Chapter 20
I haven’t gotten used to the added weight of the armaments on my body.
A gun on one hip, another on my ankle, a pouch of throwing stars around my waist, and a combat knife holstered on my thigh.
It still causes me to waddle a bit, as I have to swing my arms out wider to avoid hitting the pistol.
I probably look like a rookie cop on her beat.
Blake follows every step I take as he watches over me like a driving instructor with a teen behind the wheel. “Make sure you are looking out past the fence for approaching danger, not just in front of you.”
“Kind of would defeat the purpose of going out on night watch if I didn’t watch,” I say, not looking back at him.
“What was that?”
“I said, Good idea, sir.” I flash a jeering smile back at him.
It’s been like this the entire time: Blake giving me instructions that even a grade-schooler could have figured out on their own, and me smiling and politely accepting his wisdom, hoping that the faster he thinks he has taught me everything, the faster he’ll leave.
But he continues along with me, never relenting in his instruction.
“Okay, now turn right up here at the fence line.”
I stop dead in my tracks so abruptly that he runs into me. “Do you see something!?” he asks in an excited whisper.
“Are you kidding me?” I turn around to face him, hands on my hips as I raise my brows.
“Kidding about what?”
“Did you just tell me to ‘turn right’ when we came to the corner of the fence? Like, as in, when the fence on my left met up with the fence in front of me to form a corner. You thought I needed to be told to turn right, the only way I can go, otherwise I’d run right into a barbed wire fence?”
Blake opens his mouth and then closes it quickly, looking behind me as he points at the fence. “I was just making sure. You can’t be too careful, and there’s nothing wrong with double-checking—”
“That I know not to run into things?”
“It’s just important to walk the actual property line and keep an eye out for weak spots. Some people think glancing up and down the fence line is good enough. It’s not. When it comes to keeping people safe, we don’t cut corners.”
I can guess who he is referring to—Greg—but I can also guess that after yesterday’s attack, no one is going to be slacking on security anymore.
“Also, you’re gonna want to walk the perimeter every ninety minutes, but you don’t have to walk the fence line beyond the woods.
Just keep to the outside of them and pause to listen for any sound or movement.
You can keep watch up in the sniper tower as well, but there’s no substitute for boots on the ground.
I personally like to patrol every hour, but it’s up to you.
” He walks out in front of me, shining his flashlight beyond the fence, making a show to be extra vigilant in his search for any dangers.
“Looks clear out here, so let me show you the sniper tower.”
“I don’t need you to show me the sniper tower. My dad and I added that to the original house a long time ago.” I take off without waiting for him to respond. He might be the expert when it comes to recon and combat, but he doesn’t need to be a tour guide to my own childhood.
His footsteps are quick behind me. The beam of his flashlight swings wildly across the grass, spanning back and forth with each step. “You don’t have to be so difficult,” he says when he catches up to me. “I’m just trying to help you.”
“I don’t need your help, and stop trying to act like you know this place better than anyone else, like we’re all little helpless lambs without Blake watching over his flock.”
“Fine, Pearson, lead the way.”
“That’s it? No arguing, no fighting? Just fine?” I shine the flashlight in his face to see whether he’s messing with me.
“Jesus,” he says, shielding his eyes with his hand. “Watch where you’re pointing that thing.”
“I wanted to see if you had that shit-eating grin on your face.”
“Nope, no grin at all. I’m giving you what you want and following your lead.”
“I don’t like this.”
He blurts out a laugh that echoes across the open field. “I can’t win. If I fight with you, I’m an asshole. If I agree with you, you don’t like it.”
“A Blake Morrison that isn’t putting up a fight or making things difficult is a sneaky Blake Morrison, waiting to do something far more sinister later.”
“Wow, that’s really what you think of me?”
I put my hand on his shoulder, looking at him like a parent would a child. “It’s not what I think. It’s just who you are.”
He frowns but quickly looks away, bucking my hand off him and continuing toward the sniper tower. We walk in silence for a bit.
“I liked what you said to your dad tonight,” Blake says, peering over at me.
My face hardens as I shoot him an accusatory look. “What!? You were eavesdropping on us?”
“No—not on purpose. I was already walking up, and I could hear voices, but I didn’t think anything of it. Then as I got closer, I could hear what you two were saying, and it didn’t seem appropriate to interrupt, given how personal it was.”
“But it was appropriate to just listen to the whole thing?” I trudge forward, trying to create more distance between us, but he keeps up and just keeps talking.
“No, it wasn’t like that. It was one of those things where I was waiting for a minute or two to see if you guys were almost done, but then you kept talking, and I just froze . . .”
I eye him suspiciously, thinking back to the conversation, racking my brain for every little nugget that I wouldn’t have said to Blake—not by choice, anyway. “You’re a Hearing Tom. Like a Peeping Tom, but much worse.”
“That’s not worse.”
“It is to me,” I say, raising my chin.
“I only brought it up because . . . I . . . I didn’t know about your mom—”
“Don’t,” I say, cutting him off before he can even go down a path that I really don’t want to, especially with him.
The last thing I want from Blake is sympathy.
He never cared to learn anything about me all those years he spent ridiculing me.
And even the brief period when he was kind, he ended up weaponizing the vulnerability I did show him against me.
We make the rest of our walk to the sniper tower in silence, the only sound coming from the crunching of our boots on the slightly frosted grass.
The old house, the one we used to live in as a family, now feels like a corpse left out in the desert.
All the insides have been picked away, leaving behind the shell of something that used to be warm and safe.
The path up to the top contains four flights of stairs, which become tighter as the tower extends out of the house into its own structure, a narrow column with a square room at the top.
Windows cover all four walls, each equipped with a quick push release to create a ready aperture when needed for sniping.
Yet another addition to the property that I originally laughed at but now I’m thankful is here.
“I know you don’t want me to bring it up, but I just .
. . I get it. I lost my mom too, right before I moved to Wisconsin.
It’s actually why we moved. My dad and I couldn’t stand to be in the same house anymore, not without her in it.
We wanted a fresh, new start in a new place that didn’t have a permanent cloud of death hanging over it.
” Blake looks out one of the tower windows, as though he can still see that cloud in the distance, like no matter how far away they ran, it was always close by.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, letting out a strained sigh.
I don’t know how to react or why he’s telling me this. On some level, I think he’s being genuine. But on another, it feels like a trap, another attempt at luring me back in so he can hurt me again.
“How’d she die?” The words tumble out of my mouth, and I’m not sure why I even ask.
Maybe it’s because it feels like he wants to talk to me about it, or at least talk to someone about it.
Blake always seemed like he carried extra weight with him.
I always thought it was his asshole attitude weighing him down, but perhaps I was wrong.
“Cancer,” he says, turning to me. The slight sheen of tears in his eyes glistens from the moonlight.
“Sorry.”
He pulls his lips in and says, “Thanks.”
“Was it sudden?”
“Yes and no.” He shrugs. “Sorry, that doesn’t make any sense.”
I place my hand on his arm. Blake looks down at the touch before meeting my gaze. “No, it does make sense. Loss happens in an instant, but it lasts a lifetime.”
He nods in agreement. “A piece of my heart aches. It always does. Sometimes the pain is sharp and debilitating. Other times, it’s a dull twinge I’ve learned to live with.” We stand in silence for a couple of minutes, exchanging glances with the night sky and one another.
“Anyway.” He smiles, trying to shake off the weight of the moment. “Back to night-watch training. As you can see, this”—he holds out his arms and rotates in a circle—“is the sniper tower.”
“I would have never guessed.”
He ignores my sarcasm and continues with his lesson.
“Your dad and I made some changes.” Blake walks to a small table and picks up a massive black spotlight.
“This is your best friend up here. It has a million lumens of brightness, equivalent to a hundred thousand candles.” He moseys over to one of the corners and places the handle in a metal bracket that extends and swivels.
“We installed these in each corner in case you need to have your hands free to shoot. Originally, we wanted to get the spotlights like prisons have up in the towers and mount them on the outside, but they’re crazy expensive and hard to get. ”
“I bet.” I chuckle, amused at his excitement.
He lets on a grin. “Speaking of shooting.” Blake gestures to the three wooden chests sitting beneath the base of the windows. “We custom-made these to house the guns.”
“Smart.” I smile as he continues speaking.
“It’s mostly long rifles with scopes. They’re the most practical for up here.
But there are also a few handguns and a shotgun in case you’re ever overrun and need to blast your way out of here.
” He’s like a kid showing off a collection of his favorite toys.
His enthusiasm is infectious, and I can see now why he and my dad get along so well.
“So, that’s pretty much it. Patrol every ninety minutes and then you chill up here the rest of the time. Some nights, if somebody can’t sleep, they’ll come hang with whoever’s on night watch, but yeah, I think you get the gist.” He shrugs.
“I do.”
“You good on your own for the rest of the night?”
“I think I can manage.”
“All right. Well, you know where I am if any emergencies pop up,” Blake says, walking to the top of the stairs, ready to descend into the main house. He stops before his foot drops onto the top step and gives me a final glance. “Good night, Casey.”
“It will be now that you’re leaving,” I say, not letting him think he’s won me over just because we share a similar painful past.
“Right,” he says with a look of disappointment on his face as he turns and disappears out of sight. “Just try not to get us all killed,” he calls up the stairs.
I smile at his parting remark.