Chapter Fifteen
No one had yet asked why Rose hesitated to reach out to Derrick Tillman.
She suspected that the few who knew she felt responsible for his death thought she did so because the situation had been chaotic.
There was a tornado coming, a flood already raging, and eleven ducks she had been tasked with single-handedly getting in a row.
It had been a lot, so hesitating might have just been a problem with the environment.
But that wasn’t true.
Rose had hesitated for the same reason her feet faltered as she walked out onto the dock now.
When she had reached out to Derrick on that bus, she had seen something so intense that her body had reacted by simply stopping.
She had seen his expression.
More aptly, his rage.
It hadn’t fit his face, contorting the youthful handsomeness into an awful mask of anger, making every angle across it a startling addition to the already nerve-wracking situation.
In that moment, that anger had felt dangerous.
Too dangerous, like a hammer racing toward a window that already had several cracks spiderwebbing across it.
So Rose had hesitated in caution.
Because every part of her at that time had believed that Derrick Tillman was ready to unleash that rage. And bringing him closer to the ten other ducks she needed to get to the pond?
Her body had acted before she could stop it.
We can’t afford that anger, it had said.
She had squashed that thought a few seconds later, reminding herself that, anger or not, rage or not, he was still one of her ducks, but it had been too late.
Now, coming to a stop a few feet from Damon, she could see the same rage that his little brother had been wearing, written clearly across his face.
It didn’t occur to her until that very moment to wonder where Derrick’s anger had come from.
The origin of Damon’s anger, however, was no secret.
“You know, I had no doubt you’d come here, Deputy.”
His head was shaved close, dark hair matching an outfit that had been picked with stealth in mind. He wore black clothing and work boots. There was a cell phone in his left hand, a gun in his right.
He held the cell phone up to his sight line, but the gun was down at his side.
Rose glanced around the rest of the dock. There was more rope behind him, also another set of cinder blocks.
“The way I see it, I didn’t have a choice,” Rose said.
Damon laughed, though it was wholly unkind.
“Normally, I would have said you just like the attention, but now, I guess I understand it.” His fake laughter melted. He was seething next. “This is why I’ve never liked them.”
His phone vibrated and his gaze switched to its screen.
Whatever he saw must have been something he was waiting for. He nodded to himself.
Then he threw his phone into the water.
“Action heroes,” he continued. His laughter came back.
Again, there was no humor in it. “Did you know that Derrick was obsessed with them growing up? You couldn’t walk into our house without seeing some kind of action movie on the TV.
New ones, old ones, popular ones, ones that barely anyone had heard of…
they were always there, filling the rooms of childhood.
” He smiled, briefly. “I asked Derrick once if he wanted to be one of the heroes he loved so much but he said no. He just liked the idea of them.”
He sighed.
Rose looked at his finger next to the trigger.
“Someone, who by all accounts could have left the story at the beginning, decided to stay. To go against the insurmountable odds and try to make everything better.”
The anger in him was still there but Rose didn’t understand where he wanted it to go. Instead of being aimed at her, it seemed like it was burning him.
“Who did you take, Damon?” she ventured. “Where are they?”
Damon seemed surprised by the question. It smoothed into another smile that sent a shiver through her.
“Does it matter?” he asked. “It could be your parents or that boyfriend of yours or eleven strangers on a bus, you would always come, right? Because that’s what heroes do.”
A creeping cold started to move through Rose.
It was a lie.
Damon had no one.
No one but her.
And she had given herself over willingly.
Damon searched her expression. He nodded as if hearing her realization, but continued with his speech.
“But me? I never liked action movies. Those heroes Derrick loved so much? They were all the same. No matter the planning, the cause, the circumstances, they always found a way to fix everything. To come out on top. But we never saw all the choices that had to be made, all the consequences that had to happen. We never got to see everyone’s problems and worries.
Their burdens to bear. We didn’t see the hospital bills, the cost of living, the price of milk. ”
He shook his head.
“We saw heroes escaping quicksand and badly trained men with guns. We saw car chases and fights in the subway. Bombs attached to toilets and bodies floating at the bottom of lakes.”
Another shiver went down Rose’s spine.
Damon didn’t catch it.
He did, however, regard her with another pointed stare.
“You know, I think it was fate that they compared you to something Derrick—the man you didn’t save—loved. I just wanted to show the world that you weren’t a hero, after all. Not to Derrick, not to me.”
Damon seemed more tired now than mad. His shoulders sagged a little.
Rose didn’t understand the attitude.
He had her where he wanted, right?
No weapon, no backup. Just herself and good intentions.
“What do you want now, Damon? Why am I here?”
She eyed those cinder blocks.
Damon seemed unperturbed.
“Because the reason I dislike heroes the most is they’re foolish,” he said. “And I’m no fool.”
He lowered his gun just as the sound of footfalls on the wooden dock behind her sounded.
Whoever the newcomer was, he didn’t glance their way.
“Betrayal by someone you love was going to be my masterpiece at the end of all of this,” he said. “But it looks like that’s my scene now.”
Damon threw his gun into the water like he had his phone.
Rose had no idea what was happening but, for some reason, she simply couldn’t look away.
Because Damon Tillman was smiling again.
This time, there was no anger in it. No hate or rage.
This time, it seemed genuine.
His gaze moved over her shoulder.
He said one last thing before all hell broke loose.
It was simple.
“And I’m okay with it.”
* * *
JAMES KNEW HE had only a short amount of time before the sheriff’s department was on his tail.
He didn’t blame them or the man he had basically carjacked in the parking lot.
Desperate times called for desperate measures and there was no way in hell he was going to just sit around while Rose had jetted off to who knew what.
Much like during the chase through the hospital, Rose had a considerable lead ahead of him.
It was only by sheer luck that he’d seen another car booking it out of the main lot by the time he reached the main road.
It was Lloyd Harrison.
Two cars managed to get between them before James could ride his tail and, because of those two cars, he was slowed down enough that he lost Lloyd on a turn onto County. James cussed up a storm as he raced down the new road without a car in sight.
There was no way Lloyd had been that fast. He had to have turned off somewhere.
No sooner had he had the thought than James spotted tire marks streaking through the dirt and grass off the shoulder ahead. He slowed.
Then he saw the metal gate of the Seven Roads Cemetery, on the ground, bent and broken.
Rose.
As soon as he was past the gate, he was more confident in his choice.
Two sets of very distinct tire marks had kicked up dirt and grass along the road leading to the left.
James followed that for what felt like an hour but must have really only been a minute or two.
When the road started to curve to the right, though, he saw the trail of tire marks veer in the opposite direction.
That road led in between trees, away from the open land of the cemetery plots.
James reduced his speed as he went left. If he had been a tried and true local, he would have probably known exactly where he was headed. Instead, he was caught off guard when a large house came into view in the distance.
It had seen better days, that was for sure.
It also had seen Rose.
Their borrowed truck was parked off to the side, alongside the vehicle Lloyd had been driving. James didn’t even bother turning the car off. He barely put it in Park before he was leaping out and running.
The smell of mold and dust filled his nostrils. Humidity tightened its grip. James knew he wasn’t, but it felt like he had been holding his breath since the hospital. There was no one and nothing that jumped out of him.
“Rose!” he yelled, caution now be damned.
Silence.
Was she somewhere in the house? Where and who else was here?
He ran to his left and into what must have been the old living area. She wasn’t there. James ran in the other direction. His steps echoed.
“Rose!” he yelled again.
This time, the silence was gone.
“James!”
It was her. Faint, but he heard her.
He skidded to a stop before pivoting to go back to the entryway.
“Rose! Where are you?”
He heard her call him again. It was coming from outside.
James ran through a kitchen and through a door that was already wide-open. Two steps across the patio and he saw the dock. It was long, notably withered, and stood over a pond he’d never known existed.
If it had been a different situation, he might have appreciated the peaceful scenery.
But what he saw frightened him as much as it relieved him.
“Rose!”
At the end of the dock the most beautiful woman he had ever seen turned to her name.
He didn’t know what he expected but when she yelled for him, he listened.
“Hurry!”