Chapter 25 #2
Enyo scrambled down the tree and took off running the other way.
Even though I’d had little warning, I dropped and slid sideways to grab my weapon, as I saw Chris in my peripheral vision doing the same.
Chase was staring wide-eyed at his comrade, momentarily frozen in shock.
Danny wasn’t moving. We whirled on Chase, guns aimed.
“Drop your fucking weapon,” Chris bellowed.
Chase glanced at us, unexpectedly outgunned.
He slowly lowered his weapon to the ground, raising his hands in the air.
Chris marched toward him but I moved over to Danny, grabbing the gun beside his still hand.
He was unconscious, but still breathing.
I did a quick weapon check on him and found nothing else, then I handcuffed his hands behind his back in case he came to.
He wasn’t stuck, but the handcuffs and the head injury would definitely slow him down.
Chris was handcuffing Chase to a tree. “Fuck you, Chase,” he said, pissed that one of his brothers had betrayed him so deeply. Chris pistol-whipped him before turning to me, a look of fury on his face. He grabbed Chase’s discarded gun, holstering his own and keeping the shotgun in his hands.
I shoved Danny’s gun into my waistband and turned to Chris. “Where’s this other guy you saw?” I wasn’t convinced he wasn’t with them, even though Chris didn’t know him. Being outnumbered in the woods was still a possibility.
Chris shrugged as we headed in the direction Enyo had run. “I don’t know, man. I haven’t seen him since I heard you coming. He was pointing in this direction, but when I looked back, he was gone. I didn’t see him leave. I don’t know where he went.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. “Well, going this way nearly got us killed.”
“Yeah.” Chris shrugged. “Nearly, but not. Instead, the two of them are subdued, thanks to a fucking cat in a tree.” He had a point. We kept going.
◆◆◆
We were near a clearing and I was pretty sure I could see Elijah’s garden through the trees, but there was a snap of a twig to our right.
We looked over to see Derrick, gun aimed right at us, his face twisted up into a crazed snarl that told me he didn’t care about anything other than taking me and Elijah out.
I couldn’t believe he was the same person I’d thought was my friend.
Derrick’s finger was on the trigger, the gun aimed at my head. We didn’t even have time to ready our weapons. There was a blur near him as a shot rang out, and I waited to figure out if I’d been hit, while my brain tried to catch up to what was happening.
Derrick had disappeared from his spot. Chris was turning, trying to aim.
I didn’t feel any pain, and I finally registered that two figures were rolling through the dirt.
It took a second for me to recognize Elijah’s shirt as they wrestled on the ground.
The words in his notebook reverberated through my brain.
Your sacrifice won’t be in vain. “Elijah! Fuck! No!”
Chris was poised behind me, weapon aimed but unable to get a clear shot as they tussled. I didn’t want Elijah to die for me. I wanted him. I wanted him to live even if it meant I couldn’t.
As I aimed my gun, trying to get a clear shot at the bastard trying to kill us all, Derrick got the upper hand and stood, holding Elijah in front of him like a shield. The gun was at Elijah’s throat. “Don’t. Fucking. Move. Mason.”
I looked at Elijah, who was looking at me. “Why did you do that?” I whispered, tears falling out of pure desperation.
Chris was beside me, still holding the gun.
“Drop the fucking weapons!” Derrick yelled.
I let go of the gun. I didn’t have a choice.
There was no way I could guarantee hitting Derrick and missing Elijah.
Chris hesitated, but when Derrick pressed the gun into Elijah’s neck harder, he lowered the gun to the ground.
“All of them!” Derrick insisted. We did as he said.
“Now back the fuck away from them.” We backed up a few feet.
“Derrick, don’t do this, man,” Chris implored him. “It’s not worth it.”
Derrick laughed, but not like he found something funny.
“Not worth it? What the fuck do I have left to lose? Do you think I’m just going to let him go?
Do you think I actually believe you’d let me walk away?
You’re out of your damn mind. I might be going down, but I’m taking all of you with me.
” He was desperate, and I didn’t like it.
He knew it was over. His plan to frame Elijah had shattered, but he wanted Elijah dead, and he wanted me dead too.
Chris was calculating as he stared Derrick down, but I’d already gone over every scenario. We weren’t getting out of this. My biggest fear was that Elijah would go first.
My eyes met Elijah’s, and I could finally read those crystal blue eyes.
I knew what he wanted to tell me. I heard him.
I’m sorry. I couldn’t let him hurt you. It’s okay.
I’m okay. Just live. I shook my head, though.
Because it wasn’t okay, and I didn’t want to live without him.
If I made it out and he didn’t, I would die too.
He’d been right all along. I didn’t know how to save him.
If I moved, he’d die. If I didn’t move, he’d die.
He wanted me to shoot anyway, to take Derrick out and save myself, but I couldn’t.
Elijah would die if I did, and I couldn’t.
Derrick had slowly backed up so that he was slightly behind a tree, and I realized he hadn’t quite given up.
He’d kill Elijah and use the tree as cover to shoot at us before we could reach our weapons.
He was probably still hoping to frame us and Elijah, but he was a coward.
If he hurt Elijah, I’d kill him. Even if he shot me in the head, I’d survive until he died.
There were sirens in the distance. They were too far away to get to us.
They’d start at Chris’s car and they’d never make it in time.
Derrick grinned like he’d already won. Chris’s hand twitched.
He wanted to go for his gun. Derrick was already half behind the cover, though, and his eyes narrowed.
“Say goodbye to your little plaything, Mason,” Derrick said.
The gun moved to Elijah’s temple and his finger tightened on the trigger.
I resorted to begging, but right as I cried out, “Derrick, no, please,” a church bell rang, from somewhere behind us. We all froze, including Derrick. There was no church anywhere around us.
Derrick shook it off and his face twisted into a snarl, tightening his finger on the trigger once more.
I saw my life crashing around me. The bell rang again, a death toll, but then everything happened at once.
The sound of a gunshot ricocheted off the trees as a sob slipped out of me, but there was more, a pounding sound and a screech, and so much movement in front of me that I couldn’t keep up.
Elijah fell to the ground but Derrick seemed to have disappeared. There was a thud and a crunch. “Elijah!” was all I could say as he dropped into a bed of blooming flowers on the ground in front of him that I hoped wasn’t some poetic end. New life can bloom.
“What the fuck?” Chris found his voice. I looked to the right to find Derrick pinned to a tree by the antlers of an enormous deer.
Elijah’s cat was sitting nearby, apparently having led the way in some twisted fairy tale of fate.
Derrick gurgled, eyes wide and glassy. The deer backed up and shoved the antlers into his chest once more, finally rearing up on two legs and coming down with both feet on the wounds.
Derrick slid down the side of the tree, trying to take in a gasping breath as blood oozed from his mouth.
The sound was rattly and his eyes glazed over as he slumped onto the ground.
The deer backed off and turned toward us.
I wondered briefly if he was rabid or something but didn’t have time to be fearful.
Blood dripped from his antlers, but my mouth dropped open when I saw the teardrop shape on his forehead. He turned to where Elijah had fallen.
I was pulled from my shock immediately. “Elijah!” I cried, rushing forward.
Chris ran for Derrick, grabbing the gun he’d dropped when he fell. He checked for a pulse but shook his head at me as I reached Elijah on the ground. There was blood in his hair. “Elijah, fuck!” I cried, rolling him over.
My heart leapt in hope when he squinted and focused on me. “Ow. Fuck,” he muttered, blinking in confusion.
“Are you shot?” I cried, reaching for his head.
He struggled to sit up. “It didn’t hit me, it just grazed me.
He fired and was just . . . gone. It burns, but I don’t know how he missed.
My ear’s still ringing. I . . . where did he go?
” I let out a sob as I found the wound, only slightly bleeding from the bullet graze, not the mortal wound I’d feared.
He sat up, rubbing at his ear. “Am I deaf?” he asked me. “What the fuck just happened?”
He looked over at Chris and Derrick, trying to figure it out.
The deer approached us with bloodied antlers and Elijah’s eyes widened.
Enyo was already sauntering off toward Elijah’s yard, stopping to pull a bur out of her fur with her teeth then walking on.
The deer nudged the hand Elijah held out, then walked back into the woods, disappearing down a ridge.
“Uh, your friends showed up.” I answered his question.
“They were sent for the time,” he whispered.
“New life blooms,” I added, looking around us.
Because it was new. Whatever had been in his dreams had been right.
This was where it ended. Death had come, Derrick’s breath had been taken, and Elijah’s life was going to be new.
Hopefully better than it ever had been. I couldn’t question any of the gifts anymore, and I couldn’t blame it on night terrors.