“Because he watches TV.”
She bent down and removed the little .380 from her ankle holster. He took it from her, jerked her around by the shoulder, and shoved it into the back of her waistband.
“Show him the holster, but keep your back to him if you can,” he said tersely.
“He’ll probably ask me to turn around, anyway,” she said. “Then he’ll be just as pissed.”
“Maybe,” he said, jerking her back around. “But you’ve got a better shot of drawing it from your waist than you do from your ankle.”
“I don’t want to shoot this kid.”
“Nobody wants to shoot this kid,” he said. He put his hands on his hips, then keyed his shoulder mic. “Mike, you and Lon take positions at the back door, Steve and Porter be ready to move around the front. Maggie’s going inside. Move into position once she’s in.”
He let go of the mic and looked at her. “Get him to let her out—”
“He told her to get out—”
“Then make her go!” he snapped. “Then I know you’ll be thinking more about how you’re getting out.”
“It’s going to be okay,” she said, though she had no way of knowing if that was true.
“You don’t know what it’s going to be,” he said. “That kid is in a volatile and possibly suicidal state of mind. Get Sky out of there, get Adrian out if he’s still breathing, and then if he wants to blow his head off, you let him. Don’t rush him because you think you can save him.”
“Wyatt, I am going to go in there and do the best that I can to keep everybody safe,” she said. “I’m going to try to talk to this kid and get everybody out of that dump alive. And then I am going to go home and beat the hell out of my daughter.”
“Our daughter,” he snapped, but she heard the hurt there. They might have only been married for a few months, but Wyatt had known Sky since she was seven.
“Yes,” she said. “Our daughter, and we will beat her together.”
He looked into her eyes and sighed. “Bledsoe and the FDLE and the Sheriff’s Office are all right, you know. The policy is right. We can’t work together like this anymore.”
“We’ve done just fine in the past.”
“Not anymore,” he said. “They’re right. It impairs judgement. I do need to stick to talking to the press and speaking at the Neighborhood Watch luncheons.”
“Well, you can do that later,” she said. She thumbed open her phone, tapped her contacts, and clicked to dial Wyatt. She put it on speaker, and he frowned at her as his phone vibrated in his back pocket. He pulled it out as she dropped hers into her shirt pocket.
“I’ll keep it open,” she said, as he connected the call. She turned around. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said quietly as he followed her back to the group. “But wait till I get you home.”
Ryan peered through the space in the blinds. A woman with long, dark hair like Sky’s, tied up in a ponytail, was walking across the yard. She was wearing blue cargo pants and a tee shirt, and she had her hands up in the air.
Behind her, on the street, the other cops were still watching from behind their cruisers. They had their guns drawn and resting against the hoods and roofs. All pointed at him. He knew there were more cops over in the woods, where she’d come from.
There were so many cops. So many, and he didn’t know how he had gotten here.
He looked over his shoulder at Sky. “Your mom is coming in.”
Sky swallowed hard but didn’t say anything. Adrian was still over by the counter, staring at the front door.
Ryan looked back out the window, as the woman stopped about two feet in front of the steps.
“Ryan?” she called. “I’m here. Can you let me in?”
He pulled his fingers from the blinds and stood.
“Wait,” Sky said. “Stay away from the door.”
She started for the door, waving him back from the window. “Go over there. I’ll let her in.”
Maggie carefully climbed the clumsily constructed steps, the old wooden pallets groaning underneath her weight. She stopped at the top step.
“Ryan? It’s Maggie.”
She heard the floor creak inside, and then the door opened halfway. Sky stood there, eyes wide, face pale. She looked like she might cry, and Maggie was overwhelmed by an onslaught of different feelings; relief, fear, anger, all swirling together like the conflicting and countering of confused seas.
“Are you okay, Sky?” she asked, her calm voice surprising even to her.
“Yeah, Mom,” Sky said. “I’m sorry.”
“Can I come in?”
Sky hesitated.
“Let her in,” Ryan said from somewhere behind Sky. It was almost dark outside, and even darker in the old trailer.
Sky stepped back without opening the door any wider, and Maggie edged in, keeping her hands in the air. She looked around quickly, as Sky closed the door.
The place was even filthier than she remembered. Old furniture, couch cushions, blankets. Every conceivable soda or beer bottle. She was glad she was wearing boots.
She saw Ryan first, standing over near the back wall. His arm was bent, the gun resting on his chest. It was too dark to see for sure, but she knew his hands were shaking. He was clearly terrified. Terrified and something else. Defeated, she finally decided. Defeated could be good or bad. He might be weary enough to surrender, or hopeless enough to turn the gun on himself, and possibly everyone else beforehand.
After a few seconds, she saw Adrian Nichols standing in front of the kitchen counter. His hair hung damply around his pale face, and he looked as terrified as he should be. Maggie looked back at Sky, who was standing beside her.
“Move over there,” she said quietly, jerking her head toward the kitchen.
Sky looked like she was going to ask why, but she glanced over at Ryan, and then crossed the few yards over to the where Adrian was standing. She kept as much distance between her and the other boy as she could. Ryan’s eyes bounced between Sky and Maggie, then settled nervously on Maggie.
“Hello, Ryan,” she said quietly.
“Sky looks just like you,” he said.
“She’s like me in a lot of ways,” Maggie said.
“Why is your phone lit up?”
“My team is listening in,” she answered. “They have to. That’s the only way they’d let me come in.”
“So they can come in here with guns blazing?” He sounded more exhausted than confrontational.
“Yes,” Maggie said. “If they hear people being hurt, or about to be hurt, that is what they’ll probably do.”
“I never meant to hurt anybody.”
“Nobody out there wants to hurt anybody, either.”
“It was an accident,” Ryan said, wiping his neck. “I panicked.”
“So it seems,” Maggie answered. “I want to talk to you about that, but I’m going to be honest with you. The SWAT team will be here in about ten minutes, and they have authority over the scene in a hostage situation.”
“I didn’t—” He rubbed his left eye with the back of his gun hand. “Hostages. Damn,” he added quietly, maybe to himself.
“Ryan, they’ll be a lot more likely to let us decide how to end this situation, if you let Sky and Adrian go outside. I’ll stay here with you.”
“Mom—”
Maggie looked at her. “You made your call,” she said evenly. “Now you stay out of it.”
“She was trying to help me,” Ryan said.
“I know that,” she answered, nodding. “You need to let her go, okay? They won’t come in here for me, but they will for her, or for Adrian. That’s just the way it is. Procedure.”
Ryan leaned back against the wall. He looked like he hadn’t slept since he’d gotten up to go to school Thursday.
�
��I told her to go before,” he said.
“I know. They know outside, too. Can I put my hands down?”
He stared at her for a moment. “Yeah.”
She lowered her hands. “I want to show you something, okay?” She tugged at the knee of her pants, exposing her empty ankle holster, then let it go. “I’m not here to hurt you, I promise you that’s not what I want.”
He didn’t answer, and she went on.
“I need you to let Sky and Adrian go outside.”
“I told her to go. I don’t want her here,” he said.
“What about Adrian?”
“I don’t want him here, either!” he said, his voice rising. “I don’t want anybody here!”
“Okay,” she said calmly. “I understand. But I can’t help being here. I can’t leave.”
“I just want to be left alone,” he said, and he sounded a hundred years old.
Maggie looked over at Sky. “Go. You and Adrian go outside.”
Sky looked over at Ryan, but he was staring into space.”
“I want to stay with you,” she said, almost whispering.
“Go!” Ryan yelled, making her jump. “Get out!”
Adrian started for the door, passing Sky. After another look at Ryan, Sky followed.
Maggie watched Ryan watch them cross the room. Keeping her back to the door, she moved out of the way a bit so they could pass. Sky was staring at her, and Maggie nodded at her. Then she heard the door open, heard Adrian, far heavier than Sky, as he ran down the steps. Then the door closed quietly, and she heard her daughter’s much softer, much slower steps follow.
None of the cops in the street moved a muscle, but as soon as Sky and Adrian hit the woods of the empty lot, Quincy and another deputy sprinted over to lead them deeper in. Wyatt almost ran them over as he grabbed Sky’s arm and pulled her to him. He kissed her hard on the forehead as he heard Maggie’s voice through the phone, sounding too far away.
“Okay, Ryan,” she said. “They’re safe. Now how do I help you get safe, too?”
Ryan looked across the room at her, his face almost lost to the shadow. “Why can’t you just leave? Please?”
Maggie swallowed. “I can’t do that, Ryan. I’m supposed to be here.”
“Well, I’m not,” he said. “I’m supposed to be someplace else.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, taking a few steps closer.
“I should be at the beach, or at home, somewhere.”
“Yes, you should. And I’m sorry that you aren’t,” she said. “But we need to get you out of here. Safely.”
He glared at her. “You can’t tell me that it’s all going to be okay because it isn’t! Nothing is okay!”
“No, nothing is.” She kept moving toward him, not trying to hide it, but slowly. “But it doesn’t have to be as bad as it is right now.”
“You think I don’t know how much trouble I’m in? I ruined everything!” He thumped the side of the gun against his forehead. “Stupid! Stupid! A gun!”
“Ryan!” He looked at her and took a shaky breath. “Can you tell me why you took the gun to school?”
“I don’t know why!” She saw the glint of tears in his eye. “I saw the video when I was getting ready for school, and I got so angry! I was…humiliated and angry! And I snuck into my mom’s room and I got the gun.”
He looked at her, and the anguish in his face was plain.
“By the time I got on the bus, I was like, what are you doing, Ryan, are you nuts? But I was already on the bus, and then I was at school, and I couldn’t just throw it somewhere.”
“Okay. I get that,” she said.
“But then they got off the bus and I could see they were waiting for me, and I was scared. And mad. I didn’t want to get off the bus, but the driver was telling me to hurry up, because the little kids were waiting to get off. And I got off.”
He wiped his sleeve against his forehead with his gun arm, then rested the gun against his chest again.
“I got off and they started hassling me right away,” he went on. “And I was scared and I was so angry, and I just wanted them to be scared, too. I wanted them to know what it felt like! And I pulled out the gun without even thinking about it. It was like it wasn’t even me in here,” he said, thumping his chest with the gun.
“And Deputy Shultz was there.”
“Yeah.” His mouth twisted, then she saw a tear run down his cheek, cleaning a tiny path through the dirt and dust and sweat. He blinked, trying to clear the tears away. “He was trying to help.”
“I know.”
“I keep seeing his face,” he said. “When the gun went off. It was like he just couldn’t believe it. Like he couldn’t believe that had happened to him.”
Maggie swallowed. She could see it. Had seen it. No, Dwight couldn’t believe it.
“He’s going to be okay,” she said gently, and hoped it was true.
Ryan looked her in the eye, and she saw desperation give way to hopelessness. “Nothing is going to be okay.”
His hand shifted, and the gun tilted upward, until the barrel was under his chin.
“Ryan,” Maggie said carefully. “Please.”
He started crying, his eyes squeezed shut. She couldn’t just take the gun from him. The safety was off, and she would most likely just help him blow a hole through his skull.
“Everybody, please” she said. “Everybody just please stay put. Ryan, look at me. Please.”
He opened his eyes. “No, I ruined everything. My whole life.” He gasped, a fresh slew of tears falling. “My mom’s life. I’ve ruined her life, too. She’s such a good person. I can’t—I ruined everything!”
Maggie’s breath hitched as she saw his hand tighten on the gun, saw him squeeze his eyes shut and wince.
“Ryan, please don’t do this to her!” she said quickly. He opened his eyes, but just barely. She doubted he could see her well, anyway, in the dark and through his tears.
“Ryan, I’m a mom,” she said more quietly. “I can survive anything…anything, except the loss of my child. I don’t care how bad it is, how much trouble, how awful it is. I can survive anything, except losing one of them.”
She held her hand out, palm up. His eyes didn’t leave hers.
“Please, baby.”
Maggie saw Wyatt come to the edge of the yard as she walked Ryan toward the wooded lot. She kept one hand under Ryan’s elbow, and held his weapon and magazine in the other. She saw Sky appear next to Wyatt, and saw Wyatt gently reach over and push her back.
The officers who had been at the ready behind their cruisers had holstered their weapons and stood. Lon and Mike had come out from the positions at the side of the trailer and were walking on the other side of Ryan.
They got to the edge of the lot, and Maggie met Wyatt’s eye. He didn’t say anything to her; he just let out a slow breath, then looked down at Ryan. “Ryan, I need you to go with Deputy Quincy here.”
Quincy stepped up, and Maggie let go of Ryan. Quince took that arm, Lon took the other, and they led him over to Quincy’s cruiser.
Wyatt looked back at Maggie, then started removing his vest as he walked toward one of the other cruisers, where Adrian Nichols sat in the back, legs hanging out the open door. He was drinking a bottle of water, and another deputy was talking to him.
Sky looked over her shoulder as they led Ryan away, then looked back at Maggie.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
Maggie had so much to say, and couldn’t say it all at once. None of it went together anyway; the anger mixed with the fear, the understanding with the disbelief. She looked away, toward her Jeep, where she could hear Coco keening through the cracked windows.
“I really am sorry.” Sky blinked back tears.
Maggie sighed, and then leaned over and buried her face in her daughter’s
neck.
She smelled of sweat and mint and gardenia body wash, and Maggie could finally breathe again.
Adrian held the bottle of water up to his face, rolled it around on his forehead, and couldn’t believe how good it felt when the condensation started dripping down into his eyes.
He looked over at the cluster of cops, all of them standing around in a circle with their hands on their hips or resting on their holsters, talking in quiet voices. A few of the other cops were walking Ryan to one of the cop cars. Adrian expected him to look over at him, but he didn’t.
He’d been sure, since the chick was a cop’s daughter, that they were going to bust in there and shoot his ass. Or that the lady cop would, Sky’s mom. He’d seen the gun in the back of her pants when he was getting out, and the whole rest of the time they were in there, he kept bracing to hear the pop.
As soon as he thought it, he felt a twinge of guilt. He didn’t like Warner, never had. Disliked him on sight. He he’d had fun giving him a hard time. He liked the feeling of power it gave him. He could trip the loser in the hallway and sleep just fine that night. He didn’t even feel bad when he and Newman posted the video of him with piss on his pants.
But he had this sudden vision of how Warner had looked two weeks ago, or how he had looked the other day, and he couldn’t help wondering if he had made the Ryan he saw in the biology lab look like the Ryan that had just come out of the trailer.
There was this small feeling in his chest, like some little animal scratching at him, that said that he had.
It was mostly Newman’s fault; that fat-ass was always egging him on, but while Ryan and the cop had still been inside, while he’d been outside waiting for the shot to come, he’d had this feeling. This nervous feeling, that if they blew Ryan Warner away tonight, he was going to be dealing with it someway tomorrow.
Maggie came out of the bathroom and into their bedroom, Coco trailing behind her. She fidgeted with the waistband of her dress, straightening it and smoothing it out. It was one of two good dresses she owned, but still not remotely fancy. Pale yellow, with tiny flowers of blue and white, it was more casual than a bridesmaid’s dress, but more formal than jeans. It was what she had.
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