"This isn't happening," I muttered. "This isn't happening."
Even Lookah's attention and affection couldn't cheer me up, try as he might.
Why did I ever think I could get away from him? Why did I ever think I could have a normal life, full of normal things and normal people?
I should have ran far away. Further than Mayberry Holm. I should have run to the West Coast. To Canada. Maybe even that wouldn't be enough. I didn't even try. Why didn't I try harder? What the hell was I thinking?
And why didn't I change my entire name? Why did I even want to keep Zach anyway? It wasn't as if I had any attachment to the name.
I rolled my eyes and looked at the ceiling, picturing my grandma watching me. Judging me. Being disappointed in me.
"You'd understand," I mumbled to her. "I'm sure you would."
Grandma Zakaria wouldn't have cared even if it felt like sacrilege thinking it. If it protected me, if it protected the people I loved, she would smack me five ways to Sunday if I told her I was too sentimental to change it.
The people I loved.
What a great job I was doing at protecting them. They were all suffering because of me. Dare was suffering because of me. He'd been working those blueberries for five years, putting his sweat,soul and tears into them and for what? For them to disappear off the face of the earth in an instant. In a moment.
I heard commotion and I rushed back into the living room to find out what was going on. How long had it even been? How many of Dare's blueberry plants had been decimated before we'd even realized?
I found him in the kitchen, washing his face in the sink over and over again and I had to grab onto the kitchen island to stop myself from collapsing.
"Are you...are you okay?" I asked and he glanced at me with indignation before he patted the counter in search of a towel. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. I understand if you hate me."
Dare unearthed himself from the kitchen towel and grimaced.
"Hate you?" he grumbled and immediately his expression softened and he reached for me. "Sweetheart, no. Don't say that. I could never hate you. Don't ever say that again. Okay?"
He tugged at my hands, squeezing them a little firmer and I took a deep breath before I nodded.
"Is it gone? Is it all gone?"
"They've contained it for now. I just hope the wind doesn't pick up. If it does, we're screwed."
His words were like a punch in the gut. I couldn't stand the chaos I brought into people’s lives. There was only destruction in my path. As long as Victor was out there looking for me, trying to get to me, I was toxic.
"I'm so sorry, Dare." I barely managed to say the words without bursting into tears, yet Dare shook his head and wiped my face clean.
"This isn't your fault, Zach. It's not."
"You'd still have your farm if it weren't for me so?—"
"Stop this," he said and took my face in both his hands. "Stop saying that. Stop doing that. You're not to blame for this. He is. He's responsible. You're a victim to all of this just like we all are."
It was sweet of him to say that, to look me in the eyes as if I was still his world and tell me that, but it didn't negate what had happened.
"Dare, he took your home away. Your business. I'll understand if you hate me."
Dare sucked in a breath through his teeth and huffed.
"I don't care about my farm, Zach. I care about you. Your safety. I can replant. I can rebuild. Regrow. As long as you're safe, I can do all those things. And that's the problem. You're not safe. He knows you're here now. You're no longer safe here if you ever were. I need to find someone else to take you in. Someone else you can hide with."
"And what?" I asked, a tear rolling down my cheek only to be stopped by Dare's tender touch. "Watch their lives go up in flames too? I can't do that to anyone else. I've already hurt enough people."
"Don't do this, Zach. Don't say these things. Don't believe those things. We've just...we've poked the hornet's nest. We've angered him. That means we're close."
I laughed, though none of this was amusing.
