"Helen, put the gun down. It's May. Your little girl."
May sucks in a breath and tenses.
"There's nothing left for any of us now," she says. "I was going to be a senator's wife. My daughters would go to the best schools, marry the best men." She glances at me, contempt twisting her features. "Now what are they going to be? Waitresses? Like I was?"
"Put the gun down, Helen."
"Or what, you'll shoot me?"
She sits up and moves the gun closer to May, and her arm starts to shake. I have no choice. I snap Jennifer's gun up and aim at her.
"Helen, if you don't put that gun down I'm going to drop you."
"Why not?" she hisses. "You stupid bastard, you already ruined everything. I should-"
Her finger starts to tighten.
Mine does first.
I could hit her in the head from here. It'd be easy, child's play really, it's only a few feet. My shot hits her in the arm, midway between elbow and shoulder, and May ducks, throwing herself to the floor. Blood paints the bookcases and Helen topples out of the chair, screaming.
Her hand flew open as she fell, but the gun is still in reach. She goes for it left handed, and May, screaming and sobbing, kicks it across the room.
I stick mine behind my back and take May by the shoulders.
"Look at me."
She's losing it, screaming and crying.
"Look at me, honey."
She calms a little, her jaw still trembling.
"She's going to be okay. Run into the kitchen and call us an ambulance. Go now."
May nods and runs, sobbing.
I move to Helen's side, and roll her onto her back. She moans, and looks up at me.
"You bastard," she hisses. "You were supposed to kill me."
"You're not getting out of this," I tell her, ripping a strip from my shirt.
I hold her down and wrap up the wound. It's bad, she needs medical attention or she's going to bleed out. The bone is broken, I must have hit it. I do what I can, use a metal ruler from Tom's desk as a splint and wrap the wound tightly, and elevate her torso, propping her against the bookcases. I wrap her gun in a tissue and take it.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm not going to be here when they find you. I'm taking May someplace safe. You're never going to see her again, and when Tom goes down you will, too."
"Based on what?" she rasps.
I look at her. "You think Tom's going to take a murder rap when he can put it on you? You'll have a date with a needle, Helen. Sorry."
As I leave she shrieks at me. "Get back here, you son of a bitch!"
"Don't talk about my mother that way, you piece of shit," I say, and slam the door.
May is in the kitchen, clutching the phone.
"I called, what do we do now?"
"Come on, we're leaving. I'm taking you to Alex. Everybody’s going to be okay. Promise."
May clings to me like if she lets go she'll fall off the Earth as I bundle her into the back of Jacob's car.
"Well?" he says.
"Drive. Fast."
"Got it."
Alexis
Now
I wake up and find myself surrounded by people. Hawk leans back in a chair next to the bed, his eyes closed, dressed in fresh clothes. My mouth is dry and my neck hurts. I can feel the bandages pulling at my skin and lightly squeezing my throat. I watch him, even as May sits up and notices I'm awake. It's July, but she's drinking a cup of hot cocoa, a little marshmallow floating on the top. She's been crying, a lot. She doesn't say anything, just sits there. When I look up, I see Jennifer leaning on the door frame, arms folded over her chest, watching me with a soft, sad frown on her face. She turns away and walks out the door.
"Wait," I choke out.
Jennifer stops and walks into the room as Hawk stirs. May is still silent. She rests her hand on mine.
"I'm sorry," she says.
"For what?"
"I should’ve made you leave earlier. All of you. By force if necessary. I should never have let you risk yourself by sneaking around in Tom's office. This is my fault."
"If you made me leave," I croak out, "I would’ve came back and done it anyway."
Hawk offers me a drink from a straw. It's just water, but it's blessedly cool and wet. I take a trickle at a time, feel it soak into my dry throat. I try to sit up, but Hawk puts his hands on my shoulders, slips his hand under my head and gently lifts me up, tucking another pillow under me so I can sit higher.
"Lay still," he whispers. "We don't want that wound to open again."
"How long am I going to have to lay in bed?"
"Until I say you can get up," Hawk says, squeezing my hand.
I glare at him.
"You can move around a bit," Jennifer says, "But not much. Do what he says and be careful. I'll leave you guys alone to talk. Call me if you need anything."
I look around a little more. I'm on a bed I don't know, in a room I don't know. Hawk is in an old looking recliner chair and May in what looks like a borrowed kitchen chair. The walls are plain and the furniture looks cheap.
"Where the hell am I?"
"This is Jennifer and Jacob's house," Hawk says. "Guest bedroom."
Huh.
"Where's my mother?"
May lets out a little sound and stifles it in her hand.
"What?"
Hawk squeezes my hand. "She's gone."
I blink a few times. "What do you mean
gone?"
I look at him, and I'm shocked how completely calm I feel. Hollow. I squeeze his hand.
"Hawk, she killed your mom."
I don't know why I just blurt it out, I can't keep it in. He sighs and leans back in his chair.
"She said. I was there when she…"
"She pointed a gun at me," May says, very softly.
I reach over and grab her hand and she squeezes hard, almost painfully.
"She pointed it at me and she was going to pull the trigger and then she… she…."
"Shhh," I whisper, tugging on her hand. "I know."
"I thought I was going to die," May whimpers.
She stands up and surges through the door, and takes two steps before Jennifer appears and gathers May up in her arms, leading her away.
We're alone.
I sink back into the pillows. "That fucking bitch. She couldn't just do it. She had to make May watch. That was her revenge."
"Yeah," Hawk says.
I stare up at the blank ceiling for a while. I need time before I ask, "Where's Tom?"
Hawk leans back in the chair again, and runs his thumb over my knuckles.
"You're going to have to testify in court," he says, very softly. "The FBI wants to talk to you."
"What?"
He takes my hand in both of us.
"Jacob and Jennifer say it's okay. They know the agent you'll be talking to. It'll be done here. You don't have to go to court and you don't have to see him again if you don't want to."
"Is Tom going to go to jail?"
Hawk scrubs his fingers through his hair. "Yeah. Yeah he is. He's in a lot of trouble, Alex."
"Lance?"
"I wouldn't worry about him," Hawk says, smirking.
"What did you do?"
"Me? Nothing, I just relayed a message to him. He'd better not come back to this town,
ever
, or somebody, and not me, somebody he's never seen before, will pay him a visit."
I stifle a laugh and it makes my throat hurt. Hawk offers me a drink.
"I want to walk. Just a little bit. Please?"
He nods and helps me sit up, and practically lifts me out of the bed. My legs feel like two overstretched rubber bands, and I take a few steps out and down the hallway and back. It feels good just to be on my feet, even if I have to lean on Hawk and he ends up carrying me back to the bed. He lowers me onto the pillows, pulls the blankets up around my neck, and touches my chin lightly to check the bandages.
"You're good," he says, and sits down with me again. "You're one tough bitch to get your throat cut and live."
"How bad was it really?"
"Bad," he says. "If you didn't have a navy corpsman handy you would’ve died. Those ambulance guys couldn't have handled it."
"At least he didn't cut my leg like he said."
"Yeah. I gotta give him that. I'll give it to him after I finish choking him to death."
I grab his hand. "Hawk."
"I don't care if he wasn't the one who killed my mother. He knew. He hurt other people. He stole my life. He hurt you."
"He's going away and we won't have to worry about him anymore, right?"
"Hopefully. He still has to have an actual trial."
I shift a little on the bed.
"Hawk," I murmur. "Get in the bed with me."
"Uh," he says, scratching his head. "Alex, I don't think we should-"
"I just want you to lay with me, you pervert," I roll my eyes.
It's a tight fit. He has to lay on his side, but that works for me. He drapes his arm over my stomach and nestles his face in my hair. His breathing slows, and he starts to fall asleep. I don't. I watch him.
It's strange to me now how familiar and different he looks. Sand and sun have aged his face. His physique has taken away the softness of his youth, but his face is still the same, warm and open and peaceful as he sleeps. The face that smiled at me while we worked on homework, the face that walked with me in the woods, the face that looked at me that day at the water park like he had never seen me before.
He doesn't stir as I trace out the outlines of his tattoos with my fingernails, studying the patterns. His arm tightens around me a little and I rest my hand flat on his bicep, feeling the warmth, feeling his pulse as he breathes against me.
He makes me feel safe.
For the first time in a long time, I may actually
be
safe.
No one disturbs us that first night until morning, when May trudges in, a haunted look in her eyes, and sits down. I can tell at a glance that she hasn't slept much. Hawk sits up and swings off the bed, and leaves us alone.
Neither of us speak until he comes back carrying a big tray; Jennifer follows behind him and we all eat breakfast in the bedroom, and May is quiet as a grave.
There has to be something I can do for her.
After three days, they let me get up and walk down the stairs. Almost walk. Hawk half-carries me down, and I lean on him the whole way. My neck doesn't feel bad, but I just feel exhausted all the time, no matter what I do. Still it feels better to sit at the kitchen table an eat, and Jacob is an
amazing
cook.
By the end of the week, May is starting to show some color again. Whenever Hawk isn't with me, she's hanging around his neck, asking him all sorts of questions about the Navy, and he answers her with a patience that reminds me of how he was before he left, before all of this. I sit in a chair in Jennifer's living room watching them talk. The future feels so uncertain, but for right now I'm almost content.
When the Federal Bureau of Investigation finally arrives, May is looking at colleges, planning to apply for the school year after this one. It's too late in the summer to worry about it now. She sits on the floor in the living room while I sit in the chair, brochures spread out in front of her.
"What should I major in?"
"Undeclared," I sigh. "Find something you like by doing it and do it. Trust me."
Jacob actually answers the door, and greets a man in a dark suit with a military-style haircut. Hawk appears from upstairs, watching silently as the two men speak on the porch. They seem to know each other from the way they talk. I can't hear what they're saying.
Hawk helps me move to the kitchen table, where the FBI agent wants to talk to me alone.
He says his name is Denton and he has some questions for me.
I answer them all as best I can. I describe the men we met with in the restaurant, Eli, some of the other things I've overheard or seen. He never asks me about the computer, or the information I was supposed to be gathering from it. The questioning goes on until I can barely keep my head up.
Then he tells me I'll have to go to court and testify.
I'm okay with that.
When he finally leaves, Hawk picks me up and carries me upstairs. We've been sleeping together, that is, actually
sleeping
together, since I first woke up here. No one has said a word.
The bell rings, and I pronounce, "Class dismissed!"
I smile and nod to my students as they file out of the classroom. Twenty-six sullen, yawning fifteen year olds who just read over my syllabus and learned what would await them in Biology II. I didn't write much of the course myself, I'm following a plan from the department head. Everybody here has been amazingly supportive- I protested up and down that I didn't have any teaching experience and I certainly didn't have a certificate, but apparently for biology and math teachers it doesn't matter as long as I have a degree in the subject.
Even with Jennifer to guide me, every step of the process was nerve-wracking, even the interview, which she did not sit in on. Somehow I ended up with a job offer, and now, a year after Hawk came back to Paradise Falls, here I am, teaching. As soon as the last student leaves I fall back against my desk and let out a long breath, and realize I'm shaking.
"Never let them see you sweat," Jennifer says, and I jump.
She's always so damned quiet, even now.
Things have changed with her, too. She still dresses the same for work- modest somewhat boyish clothes, but now she can't hide the bump anymore. She's almost seven months along, due in November, and though she looks a little softer now, she's more radiant than I've ever seen her, and always grinning.
"So how was it?"
"Scary," I confess. "I'm nervous."
"Good, if you're super confident about your first day that means it's a disaster. They're tired and grumpy and running on old habits from last year's teachers. Soon they'll start testing you and…" She touches her stomach.
"What?"
"Nothing. My son just kicked me. Anyway, you'll do fine. Everybody’s scared the first day, except the really bad teachers. If I came in here and you said it was great, no trouble, I'd know something was up."
"Testing me?"
She rolls her eyes and pats my shoulder.