The bracelet.Mason was right. I’d lost it at the motel, Will took it, and Derrick found it. That’s how he figured out who his dad had slept with. “I didn’t know he was your dad,” I said weakly. “I didn’t know he was married. He told me he was singleand lived in Greenview. He wasn’t wearing a ring.”
“I. Don’t. Care!” He reached for my hand and grabbed it, maneuvering it toward the gun while still pointing it at me with his own finger on the trigger. He’d obviously gotten reckless when he realized Mason was trying to protect me. He was panicking at this point, because I was certain his plan hadn’t been to stage a suicide in his vehicle. Surely he knew it would never hold up. Though he seemed too far gone to care.
I was struggling with him but trying not to get shot in the process, and I was slowly losing the battle. He almost had my hand on the gun. All he wanted was gunpowder on my hands, and he’d try to make up some bullshit about fighting to get the gun from me. He was still trying to get away with it, but barely. When he gave up on it completely, I was finished.
I barely registered the scratching sound through the open windows. Suddenly, Derrick let go of me and screamed as he flailed his hands around. The angry yowl of a cat reverberated in my ears as I looked over in shock to see that a black cat had come in through the driver’s side window. My jaw dropped as Enyo dug her claws into his face and bit the shit out of his head repeatedly. Her eye met mine, though just for a second.She was sent for the time.
Even in that split second, I could almosthearher tell me to run. As I opened the truck door, I kicked my foot out, knocking the gun out of his hand, but unfortunately out of my reach. It didn’t matter, I just didn’t want him to shoot Enyo. I scrambled out the door, as Derrick yelled and Enyo screamed and hissed. She cried out angrily as she landed outside the truck where Derrick managed to throw her, but the little “humph” sound she made let me know she’d landed on her feet. I heard her scramble into the woods across the road. There were no gunshots fired. I ran.
Run for the place you loved.I had no idea where I was supposed to go, but had no time to think. I was running aimlessly but as fast as I could. I heard him getting out of the truck and I knew he was behind me somewhere, but I didn’t dare look back.The area looked a little familiar but I wasn’t sure where I was or what direction I was running. I’d walked through the woods many times in my life, but in my panic nothing was telling me where I was headed.
I narrowly missed the gnarled branch of a misshapen tree as I ran past. I tripped on a tree root but caught myself and didn’t slow down. I could hear water somewhere to my right, and I knew there was a creek back there, but I couldn’t see it. There was a ridge ahead of me, a rocky ledge. It was all too familiar.Run to the place that loved you. I could see stone walls, and even though I couldn’t yet make out the building, I realized where I was. It was the place in my dreams, but a place from my youth as well.Remember when we found that old church?I was almost to it. The place where I’d felt loved and accepted. I must have been running in the direction of town.
I’d been told I couldn’t escape my fate, but I’d also been told to run, and that my sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain. I had to keep trying. I ran toward the stone walls that came fully into view as I scrambled up the ledge.
I could hear him somewhere far behind me. “You can’t get away, Elijah. It’s too late. They’ll never find you in time.”
I darted between two trees and dared to glance back. I couldn’t see him, so I hoped he couldn’t see me. No shots had been fired, so either he couldn’t or he was still trying to stick to his original plan of making it look like a suicide. I had no faith that he was in the right frame of mind to bother with it fully, though, if the opportunity arose to shoot me.
I headed straight for the building that was, in the past, a sanctuary, a place of worship and peace—once for a congregation, then later, for me. It was crumbling even more than I remembered, with gaping holes in the roof and walls, and broken windows. The door hung open. It wasn’t big, and I knew I couldn’t hide well in there, but it was the only chance I had. I’d run as fast and as long as I could, and my body was about to give out.
I ran through the open door, ducking between the pewsand sliding to the floor against the wall, trying to catch my breath. I could see part of the doorway from between the pews, but I was shrouded in shadows, and I saw him a moment later as he entered, stopping in a beam of sunlight from a hole in the roof. His eyes were wild and his chest heaved with exertion. He had the gun aimed in front of him. “I know you’re in here,” he hissed.
The floor creaked under his feet as he moved into the room. I slid silently along the wall toward the front of the room as he advanced. He was looking through each set of pews as he passed, finger on the trigger of the gun.
There was a noise across the room, on the opposite wall. It wasn’t loud, but there was a small thud then a dragging sound, almost as though someone was trying to scoot quietly across the floor like I was doing, except not quite as subtly. Derrick’s attention turned that way, a sinister smile spreading across his face. He made his way toward the sound through a row of pews, his back to me.
I suddenly heard a voice to my left say, “Here.” Derrick didn’t react to the sound. I looked over to see that there was a hole in the wall behind the piano. Derrick was distracted at the moment, and by the time he reached the end of the row and turned around, I’d be hidden by the piano if I was fast. I scooted over to the hole, trying to stay in the shadows, and looked outside to find a man standing there, motioning me to come on. The panic cleared enough that I recognized him as the man I’d had a conversation with, real or dream, on my porch swing. “Hurry,” he said.
I scrambled through the hole as quietly as I could, barely fitting through but finally making it into the overgrown grass outside. I stood up, but when I looked around for the man, I discovered I was alone.
“Come out, Elijah,” I heard Derrick say in a sing-song voice from inside. I crept as quietly as I could to the front of the church, ducking below the broken windows and taking off in a sprint as I reached the edge. I had a vague idea of my location, soI ran in what I was pretty sure was the direction of my home, the only safe place I knew.
Chapter 25
Mason
Icursed when I saw Derrick’s truck on the side of the road. Chris pulled up right behind it, but I already knew it was empty. We were too late.
“They went into the woods,” Chris said, looking at the ground beside the open passenger door. I noticed the scuff marks going that way. Chris pulled his gun and ran ahead of me, and I followed even though I didn’t have a weapon.
We were far enough into the woods that I could no longer see the vehicles when a gunshot rang out. “Fuck!” Chris cried, dropping to the ground behind a big rock. “Get down, Mason.” But I’d already dropped and was scrambling behind a tree. Chris peeked out, trying to assess the situation. He held his gun in front of his chest ready to aim at a second’s notice.
“Fuck this,” I hissed. “I’m unarmed.” I looked around but the best I came up with was a fist-sized rock. It fit nicely in my hand, and it was better than nothing, but it certainly wasn’t a firearm.
“Stay there,” Chris said. “I’m going to try to figure out where the shooter is.” He stood up and ran to the side, stayinglow as he looked around. Another shot rang out. “Dammit,” he cried, dropping to the ground and rolling behind a tree.
“Are you hit?” I cried, trying to hold my panic at bay.
Chris shook his head. “No, but I got a glimpse of the shooter. It’s not fucking Derrick. It’s Chase. What the hell, Mason? I don’t understand. He’s a fucking cop! Why?”
The look of pure betrayal on Chris’s face was almost enough to take me out of the moment and let me feel bad for him, but I couldn’t. We’d both fucking missed all of it, and I was trying not to spiral because I needed to stay in the present and focus on finding Elijah.
I peeked around the tree, trying to spot Chase, but just as I pulled back, another shot rang out, and I cursed when the bark of the tree, inches from where my head had been, splintered and flew through the air. The bastard had been hunting in the woods since he was a kid and he was good at it. Unfortunately, I was currently the prey. “I need a damn gun.”
Chris glanced back the way we’d come. He reached into his pocket and tossed me his keys. I caught them in the air. “Shotgun in my trunk,” he said. “I’m going to try to get him out in the open and get a clear shot. It should give you time to get out of range. When I move, you run. Get the gun and get back here.”
Chris stood, and as soon as he moved from behind the tree, I took off running back toward his car. There was a shot, and I heard him leap to safety again before returning fire. “Fuck you, Chase, you’re going to pay,” he yelled. I kept running, weaving back and forth between trees without looking back.
