Chapter 8
Sadie
The computer sits on a little desk in the corner of the living room, a particleboard afterthought slotted between the coat closet and the front window.
How nice of Clayton to give me a thread to the outside world for once.
I press the power button and watch the screen flicker.
My reflection blinks to life in the screen, washed out and slightly yellow, like an old Polaroid.
The computer boots slow, just as it always has.
I use the wait to pull the hairband off my wrist and wrap my hair into a small, high bun, pulling harshly on my scalp.
Once the login page loads and I open up the browser, I hover my fingers over the keyboard for a few beats before typing anything at all.
Sergeant Cade Kellan, USMC.
I don’t even have to check the spelling. I read the wanted paper enough times to memorize it. I’m not really sure what that says about me.
But I stopped trying to figure that out years ago.
The search engine barfs out results instantly.
The top is a mug shot—the one from the poster, but crisper, with the Lubbock County logo in the background.
I click on it. Cade’s face in the image is a story all its own.
His head is shaved almost to the skin, a crust of dried blood around his right eyebrow, jaw clamped so hard the muscles pop in the cheek. But his eyes… they’re the worst part.
Cold. Angry. Detached. Familiar.
I stare at him, my heart thumping in my throat for a few beats before backing out.
Underneath are links. I find local news, military records, a dozen clickbait ‘fugitive still at large’ pages, all of them reading the same. I pick a newspaper article from the top. It’s paywalled, but the summary is right there on the preview.
Kellan, a decorated Marine, stands accused in the deaths of two fellow Marines—Sgt.
Dylan Wheaton and Cpl. Elena ‘Laney’ Rodriguez—following a violent confrontation in late May.
Prosecutors allege premeditation and cite forensic evidence, while defense attorneys point to extenuating circumstances and psychological trauma.
I skim the rest for keywords. AWOL. PTSD. History of violence. An evil psychopath. A disgrace to the Marines. A loser.
None of it is surprising, but my gut still churns with a sickness I can’t quite put my finger on.
I click back, open the next link, and find a PDF of the wanted bulletin. The physical stats are at the top.
Height: 6’4”
Weight: 202lbs
Eyes: blue
Hair: blond
“Five years younger than me,” I say, as I read the date of birth. I double check the year to make sure.
Yep. I don’t know what I’m expecting to feel about that, but I lean away from the screen, my face heating in a way I haven’t known in a long time. I rest my head against the back of the chair and take a deep breath.
It doesn’t matter how old he is. None of that matters. At most, we could maybe be friends.
“Friends,” I mumble aloud. What the hell is wrong with me? Am I that fucked up?
After a minute, I sit up straight again, returning to the screen.
I scroll down the page and click through to more records.
There are images. One from his enlistment, where he looks almost like a different person—clean, smug, and the epitome of a young Marine.
The next is a candid photo from a base in Iraq, three men in a row grinning with their arms draped over each other’s shoulders.
Cade is in the middle. He’s smiling in a way that appears genuine, and it’s the polar opposite of the man in the mugshot.
I bite down on my lower lip. What happened to you, Cade?
My eyes narrow as I read the caption.
Cade Kellan with squad mates Wheaton and Nguyen.
I let my pointer hover over the faces, clocking Wheaton as one of the victims. The woman from the articles is not anywhere in sight.
Back to the search bar.
I type in ‘Cade Kellan incident.’ The first page is all repeats of prison escapes and murders, but on page two there’s a mention of an ‘earlier domestic fire.’
I click it.
The article is three paragraphs, buried in the archives of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, and I scan it quickly.
Lubbock fire officials ruled last week’s blaze at the Kellan residence an accident. No charges filed. The home’s owner, Montgomery Kellan, was pronounced dead at the scene. Stepson Cade Kellan, 15, escaped the fire with minor burns.
There is a photo with the piece of a charred rectangle, a pile of toys warped and stuck together in the driveway.
No one else’s name is mentioned.
I scroll to the comments, but the thread is closed. I read the article again, this time focusing on the word accident. In my experience, nothing is ever an accident.
But I’m biased. I close the tab.
Somehow, I burn almost two more hours scrolling, clicking, and reading.
The information starts to collapse into itself.
There’s a list of deployments, medals, citations, all of it reading like the back of a baseball card.
There’s a brief piece about the Brig at Camp Pendleton, the escape, and the subsequent BOLO.
There’s a sighting in Colorado—grainy, time-stamped gas station footage, Cade in a brown hoodie with a blue baseball cap, back turned to the camera.
Then nothing.
Then he shows up with a snakebite in my barn.
I sit with it, the lack of resolution sitting heavy on my chest. It’s a strange thing, when someone you know is also a ghost on the internet.
I drag my finger down the trackpad, then tap at the search bar again. I mean to type something else but just leave it blank. The blinking cursor mocks me.
There’s nothing else to find. He’s a bad guy. A psycho.
And he’s half-dead in my barn.
Finally, I close the browser, the faint afterimage of his face burned into my brain, and shut the computer down.
In the silence of the house, the A/C finally clicks off. I hear the slow tick of the wall clock in the hallway, each second stretching long and hollow. I get up from the chair, my bare feet sticking to the old vinyl floor, and walk to the window.
The sun is setting, and the yard is all shadows. The barn is a black shape at the bottom of the hill, barely visible. I try to picture him in there, whether he’s sleeping or awake, whether he’s even planning to stay.
Maybe he’ll just disappear into the night.
I rest my forehead against the cool glass, shut my eyes, and let the image of the burning house flicker behind my eyelids. The smell of smoke, the slow horror of it. I build out this weird, twisted movie of a fifteen-year-old Cade running from a fire.
But somehow… I don’t think he was running from it.
“Chicken casserole is a cheap tradition in this house,” I say to Flint, as he sits on the kitchen rug, drool hanging from his jowls.
He tilts his head at me, completely unamused.
My gaze returns to my work, my mind still spinning with the stories on the internet. I grab a spatula and start distributing it into a meal-sized container for Clayton.
I hope he burns his tongue on it after he heats it up.
He won’t be home until after midnight, maybe two if the bar stays open that long tonight. I know what he’ll be like when he stumbles through the door.
He’ll never touch this casserole.
I scrape the bits off the pan, and then stare at what’s left. I can divide it into six similar-sized pieces. Will Clayton notice if two are gone?
I could say I fed one to Flint.
“No,” I answer myself, shuddering at his reaction.
‘Don’t feed that damned dog our good dinner food.’
So that leaves one option. I’m skipping dinner tonight.
I spoon half of the casserole into a chipped blue bowl, the rest into a foil tray for tomorrow. I cover the bowl with a cracked plastic plate, and for a moment, I just stare at it.
Finally, glancing down, I realize I’m still holding the spoon, my knuckles white.
I rinse it and set it in the drying rack. Then, because I can’t think of anything else to do, I go to the mudroom and put on my boots, holding the casserole under my arm.
I slip out the back door, letting the screen slam. The air is softer now, all the day’s heat rising up to leave behind the cool. My breath comes in puffs as I cross the yard, my pulse throbbing in the side of my head.
I walk the yard perimeter once, checking that the gates are shut, the water troughs topped off. Flint bounces up at me, tongue out, and I kneel to rub the big hound behind the ears.
“If he tries something, you better protect me. You’re not locked out,” I whisper, feeling the low growl rumble through his body.
When I finally open the barn door, I have to blink a few times before I can see anything at all.
Cade is exactly where I left him, propped against the cold north wall, legs stretched out, hands clasped around his knee. He still hasn’t put on the clothes I brought him. They sit in a pile beside him.
I frown, unsure if he’s stubborn or too weak.
He doesn’t acknowledge me. His head is tipped back, eyes on the dark above, like he’s waiting for the roof to cave in. I step inside, bowl in hand, and shut the door behind me.
“Are you hungry?”
He rolls his head toward me, blue eyes catching a sliver of fading light.
He nods once. “I guess.”
I cross the space and set the bowl on the floor within his reach, then retreat a few feet. I don’t want to stand over him, and I don’t want to sit too close.
Cade watches me the whole time. Then, when I don’t move again, he drags the bowl to his lap and starts eating. He forks a bite, and then swallows.
My stomach knots up. “I’m not a good cook.”
He turns his head toward me. “Huh?”
“I’m sorry you’re having to eat that.”
He makes a face. “Why are you apologizing? It’s fucking food. You eat it, and then you move on. As long as it goes down, who cares?”
“Right,” I mumble, not sure if it’s still an insult.
He keeps going, working through the casserole like an animal, as Flint sits beside me, watching. Every so often Cade glances up, like he’s expecting me to make a move. I just watch him, picking at my jeans.
“Do you want more?”
He shakes his head, wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, and sets the bowl at his side. “It was good,” he says, then adds, “better than anything I can remember having.” He says the last word so flat, I’m not sure he’s being kind.
I want to ask why he killed those people. I want to ask if he misses his family, or if he regrets anything, or what his plans are now. I’m desperate for conversation. But I can’t make my mouth form the words.
Cade lets out a sigh, his gaze meeting mine. “What did you do, Sadie?”
I freeze at the use of my name. I didn’t tell him that, did I?
“You’re on house arrest,” he pushes. “What for?”
My eyes burn from the dust, and I look away, finding the toes of my boots. “Something I can’t undo but wish I could.”
Cade is silent for a moment. “Everyone does that.”
“Maybe.” I steal a glance at him, but he’s not looking at me now. He’s staring at the ceiling.
“What was it?”
I shadow my head. “It doesn’t matter.” The words sting my tongue.
“Sure, okay,” he deadpans.
I pick the caked mud off the toe of my boot, and then trace the faint lines of moonlight that leak through the barn roof. There are spider webs in every corner, threads glimmering in the silvery color.
Maybe I don’t want company. I don’t know how to even do this.
I stand to my feet, pick up the empty bowl, and then clear my throat. “Will you be okay here tonight? Do you need more water?”
“I’m fine.” His eyes stay fixated above him.
I nod and then reach for the door, but his voice stops me.
“Actually, I need your help,” he says, the weight of his eyes on me now.
I freeze, hand on the latch. “With what?”
He glances down at his leg, then back up at me. “Putting on the clothes you brought. I can’t do it on my own, and I’m sick of smelling piss. Will you help?”