“Holy shit,” Cill says under his breath. “There he fucking is.” My pulse spikes.
Although we see him, it takes him about halfway to realize it’s us. He stops in his tracks as it registers. I wonder if he knows then. All I can think is he has to realize at some point tonight that we know. “Hey, Eamon,” I call out, keeping my voice even and trying not to raise suspicion as his hand falls to his waistband. I can’t come back alone. The thought is buried deep in the back of my mind.
The crickets and the night sounds surround us until all I can hear is my blood rushing in my ears. Eamon’s eyes narrow. “You’re not who I’m supposed to be meeting with.”
“We got a message too.” I keep my tone even. I don’t want to scare him off. “It said to meet here and ask about Missy … is that what you’re doing here? Something about a rat?”
He laughs, nervousness filtering into it and I know he hears it just like the two of us do. Clearing his throat he adds, “Now they didn’t tell me that. That’s,” he shakes his head, one hand running down his jaw, the other lingering over the gun tucked in his jeans.
“That’s what?” Cill questions. “You sure she was a rat? We heard it might be someone else. We heard it might be you.”
A moment of silence hangs over the hill.
“It’s a shame,” Cill’s uncle says.
“What’s a shame?” Cill asks.
“That it has to end this way,” his uncle replies.
He pulls out the gun, recklessly in an attempt to be fast. I’m faster, though, prepared and aiming it at his skull without stumbling. His is still aimed at the ground, his hoodie having slowed him down.
“Lift it and I pull the trigger, Eamon,” I tell him, my tone deadly.
“How about you drop it?” Cill says, the heavy gun in his hand slowly rising to aim at his uncle. “Tell us what happened. Did you kill my father?” A faint click tells me Cill’s a hairline pull of a trigger from ending it all. A cold sweat breaks out across my skin.
Eamon’s gaze goes from me to Cill. Gun or not, he’s still outnumbered. He’s going to have to hit us both if he wants to walk away from this place. There’s no way that’s happening. He swallows loudly and then gives a half-hearted smirk.
“Don’t you boys think this is all a bit overblown?” he says, the breeze in the chill of the night carrying his voice to us. “This is a misunderstanding. Put down the fucking gun, Reed.”
“A misunderstanding?” Cill says it slowly, like he can’t believe his uncle just said this to him. “Did you call my dad’s death a misunderstanding?”
“That was a heart attack,” his uncle snaps.
“That’s not what I’ve heard,” Cill says. “I heard different. I heard it was you.” Emotion carries into his words. The mourning, the betrayal. “Are you gonna deny it?”
He waits and the silence stretches.
“You’d have done the same thing,” spits his uncle. “Your father ran the club into the ground when you left. He refused to take the opportunities we were given … so I took one instead.”
Cill takes an uneasy step forward, a step too close for my liking. “You decided to get in bed with the feds and pick people off.”
“At least I didn’t get in bed with your old lady, like Reed did,” Eamon shoots back. Cill’s jaw clenches and for a second I’m worried he’ll lose his temper, but he ignores the taunt.
“You set me up … set Reed up?” He motions toward me with the gun and glances at me. His uncle doesn’t, though, and I keep my focus on Eamon.
Bitterness seeps into Eamon’s tone. “I did what I had to do.”
“What the fuck?” Cill almost laughs. “Admit it. Admit you killed him.”
Two things happen at once: Eamon lifts his gun and fires at the same time I pull the trigger. Cill’s too lost in his emotions to act quickly enough, but I saw it. I saw Eamon’s thumb move back. I pulled it as quickly as I could, but still, his uncle got off a shot.
Bang. Bang.
Heat overwhelms me and I’m paralyzed as I watch both of them drop. Eamon falls backward, a bullet ripping through his throat. Blood sprays and I take two steps forward, watching his hands attempt to keep the blood from gushing out of his neck, even as he chokes on it.
Training keeps me focused on him, even though fear cripples me. “Cill.” I call out his name as the life drains from Eamon’s body.
“Cill!” I call out louder as Eamon’s eyes fall back and his body stills, his hand drops to the ground. His chest is still. I don’t trust it. I move forward once more, aim the gun and shoot two more bullets into his chest. They thud one after the other, jostling his body from the force. There’s no sound, no expression.
