Chapter Forty-Four
The screech of metal claws through my ears.
I don’t look to see who is dragging out the chair beside me. I'm watching Chase disappear into the belly of the thick forest.
A slow burn sizzles in my chest, and I don’t realize I am grinding my teeth until the ache transfers to my jaw.
Harlen’s curls edge into my vision as he falls into the seat beside me.
“You good?” he asks.
I drag my clammy palms down my trembling thighs, swallowing the guilt stuck to the walls of my throat, then I take a deep breath.
“I hope you know he came up with blaming you all on his own.”
Harlen shuffles a little in his seat, adjusting his T-shirt on his shoulders. “I know.”
There is a silence that falls between us and I can hear Harlen thinking, dribbling words around in his head, never taking the shot.
I line it up for him.
“I was never going to use it.”
Lies.
He jerks an eyebrow like he knows the statement isn’t true.
“Then why’d you have it?”
My stomach aches with the truth.
I bite my bottom lip.
“Because I just wanted to feel safe again, Harlen. That’s all. I just wanted to close my eyes…” I swallow my words. “I just wanted a full night's sleep.”
Harlen’s jaw tenses, sadness filling the ocean of his eyes. He wants to say more, I can see it, but he chooses to nod instead, and I’m okay with that. I didn’t want to have to explain the choices I was forced to make after that fateful night three years ago.
“Our time is coming, Laiken.”
The promise I hadn’t told them about, the one that he’d made to me a moment before he snapped Jade’s neck, screeches through my head.
It has haunted me for three years.
And now, this morning, he left a message, written in blood and bone, with our ribbon as a calling card.
He was back, and he was coming for me, and I needed to get that gun back.
“You know how to use it?” Harlen asks, pulling me back.
I choose to give Harlen the truth. Well, a half-truth, which is more than I gave Chase. Licking my lips, I curl my hands into the fabric of my hoodie and nod.
I’d seen my mother load it enough times to know exactly how to make sure I didn’t blow my own head off. But Harlen didn’t need to know that, nor did he need to know that I hadn’t shot it before.
I knew enough, that was all that mattered.
Silence curls between us. I take my eyes to the sky when Harlen places a hand to my knee and squeezes it.
“Harlen,” I whisper.
He keeps his hand where it is, tightens his grip. “Yeah?”
“I’m so fucking scared,” I admit.
He lets go of his breath slowly. “You don’t need to be, okay. We have all—”
I breathe. “He said something to me that night.”
“Wh-what?”
I wet my lips, and my legs start to shake. “The thing is, he made a promise to me.”
His hand slips, he turns and looks straight at me. “What are you talking about, Laik?”
“Our time is coming, Laiken. Th-that’s what he said, before I ran.”
“Does he know?” he asks, and I can only assume he means Chase.
I shake my head. “Only you.”
Silence fills the gaps and space and hollowness between us.
It’s then that I turn to look at him, and ask, “Can you please keep it a secret?”
Harlen palms his face. “Fuck.” The word is air beneath his breath.
My teeth begin to chatter. “He’s not ready. I can’t tell him.”
A voice comes from behind us. “You’re right about that,” Rusty says.
I turn, watching him readjust his T-shirt on his broad shoulders when he asks, “The gun, you know how to—”
I nod, but it’s not convincing enough, not to Rusty. He knows I’m withholding, lying, the way Harlen didn’t.
“You okay with him, Chase, teaching you?” he asks.
I nod again, even though I’m not sure what I’m okay with anymore; if us, me and Chase, together, is even a safe combination.
“Good,” Rusty whispers, then asks, “You must be hungry?”
Harlen pushes up from the chair, and I quickly grab his arm. I couldn’t tell if he was upset, or disappointed in me for lying to him.
“I’m sorry, I just, I…” I drop my chin, only for him to pick it back up.
His fingers tremble.
He blinks.
He holds his eyes on mine. “There’s nothing you gotta be sorry about, Laik. You hear me?”
A tear rolls down my cheek, and he pushes it away.
“Let’s make some grilled cheese, yeah? Let’s just have an easy night.”
And I smile at that, grateful for the diversion, grateful for some normalcy, grateful for his and his father’s gentleness.
“Okay,” I whisper.
I follow behind him and Rusty, but not before peeking over my shoulder to see Chase taking a seat at the edge of the pier.