Chapter 62
Vin ran to the side as Sean fired, the bullet missing him by inches.
Sean reloaded and fired off again. Vin kept moving as the round fired a hole in the side of the house.
He summoned all of his remaining strength as he jumped over the railing of the porch, landing hard and rolling toward the side of the house.
Sean followed in hot pursuit, but he wasn’t moving very fast, either.
He chased after Vin with a limp to his step, but Vin could soon hear the sound of him pumping the shotgun once more.
Vin hit the dirt and rolled behind the house as another shot rang out, spinning across the ground with a wave of pain and disorientation.
He turned over to See Sean standing over him, pumping the gun once more and pointing it at him with finality.
“I didn’t want it to come to this,” Sean said. “I really didn’t. You need to know I never wanted you dead. But you still need to die, Vin!”
“And then what?” Vin asked, trying to buy some time. He thought that if he had a few seconds to rest, he might be able to find some strength in his battered body. “You gonna take over the Chain Gang? They ain’t gonna follow you, Sean!”
“No,” Sean said, glaring down at Vin. “I saw it as I rode in. Your Native friends have the Chain Gang in retreat. There is no Chain Gang anymore. And now I’m the man who killed Chainz.
That means I’ll take over the ranch and run this territory the way it needs to be run. With my wife and son by my side.”
“And you think she’s gonna be all right with that? After you do this again?” Vin asked incredulously.
“I’ll tell her that Chainz killed you,” Sean said. “I got here too late, but I fought him off myself and stopped him. I saved our home. Me!”
“You damned this place,” Vin spat back. “And she has to know that by now. You just gonna keep lying to that poor woman until the end of time?”
Vin reached beside him, and his hand settled onto something in the tall grass.
Something Sean couldn’t see. Vin didn’t dare turn to look at it, but he knew what it was.
He’d know the worn handle of his pistol anywhere.
It had fallen off the balcony while he was fighting Chainz, and his extreme luck had paid off yet again.
But Sean still had him dead to rights. He had to keep him talking long enough for an opportunity to present itself.
“No!” Sean insisted, gesturing at Vin forcefully with the gun.
“No, I saved it! I did what needed to be done! Without me, Deb would have died in that remnant camp, and who knows where they would have sent Jimmy? This place and your life were the price I paid for their lives! I made the right choice, Vin! I did! And you know I did! You know it, goddammit! You fucking know it!”
Vin looked up at Sean, his tension breaking for just a moment as he noted the desperate tears streaming out of his former friend’s eyes.
He hadn’t pulled the trigger yet, and Vin thought he knew why.
He was looking for someone to tell him that he had been right.
He knew he was wrong, but he was trying desperately to hear otherwise.
It was sad, and Vin pitied him for a second, but he got over it really fast.
“I’m not gonna tell you what you wanna hear, Sean,” Vin said, looking up at his one-time friend and shaking his head sadly. “You were wrong, and you know you were wrong. You don’t need me to tell you that what you did was right. You need to accept that it wasn’t.”
“No!” Sean cried out in frustration, his face twisting in an ugly mask of desperate resistance. “No, I saved them! I did that! Me! Not you! I’m the one who deserves this life! You walked out of it! You can’t have it back! Not now! Not ever! You haven’t earned it! It’s mine!”
“Fuck you, Sean,” was all Vin could say.
“I regret walking out of this place every damn day of my life, and if I live past this second right here, I’ll keep regretting it every day from here on out.
But I did it. It was a mistake, and I own that.
Instead of trying to convince myself that I was right, I freely admit that I was wrong. ”
“No, it’s not fuck me, you piece of shit,” Sean said, tears now spilling down his cheeks. “It’s fuck you!”
Vin braced himself as he could sense the decision to pull the trigger clicking in Sean’s mind. He winced as Sean took aim.
“Sean, no!” a voice called out over the yard.
Vin looked over to see Deb. Jimmy held to her as she looked at the scene in horror.
Sean looked over, too, his attention diverted for just a fraction of a second. That was more than enough.
Vin’s hand closed around his pistol, and he swung his arm up, pulling the trigger the moment the barrel came in line with Sean’s head.
The bullet sailed out of his gun, striking Sean between the eyes.
Deb cried out in horror, clutching Jimmy closer to her as a spray of blood shot out of Sean’s head.
Death came for Sean instantly, and he fell back into the tall grass, the shotgun falling uselessly at his side.
“Oh, God!” Deb screamed, running forward with the baby as Vin collapsed back into the grass. She stopped at Sean first, putting Jimmy down and checking on the man she was actually married to. “Sean?” she cried out, a sob breaking through her voice. “Oh no, Sean.”
She cried there for a moment and reached down. Vin watched as her fingers moved over Sean’s face, and he assumed she was taking a moment to shut his eyes. She wept bitterly over him before her attention turned to Vin.
“Vin,” she called out, crawling over to him. She looked haggard and worn, her hair askew and her face caked with dirt and blood.
Vin was worried she would be angry with him for taking Sean’s life, but he was relieved when he saw only concern there in her kind eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“I know,” she said softly, reaching down to take his cheek in one of her hands. “I know.”