Chapter Eleven #2
“Sometimes,” Asa admitted. “When I was younger. When I’d wake up in the middle of the night, hearing his voice instead of my father’s. It felt . . . easier for a while not to dig.”
“And now?”
“Now I’ve met you,” he said. “And I’m watching him try to finish what he started. Forgetting’s not an option anymore.”
Her eyes softened. “Thank you for coming back. Even if it took you twenty-five years.”
He almost smiled. “You’re welcome.”
Rachel cleared her throat near the counter. “For the record, if you thank him again, his head won’t fit through the door when we evacuate.”
“Evacuate?” Maya repeated, her voice strained.
“Kidding,” Rachel said. “Mostly.” Then she glanced at Asa. “I’m going to check in with JT. Give you two a minute. Don’t let her drown in the bad stuff.”
“On it,” Asa said.
Rachel moved to the door, pulled on her jacket, and stepped out into the snow, leaving them in the low glow of the lamps and fire.
Asa shifted slightly closer, careful not to jar her. “You’re doing well. Better than anyone has a right to expect after what you relived today.”
“Really? Define well,” she laughed.
“You’re breathing,” he said. “You’re talking. You’re not hiding in a closet pretending none of this is real.”
“That’s tempting.”
He nudged her knee through the blanket. “You’re not that person. You might wish you were, but you’re not. You’re the one who walked back into that barn. You’re the one who keeps talking even when it hurts.”
She met his gaze, something like heat flickering under the fear. “You’re the one who keeps promising I’m not alone.”
“It’s the easiest promise I’ve ever made,” he said.
Her lips parted just slightly.
He didn’t move closer; he didn’t need to. The moment was there between them anyway—unsteady, fragile, real.
Then a sound cut through it.
A sharp, metallic ping. Asa froze for a second, and then the window exploded.
Glass shattered inward in a spray of glittering shards. Maya screamed, flinching as the mug flew from her hands, and hot coffee splashed across the blanket. Asa moved without thinking, throwing himself toward her, tackling her down behind the couch as another gunshot split the air.
“Stay down!” he told her as cold air rushed in through the torn curtain, carrying snow and the acrid scent of burned gunpowder.
Maya clutched his jacket with both fists, her breath coming in sharp, panicked bursts. “Asa—”
“I’ve got you,” he said, one arm wrapping around her shoulders, the other reaching for the weapon holstered at his side. “Stay low. Don’t move.” He thumbed the safety off and kept his body angled between her and the broken window.
Rachel flung the door open and rushed inside while keeping low. “Angle came from the tree line at the side yard. I didn’t see a muzzle flash.”
Asa retrieved his phone. “JT, report.”
“I’m here,” JT responded from his phone. “We heard the shots. Will’s already moving. Stay inside. Keep her down. We’ll sweep the perimeter.”
“Copy.” Asa ended the call.
Maya flinched as another gust of wind drove snow through the broken window. Glass crunched under Asa’s boots when he shifted to put more of his body between her and the opening.
“Asa?” she whispered. “Is he trying to get in?”
“If he wanted to rush the house, he’d already be at the door.” Asa stopped and forced his voice to stay even. “He’s reminding us he can reach you wherever we take you.”
Outside, a voice cut through the night—Will Kelly, shouting commands. JT’s reply, lower, urgent. The crunch of boots over snow. The crackle of Will’s radio as he called for backup, for units to converge on the west bluff, for the road above to be sealed.
Rachel crawled closer. “Either of you hit?” Her eyes swept over Maya and then Asa.
Maya glanced down at herself, then at Asa. Her hands shook harder. “I don’t . . . think so.”
Asa did a quick check—no crimson blooming on the blanket, no immediate sting of a wound. He exhaled once, gratitude filling him. “Glass got in your hair.” He brushed a stray shard away from the edge of her curls. “But nothing else.”
“The shot,” she whispered. “It sounded like the crack in the barn.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re here. You’re not in the barn.”
“I feel like I am. Every time I hear that sound, I feel four again.”
Rachel’s expression softened. “That’s trauma doing what trauma does. Your body remembers the danger before your brain catches up.”
“He knows that,” Maya said. “He knows what the gunshot will do to me.”
Rachel’s jaw tightened. “Then he can choke on his tactics. They’re not going to work forever.”
The door opened. A second later, JT stopped next to the sofa where they crouched with his weapon in hand. “Will’s running the tree line. Whoever it was is either gone or playing possum. There have been no more shots since the first volley. Everyone okay?”
“We’re fine,” Asa assured him.
JT scanned the damage. “We’ll board that up and move you to the back room until we’re sure he’s not circling.”
Chief Kelly’s voice drifted in from outside, clipped and angry. “Tracks!” he called. “Two sets. One coming in, one going out. He didn’t stick around.”
“Asa?” Maya whispered. “If he can hit the window from the tree line, is there anywhere I’m actually safe?”
“Yes. Right here with us. He’s firing from a distance because he doesn’t want to risk getting close. That tells us something.”
“That he’s a coward?” Rachel muttered.
“That he’s not ready for the endgame yet,” Asa said. “He’s still trying to control the narrative. To rattle us. To rattle you.”
“Well, it worked,” Maya said, her voice shaking. “I’m rattled.”
After Will and JT moved back outside to coordinate, Rachel sat with her back against the sofa, knees bent, breathing slowly. “Okay. New rule. No sitting near exterior windows. Ever.”
“Agreed,” Asa said.
Maya leaned into him and stared at the broken window for a long moment. “He’s not going to stop, is he?”
“No,” Asa said quietly, aware that this wasn’t what she wanted to hear. He wasn’t going to lie to her now. “Not until we stop him.”
“Can we?” she whispered. “He seems to be everywhere. The barn, my cottage, and now here. It feels like he’s always a step ahead.”
“He thinks he is,” Asa asserted. “But people like that? They always underestimate what happens when their victims start working together. When the story stops being theirs alone.”
She turned her face toward his shoulder, her eyes closing briefly. “Then let’s take it back before he rewrites anymore of it.”
Asa looked at the shattered glass, at the snow blowing in where the window used to be, at the darkness beyond. He thought of his father, radio clipped to his hip. The little boy with a flashlight and a voice in the shadows telling him to forget.
Of a dispatcher with a conscience who’d vanished and the nameless man on the other end of Maya’s mother’s fear. Still faceless. Still out there.
He tightened his arm around her. “We will. I promise you, Maya. He’s not the only one who remembers.”
Outside, the wind rose. Inside, surrounded by shattered glass and the people who refused to leave her, Maya drew a breath and held on.