That’s like a slap in the face. The casual way he says it. The way he calls me “son,” as though I’m just some random person he’s never seen before. I study his face, and it takes longer than it should for me to realize he doesn’t even fucking recognize me.
“You...” I start, but can’t say anything else.
He nods and puts on all the southern charm he can muster with a pained face. “I’m just going to go ahead and get in this truck. Sound okay to you? You can come with if you need. I think we oughta get out of Dodge, like, now. We got a tow truck set up—if you drive that in the opposite direction and pull down the barricade, I can drive right on through. I’ll wait for you to hop in, and we’ll get out before they even realize what happened.”
You liar. You’d tell that to anyone and leave them to die in the tow truck. But that’s not what pisses me off.
“You don’t know who I am?”
He studies my face and nods. “Sure, I do, son. It’s just remembering names has never been my strong suit. Why don’t we talk about it in the truck, and you can refresh my memory.”
“You chased me to Florida,” I say, stepping toward him and keeping my gun trained on him. “You’ve been looking for me for over five months. You sent people down to the Keys for me and destroyed the home we were trying to make.”
Home.
Saying it aloud makes it all sound possible. The Keyswouldhave been a home if Fort Caroline hadn’t been looking for us. If Rosewood had never sent his son after us, and I was never shot. If I never killed Harvey Rosewood to protect Andrew. If I was never terrified that they would show up and kill us, I could have let myself trust the people in the Keys. Andrew and I could have been safe and happy there, even with the storm. We could have helped rebuild, and I would have been able to let the others in—Daphne, Rocky Horror, Liz, Kelly, the kids, all of them. But I couldn’t, because of him. This sad, forgetful old man.
He’s still looking at me as if he has no idea what I’m talking about.
“I shot Harvey,” I say. And saying it aloud feels like the moment I realized what I did all over again. His face, the blood. My stomach turns and threatens to throw up whatever’s in it, just like that day.
And then Danny Rosewood’s face changes. Becausenowhe knows exactly who I am.
“Shit,” he says. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him curse. “It is you.” His face becomes a mask of rage. “You killed my boy!”
“He tried to kill me first.”
“He should have!” Rosewood snarls. “I thought him surviving the flu meant he’d change. Like he was chosen to be a leader finally. To grow a pair and stop fuckin’ around with his life!”
That one sentence changes everything I ever thought about Harvey Rosewood. The way he looked at me and Andrew. How he tried to kill us and the horrible things he said. Now, hearing this anger from his father, Harvey’s voice in my head sounds almost like a parrot. The words are there, but not the understanding.
For the first time, I feel bad for Harvey Rosewood.
Rosewood motions around us. “You’re the reason things around here went all to shit! You weren’t in the Keys, we wasted all this time and supplies going to get you, and now look. You happy with yourself, boy?”
He raises the gun.
But mine is already up.
I pull the trigger.
Nothing happens. The safety is still on. Because the safety is always on. Because I hate guns and I don’t want to hurt people, not even Danny Rosewood, not in this moment or ever. The whole time I was coming here, I was trying to psych myself up to do this, right now.
Shoot him.
Despite everything, I still can’t. But more than that, I don’t want to.
Another gunshot rings out in the quiet night. So close and so loud that it makes my ears ring.
I don’t even feel the bullet hit me, but I flinch anyway and drop myown gun. I close my eyes, waiting for the pain. For the blood and cold that come as the life starts draining from my body.
But there’s no pain.
I open my eyes, and Danny Rosewood drops to his knees, clutching the center of his chest, trying to stop the river of blood spilling between his fingers.
For a moment I feel like I must be imagining this. That I died and this is some last-minute hallucination before I lose consciousness forever. But then I turn and see Grover Denton coming up beside me. Niki follows him, her gun at the ready, her chipped pastel nail polish bright against the black steel.
Denton steps up to Rosewood and kicks the guns away from him. Rosewood looks up and grumbles his name, blood spilling from his lips, before he falls over.
