Chris was poised behind me, weapon aimed but unable to get a clear shot as they tussled. I didn’t want Elijah to die for me. I wanted him. I wanted him to live even if it meant I couldn’t.
As I aimed my gun, trying to get a clear shot at the bastard trying to kill us all, Derrick got the upper hand and stood, holding Elijah in front of him like a shield. The gun was at Elijah’s throat. “Don’t. Fucking. Move.Mason.”
I looked at Elijah, who was looking at me. “Why did you do that?” I whispered, tears falling out of pure desperation.
Chris was beside me, still holding the gun. “Drop the fucking weapons!” Derrick yelled. I let go of the gun. I didn’t have a choice. There was no way I could guarantee hitting Derrick and missing Elijah. Chris hesitated, but when Derrick pressed the gun into Elijah’s neck harder, he lowered the gun to the ground. “All of them!” Derrick insisted. We did as he said. “Now back the fuck away from them.” We backed up a few feet.
“Derrick, don’t do this, man,” Chris implored him. “It’s not worth it.”
Derrick laughed, but not like he found something funny. “Not worth it? What the fuck do I have left to lose? Do you think I’m just going to let him go? Do you think I actually believe you’d let me walk away? You’re out of your damn mind. I might be going down, but I’m takingallof you with me.” He was desperate, and I didn’t like it. He knew it was over. His plan to frame Elijah had shattered, but he wanted Elijah dead, and he wanted me dead too.
Chris was calculating as he stared Derrick down, but I’d already gone over every scenario. We weren’t getting out of this. My biggest fear was that Elijah would go first.
My eyes met Elijah’s, and I could finally read those crystal blue eyes. I knew what he wanted to tell me. Iheardhim.I’m sorry. I couldn’t let him hurt you. It’s okay. I’m okay. Just live.I shook my head, though. Because it wasn’t okay, and I didn’t want to live without him. If I made it out and he didn’t, I would die too. He’d been right all along. I didn’t know how to save him. If I moved, he’d die. If I didn’t move, he’d die. He wanted me to shoot anyway, to take Derrick out and save myself, but I couldn’t. Elijah would die if I did, and Icouldn’t.
Derrick had slowly backed up so that he was slightly behind a tree, and I realized he hadn’t quite given up. He’d kill Elijah and use the tree as cover to shoot at us before we could reach our weapons. He was probably still hoping to frame us and Elijah, but he was a coward. If he hurt Elijah, I’d kill him. Even if he shot me in the head, I’d survive until he died.
There were sirens in the distance. They were too far away to get to us. They’d start at Chris’s car and they’d never make it in time. Derrick grinned like he’d already won. Chris’s hand twitched. He wanted to go for his gun. Derrick was already half behind the cover, though, and his eyes narrowed. “Say goodbye to your little plaything, Mason,” Derrick said. The gun moved to Elijah’s temple and his finger tightened on the trigger.
I resorted to begging, but right as I cried out, “Derrick, no, please,” a church bell rang, from somewhere behind us. We all froze, including Derrick. There was no church anywhere around us.
Derrick shook it off and his face twisted into a snarl, tightening his finger on the trigger once more. I saw my life crashing around me. The bell rang again, a death toll, but then everything happened at once. The sound of a gunshot ricocheted off the trees as a sob slipped out of me, but there was more, a pounding sound and a screech, and so much movement in front of me that I couldn’t keep up.
Elijah fell to the ground but Derrick seemed to have disappeared. There was a thud and a crunch. “Elijah!” was all I could say as he dropped into a bed of blooming flowers on the ground in front of him that I hoped wasn’t some poetic end.New life can bloom.
“What the fuck?” Chris found his voice. I looked to the right to find Derrick pinned to a tree by the antlers of an enormous deer. Elijah’s cat was sitting nearby, apparently having led the way in some twisted fairy tale of fate. Derrick gurgled, eyes wide and glassy. The deer backed up and shoved the antlers into his chest once more, finally rearing up on two legs and coming down with both feet on the wounds. Derrick slid down the side of the tree, trying to take in a gasping breath as blood oozed from his mouth. The sound was rattly and his eyes glazed over as he slumped onto the ground. The deer backed off and turned toward us. I wondered briefly if he was rabid or something but didn’t have time to be fearful. Blood dripped from his antlers, but my mouth dropped open when I saw the teardrop shape on his forehead. He turned to where Elijah had fallen.
I was pulled from my shock immediately. “Elijah!” I cried, rushing forward.
Chris ran for Derrick, grabbing the gun he’d dropped when he fell. He checked for a pulse but shook his head at me as I reached Elijah on the ground. There was blood in his hair. “Elijah, fuck!” I cried, rolling him over.
My heart leapt in hope when he squinted and focused on me. “Ow. Fuck,” he muttered, blinking in confusion.
“Are you shot?” I cried, reaching for his head.
He struggled to sit up. “It didn’t hit me, it just grazed me.He fired and was just... gone. It burns, but I don’t know how he missed. My ear’s still ringing. I... where did he go?” I let out a sob as I found the wound, only slightly bleeding from the bullet graze, not the mortal wound I’d feared. He sat up, rubbing at his ear. “Am I deaf?” he asked me. “What the fuck just happened?”
He looked over at Chris and Derrick, trying to figure it out. The deer approached us with bloodied antlers and Elijah’s eyes widened. Enyo was already sauntering off toward Elijah’s yard, stopping to pull a bur out of her fur with her teeth then walking on. The deer nudged the hand Elijah held out, then walked back into the woods, disappearing down a ridge. “Uh, your friends showed up.” I answered his question.
“They were sent for the time,” he whispered.
“New life blooms,” I added, looking around us. Because itwasnew. Whatever had been in his dreams had been right. This was where it ended. Death had come, Derrick’s breath had been taken, and Elijah’s life was going to be new. Hopefully better than it ever had been. I couldn’t question any of the gifts anymore, and I couldn’t blame it on night terrors.
“You stupid bastard,” I heard Chris say, but there was sadness in his voice. He was moving Derrick to lay him down. We would both mourn the loss of a friend that had never truly existed, while trying to wrap our minds around the fact that he’d tried to kill us all. I knew it would add to my issues, but right now, all that mattered was that the three of us were still alive. Elijahwas alive. Even if I really hadn’t been able to save him,someonehad. It was over. They were sent for the time, and they won.
???
I plopped down in Elijah’s hospital bed with him, refusing to leave his side. He’d already been checked and they let us know his wound was superficial and that the ringing in his ears should subside in a day or two. Chris’s colleague had just interviewed Elijah, but they also had Chris’s report, and his comrades werefussing over him as they lamented their own brother betraying them. They’d taken my statement as well, and we were waiting for Elijah to be released.
They’d already found Will. He was living an hour away and had no idea his son was a homicidal sociopath. He was coming in for questioning, but he’d told the detective that Derrick refused to talk to him after he left. He’d still taken the news of all the recent events pretty hard. Chase, the one who’d been hacking into Elijah’s account with the help of department technology, was sitting in jail, refusing to speak without an attorney. Danny was in custody at the hospital. It looked like he would live, but not outside of a prison cell. It was going to be especially bad for Chase inside.
Rory barged into the emergency department, demanding to see Elijah. “Damn, news travels fast here,” I commented as she made a beeline for us.
She hugged him tightly, then looked at me. “You kept him safe,” she said softly.
As much as I wanted the acceptance of his friends, I couldn’t lie. I shook my head. “No, actually, he saved me. Ran right into an armed murderer to keep me from getting shot. As far as who saved Elijah, you might want to talk to that spooky one-eyed cat and some massive deer with a teardrop shape on his forehead.”
Enyo had been waiting on Elijah’s porch when we’d all trudged out of the woods. As soon as Elijah opened the door, she ran inside and right over to her food dish, looking at him as though demanding lunch. He fed her before we left for the hospital. She didn’t act like anything unusual had happened. It was surreal.
