Alone in the Wild (Rockton #5)(102)

So Lane waits for his chance, and he doesn’t hear me creep up on his left side. He hasn’t seen the figure to his right either.

Dalton will have heard the commotion with Petra going down, and he’ll have paused long enough to be sure we were safely under cover. Then he came here, where he’ll wait to see what I do before he makes his move.

When I’m far enough behind Lane’s peripheral vision, I lean out and catch Dalton’s eye. He nods and motions a plan. Or I’m sure it’s a plan, but we’re forty feet apart in the forest, and it’s not as if I see more than a few hand gestures. That’s enough, though. I know what we should do, and it seems to coincide with what he’s suggesting.

We both creep toward Lane from our respective positions, staying out of visual range and on either side of him. Then, without warning, Dalton steps forward, plowing through brush, winter-dry twigs crackling. Lane wheels on Dalton … and that’s apparently my cue to swing behind him and cut off his escape route. I dart into place just as Lane looks over his shoulder to find me there, gun pointed at him, Dalton doing the same on his other side.

“If you reach for an arrow, we fire,” I say. “You can run, but this time, we’re close enough to catch you.”

“Also close enough to shoot you,” Dalton says. “Save ourselves the trouble of chasing.”

“I’m fine with shooting,” I say. “In fact, I’d say it might be our best option. Our only option, really. You stole a baby. You murdered Ellen. You hoped to murder the baby with her. Now you’re trying to murder your best friend and the woman you supposedly love.”

“Seems to me he doesn’t know the meaning of that word,” Dalton drawls.

Lane’s face purples. “I’m the only one who does know the meaning of it. Baptiste doesn’t. He’s no friend of mine. Friends don’t do that.”

“Friends don’t fall in love with the girl you like?” I say. “The girl who likes them back?”

“I found her,” he says. “Not him. Me. I met Sidra and Felicity in the forest, hunting duck. I was their friend first, and then I brought Baptiste to meet them. I would get Sidra, and he’d get Felicity. He knew that. I found them first. So I was entitled to first pick.”

“Yeah,” Dalton says. “Like when you’re hunting and you spot a herd of caribou. If you spot them first and bring your friend, you should get first shot, first pick of the herd. That’s how it works, and if he shoots first, he’s an asshole.”

Lane straightens. “Yes. You understand.”

“I understand if it’s a herd of caribou,” Dalton says. “But those were girls. Human beings. Not game animals. You can tell Baptiste you like Sidra, and if he’s a decent friend, he won’t make a play for her if there’s a chance she feels the same about you. But that isn’t how it went, was it?”

Lane shoots Dalton a look I can’t see.

“Sidra fell for Baptiste,” I say. “And he fell for her. He probably felt lousy about it, but from what I understand, you stood down. You told Baptiste it was fine … while you kept pursuing Sidra. She ran away with him, and you did what? Offered to help them? Bring their game to the Second Settlement in trade? Felicity backed off, but you stuck close in hopes of winning Sidra. Then along came a baby, and you couldn’t allow that. You took Summer. Stole her.”

“I had to,” he snarls. “A winter baby? How could Baptiste do that to Sidra? It proved he didn’t care about her. I did what needed to be done.”

“Taking their baby and giving it to the hostiles?”

His jaw sets. “I gave it to a wild woman who wanted a child. I heard Ellen mention the woman, and I knew that was the answer. I left the baby where the woman went to get water each morning, and she took her. She was happy to take her. Then Ellen showed up and stole her back. I’d been out hunting with Baptiste’s gun. As I headed home, I heard the baby, and I heard Ellen hushing her. I found them. I told Ellen to give me the baby, but she said no. She’d been hit on the head stealing her from the hostile woman, and she was confused. She ran, and I fired, and she kept running.”

“So you let her go?” I say.

He doesn’t answer.

“No, you didn’t,” I say. “You followed enough to see her lying down. She stopped to rest. Between the head injury and the shot, she was losing blood and confused, and she’d lain down to rest, and you left her there. You left her to die in the snow. You left the baby to die with her.”

“I did it for her,” he snarls. “For Sidra. To save her from him.”

For fourteen years I have worried that someday, holding a gun in my hand, I will repeat the mistake I made with Blaine. Someone will say something, and the rage—the absolute rage I felt then—will rise again, and my gun will rise too, and I will pull the trigger.

For fourteen years, that possibility has terrified me.

And now, in this split second, it evaporates.

I feel that rage again, a blind wave of it washing over me. I see Ellen, lying in the snow, a woman who only wanted to help.

I see Ellen dead with Summer in her arms, and I think of how close that baby came to dying horribly in the snow, and all this time, I’ve told myself it was a mistake. It had to be, didn’t it? No one would do that on purpose. Before me stands the boy who did it. On purpose. Murdered a kind and generous woman. Abandoned a baby to the elements. And for what? For a girl who never gave him a moment’s encouragement. To murder her child, destroy her life, and then try to kill her if he couldn’t have her?