Someone grabbed at me, and at first I thought it must’ve been someone coming to check on us, but I should’ve known who it was by the way his hands gripped at me possessively—should’ve known he wouldn’t stop.
“No!” I shouted, and tried to get away from him, not that there was anywhere else I could go in the truck. But if he was trying to pull me out of it, I wanted to stay in there, and I wanted to stay with Knox. “No! Knox! Knox, wake up!” I screamed, and kicked at Collin as he pulled me from the cab of the truck.
“I have a feeling this belongs to you.” Collin tossed my secret cell phone into the truck, then turned us both away. “Walk,” Collin demanded. His voice was the same as it was last night. Soft, bored, detached, but still held power.
“Let me go!” I yelled, and thrashed against him.
Cars had stopped on the freeway; people were out of their cars and watching us—some had their phones pointed at us, and some were talking on them. But Collin didn’t care, because he wasn’t Collin anymore, and he wasn’t my monster.
“People are not allowed to touch what is mine,” he said simply, as if reminding me.
“I am not yours,” I spat out, accentuating each word. “You left me to die!”
He laughed, and the humorless sound sent a chill up my spine. “Well, I’d hoped, but you’re stronger than I give you credit for,” he continued on with that same nonchalant voice. “But if I hadn’t stuck around to find out, I wouldn’t have known to follow you all the way to Thatch, now would I?”
We were nearing the smashed SUV he’d been driving, and I was putting up more and more of a fight—but I had always been weaker than Collin, and he hadn’t just been in a truck that had rolled.
“Now, get in the—”
“Collin!” a deep, fluid voice rang out about everything else, and it sounded so beautiful in that moment that I cried out in relief when Collin turned us around to face where Knox was standing at the back of his truck. He was swaying; but still standing. “Let her go!”
Without hesitation, Collin raised his free arm, gun in hand, and aimed right at Knox. I screamed and lunged for it as he pulled the trigger.
I’d knocked Collin’s arm to the side, but out of the corner of my eye still saw Knox stumble back. A sharp sob burst from my chest, and everything grew to a deafening level then. It was piercing, but I didn’t know what the sound was. I only knew that I needed to get to Knox, but Collin was aiming again.
Gripping Collin’s hand that was holding the gun, I pulled it close to my body and placed myself between Collin and Knox, and held tight when Collin tried to throw me down with his free hand. My foot got caught between his, causing him to stumble, and soon the force from him throwing me aside had us both falling—with him above me and the gun now sandwiched between us, our fingers both on the trigger.
In those last few seconds, a sense of peace washed over me. I saw Deacon and Graham in a dead sprint in our direction and knew they would help Knox. I knew this was how it was supposed to end, and wondered how I thought it would ever end any other way. I’d prayed for God to show me some kind of mercy and to take me from Collin, and now I was finally getting my prayers answered. And with such a public act, I knew Collin wouldn’t get away with this.
A smile crossed my face and I let my eyes close.
It wasn’t all for nothing, I told myself as we crashed down, and the force of our fall caused us to squeeze off one final round.
Knox
Present Day—Richland
“HARLOW!” I SHOUTED as I ran with what little energy I had in my body toward where she and Collin were falling to the pavement. “Harlow!”
The sound of the sixth gunshot tore through me, causing me to stumble until I was on my knees, unable to move. I needed to get up, I needed to get to her, to make sure she was alive—because surely she was still alive—but instead, I bent toward the pavement, and a sob was forced from my chest when countless seconds passed without movement from either of them. The bullet that was embedded in my right arm hadn’t hurt as much as the sound of that last gunshot was destroying me.
I looked up when I felt hands on my shoulders and shoved Deacon away from me. He fell backward and came toward me again, but didn’t try to touch me. He was saying something—shouting, but I couldn’t hear anything. I forced myself up and stumbled a few times as I headed toward Collin and Harlow. Graham was already there, carefully stepping up behind where Collin was still lying on top of her.
Deacon hurried over to them and helped Graham heave Collin’s body off of Harlow—but I couldn’t focus on them. All I could see was my world lying still on the ground as Graham ran back and hovered over her.
I approached her slowly, like each step was trying to get through quicksand, and didn’t understand Graham’s smile or what he was trying to say to me. I glanced at Harlow once more before looking over at him again, and my legs began shaking when Graham moved away from Harlow’s bloodied body and slowly disentangled the gun from her thin hands to lay it on the ground beside them.