27. Colton
TWENTY-SEVEN
COLTON
G arrison pulls off on the road, and he gets out of the truck, so Carsyn and I do, too. He dips his head to me, then presses my sister against the truck, producing a small gun from his coat.
“I don’t want you to have any part of this, but the only two people I trust to keep you safe are right here on the side of the road,” Garrison says to Carsyn, his words rough but careful. Her hands twist together anxiously as he speaks to her calmly, lifting her shirt to stash a pistol on her person. “So, if we get separated, or anything happens?—”
“Nothing is going to happen. Colton rescued Kinleigh. He survived captivity.” She brings her hands to his face, cupping it tenderly, their secret past silent between them. “I also handed myself over to Forrest, because of Liam, and you saved me from that. You are the reason Colton and Kinleigh are alive.” She rocks to her toes and kisses him, and I watch, not because I relish the idea of watching my sister make out but because it’s the first time I’ve ever seen Carsyn emotional with a man.
“Nothing is going to happen except that Forrest is going to pay for what he’s done to my family.” She kisses him again, still holding his face. “For what he’s done to you.”
Garrison glances my way. I know I’ve only been fed bites of the story because there isn’t enough time now to get it all. I may have been born at night, but I wasn’t born last night. Garrison clearly has a story of his own, not to mention, he’s got a whole real identity he himself hasn’t lived for years because of his work.
After this—after Forrest is killed—Garrison said he’s done with the FBI. For me, I can finally look my wife in the eyes and tell her that it’s over. That the man who she called her father, who raped and beat her, who abused her and ruined her life—that he’s never coming back. He’s gone with a finality that brings ease and comfort to those who knew him.
I want that moment for Kinney so god damn bad.
I’m starting to think Garrison wants Forrest dead just so he knows Carsyn is no longer a pawn in his game. The fact that Forrest could, would and does want to hurt Garrison doesn’t appear to stress him out. Carsyn being here, that is clearly his biggest concern. He looks around, glances at his watch, and then his intense gaze lifts to mine.
“If something goes wrong—” He stops, opening the door to let Carsyn back inside. But she won’t budge.
“Don’t you dare start with some sexist shit now. If he can hear this, so can I!” she says, smacking him in the chest. He doesn’t react but merely faces me, leaving the truck door wide open.
“I’ll leave the keys under the seat. And if something happens to those, there’s another taped to the underside of the bumper. There’s a pistol stashed in the spare tire, and two more taped under the hood. A first aid kit is underneath the driver’s side seat, as well as a charged burner phone and cash.”
Garrison doesn’t look at me and he doesn’t try to hide the moment from me, either. He pulls Carsyn into his chest, smoothing his hand through her waves as he says, “I love you.”
He pulls back, tipping his hat my way as he adds, “alright, let’s go.” He’s behind the wheel with the lights on before Carsyn can even process what happened. I trudge toward her, dancing my eyebrows. We clamber inside. Two minutes later, we’re parked in a grove of trees, lights off, staring at the oversized, run-down well-lit barn in the middle of the clearing.
“When did you—” Carsyn’s words fall off as a lifted truck approaches the clearing, coming to park alongside the barn. My sister sucks in a breath, and Garrison twists the keys, freeing them from the ignition. He tosses them under the seat, then twists to face me.
“The second guy who comes out, I’m gonna stab him in the neck then make my way to the back of the truck and ambush the first guy right as he notices his friend isn’t with him.” He taps his pocket where the syringes are. “If that doesn’t work, I have a gun with a silencer. If it means I have to kill one of them to get you inside, I will.” His expression speaks all of the things he did not say. I don’t want to kill anyone ever again. Let’s get this right so I don’t have to.
“You wait here with Carsyn, and when the second man falls, head in. I’ll be right behind you.” He swallows, glancing at my sister. “Stay by his side. Once I’m in there, you’ll come with me while your brother… rights the situation.”
Quietly, he opens the door, letting his boots hit the ground with a muted crunch. Carsyn reaches out, yanking his shirt, pulling him back into the cab for a kiss.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” she says, then adds, “Please.”
He winks an eye despite his face remaining stoic, promising what he can. Garrison casts me a glance, fingers the pocket of syringes, then trudges toward the truck near the barn. His timing is perfect, almost like he’s watched Forrest and his men come and go many times to prime him for this moment. No sooner is he crouched than the doors swing open and two men stroll out.
They’re tall and big, but not any bigger or taller than me or Garrison. One of them is smoking a cigar, looking up at the sky as he rounds the side of the barn for the truck. The second man, his vest on the outside of his coat, curves the corner just as Garrison rises. It happens so fast; I’d be amazed by it if it didn’t send a shiver down my spine. My side aches with the memory of that needle, and images flash through my mind of lying on a bed, starving, losing my mind, nothing but paralytic and pain in my system.
He covers his mouth and empties the needle into his neck and is on the other side of the truck, approaching the passenger side window within what feels like a split second. The man in the seat catches the movement in the side mirror and does a double take, making Carsyn gasp.
“No,” she breathes aloud, her nostrils flaring as the early traces of moon spread over her face. “No, no.”
“It’s okay, he’s okay,” I tell her, watching as Garrison rears back, stabbing the man in the throat after he pins him to the ground outside the truck. “C’mon. We gotta go. We gotta get in there.”
I pat my pockets, double checking my weapons didn’t conveniently evaporate or disappear, then run toward the barn with Carsyn’s hand tucked into the crook of my elbow.
We push inside, and I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this isn’t it.
The walls of the barn are covered in weapons, but not modern weapons. Cat o’ Nine tails, swords, knives, hooks—the inside of this barn looks like a monster’s dream. At the back of the space stands a man wearing flannel, a gray moustache taking up most of his face. I point my gun at him, not more than twenty feet between us, and he raises his palms in surrender without speaking a word.
I toss my head over my shoulder, wordlessly telling him to get the fuck out. His eyes hold mine, weathered and lined with age. His gaze veers off to the side, where a few boxes are stacked near a beam, and next to those boxes? Forrest Conway, with his back partially turned to us, unaware of our entry as he attempts to light the cigar hanging from his lips.
Click. Click. Click. The fourth try, flame appears and he takes the cigar between two gloved fingers, lifting it to puff through the flame.
The bartender moves carefully and slowly around the makeshift bar, wiping his hands on a small towel that hangs from the waist of his jeans. “Going for the other crate of whiskey,” he announces before walking past us out of the barn. The doors flutter as he leaves, and I turn back to spot Garrison slipping inside, dirt lining his knees, coating his hands. He’s out of breath, but comes to stand next to my side, both of us creating a shield for Carsyn. Forrest is slow to notice we’re in the barn, but when he does, his hand is fast making for the gun on his hip.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I grumble, aiming my pistol at him with the steadiest of hands. I should be nervous being in the same room with this man. The things I saw him do to Kinleigh—the things I didn’t see him do but know he did. If I stare at him long enough, I can almost feel his boot in my ribs, his fist colliding with my jaw. This man is evil, and this barn… it smells like the inside of that shipping container. The one I opened, the one that had women and a scared child inside. Maybe my brain is playing tricks on me. Maybe it doesn’t smell like that shipping container in this barn at all. Maybe my brain is doing whatever it can to make me remember how evil this man is so that I don’t walk out of here with guilt on my shoulders because of the blood on my hands.
Either way, I keep my pistol trained on him. I’m a great goddamn shot. So is Carsyn. And after watching Garrison take down two men alone in silence, I’d be willing to bet he ain’t too bad with a gun, neither.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favorite Beckett,” Forrest croaks, sucking on his cigar as if he isn’t being held at gunpoint in a barn at night in the middle of nowhere by one of the many men that wish to see him dead. Calm, cool, collected, his passive behavior niggles its way under my skin.
“Your guards aren’t gonna save you. They’re out. Used your own tricks against you, Forrest,” I tell him, but he isn’t really listening or even paying attention. I thought he was looking between me and Garrison, whom he has not even acknowledged, but now I realize he’s looking where Carsyn hides.
“You made it really easy, sweet thing,” Forrest chortles, taking another puff of his putrid cigar. “Delivering yourself to me.” Finally, his eyes slide to Garrison, the man whom he believed was family up until a few weeks ago. “Garrison,” he breathes. “I thought you were dead.”
I’m not sure if Forrest is aware that Garrison is not actually his brother-in-law, and I’m not sure of the terms which they parted. What I do know is that Garrison has kept his word, and he has kept my sister safe, and he’s here now, fighting with me, not against me. Whatever is between them is just that—between them.
And they aren’t gonna get any resolution now.
“Tell me you’re sorry for what you did to Kinleigh, I want to go home to her and tell her that your last words were an apology,” I breathe, my nostrils flaring as heated breaths fill my chest. I should be shaking from how much raw anger rattles around inside me, but I’m as calm as ever.
He takes another drag of his cigar, puffing the air out in delicate rings that evaporate into the cool, night air. Inside this barn is cold, and again I’m reminded of that night.
The night I rode back to the Beckett house with Kinleigh in my lap. The feeling I had in my chest thinking she was dead—when I look at Forrest, all of that shit I’ve worked so hard in therapy to forget, it comes rushing back.
“I think we both know I’m not the apologizing type,” he says, smug as all hell.
There’s one thing I want to ask. If he doesn’t answer, fine, but I can go back to my life knowing I tried to find the only answer Kinney cares about.
With my gun still pointed at him, Garrison quiet by my side, I ask, “why didn’t you tell Kinleigh you weren’t her biological father earlier? Why’d you wait so long?”
He tosses the cigar to the loose hay on the ground, not stepping on it to put it out. A piece of hay ignites, but I look back to Forrest, his hands now on his hips.
“I’m supposed to give you all the answers you want then let you kill me, is that right?” he asks, then his evil gaze roves over me to Garrison, his eyes narrowing, face twisting. “I had my suspicions about you. That’s why I never gave you the coordinates.”
“I didn’t need you to give them to me,” Garrison says, his tone rough, almost like this moment is as difficult for him as it is for me. And while he didn’t go through what I did, or what Kinleigh did, the truth is, I don’t know what he went through. I don’t know what he was forced to do, or the man that the government and Forrest made him be. He’s here for the same reason as I am: to see Forrest die.
Smoke tickles my nose, and Carsyn tugs at Garrison’s arm, quietly warning him of the spreading fire. It’s moving slow, but it’s growing, and I don’t care. I’ll kill him and watch the flames eat his corpse, then go home to my girl.
Then our lives can peacefully begin.
Carsyn will be safe.
It will be over. All of it.
My indecision, my inability to keep the past out of my brain, my surreal feeling standing here—all of it gets the best of me, and in a split second, Forrest moves for the gun on his hip, pulling and shooting quicker than I can shoot him.
Two shots are fired nearly back-to-back but there’s only one painful groan followed by a loud thud. Carsyn’s scream pieces my brain, and I realize that Forrest shot Garrison, and I shot Forrest.
With one hand held over his belly, Forrest looks down at the crimson spilling from between his fingers, soaking the flannel shirt covering his body. The gun falls from his hand, and I rush over to take it, pushing Forrest to the ground. With my knee in his lower back, I look over to Carsyn, who has pulled Garrison’s upper half onto her legs, one hand putting pressure on the shot in his shoulder, the other sifting through his hair as she whispers assurances through tears.
“Just hold on, okay? You’re gonna be okay. We're gonna get you to the hospital, okay?” Tears streak her cheeks, her lashes heavy with moisture as she blinks up at me, desperation etching deep into her features. “Finish him, Colton, please. Finish him, Garrison needs help!”
“I’m...” Garrison croaks. “I’m... I’m okay,” he finishes. “I got a few minutes before we really need to go.”
Carsyn cries, high and pained. “No! No, we need to get you there now, Garrison.” Her eyes come to mine, and she begs me to save her man in one singular look. I give her a nod, then grab Forrest by the back of the neck, my other hand looped on his pants. I jerk him up to his feet, the fire in the barn spreading along the back wall, smoke starting to fill the air.
Dark blood stains the ground where he laid, and I drag him to the back of the barn, where the bar stands. He can’t hardly stand, so I take his hands, bracing them on either side of the bar. Smoke plumes fill in around us quickly, Carsyn’s sharp cries and coughs keeping me aware that my revenge has to be quick.
We don’t have much time.
Garrison may not have much time.
“If I could do it over again,” Forrest spits, blood scattering along the surface of the bar. His eyes lift to meet mine through the haze, and he smiles. “I would.”
I place my hand on the back of his head, shove his face into the bar, jaw open between the bar’s edge. Rearing back, loaded pistol in hand, I crack him hard in the back of the head. The flames crackle, Carsyn cries and still I can hear the exact moment his jaw splits, the grind of his teeth against the wood as his entire mouth breaks apart. He falls to floor, his face no longer recognizable, but life still in his eyes. His tongue moves, he makes noises, and as much as I hate to put him out of his misery, I can’t risk this mother fucker somehow surviving. A shot to his guts, a broken face, fire… and still, I do not trust Forrest Conway.
I point my gun between his eyes, but at the last minute, change my mind, lowering it a few feet. One, two, three, I fire shot after shot right into his dick, destroying the thing he used against my girl for years. Forrest may be dying, but he feels it. His pupils blow, his gurgles intensify, and he attempts to roll or move, I don’t know which. One last shot in the head renders him completely motionless.
Gone.
Dead.
Flames lick at the edges of the bar, and I take one last look at his body before running back to where Carsyn is still faithfully holding Garrison in her lap.
“C’mon, take my gun,” I tell her, placing the hot pistol in her hands. “Cover us,” I tell her as I lift a lethargic Garrison from the ground. He stands, and attempts to walk, and I keep his good arm draped tightly over my shoulder, my other free arm looped around his waist.
“C’mon, c’mon, we’re almost there,” I urge him, following Carsyn's steps as she pushes through the doors, curving the side of the barn. She reappears, eyes wide. “They’re still out. C’mon. Let’s go.”
Ahead of me, she races to the truck and starts it, then clambers into the backseat. She kicks open the door right as I arrive, Garrison grumbling and moaning
She pulls him into the cab, and I climb inside. For a moment, the three of us stare out the foggy windshield at the roaring blaze in front of us.
“Phone,” Garrison rasps, “give me my phone.”
Carsyn doesn’t argue or try to convince him otherwise, and as I pull out of the wooded area behind the barn, hitting the main road, I see the phone illuminate in the rearview.
Garrison calls someone, and though we can’t hear the other side, nothing but his words fill the car.
“The barn off of 108. In the woods. A silver truck parked next to it. That’s where Forrest is.” He swallows thickly. “He’s dead. I killed him in self-defense.” And with that, he ends the call.
Carsyn takes her sweater off, pressing it to Garrison’s shoulder as I take the country roads as fast as possible, heading straight for the hospital.
I wouldn’t have my sister if it weren’t for Garrison.
I wouldn’t have been able to experience revenge without Garrison.
And now, he’s taking the fall for Forrest’s murder, using his job, the one he despises, to protect me.
Carsyn gasps, and I check the rearview to see her holding his face in her hands. “Garrison!” she slaps him, and I think for all of my life I will remember the sound of her trying to keep life in him. “ Garrison! ”
I don’t know how much blood he’s lost, or what that bullet went through. But I do know that life is short and we can’t waste time.
“Tell him,” I say to her quietly, tugging the wheel to the left, cutting through an almond orchard to hit the main highway faster. “Tell him Cars,” I say, more voice full of tenderness. My heart aches as I stare at her in the rearview, watching the man she loves slip away.
“Garrison,” she says again, slapping him. “I love you, please don’t. Please, just… open your eyes. We’re almost there, you can’t die! You’re my soul mate.”
His eyes don’t open again.
I drive into the ambulance bay not more than three minutes later, and two men in blue scrubs pull him from the backseat onto a stretcher. Carsyn, with blood smeared along her forearms and face, her shirt clinging to her chest, chases after, rattling off every detail she knows.
“He was shot with a Beretta M1951,” she adds, but as the doors seal closed behind her, I lose track of her voice.
“Sir,” a man calls to me.
Turning in my bloody boots, I look at a security guard wearing a vest, his hands snug in warm gloves. “You’re gonna have to move your truck to the patient lot.”
I nod, tipping my hat at him as I slip into Garrison’s truck, and park it in the lot.
Before I go inside, I call Kinleigh.
“What’s going on? There’s a fire on the news. They’re saying… they think…” her voice is so rich and sweet, even full of panic and fear, that my chest floods with comfort and adoration. I look back at the glowing hospital, knowing what my sister is going through because I’ve been there.
“I love you, Kinney. So goddamn much,” I breathe out, invisible weight falling off my shoulders to the ground with each second that passes.
“Why are you saying that? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” She questions.
“Everything is…” I want to say fine, but with Garrison owning my sister’s heart and him being unconscious and shot, it wouldn’t be right. “I’m okay. Carsyn is safe. Forrest… is dead.”
I hear her swallow through the line, and bumps break out along my neck and forearms. “Tell me you killed him and saw him die with your own eyes.”
The hospital sign blinks as the H struggles to stay lit. “He is dead. I watched him die. I killed him.”
The line is quiet for a moment before she asks, “is his body in that barn that’s on fire? Is it true?”
I start moving toward the hospital. “Yes. I’m at the hospital with Carsyn. She’s okay but… can you get a bag of her things together? And can you get a pair of my sweats and some socks and shoes, too? Come down here. I’ll call Nash and Gen to pick you up and drive you.”
“Yes, yes, oh my god, I’m so glad Carsyn is okay. I’m shaking, Colton. I’m shaking. Thank God she’s okay!”
“I love you Kin and I’ll see you soon.”
“I love you too.”
I call Nash and fill him in as much as I can from the waiting room of a hospital, and thirty minutes later, Kinney is here, stroking her hand through Carsyn’s hair, holding her, loving her, bringing her the same comfort she brings me.
Garrison, on the other hand, remains in critical condition.