Chapter 34 #2
“It’s a little late for that, son. You just watched me blow poor Dillon’s brains out, so I’m afraid you won’t be seein’ tomorrow.”
“Okay.” He caught his breath and searched for more words. “Okay, but you don’t have to kill Claire. Kill me and make it look like Dillon did it. The cops’ll write their own story about how it happened.”
“No,” Claire whined, “no, you can’t die.”
Her dad ignored her and focused on Seth. “Now how would Dillon shoot you with a hole in the back of his own head? Don’t go stupid on me.”
“Shoot me in the lung or something, I’ll bleed slow. It’ll look like I shot him as he fled.”
“Christ, son, you’d really take a bullet for the bitch who dragged you into this mess? Your life’s got way more value than hers. She’s the sole reason you’re about to lose it all, you know that?”
“No, Ron, you are.”
Her dad laughed again. “Well, true enough. You’re thinkin’ outside the box, I do like that. Sadly, it’s not gonna work. I’m sick of relyin’ on these idiots to get things done.”
He pointed the gun directly at Claire’s forehead. She sucked in a breath, her final breath, and closed her eyes. This was it.
“Don’t, please,” Seth begged.
Another gun clicked. “Ron, don’t shoot.” Marty.
The shot never came. Claire opened her eyes to see Marty pointing his rifle at her dad with a shaky arm.
“That’s e-enough, Ron.”
Her dad glared back at him, completely unbothered. The handgun was still pointed at Claire, so she couldn’t unwind, couldn’t breathe.
“Marty,” her dad said. “Be serious.”
“I—I am serious, Ron. You killed Dillon. Dillon. We’ve—we’ve gone far enough, okay? Let’s forget it. Clementine’ll never forgive me if I let Claire die. She’s family too. We can’t lose everyone. It’s not worth it.”
“What, exactly, is not worth it? You don’t think Sullivan’s future is worth it?”
When her dad turned away, the gun shifted from her forehead with him, and Claire gasped for air. Seth’s energy sparked beside her, a livewire.
“You do realize,” her dad said, “that my daddy sold half our cornfields to get us into a business that matters, a business with real money. I’m his goddamn legacy, and Sullivan is mine. He is not gonna lose it all. You have no idea what I’ve done, Marty, no idea.”
“He’s my son,” Marty said. “It’s too much, Ron. I wanted him to be strong, but I don’t want him to be—to be this.”
“Oh, Marty-boy…”
Her dad’s arm flew up.
A shot fired off, followed by another one, a louder one. Something hot whipped past Claire’s hair as Seth pressed his hand on her back and forced her down. Claire yelped as her cheek collided with the grass. Gunpowder overpowered the air.
When she peeked up, Marty was lying flat on the ground, twitching, his gun beside him.
“Fuck’s sake, Marty!” her dad shouted.
In a flash, Seth vanished from her side. Claire watched in horror as he lunged at her dad from behind, catching him off guard. He tackled him and smacked his arm. Her dad let out a surprised grunt as the gun fell and skittered across the grass.
“Son of a—”
Seth jumped on her dad’s back and wrangled him from behind, trying to take him down, but her dad was strong and so tall, he didn’t seem human.
He wasn’t human. Claire scurried to her feet and nearly fell back, using the front end of Seth’s car to support herself.
The blood rushed to her head and nearly blinded her, but the adrenaline wouldn’t let her look away.
Seth locked her dad’s throat in an arm bar, but her dad was big enough to lift his feet clean off the ground.
Then, her dad fell back, slamming all his weight onto Seth’s body.
Seth released a winded gasp. He tried to shove him off, but her dad’s massive frame straddled him, pinned him in place.
He laid a hammer-like fist onto Seth’s cheekbone, shouting words Claire could barely hear through her shocked eardrums. But she recognized the bash of bone on bone.
Saw the blood that spurted up as her dad’s fist connected with Seth’s face, even as he tried to protect himself with his forearms.
He was going to lose.
Claire didn’t think, she just dove for the gun. She’d never held one before, but it was cold and heavy. She clumsily gripped it and hovered her index finger over the trigger, then pointed it at her dad’s back.
“Stop!” she screamed. Her voice sounded subdued in her ears, but scraped painfully against her throat. “I said stop!”
Disoriented, she watched her dad slowly rise. Seth rolled over and spat out a mouthful of blood, trying to pick himself up, but his arm bucked beneath him.
When her dad’s gaze landed on her, fear paralyzed her.
Every moment in the cage came back. The terror, but the need for him too—the need for him to feed her, clothe her, free her. It’d always been like that in the cage. He became her keeper, her captor, her savior.
Even now, she still believed this could only ever end with her alone in a dark, black cage, reliant on him, like it always did.
But she was out here. She was alive. And she was the one holding the gun.
He limped toward her with a crooked smile. “Drop that thing, baby girl. You’re not gonna shoot your old man.”
“Why?” she ground out, tears blurring her vision. “Why did you have to do this?”
He laughed, because he always laughed. And he gave her no answers, because he never gave her any answers. All he did was stagger toward her.
“Stop,” she ordered, holding the gun firmer. “I said stop. Stay right there.”
“C’mon, Claire Bear. You don’t even know how to work that thing.”
Claire inched her finger closer to the trigger.
Her dad took a step forward.
She pulled the trigger.
All Claire could see was stars. Bubbly, too-bright stars, like fizz popping off in her brain, then came the pain.
White-hot, it scoured from the top of her forehead all the way to the base of her skull.
The ringing sound was so loud, she was certain she’d been sucked through some sort of hatch, and now she was free-falling.
But she found her feet, and somebody steadied her. Gentle fingers pried at her hand. Too soft to be anyone but Seth’s, so she let go as her vision faded back in.
The cornfield.
The stars—the actual stars.
The gun.
It had flown back when she’d fired it and smacked her right on the head, nearly knocking her out. The power—she hadn’t been ready for it.
Seth had it now. He was in front of her, pointing the weapon forward.
Half his face was covered in red, trickling from his cheek and ear.
Claire’s focus snapped to her dad, who was still on his feet.
He hobbled toward them like an injured animal, gripping his shoulder as blood seeped through his fingers.
“You shot me, you bitch.”
“Stay back, Ron!” Seth’s voice boomed. “I said stay the fuck back. Get down on your knees right now, I am not joking, I will shoot you.”
But her dad didn’t stop. He barreled toward them.
Seth fired down. At this point, Claire’s ears couldn’t pop any harder. Her dad yowled as the bullet pierced his leg, causing his feet to slip out beneath him. He toppled over and landed on the ground, writhing.
It didn’t feel real, but nothing had in so long.
Seth’s muffled voice pulled her back in, his eyes desperate. “Claire, the trunk of my car, cuffs. Now, please.”
She ran on autopilot to get them, scrambling to the trunk and popping the hood on the way there.
She snatched the handcuffs and ran back to Seth as fast as her legs would let her.
He still had her dad at gunpoint when she returned.
As he took the cuffs, he handed her the gun and nodded.
She understood what he meant—for her to keep the gun on her dad.
Seth forced him on his stomach and straddled him, prying his arms behind his back.
“Should’ve gone for the kill shot, at least,” her dad said, his voice grainy with pain.
“Oh, you’re not dying.” Seth forced his hands together and snapped the cuffs on, tightening them to the point her dad’s hands look like they might burst. “It’s gonna be a long, miserable road back to Hell for you, Ron.”
With his face smooshed in the grass, her dad peered back at Seth. Then, all he did was laugh.
Claire’s head became light. Her vision turned white at the edges, then Seth was in front of her, his face bloody and bruised. “You’re okay,” he mouthed.
But she couldn’t feel her legs anymore.
She fell into the galaxies above.