Game(53)

It was the last time I ever heard Cormac laugh.



~



I slipped my arm around Shayna and pulled her close. “We should go for a ride.”

“What’s your plan?” she asked.

“Something risky.”

“Which is?”

“We go to Fiore’s family,” I said.

Shayna froze and looked at me. She knew what that meant. It was a very dangerous move to make. Going above Fiore meant I was basically stabbing him in the back. But maybe someone else could talk sense into him or get him help.

“Come on,” I said. “We’ll go for a ride and talk. Cormac is going to sleep off the rest of his booze. I’ll take you to my old stomping grounds, okay? The old gym and stuff.”

“Okay,” Shayna said with a smile.

I started to move and she grabbed my wrist. She looked at me. “What?”

“I wasn’t lying.”

“What do you mean?”

“The way I felt,” she said. “When Fiore was here. With the test.”

“So the test was positive?”

“No. It was negative. But the way I feel…” Her cheeks flushed.

I didn’t know what to say.

I grabbed a bag and threw some clothes together just in case she and I decided to get a little wild at the old gym.

We left the bedroom and Cormac was on the couch, sound asleep. A coffee cup on the table, half empty. He was the only guy I knew who could pound eight cups of coffee and fall asleep. There was a fire in the fireplace. The cabin actually felt really cozy. Really at home. I paused for a second and started to see it all happening. Me and Shayna living in the cabin without worry or fear.

Cormac let out a growling snore and then coughed.

“He sounds like an animal,” Shayna said.

“I’m pretty sure he is part animal,” I said.

We got outside to the truck and a sudden strange feeling went through my body.

I couldn’t explain it. I felt watched. I felt like a gun was pointed at me. I felt like the world was about to explode. Shayna grabbed the door handle on the truck and I jumped at her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“The truck. I think it’s wired.”

For some reason, what Fiore had said to me before came crashing back.

“So don’t f*ck anything up. I wouldn’t want anything to explode, you know?”

What had that meant?

Did Fiore somehow think I’d go to his family?

My paranoia was going crazy.

“Walk to that tree there and wait,” I whispered. “Okay? Let me go check something out.”

“Finn…”

“Just listen to me.”

I waited for Shayna to walk away and I dropped to my knees. I looked under the truck, not sure what the hell a bomb would look like. Or what I would do if I found one. I touched a few things that all seemed to be part of the pickup truck.

The feeling hadn’t gone away yet.

I rolled to my stomach and looked under the truck out to the woods.

That’s when I saw a black vehicle approaching.

“No,” I whispered.

I started to push myself back, but a second later, the entire cabin blew up.





38.


(Shayna)



I turned my head for a second.

I saw a black SUV slowly creeping forward. The man behind the wheel had something in his hand with a red blinking light. It took me a second to register what was about to happen.

I had seen something similar many times.

A bomb detonator.

I managed to turn and jump behind a tree. I didn’t need to see the guy press the button. But I felt it. It was like the entire ground shook with fury. I expected to have shards of the truck - and Finn - come flying past me. But I didn’t. It was an explosion, the ground rumbling, then crackling.

When I jumped up and turned, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

The cabin was destroyed. Whatever they had used basically made the cabin implode. Which seemed like a genius move considering it was in the woods. That meant the rest of the trees wouldn’t catch on fire, and the smoke that rose up from the cabin was so minimal that anyone who saw it would think it was just a regular fire. Someone burning their trash or something.

But the entire cabin was gone.

I put my hands to the tree and waited for Finn to appear.

That’s when I saw the movement under the truck.

Finn was under the truck!

He had protected himself from the bomb. He thought the truck had been bombed, but it was the cabin. The cabin he had built for someone else. The cabin he had wanted to share with his entire family.

My heart instantly ached for him. All of his dreams were now gone and dead. Because of me. Because of what I had done.

I stepped back from the tree as Finn slipped all the way under the truck. He was hidden. He didn't come out and save me. He didn’t race to me and hold me and tell me it was going to be okay.

Finn had just gotten rid of me.

And why not? I was the reason his cabin was in rubble.

I took another step back. I was on my own. I needed to run.

Run! Shayna! Run!

One more step back.

Something rammed into my ribs, making me cry out. A hand then covered my mouth.