“You will. Soon. You have to rest for now. Geez, Anna, take a break. Everything has been taken care of.”
We fell into silence. The machines behind me beeped and chugged.
“Thanks,” I said after a while. “For taking care of my dad.”
Sam shrugged. “He took care of us while we were in the farmhouse lab.”
Mention of the lab brought on another thought. A question I wanted to ask but was afraid to admit to Sam that I cared what the answer was.
He met my eyes, and a veil of worry eased over his face. “Trev?” he asked quietly.
“What happened with him?”
A baby cried out in the hallway, making Sam and me pause. When it was quiet again, he said, “He helped us escape and then plot your rescue. He helped save you, but I haven’t seen him since that day. I’m assuming he’s all right.”
“Trev was the one on the roof with the rifle, wasn’t he? The one who shot out the tires?”
“Yeah.”
“Were you guys at least nice to him?”
Sam smiled. “What do you think?”
“I think Nick was an asshole, Cas gave him a hard time, and you gave him the silent treatment.”
Sam didn’t say anything.
“You did, didn’t you?”
The door to my room opened. I thought it’d be a nurse to check on me, but it was Cas and Nick. I was glad to see them. I wasn’t ready to answer questions for the hospital staff. Or to be poked and prodded.
“How long has she been awake?” Nick asked, the ever-present scowl deepening on his face. “How come you didn’t call us?”
“She just woke up,” Sam said.
“Just now,” I said.
Cas came straight over to my bedside. “My love. I’m so glad you’re awake.” And then he planted his lips on mine, cradling my head in his hands.
I pushed him off. “Cas!”
Sam reached across me and whacked Cas on the side of the head. “Quit being an idiot.”
Cas frowned. “Don’t you remember? She said she didn’t love you. She realized she loved me instead.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nice try.”
He grinned and pulled himself into the windowsill across the room, an open bag of chips in his hand. “You can’t blame a guy.”
