Chapter 55
Chapter Fifty-Five
“Ryker?” I tug the bandana away from my face, head tilting to the side as my brain fumbles over the shock of seeing him here.
“ Help me ,” he croaks, biceps and neck straining as he struggles to lift something out of the basement. “ Willa , help me get him up.”
My heart gallops inside my chest.
I rush to the window and drop to my knees, crying out in relief as I grab onto my father’s uniformed arm, only to immediately lose my grip. Dad’s blond hair slips out of sight, and Ryker grunts, the deadweight pulling him several inches back inside the window. Panicked, I brace a scraped and sweaty palm against the stone exterior and hook my opposite wrist beneath Dad’s armpit, dragging him upward with every ounce of my strength. My pulse riots as inch by painstaking inch he rises until finally we get him onto the pavement.
“What happened?” I cry out, dropping my ear to Dad’s sternum where the steady rise and fall of his chest soothes my ragged nerves. He’s soaking wet but breathing, and besides a few ashy smudges and a bump on his temple, I can’t find anything else wrong with him. “What happened to his head? Why isn’t he awake?”
Ryker flops onto his ass, head hung low and forearms resting on his knees as he falls into another coughing fit before answering. “Got knocked out,” he says through a wheeze, “but I think he’s going to be fine.”
As if on cue, Dad groans and slowly brings his wobbly hand to the lump on his temple.
I let go of a choked laugh, my shoulders slumping as a watery smile stretches over my lips. He’s okay…he’s really okay.
Wiping at my eyes, I grab hold of his upper arm and glance at Ryker. “Can you help me get him to a safer spot?”
He nods and rises to his feet, looking a little worse for wear as we drag my father from the building. My hamstrings burn with every step, and the awkward angle I’m hunched has my lower back seconds away from spasming, but there’s something cathartic about the pain, so I bear it in silence and keep going.
Ryker, on the other hand, can’t stop huffing or gritting his teeth as we backpedal Dad across the pavement toward the grass. Not only is he limping, but there are angry scorch marks seared into the flesh of his knuckles, forearms, and neck—the unfamiliar black hoodie he’s wearing burned in so many places I don’t know how it’s still on him. But what’s even more concerning is the way he constantly looks around us, his movements jerky and erratic—like he’s on high alert or waiting for someone to pop out of the shadows. The little hairs on my arms stand on end, but that’s probably just my adrenaline wearing off, so I concentrate on channeling all my energy into putting one foot behind the other. If I can get us far enough away, I’ll go grab one of the paramedics for Dad and have them look at Ryker, too.
Once we’re a safe distance from the building, we lay Dad in the grass. He grumbles something about his head hurting, and even though I know that’s a good sign, it’s not enough to ease my worry.
Swiping my arm across my forehead to keep the soot-stained sweat from dripping into my eyes, I turn toward Ryker. “I’m gonna go get help.”
“Don’t,” he rasps, lunging to stop me before quickly pulling back his hand. “Just—” He rakes his fingers through his hair. “Just let me get the backpack first.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Smoke and ash billow around us like a vortex, singeing my nostrils and drying out my throat. “The building is literally about to collapse,” I say with a furrowed brow, “and you want me to wait until you get your backpack ?”
“Please, Willa. Just let me go grab the bag,” Ryker insists through clenched teeth. His eyes are pleading, but there’s something else hidden beneath their green depths. Something hard and unfamiliar that sends a ripple of goose bumps cascading down my arms and up my neck.
A knot forms in my stomach as the building groans and shudders.
More sirens wail in the distance, and someone near the front of the station shouts, “The roof’s gonna go! Get everyone back!”
“ Fuck ,” Ryker curses, eyes darting from the smoking building to something on the ground behind me.
Following the direction of his gaze, I spot the backpack he threw out of the basement window. But that’s not what has nausea surging through my gut. No, that would be the rusty red fuel cans lying discarded by the corner of the building—one of them tipped on its side a few feet apart from the others.
Blood draining from my face, I turn toward Ryker.
“ Willa …” My name is a warning on his lips as he extends his soot-stained palm in my direction while gray flecks of ash swirl around us like desiccated snowflakes.
All I can do is shake my head, a thousand panicked thoughts threatening to buckle my knees. Why is Ryker here in the first place? Why was he inside the station…
A pit opens in my stomach. I take a step backward, and then another, slowly inching away from him until something crunches beneath my shoe. I pause, eyes dropping to the concrete as I rotate my heel, revealing a silver boot-shaped lighter glinting up at me from the ground.
My head cocks to the side, and half in a daze, I stoop to pick it up, blinking over and over again as I glance from the lighter to the gas canisters, then back to Ryker. My hair whips around my face, lashing at my cheeks while an invisible hand constricts around my heart.
Ryker reaches for me again, but I rip my arm away. “What have you done…” I rasp, voice barely audible over the mind-numbing roar inside my head.
His throat bobs. “Willa, it’s not what you think.”
“Really?” My voice cracks as the world tilts on its axis. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you started the fire that killed my brother!” I chuck the lighter as hard as I can at him, but he doesn’t even flinch when it bounces off his shoulder and clatters to the pavement.
“What are you talking about? Noah isn’t—” Ryker’s jaw gapes as he spots the tears streaming down my cheeks. “Willa…what happened?”
“Dad wasn’t picking up his phone. Noah went inside—” My voice breaks, and I ball my fists, fighting back the burning tears blurring my vision. “Noah went inside to find him,” I sob, chest heaving uncontrollably, “and now he’s dead. My brother is dead—because of you .”
Ryker pales, his eyes darting back and forth across my face. He takes a stumbling step backward, expression slipping into something I can only describe as absolute devastation. “No. He can’t be…”
A monstrous crash sounds from inside the burned-out station, the ground shuddering as the support beams for the roof finally give way.
My hands fly to my head and Ryker dives for me at the same time the roof bows and then collapses, taking each floor beneath it out on its descent and sending a plume of glowing embers into the black-and-gray sky. Ryker pins me to the asphalt, covering my body with his as glass and debris rain down on us from above. He keeps saying something, but I can’t hear him over the rubble crashing onto the pavement and the sound of my own screaming.
After what feels like an eternity, everything goes eerily quiet—even the bits and pieces of noise I can actually hear sound muffled. For one second, I think I’ve gone deaf, but then I realize Ryker’s arms are still wrapped around my head in a protective cocoon.
I cough, struggling to draw in a full breath with his weight on top of me, until he finally lifts up, slowly unfurling his arms from around my head. I try to look away from him, but he grabs my chin, gently turning me so I’m forced to meet his eyes.
My body trembles at the sight of his nearly white hair and the slow trickle of blood sliding over his soot-stained brow onto my cheek and neck. My eyes flutter open and closed as the pain in my chest becomes unbearable.
“Tell me you didn’t start the fire,” I plead, choking on the words while my sanity teeters on the edge of a cliff. It’s not just my sanity either, it’s me dangling over the edge, barely hanging on by my fingertips.
“Ryker!” I scream into his face. “ Please , just tell me you didn’t do this…”
Jaw clenched, he releases my chin to brush the loose strands of hair away from my eyes, holding on to one of the white locks and sliding it between his thumb and forefinger. I want him to explain himself, I need him to keep me from falling into the abyss like he said he would, but the second his throat bobs, I already know what’s coming.
“I can’t do that,” he says, voice low and rough.
My lip quivers. “Why not?”
“Because I promised I wouldn’t lie to you.”
For a second, all I can do is stare at him as I plummet from the cliff—the endless fall stealing my breath as my world comes crashing down around me. The future I saw for myself with Ryker, the loss of my brother, my mother being alive—all of it hits me at once, battering against my psyche until I’m broken and bloodied.
“But, Willa,” Ryker continues, “it’s not what you?—”
Before he can finish, he’s ripped off of me and thrown to the pavement, a loud thunk reverberating through the air when his skull bounces off the hard ground. I lunge forward to see if he’s okay, but my father grabs me by the bicep and yanks me backward.
“ Willa ,” he seethes, chest heaving as he towers over me. “Get away from him.”
“But—” I scramble for Ryker when Dad grabs me again, shoving me to the ground.
“Willa, goddammit , look around you.” His arm waves wildly toward the destroyed building. “Ryker’s not the man we thought he was.”
“Mr. Dunn… please ,” Ryker rasps.
My father brings his hand to the large lump on his temple and turns to stare at Ryker on the ground. “After everything I’ve done for you…” He shakes his head, blinking slowly, like it’s an effort to form words. “This is how you repay me? By ambushing me and burning down the goddamn station? All because I wasn’t willing to break the law for you?”
The last trace of air is ripped from my lungs. It’s true, then. Ryker started the fire…
He’s responsible for killing my brother.
My pulse pounds violently while my gaze volleys between Ryker’s agonized face and my father’s furious one. My vision swims, and for one second, I think I might pass out as Dad uses the radio barely hanging on to his uniform to call for backup.
Ryker is so close, three feet at most, but it feels as though there’s an entire continent between us. And still, I can’t help but try to make sense of this madness one more time.
“Did you do that to Dad’s head?” I ask softly.
Casting a tentative glance over his shoulder toward the tree line, he grits his teeth. “I can’t do this here?—”
“You can’t do this here?” I repeat, voice cracking as I gesture to the ruins of the burned-out police station and then to my father. “You already did it. How could you have possibly thought this would keep your sister safe?”
I scoot a few more inches away from him .
“Willa,” he says, brow lowered and jaw etched in stone. “You promised you wouldn’t shut me out. You promised you’d give me the chance to explain.”
My lungs seize and I flounder for a moment, questioning whether or not I should grab Ryker and make a run for it so I can hear him out. But no matter how reluctant I am to accept it, the truth is there’s nothing to explain…
I wipe the angry tears from my eyes and rise to my feet. “What could you possibly say that would fix this, Ryker? Noah is dead and you started the fire that killed him.”
Dad’s hand lands hard on my shoulder, my ash-flecked hair fanning out as he whips me around to face him. “What did you say? What happened to Noah?” There’s a franticness in his tone that feels like it’s ripping me in two. But I can’t fall apart… not yet .
“Dad—” I sob through the tears blurring my surroundings.
“Answer me.” He shakes my shoulders the same way Noah did when he found me staring at the flames. “Willa! What happened to your brother?”
For the third and most painful time, I explain what happened—my voice cracking on every other syllable. “They didn’t… They couldn’t get him out in time… Noah’s gone .”
The sound that rips from my father’s throat is nothing short of pure agony. It is the lament of someone’s heart being shredded to pieces. Their soul being torn from their body.
And then he’s on top of Ryker, pummeling his face until two officers round the corner and peel him away.
“Get off of me,” Dad growls, his eyes full of animalistic rage. “He killed my son!”
The officers pivot so quickly I barely see them pin Ryker to the ground. He tries to shrug out of their hold, but the second one of them slaps a cuff over his wrist, it’s like a switch flips and Ryker stops fighting.
Eyes wild, like a fox caught in a snare, his gaze lands on mine. Every fiber of my being aches to reach for him, to blink and wake us both up from this horrible nightmare, but the next thing I know, he’s yanked to his feet and his hands are roughly forced behind his back as one of the officers finishes cuffing him.
Ryker stares at me, his jaw hard and bottom lip quivering almost imperceptibly—not with sadness, but with something bitter and tangy I can almost taste on the smoky breeze.
“ Willa ,” he says, my name a plea on his lips. But then the officer gives the cuffs a rough tug, and Ryker stumbles, struggling to keep his footing as he’s dragged to a nearby cruiser.
Ash kicks up in their wake, the red-and-blue lights of the emergency vehicles bouncing off every surface until I’m dizzy and half blind. Dad is shouting directions from somewhere on my right, and I glance over my shoulder in time to see an officer placing Ryker’s boot-shaped lighter into an evidence bag.
Time is warped. I can’t tell if it’s moving too fast or two slow, or if it’s moving at all. The only thing I know is that I can’t seem to tear my attention away from Ryker, who’s peering at me from the back seat of the cruiser, eyes dark and hollow.
Like a moth to a flame, my legs move of their own accord, but when I’m only a few feet away, Dad’s voice stops me. “Willa, I need you to come fill out a witness statement.”
I glance from my father to Ryker, who’s so close now I can hear the ragged sounds of his breathing through the open front window. He continues to stare at me, green eyes narrowed and sharp as a blade, but he doesn’t say a word.
I shake my head. “Dad, please don’t make me do this. I just want to go home?—”
He shoves the pen into my hand, drags me to the tail end of the cruiser, and slams the paper onto the trunk. “This isn’t a request. Write down everything he said to you about the fire.”
Eyes filled with tears, I glance into the patrol car’s rearview mirror at Ryker’s silhouette. There’s so much ash on the window I can’t see his eyes, but that doesn’t stop the invisible tug in my chest?—
“Excuse me, Officer Dunn?”
“What is it?” Dad snaps, eyes red and glassy. “Oh, you’re the IT guy, right? Tell me you have the footage.”
“Yes and no,” a gangly man in a baggy white polo says as he approaches, laptop clutched in his spindly fingers. “The interior cameras weren’t hooked up to the network yet, but the back camera—the one that’s already synced to the cloud—did manage to get something.”
“Show me,” Dad demands, rage radiating off him in pulsing waves.
The IT guy’s black-rimmed glasses slide down the bridge of his nose as he places the computer on the trunk next to where I’m standing. I chew on my inner cheek, not daring to breathe while he queues the video up and presses Play.
The footage is grainy and I have to squint to sort out what I’m seeing, but when a man with a black hoodie enters the frame, my heart shatters. The hood is up, and although he never looks directly at the camera during the three trips he makes to lower gas canisters into a basement window, you’d have to be an idiot not to recognize those broad shoulders.
That familiar coldness creeps back into my gut, steadily crawling into my extremities until my eyes glaze over and my pulse becomes all but nonexistent…
The IT guy shuffles his feet. “There’s no movement for about an hour and a half, which Chief Thompson said is probably when he lit the diversion fire on the outskirts of town. I’m going to fast forward through the gap.”
When he presses Play again, the hooded man stops to stare at my dad’s cruiser before looking directly at the camera. It’s Ryker’s face, clear as day. Then he sneaks into one of the station’s first-floor windows. My body stiffens, the last shards of my disbelief obliterated when the words Ryker spoke to my father in the driveway come back to me.
If you get in the way of me protecting my sister, I will go through you. No matter the cost .
Apparently, that cost included my brother’s life…
I grit my teeth and close my eyes. All the other men in my life lied and let me down, why did I think Ryker would be any different?
“Fill out your statement, Willa,” Dad says, tone clipped and miserable. “We can’t let him get away with what he’s done to our family—what he did to my son .”
Ash swirls around us, smoke settling so deep in my lungs I don’t think I’ll ever smell anything else ever again. Without blinking or even breathing, I pick up the pen and write down every single detail of what I saw.
When I’m done, my legs are shaking, but I can’t feel them. My heart is hammering inside my chest, but I can’t hear it.
When the patrol car holding Ryker speeds off into the night, I can’t even watch it go.
I don’t consciously make the decision to leave, but all of a sudden, my feet are moving.
“Willa, where are you going?” Dad calls out as my boots click on the pavement, but there’s no way I’m stopping now.
With every tie binding me to this godforsaken town irreparably severed, I don’t bother looking back or responding.