Fletch
FLETCH
G rief is a tricky thing. And sympathy, more so.
I fell out of love with Jada Watson a long time ago. It’s been years since we shared a bed. Eons since we were a family. It feels as though I’ve lived a lifetime since we were a united unit, which means the there theres and the sympathetic sorrys I receive, purely because she used to be mine, feel wrong.
Like receiving a participation ribbon for a race I never ran.
I don’t grieve the woman inside the box, not even when the undertaker flips a switch and allows the straps to lower her into the ground. I don’t mourn for the woman who chose pills over her child. Not the one who simply wasn’t strong enough to choose her family over cheap thrills.
I’ve never loved that woman. And for that, I’m not sorry.
But I miss the girl I fell in love with. The one who cried over a shoebox filled with cracked eggs. The one who dazzled on a stage and ran to me when her practice sessions were over. The girl who lit up a room simply by being in it, but lit up herself when she looked at me.
She loved me, and I loved her. For a while, that was enough. And for that girl, I’ll hold a torch in my heart forever.
But I hold my own baby bird now, while she’s witness to something a child should never see. While her body wracks from a soul-deep ache and her heart breaks, because she doesn’t understand that her mother is, horrifyingly, better off dead than stuck in the hell she existed within while alive.
Someday, she might get it. And I’ll know, when that day comes, that I can look her in the eyes and promise I did the very best I could. I never stopped. I never gave up. And even after death, I never faltered in my quest to make things better for Jada.
A flicker of light catches my attention. Something I’m not sure I would notice, if not for the fact I was expecting it. So I glance down and study the single red dot hovering over my heart. Just inches from Mia’s, as she plasters her body to mine.
I turn from the threat and search the faces of my friends, then past them, to the Detectives Elen and Balladae, whose eyes are cast this way. I guess there’s a part of them that still wonders if I’m the reason Jada was hurt. Because if they were as confident as they say they are, surely they’d be looking elsewhere.
“Sera?” My pulse thunders as I cross the lawn, but I catch her attention and snatch her hand, though she’s mid-conversation with the mayor. Yanking her around, I shove Mia into her arms and feel no guilt for how the girls crash together. “Take her for me, please.”
Of all the people here today, I have a list of who I want to save, and in what order I want them safe. Mia and Sera are at the top. They’re at the top of every single list from now until eternity.
“What are you—” Stunned, she wraps Mia close and brushes the hair from her face. “Charlie?”
“Get in the car.” I set my hand on the small of her back and herd them toward one of Felix’s SUVs. “Doors closed, windows up.”
“Charlie?”
“Are you listening to my instructions?” I tap Archer’s shoulder as we pass because the red dot zooms across his back, scanning the crowd and warning me of what’s to come. Then I grab the car door and wrench it open. “Did you hear me?” I hold Sera’s wrist and refuse to let her go until she acknowledges my words. “Door closed?—”
“Windows up. Yeah.” Her beautiful eyes flitter over my shoulder and around in search of a clue. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to understand. You just have to do as I say.” I lean in and press a kiss on Mia’s cheek. But I give her a smile to let her know everything is fine. “In the car, please.”
“Fine.” Scowling, she turns and allows Mia to climb in ahead of her. “But you’ll explain it to me when we have a moment.”
“Sure.” I slam the door once she’s in and turn to an expectant Archer. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Oblivious to the red dot that tracks over Felix’s back, he pats my shoulder and smiles. It’s the there there kind I’m so sick of. “The story with the baby birds and stuff… Was that true? Did they survive?”
I move away from the car, knowing he’ll follow. “The nest was real, and the cracked eggs. Jada sneaking out with a shoebox and flaking on the show was real, too.”
“But the birds?”
“Had no chance. The shells were cracked. All of them. There’s no way they were gonna survive.” I stop a few feet from Jada’s plot and turn so the Detectives see my face. They see me talking. They see my alibi, clear as day. “But she tried,” I admit. “She gave up something she’d been working hard for to care for something other than herself. That’s all my baby needs to know. So now she can look into the sky and know the potential for greatness was there. Which means she never has to wonder if half of her is just…” I scratch my jaw. “Bad.”
I guess some might expect an explosion, considering the plans I’ve made in the last twenty-four hours. A bang loud enough to reverberate throughout the city. But all I hear is the whoosh of a bullet zinging past my ear, then I see the panic sprinting into Archer’s gaze.
I hear the splat of metal piercing meat.
The cry of a man being hit.
And then the chaos of Micah’s instincts demanding he spin and protect Felix. Felix protecting Christabelle. The mayor’s security converging on Lawrence, and then Archer’s roar of horror as he turns to grab Mayet.
They can’t know they’re not truly at risk. They only know there’s a sniper hidden somewhere nearby.
I don’t move at all, despite the chaos exploding around me. I don’t run. I don’t hide. I refuse to be anywhere except where the cops can see me. Because Nathan Booth stumbles out of the trees just thirty feet from where the detectives stand, holding his chest and collapsing to his knees.
My alibi remains intact.
Though Archer’s suspicion is like a living, breathing dragon as he swings back around. “What the fuck?” Holding Mayet, he tries to grab my shoulder. “Get down, !”
I look up at the sky when I feel the first drop of cold touch my scalp. Then toward the car I placed Mia inside and know I’ve done the right thing.
“It’s snowing.” I lift my hands to collect the falling white powder while the cops dive on a dying Booth, and Micah discreetly puts his weapons away again. While Felix wraps Christabelle in his arms to keep her safe, and the mayor’s guards likely break his bones because they’re not nearly as trained or smooth as a Malone guard.
I look to an entirely calm Mayet as she purses her lips and pieces the scene together, even under Archer’s rough hold. And then I smile and offer her the snow melting on my palm. “It’s like she’s saying hello, don’t you think?”