Lies You Never Told Me(75)

“Too late,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “It’s too late.” He resets his stance, steadies his hand. His eyes are locked on Gabe.

“No!” My body is stiff from the run through the woods, from hiding, but somehow I make it move faster than it’s ever moved before. I swing the tire iron upward with all my might. It connects with his arm, and the gun goes spinning out of his hand.

“Fuck!” he screams, hunching over in pain. I don’t pause to think. I scramble on all fours for the gun. It glints darkly on the forest floor a few feet away.

My fingertips brush the handle. Then something slams into my torso. His boot. He kicks me again, harder this time. The dry snap of my rib cracking is almost, but not quite, too soft to hear. I fight the urge to curl into a little ball. I fight the urge to keep hiding.

Another quarter-inch reach, and I have it. The gun is heavier than I expected. I don’t really know how to use it. I don’t even know if there are more bullets. But I roll onto my back and point it at his chest.

His face warps into a monster grimace. He lunges down at me, fingers curled into claws.

I pull the trigger. There’s heat, noise. Force pushing me into the dirt. There’s a spray of something hot and wet.

And then, silence.

I don’t know how long I lie there, staring up at the sky. Aiden is near my feet. He’s very still.

And then the stars blink out. No—they’re obscured. Gabe’s form blocks them from view. He’s leaning over me. His breath is ragged but steady.

“It’s going to be okay,” he whispers.

I close my eyes. I feel like I’m floating. In this moment, before consequences, before explanations, I feel safe.

“I know,” I say.





FORTY-THREE


    Gabe




We walk back toward the motel holding hands. I move gingerly, trying not to jostle my shoulder too much. The pain is getting steadily worse, roaring in like a rapidly approaching train. I focus on keeping my breath steady. There’s no way Catherine—or whatever her name is—can carry me if I pass out.

My brain keeps flying back to the man in the clearing behind us. To the moment before he fell. It’s frozen in my mind: Catherine on the ground, pointing the gun up. The look on his face as he lunged for her. For some reason I’m stuck there, in the instant before she shot him. That last moment before a person died right in front of me. The thought makes my legs go soft for a second; I stumble, but catch myself. The motion sends a molten wave through the gunshot wound.

“Gabe?” It’s too dark to read her expression, but she clutches my arm like it’s a life preserver.

“I’m . . . okay.” My voice is small in the dark. For a moment the world tilts, the stars wheeling overhead. Then I take a deep breath, and everything falls still again.

“It’s just a little further. Come on. That’s it.” She helps me over a fallen tree branch. “I’m so sorry I dragged you into this.”

“None of this is your fault,” I say. Then, a moment later: “Who was that guy?”

She’s quiet for so long I start to assume that she’s not going to answer. It startles me when she speaks.

“I used to think he was my boyfriend. I don’t know what to call him now.”

Boyfriend. I don’t know if it’s the blood loss, or the shock, but it takes me a moment to understand the word. It feels somehow abstract, detached. Boyfriend, father. Alive, dead. Whoever he was, it doesn’t matter anymore.

“I’ll explain everything when we get out of here,” she says. “I promise. But right now we just need to focus on getting back to the car.”

Through the trees I see a glint of light. The motel. We’re almost there. We step out of the woods, and I feel some of the tension leave my shoulders. A wave of agony comes in on its heels. Catherine must notice; she pauses to let me catch my breath.

Something explodes; a branch shatters overhead.

Instinctually, I grab Catherine by the edge of her shirt and pull her as hard as I can behind a copse of trees.

I lean back against the bark, my shoulder screaming with pain. A gunshot. But there aren’t any red or blue lights pivoting through the parking lot. It can’t be cops.

And that’s when I know exactly who it is.

“Sasha,” I call. “Don’t do this.”

I hear her footsteps coming closer.

“This .40 caliber has some fucking kick!” There’s a jaunty rage in her voice, a grit-toothed smile. “You know, I think I like Mom’s .22 better, but she caught me playing with it the other day and hid it. All I could find was this monster.” Another echoing boom, and the ground explodes a few feet from us. “Daddy’s gonna be pissed when he sees I took it.”

I close my eyes, pressing my back against the tree. After all we’ve been through, after what I’ve just seen, this can’t be how our story ends. It can’t.

“How’d you find us?” Maybe I can distract her, defuse her rage, if I can get her talking. “Let me guess. Some of your mom’s super-spy shit.”

“Yeah. I put a tracker on your phone. That’s how she caught Daddy fucking his assistant last year.” She laughs. “Aren’t they all just dogs, Cathy? From what I’ve heard, you know a thing or two about that.”