by Skylar Finn
“Where’s Dad?” asked Grace frantically.
I looked over my shoulder. Ethan was nowhere to be seen.
Had something happened while he was climbing down from the roof? It must have. I knew Ethan’s only concern was getting Grace to safety, and that he under no circumstances would want us to come back for him. My priority was saving Grace.
But the thought of leaving Ethan behind to whatever fate might befall him was unbearable. I made a split-second decision: one that would either result in us all getting out together, or maybe just Grace. But either way, at least Grace would get out.
I lifted Grace onto the horse, thinking of all her reluctant horseback riding lessons and how grateful I was for them now. I’d asked Ethan why he insisted on having her learn something she had no affinity for which obviously made her miserable, and he’d always insist it was because “we just never know.” Now, I knew.
“I want you to ride to the Aldersons’ place,” I said. “There’s no one there and it’s empty. When you get there, I want you to hide. I’m going to go back for your dad and then we’re going to come and find you. Okay?”
Grace looked troubled. I knew she didn’t want to leave without her dad, and she didn’t want to leave me, either. “I don’t want us to get separated again,” she said.
“I know. I don’t either. But we have to make sure you’re safe first. Then I’ll make sure your dad’s safe, too.”
Grace bit her lip. “Okay, Charlie. If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
“Ride fast and ride straight,” I said. “This part of the woods comes out right at the back road that leads up to their place.” She nodded determinedly and took off through the forest, away from the gunfire that echoed at the front of the house.
I turned back and retraced our footsteps. We hadn’t gone that far. What had happened to stop Ethan?
I reached the edge of the tree line and saw my answer. He was on the ground, where Clarice now held him at gunpoint.
“You just won’t stay down, will you?” she said. “You will this time, that’s for sure. Dexter said he wanted to kill you himself, but Dexter is busy. I know he’d rather I killed you than let you get away again. Maybe I better just take care of you myself.”
She seemed involved in a one-sided argument justifying her own homicidal impulses over Dexter’s preferences. She raised her gun just as Ethan glanced over her shoulder and saw me. Clarice saw his expression change and turned to see what he was looking at.
I always hated guns. I hated learning how to use one. I did it to humor Ethan. In the controlled environment of the range where Ethan took me for target practice, I doubted my capacity to pull the trigger and shoot another human being. But I was wrong.
I aimed directly at Clarice and pulled the trigger. I watched her topple to the ground, as if in slow motion. I tried not to think about whether she was dead or alive as I ran to Ethan. He clasped me briefly in his arms before taking my hand and leading me back into the woods the way I came. I avoided looking at Clarice, lying crumpled on the ground.
“You shouldn’t have come back for me,” he said reprovingly as we ran.
“I know,” I said. “But I couldn’t leave you. And I know you wouldn’t have left me. We found a horse. I sent Grace ahead to the Aldersons’. We just have to get--”
My words were abruptly cut off when Ethan dropped to the ground, pulling me with him. We rolled into the undergrowth of a nearby shrub. Within seconds, I saw why.
Dexter’s pointed cowboy boots crunched through the underbrush only a few feet away. “I know you’re out here,” he called. “Why not just come out and show yourself, rather than letting other people do all your dirty work for you?”
At first, I thought he meant us. Then I heard a second voice in the woods.
“I could say the same about you.” It was Wentworth. “You’re like a rat in a hole. I had to get through about eight hundred other rats just to get to you.”
“Why don’t you come on out?” called Dexter. “Face me like a man.”
“Or I could just shoot you where you stand.” I peered up through the dirt and tangle of leaves, but Wentworth was out of my eyeline and concealed from view.
“Big words for a coward hiding behind a tree,” jeered Dexter. “Take your shot! I’m right here.”
Wentworth rose to Dexter’s bait. A second later, I heard a shot. I expected to see his body drop to the ground where his cowboy boots stood, but they remained fixed to the ground. With a sinking feeling, I heard the sound of laughter: Dexter’s.
“You’ll have to be a lot quicker on the draw than that, hoss,” he drawled. I imagined Wentworth’s body on the ground, surrounded by a pool of blood. I heard Dexter’s footsteps as he walked across the forest floor. There was a pause, as if he’d stopped to check to make sure Wentworth was dead.
“Better luck tomorrow,” he said. Apparently satisfied, the footsteps walked away from us. We waited perfectly still on the ground, hardly daring to breathe, until the sound faded away into the forest.
Ethan squeezed my hand. We got to our feet, dusting dirt off. I glanced around. There was no sign of Dexter. Ethan went over to Wentworth’s body on the ground and checked his pulse. He straightened back up and shook his head.
We took off running through the woods. We hadn’t gone far before we came to another body lying inert on the forest floor. We didn’t stop to see if it was one of Dexter’s men or Wentworth’s. We kept running. Ethan skidded to a halt in front of me, throwing up his hand. I stumbled to a stop, expecting to see some new enemy. But we’d run into a piece of luck instead.
Wentworth had taken the Jeep to the farmhouse and left it in the woods. It seemed we’d just stumbled across his parking spot. The windshield was riddled with bullet holes. Ethan quickly checked the tires to see if they were flat while I opened the door to see if Wentworth had left the keys in the ignition.
The worst-case scenario, I told myself, was that they were on his body and we had to retrace our footsteps to get them. But they were there, glinting in the late afternoon light. I uttered a brief silent thanks to the now-deceased Wentworth for his unintentional foresight. It hadn’t done him much good, but it just might have saved our lives.
Ethan got in beside me, having checked the tires. “We’re good,” he said. “We just have to get out of the woods.” He turned the key. “I can get us to the Aldersons,” he said, reversing back onto the narrow nature trail Wentworth had driven down. “We’ll check on Grace and make sure she’s safe, and then I’ll go to the ranch house and check on Peterman and Tom. We can only hope they made it through safely.”
“Do you think they’re okay?” I asked as we passed another body, this one on the side of the road. I shuddered and turned away.
“Maybe,” he said. “They were at a definite advantage. They had Wentworth’s men and hopefully they stayed safely in the house while those idiots killed each other. They’re smart, I’m sure they--”
Ethan stopped mid-sentence as he slammed on the brakes. I was jolted forward in my seat, the seat belt cutting into my chest. “What the--”
Through the bullet-riddled windshield, I saw a man standing in the middle of the road, waving his arms over his head. It was Benny. He ran over to us, clutching his shoulder. He was covered in blood.
“Get in,” said Ethan yelled. “Hurry.”
Benny pulled the rear door open on Ethan’s side and started to climb in the backseat. “Man, am I ever glad to see you guys! There is a shitstorm out there like you wouldn’t believe! They’re like gophers, we’d put one down and another would pop up--”
A gunshot went off at close range, and I turned back in horror to see Benny let go of the door and fall back into the road. The gun went off a second time. I screamed as the bullet shattered the driver’s side window. Ethan slumped over the wheel.
“Ethan!” I yelled, clutching his shoulder and tugging him back to try and see where he was hit. My hands were immediately covered in blood. “Ethan, ple
ase--”
A face appeared at the window, like a cop pulling us over to write us a ticket. It was the face of Dexter.
“Just when I thought you were going to leave without saying good-bye,” he said, smiling broadly. “It looks like it’s the end of the line for you.”
26
The emotions that coursed through me in that moment were crushing: despair, fear--was Ethan dead? Slumped over the wheel that way, it looked like he was--and finally, a white-hot, seething rage. I looked at Dexter’s face, his wide, jeering grin peering through the shattered window, mocking me. I looked back at Benny on the ground. Finally, I looked at Ethan, halfway collapsed in a pool of his own blood.
More images rushed up to meet me: Pat on the floor of the drugstore, Wentworth lying dead in the woods. I wished I would have killed him in the pharmacy the day it all began. If only I had known, I would have.
“Step out of the car,” he ordered me. “Throw your weapon on the ground.”
I should have been thinking of Grace. I should have realized that there was still more left to lose; that there was always, always, something more to lose, but all I could think that seeing Ethan’s life ended before me was the same as seeing my life end. I felt like I had nothing left to lose.
Even with his gun trained on me, watching his mouth move and form more words I couldn’t hear over the ringing in my ears, I took the gun from Ethan’s limp hand. I took it, cocked the hammer, and aimed it directly at Dexter’s face.
I still remember his surprised expression: how startled he was when I pulled the trigger and shot him, point blank, in the forehead. I guessed he thought I wouldn’t try anything. His gun didn’t even go off; as if my intention didn’t fully register even as I pointed the gun at him: as if he underestimated me up until the last second, and didn’t even try to pull the trigger.
He swayed for a moment on the spot, the hole burned through his forehead blossoming with red, before he toppled over backwards and fell into the road.
I pulled Ethan over sideways, crawling over him into the driver’s seat. The bullet had torn through his side and I couldn’t find an exit wound. I pulled his jacket from his shoulders and tied it as tightly as I could around his midsection with the sleeves. My only thought now was of getting to Peterman as fast as I could.
The road rolled by beneath the tires as I drove faster: sixty, seventy, eighty. It reminded me of a similar flight, our flight from the city and for some reason, I felt that we couldn’t be so lucky twice; that there must be a rule against it--that nature would reclaim whatever balance had tilted it in our favor and we wouldn’t all survive, this time. Still I drove, because I didn’t know what else to do.
I thought of what state I might find the house in when I got there. Maybe everyone was dead. Maybe Peterman was dead. I thought of Grace at the Aldersons, hiding and wondering where we were. Maybe I’d made the wrong decision and sent her into danger. Maybe she wasn’t safe, either. Maybe no matter what I had done, it would all end in the loss of everyone I loved and cared about.
When I got to the house, pulling up as close as I could get to the front door--I seriously considered driving right up the front steps into the living room--my worst fears seemed confirmed. Bodies littered the front lawn. I wanted to believe they were Dexter’s men, but how could I be sure?
I threw the gear shift into park and leapt from the driver’s side in one fluid movement. I sprinted up the steps and threw the door open. I barely had time to register the sight of a gun in my face before I hit the floor.
“STOP!” Tom’s voice screamed somewhere above my head. “Don’t shoot!”
I looked up from my position on the floor, my arms still covering my head, to see one of Wentworth’s men hovering over me with his rifle in his hands, looking uncertain.
“That’s Charlie, you idiot!” Peterman pushed past him and bustled over to me as Wentworth’s strongman lowered his gun, looking chagrined. “Charlie, what’s happened to you? You’re covered in blood.”
“It’s Ethan,” I said, clambering to my feet. “Please, you have to help me. He’s been shot. He’s outside.”
Peterman followed me out to the front yard. Tom was close on our heels. I opened the passenger side door. Ethan looked like he was already dead. He was limp and unmoving, the front seat covered in blood.
“Tom, help me get him out,” said Peterman grimly. “Let’s get him inside.”
We brought Ethan back to Peterman’s makeshift ER in the back room. He hooked him up to his jury-rigged IV and carefully pulled the jacket back to examine the wound.
“This doesn’t look good, Charlie,” he said. “There’s no exit wound. I’m going to have to get the bullet out. There might be fragments. Internal bleeding. I’ll do my best. But you should know right now, I’m not sure how much I can do.”
The last thing I wanted to do was leave with Ethan’s life hanging so precariously in the balance. But I had to get Grace. I kept thinking that I’d already made so mistakes. If something happened to Grace because of my split-second decision in the woods behind the farmhouse, I’d never forgive myself. Ethan would never forgive me. Assuming that he lived, which seemed unlikely.
“Where’s Grace?” asked Tom from the doorway of the back bedroom.
“She rode to the Aldersons’,” I said. “I have to make sure she’s safe.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Tom.
“I need you here,” said Peterman.
“I’ll be okay,” I said. “Dexter is dead. So are most of his men.”
“What happened?” asked Tom.
“After,” I said, opening the back door with one last backwards glance at Ethan. “I’ll tell you after.”
I drove with all the windows down, but it wasn’t enough to stem the smell of blood and death. As I drove, I tried to imagine how I would tell Grace about Ethan. I couldn’t.
Instead, I remembered all the things that had led to this moment: the day at the library, when I reached for the book at the same time as him. Meeting Grace. Ethan’s insistence that we prepare for the worst. The many times he’d saved my life. The only reason I was here now, in this moment.
At the Aldersons, the first sight I saw was Grace. I parked in the middle of the lawn. I jumped out and ran up the porch. Grace pushed the glider with her foot, rocking back and forth with a glass in her hand. She looked at me, covered in blood, taking in my tear-soaked face.
“Did my dad die?” she asked in that unsettling, canny way of hers.
“No,” I said. “But he’s hurt, badly. Shot.”
She nodded. She didn’t say anything else.
I sat down next to her. She had been through so much. Children are resilient, but too much had been asked of her.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I tried to save him.”
“I know, Charlie,” she said, putting her little hand in mine. “I know.”
I doubled over, my entire body racked with sobs. I wept for Ethan, for the thought of Grace growing up without a father, and for myself. It felt like the height of selfishness, but I couldn’t escape the wretched feeling of having done all I could and it not being enough. I sat up and looked at her through the tears in my eyes.
“Drink this,” she said, handing me her glass, adding matter-of-factly, “You’re probably dehydrated.”
“What is it?” I asked, utterly confused.
“I made lemonade,” she explained. “From the powdered mix Mrs. Alderson keeps in the pantry. I didn’t know what else to do or how long I would have to wait.” She shrugged. “I thought when you got here, maybe you guys would want lemonade.”
I imagined Grace riding here bravely on her own, putting the horse on the barn, and waiting. Dragging the chair from the table to the high shelf in the pantry to reach the powdered lemonade mix, imagining Ethan and me walking through the door. My heart broke all over again.
“Drink it,” she ordered me, sensing my distress. I drained the glass. I really was dehydrated.
“I told
you,” she said. “Lemonade makes everything better.”
“We should get back,” I said. I stood up and reached for her hand. She took it and we walked down the steps.
At the house, Wentworth’s guy was nowhere to be seen. Inside, Tom sat on the couch, his head in his hands.
“Ethan--is he--?” I couldn’t get the words out.
“Peterman is still working on him,” Tom said quietly.
Grace went and sat down on the only intact chair. I realized it was the first time she’d been home since Dexter had taken her.
“I’ll fix you something to eat,” I said, getting up.
“I’m fine, Charlie, really,” she said, curling up in the chair. “The bad guys made me a grilled cheese before you got there. I just want to go to sleep.”
“You should rest,” said Tom. “You look like you need it.”
“I can’t,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “At least sit down. I’ll find something to eat for you.” He got up and disappeared into the kitchen. I was too exhausted and drained to tell him that I’d wanted to do it myself to have something to take my mind off of whether or not Ethan would live.
Grace was fast asleep in the chair when Tom returned with an open can of ravioli and a fork. I looked up at him, bleary-eyed, from the hearth. I remembered it was the first thing I’d given him, when he came to the ranch, and tried to smile. The gesture was impossible and I gave up.
“I also brought Gatorade,” he said, pulling the bottle from his pocket and handing it to me. I took the can of food and fork from him, then stared at it, unable to eat. I set them to the side for the time being.
“What happened here?” I asked. “After we left?”
“When Wentworth’s men got here, we could tell right away they were less than concerned with protecting us or keeping Dexter’s people occupied and away from the farmhouse until the siege was over,” said Tom, opening a bottle of water. “They just wanted revenge.”