43. Helen
All hell breaks loose.
Dean is shouting that he won’t let Shane take Molly. Thad is trying to be heard over him, demanding that Shane reconsider, that I won’t be of any use to him.
Then Shane redirects the gun, directly at Thad’s forehead. My heart stutters at the sight. Up until now, the gun’s felt more like a threat to keep us in line, but something about the way Shane is looking at Thad now makes it feel more like a promise.
I’m not sure if the room actually falls silent, or if it’s just the blood rushing in my ears. If Dean and Thad don’t stop protesting, Shane is going to shoot Thad. Shane is going to kill Thad. He’ll never tease me again, or call me Sister Helen just to get me riled up, or rub the back of his neck when I get him riled up. Those blue-gray eyes that hold so much in them will be lifeless, dimmed, forever.
And I can’t let that happen.
Thad tries to grasp my arm, hold me in place, but I step around him and out of reach. “I’ll do it. Just don’t shoot anyone—please, Shane.”
Thad tries to move between us again. “Helen?—”
“Don’t,” Shane says sharply, and now the gun is aimed toward me, right at my sternum.
Thad hesitates, then steps back. We wait.
Shane visibly relaxes. “Good. I’m in charge here, Thad, not you. Don’t try to pull anything on me—I’m not as stupid as you think.” He blinks furiously, swallowing. “What should I use for rope?”
It takes me a moment to realize he’s talking to me—and genuinely asking me. I cast my eyes around the room. I don’t particularly want to help him come up with ways to tie everyone up, but there is the matter of the gun. Plus, I have a feeling that he weirdly trusts me. Maybe all that time chatting over books affected him more than he realized. We librarians are sneaky that way.
“Um…I can tie their shoelaces together?”
Shane barks a laugh at that. “Yeah. Let’s do that. You two sit at the table.” He motions Dean and Thad with the gun. “Tie them together, and around one of the table legs. Make it nice and tight, no tricks.”
Dean and Thad both reluctantly, obediently sit at the table. I can’t quite meet either of their gazes as I kneel to do what Shane’s instructed, but I can feel both of them watching me. “I’m so sorry, Hel,” Dean babbles. “This is all my fault. I’m so stupid.”
I can hear he’s close to tears, but I can’t think about that too much. I focus on the task at hand, debating if I should chance leaving the laces loose. But if Shane checks, he’ll lose trust in me, and somehow I know instinctively I have to try and keep him on my side.
As I finish, I glance up at Thad. I want to convey to him that I’m okay, that I have a plan, sort of, and that I knew all along what he was trying to do with Shane, that I didn’t really think he’d betray us. Me.
It’s a lot to try to say with one look, probably impossible; but it’s a moot point, anyway, since Thad’s not looking at me. He’s looking over my shoulder at Shane, and his face is tight, furious. “Cut it out.”
Shane laughs that irritating, frat-boy giggle I’ve only heard him use around Thad. “Just admiring the view.”
It takes me a moment to realize he’s talking about me. Kneeling down like this, my behind is straight up in the air, and based on Thad’s expression, Shane’s been putting on a show of ogling.
I know it’s a show, too. Shane has no real interest in me. He’s doing all this to get under Thad’s skin, rile him up. I don’t know their whole history, though it seems like there’s some serious competitive energy between them. But Shane’s never paid me any attention when Thad isn’t there to witness it, and now is no exception.
“Come here, Helen,” Shane orders me.
Wary, humiliated, I obediently stand up and move over to Shane. I force myself to meet his gaze, but he isn’t looking at me—rather, at Thad. “Take off my belt.”
“Shane,” Thad says warningly.
“I’m in charge here,” Shane reminds him. He’s still grinning, but there’s something dangerous in his expression.
Dropping my eyes, I undo the belt and pull it through the loops of his khakis, careful not to touch any part of him as I do so.
Despite this, Shane lets out an exaggerated moan. “Helen, you’re so good at this.”
“Fuck off,” Thad snaps. Almost on top of him, Dean shouts, “Fuck you, asshole!”
Shane just chortles. “Belt their hands together under the table, around the table leg.”
All of this testosterone in the room is making me nervous. I know Shane was only ever using me to find Dean and Molly, but even so, his energy when it was just the two of us at the library was radically different. Being near Thad seems to supercharge him, bring out his mean, spiteful side.
Maybe it’s naive of me, but I think if I could remind him of our friendship, get his focus off one-upping Thad, I might be able to de-escalate things. It’s not that I think Shane is good, per se, but maybe I could appeal to something good in him, some better instinct. “What a good idea,” I praise him. “Did you read about that in that sailing book you checked out? I remember you told me about how you went down that TikTok rabbit hole, watching all those videos about knots.”
It’s a bit of a gamble, bringing this up, since I don’t actually know if he read any of those books or watched any of those videos, or if it was all just a part of his act to ingratiate himself with me.
Shane blinks at me, as if genuinely having forgotten our history together at the library, and then his face clears. “Oh, yeah. I was tying knots with everything I could get my hands on for weeks.”
I let out a sigh of relief, trying to cover it with a bright smile. “I think you showed me a few of them—wasn’t there one called the Hercules knot?”
Honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I feel comforted by his relaxed posture, the grin that spreads over his face at the memory. “Oh yeah. That one took me like three days to get. I kept making a thief knot by mistake.”
I laugh along with him, like I have any idea what he’s talking about. “I should have paid more attention when you were explaining it to me. Would’ve come in handy now.”
Glancing up, I’m taken aback by the earnestness on Shane’s face as he meets my gaze. Unnerved, I feel the smile slipping from my face. “Shane?—?”
“I should have paid better attention, to you. Maybe then we wouldn’t be here now.” He gestures down to the gun in his hands. “It’s just…I had no idea how hot you were, you know? You always dressed so frumpy.”
So if Shane had known I was “hot,” he wouldn’t have taken the job from the mafia, tried to have me kidnapped in Mobile, or shown up here with a gun to take us all hostage? I’m not really sure how that tracks, but Shane looks so sincere, it’s clear that he, at least, believes it. “Oh,” I say, for lack of anything better.
“And I’m sorry it has to be this way, for real. I think you’re a nice girl. It isn’t anything personal.”
Oh, God. He’s going to kill me. Maybe not right this moment, here in this hotel room, but after he’s taken care of Dean and Thad. He’ll find some way to kill them quietly so people won’t overhear, but he can’t leave behind any witnesses. That’s what he’s trying to tell me in his own clunky, self-serving way. And he isn’t opening the door for me to change his mind—he’s trying to get me to tell him that it’s okay, no hard feelings, I understand that you have to kill us all.
My mouth runs dry. I try to think of something to say, some way to appeal to him, to change his mind, but instead I can’t help but look over at Thad. I can see on his face that he’s reached the same conclusion. We can do nothing but stare at each other, both of us lost, not knowing what to do. Not quite believing that we didn’t get more time.
My attention is drawn back to the room by a quick movement out of the corner of my eye. My first instinct is that it’s Shane, lunging for me, and I tense. But it isn’t Shane moving.
It’s Molly.
Petite, round-bellied Molly moves faster than it would seem possible for anyone in her current shape and size. One moment, she’s a meek, quiet, big-eyed presence, lurking ghost-like in the corner of the room, and the next she’s leaping onto Shane’s back, knocking him to the ground with the force of her body.
“Molly!” Dean calls out anxiously over Shane’s startled, then belligerent, shouts.
Again, my stupid instincts have me moving first toward Molly, until Thad barks at me sharply. “The gun, Helen!”
I look over, seeing that it’s skidded out of Shane’s hands. Molly’s weight is pinning him to the ground, but even nine months pregnant, she isn’t heavy enough to hold him for long. Pushing past the panic of having to (a) hold a gun and (b) potentially use it, I hop over Shane’s prone body, careful to avoid his flailing limbs.
Once the gun is in hand, I point it, trembling, toward Shane. “Stop!” I order him with as much authority as I can muster into my voice. I channel the stern spine of Mother Lois, the rigid rule enforcer in my order, who would have found issue with anyone, even the Pope, for not being quite stalwart enough; the moxie of Erica, making up fake appointments and calling people the wrong name just to get her way; and the mettle of Julie Andrews, climbing over mountains to escape the Nazis. “Stop moving, or I will shoot.”
Something in my voice must ring true, because Shane obediently goes limp. Still, I keep half an eye on him as I skirt around the room, giving him a wide berth, so I can reach the table where Dean and Thad are tied.
“Sis, that was so badass!” Dean crows, even as his eyes track back anxiously to Molly. “Baby, you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Molly returns in that quiet, nervous voice of hers, muffled into Shane’s shoulder.
“You did good, Helen,” Thad tells me solemnly. He holds out his free hand for the gun. “Let me hold it while you call the police. Then you can untie us, okay?”
I’m relieved to relinquish my hold on the gun, relieved to call in the authorities. Relieved to have Shane incapacitated on the ground, and mostly relieved that, by some miracle, we’re all going to be walking out of here tonight. “Okay,” I agree, handing over the gun.