I answer. “I need to look after Ted and Sylvia. I’m sorry, Brandon, but you got yourself into this.”
Dalton and I back up. Gloria hesitates. She got her demand, and now she seems uncertain how to proceed. She looks out the opening, at the forest beyond, seeing the problem with her demand. Where’s she going to go?
“I want immunity,” she says. “You’re going to fly me out of here and grant me immunity.”
“Because you didn’t mean to kill Jolene,” I say.
“I didn’t. You know that. You found the pipe. I only wanted to scare her.”
“Because she was blackmailing you. Threatening to tell everyone what you did down south.”
“I did nothing. Nothing. It was my husband. He killed that girl. I knew nothing about it, but she said no one would believe me, and she was right. No one believed me down south. They said I must have known. I didn’t. I didn’t.”
The gun fires. One second she’s waving it, caught up in her words, and then Brandon jerks around and grabs for her and the gun fires.
“Stop!” I shout, my own gun rising.
Brandon has the gun, and Gloria is slumping to the floor of the wrecked plane, blood blossoming on her abdomen, her mouth moving.
Brandon turns the gun on me. I dive, and Dalton fires as Brandon does. The bullet whizzes past me. Dalton shoots again. Brandon falls back, the gun sliding from his hand.
I run to grab the gun. Brandon’s on his back, his side and shoulder bleeding. His fingers flex, as if reaching for the gun. I stomp his arm hard enough to make him scream. Then I pick up the gun as Dalton walks over, his weapon still trained on Brandon.
“You shot me,” Brandon says.
“You tried to shoot me,” I say.
He doesn’t answer. I doubt he has an answer. I remember him going after Isabel on the patio, the rage on his face. I remember him attacking Phil. He’s never apologized for that. This is a man who is very good at playing the victim, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t just as good at protecting himself, whatever the cost.
I glance at Gloria, who’s writhing on the floor, clutching her bloodied abdomen. “Your stomach hurts now, doesn’t it, Gloria?”
Her look is almost comical shock, as if she’s unable to believe I’d say such a thing.
“I-I’m…” she begins.
“Dying?” I say. “Maybe. I could forgive you for Jolene. That was a mistake, and she kinda had it coming. I can also forgive you for sending me on a wild-goose chase and pretending you’d been buried alive. But I don’t forgive you for shooting an innocent pilot and bringing down a plane. So I’m going to do as you asked and see to Ted. Maybe you and Brandon will survive. Maybe you won’t. But I have priorities, and you’re not it.”
I climb over her and make my way to Ted.
FORTY
Ted does not survive. I did what I could, but that metal bar was the only thing keeping him alive. Removing it would have meant instant death. Instead, I gave him all the painkillers from our medical bag, and by the time help arrives, he’s gone.
The woman in the copilot seat was someone I barely knew, like Neil. Also someone whose exit the council expedited, like Neil. VIPs, likely expected to pay for their quick departure. Instead, they paid with their lives.
Sylvia is alive. Brandon and Gloria also survive, sadly. Brandon would have likely been fine without intervention, but I still had Dalton stanch his bleeding once I’d ascertained we could do nothing for Ted. Then I’d checked on Sylvia and tended to Gloria, and later April said that without my help, Gloria would have died. Not sure what to think about that. I couldn’t have just watched her die, so I guess I did what I had to do for my own peace of mind, and she benefited from it.
When Dalton called Phil, he’d been able to patch him through to the other pilot, the one making his way to Rockton. The pilot had picked up April and Anders and brought them to the site. Then the council took over and we returned to Rockton.
We suffered no consequences for our actions. Kind of hard to give us shit when we’d been right and Brandon—ever eager to save his own ass—happily confirmed what had happened with Gloria. The council simply cleaned up and moved on, and by morning, Rockton’s evacuation was back on schedule.
And now, as August rolls toward September, our town is empty save for the dozen of us who saw the cleanup through to the end. Rockton itself is gone save for the tents we’re using as temporary housing. We have dismantled our entire lives here, piece by piece.
Dalton stands in the old town square as the crew finishes taking the last timbers from our chalet. He’s watching it come down, his face hidden under the brim of his hat. I walk up behind him, put my arms around his waist and squeeze.
“I’ve read about people seeing their childhood home demolished,” he says. “I guess that’s what this is like.”
“No,” I say, my face pressed into his back. “For you, it’s more.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then he says, “It was never really mine. Like growing up in army barracks. It was theirs, and I always knew it.”
“They never let you forget it.”
His grunt may be half laugh. He pulls me around in front of him, and I hug him tight, cheek on his chest as his arms wrap around me.
“The next house will be ours,” he says. “All ours.”
“And the next town will be part of this one,” I say. “Right down to its DNA.”
The council wanted the physical buildings dismantled, but there’d been little of value in the remains. émilie had offered to dispose of them, her final act as director of the board. One of her granddaughters runs a construction company that specializes in reclaimed building materials.
The council jumped at the suggestion, probably high-fiving one another at the chance to skip the most expensive part of deconstruction. Her granddaughter really does have an eco-friendly construction company, so there was no need to question émilie’s motives. The materials are being stored at a secure site until we need them to rebuild.
They’ll be in storage for at least a year. The building season in the Yukon is short, and there’s already snow on the mountains. Next year, we’ll find a site and prepare it. Then we’ll spend a winter in temporary buildings to get a feel for the area and any dangers that might have us rethinking our choice of site. The following year we’ll build a permanent town.