“Dallas!” I said. “Brian just went out the front!”
She let go of us and got to her feet, her shirt covered in Crystal’s blood and her face enraged. She ran to the door, the gun in her hand. Now I could hear a motorbike and the faint sound of sirens, coming closer.
I picked up the rifle, following her. Dallas was almost out the front door. I stepped onto the porch. Brian was in the driveway, trying to get onto his ATV, his body bent over, a trail of blood behind him. It looked like he was fumbling for keys. A motorbike was coming up the driveway. The rider skidded sideways and fell next to the ATV. He got to his feet and ripped off his helmet. It was Riley. He ran for his dad. Dallas let off a shot aimed at Brian’s back, but he turned at the last minute and she hit the ATV. Brian grabbed his son by his shirt and dragged him toward the motorbike, using him as a shield.
“Dad! Stop!” Riley yelled as he tried to pull away.
Brian threw his son down onto the ground, picked up the motorbike, and started it up, fishtailing as he roared down the driveway.
I aimed at the tires, but missed.
The sirens were getting closer. Dallas took another shot. The bike swerved, and Brian tumbled to the ground, the motorbike’s engine still whining.
Now Riley was running toward him, and cop cars were racing up the driveway, swerving to avoid Brian and Riley. They pulled up in front of the house. An officer got out, saw us holding guns, and drew his.
“Everyone get down!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
SKYLAR
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass window, looking out at the highway, the big trucks passing our car. I was trying not to think about Crystal but I kept seeing flashes of her face, the blood on her chest, her head lolling to the side.
Mom was holding my hand in the backseat. I could feel her looking at me once in a while, could feel her concern, all her emotions pressing into me. She’d asked if I wanted to talk, her eyes serious and sad, her mouth trembling when she looked at the bandages on my wrists, her hands patting and touching and stroking my skin like she had to keep feeling me to believe I was alive.
“Not yet,” I’d said. I felt like I was swimming underwater and if I opened my mouth it would fill up and I’d drown. I kept getting flashes of images, but they were foggy, surreal, like I was having a horrible nightmare I kept waiting to wake up from, but it just went on and on.
I remember walking out of the house with one of the cops, seeing my mom in the back of a police car, Dallas in another, lights flashing, men talking into radios, their faces serious. Riley was kneeling on the ground. An officer was crouched down talking to him, a hand on his shoulder.
I remember trying to run to my mom, seeing her anguished face through the glass. The officer pulled me away, saying something about having to take me to the hospital and that I could talk to my mom later.
At the hospital, they treated my wrists and neck, asked me all kinds of questions. I tried to answer, tried to focus my thoughts and explain how sorry I was for running away, how it was my fault Crystal was dead, but then I heard a buzzing, a fly trapped against the window, and started crying so hard they had to give me a shot to calm me. Finally, I fell asleep.
The hospital kept me overnight to treat me for dehydration. In the morning I asked for my mom, but an officer said they needed to ask me more questions first. A woman officer drove me to the station and brought me into a room. She was nice, smelled like pine needles and forest and fresh air.
She asked me to go through everything, starting from why I decided to drive to Cash Creek. I didn’t know if they’d already found out about my mom. Didn’t know if it was still a secret, didn’t know what was a truth or a lie anymore.
“I don’t want to talk,” I kept saying.
“We know about your mother,” she said in a soft voice. “We know Gavin and Brian hurt them. It’s okay for you to talk to me. You won’t be in trouble.”
I looked at the door, wished I knew if she was telling the truth. I felt like I couldn’t trust anybody.
“Where are Brian and Gavin?”
“Gavin died at the scene and Brian’s in the hospital, but he’s going to recover. We want to make sure he’s punished for what he did. That’s why I need you to tell me everything that happened—so he can’t hurt anyone else, okay?”
I took a breath and started talking. I had to stop a few times because I was crying too hard, but she was really nice and waited until I calmed down. She kept bringing me water. I drank glass after glass. I never wanted to be thirsty again.
“Is everyone going to know he’s my father?” I said at the end.
“That’s not for the police to disclose. It’s your private information.”
She explained about Victim Services, then another nice lady came in and talked to me about counseling and told me who to contact when I got back to the city.
“You’ll feel better when you’re home,” she said.