Penances

A dim light spilled out from under a solid oak door that Ian had his ear pressed against. “I don’t hear anything anymore.”

“I can’t believe Henderson has been the long-termer all this time,” Emelie whispered, arms curling around her stomach.

“Are we sure it’s him?” Fin asked.

“It has to be,” she said. “He can’t leave since the bridge is closed, and with all the surveillance equipment we found in the other two rooms attached to this one?” She pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead. “I can’t believe I’ve been feeding Claire’s stalker all this time.”

“Don’t.” Fin’s fingers skimmed her arm, and when she zeroed in on them, he quickly dropped them away. “None of us knew, Emelie.”

“And you’ve never seen him in person?” Ian asked.

She shook her head. “Even when I spoke to him, we spoke through the door. And this is one of the original rooms before the build-ons. It has its own private back entrance, so he never came down through the lobby.”

Ian’s head snapped to her. “Back entrance?”

“Shit, shit, shit.”

Ian rushed toward the emergency stairwell.

“Wait for Officer Murphy,” Emelie called.

Ian gripped the metal railing and swung over, landing hard on the next level. His legs swept out from under him, and the edge of a stair bit into the center of his back. The pain didn’t register.

Nothing registered. Not Fin yelling behind him. Not the alarm blaring when he burst out of the emergency exit and slipped in the snow. Not even the cold that penetrated his now sopping pants. Only the sight of staggering footprints with a small trail of blood, and a man making his way toward a motorboat.

It didn’t matter that crossing the ocean pass to the mainland this time of year was as good as committing suicide. There was a small chance he’d make it.

And an even greater chance he’d come back.

Every muscle in his body contracted. Every nerve ending sparked as Ian’s vision tunneled to a sharp point on the broad frame dragging giant duffel bags through the snow.

“Ian ... stop ... might ... gun ... ”

Fin’s shout muddled in his ears. Distant. Disconnected. Ian didn’t feel. Didn’t hear. Lost all sense of the world around him.

Only once had Ian detached from himself like this and ended up in juvenile detention for nearly killing a kid. A hulk of a bully that had set his sights on the new girl in town named Molly. But unlike then, he didn’t have his best friend beside him.

There would be no Danny to step in between this time. No holding back. No, Henderson would meet the real Ian McClellan.

The broken boy who became a broken man.

Sprinting, every detail from the unending nightmare of a night replayed in his mind ... Jessica’s laughter while holding up Danny’s drooling face. Danny convulsing on the floor. Claire’s body being dragged over the cliff’s edge.

He slammed full force into the wall of a man. The impact sent them both over the peak of a small hill and down, tumbling over rocks and snow-covered grass. At the bottom, Ian’s fingers wrapped around a thick neck, and a roar tore from his throat.

Nails clawed at him as he drove fist after heavy fist into a hard face. Strangled yells and bloodied curses sputtered out of Henderson as Ian lost control—lost himself. Blood soaked his knuckles as he gripped Henderson’s throat again, fingers squeezing, cutting off his airway. He slammed Henderson’s head into the frozen ground, brought it up to another heavy fist, and slammed it again.

It took a long moment to realize he was screaming, “Die!” And an even longer moment to feel cold metal pressed into the side of his head.

“You die first,” Henderson said.

Ian twisted away as a shot rang out. Fire blazed through his shoulder. Another shot and the rock beside him splintered. Shards showered his coat before a heavy body crashed into him. Henderson straddled his chest, pinning his arms under his knees, gun pressed into Ian’s forehead.

“Don’t you fucking move.” Blood dripped from Henderson’s mouth, and he coughed, wheezing on an inhale. The gun slid an inch, and he coughed again, realigning it. His free hand tucked inside his coat and gripped his side. He was shaking, his breathing erratic.

Ian cursed and struggled. Waves slapped against the stones on the beach behind them with the faint hum of the boat motor. Henderson blinked hard and swayed a little, eyes unfocused. “Stupid wannabe Scot—” His words cut off with a wet cough, and his hand shook as he repositioned the gun. It slipped again and Ian wrenched and squirmed, but the man was a mountain of cinder blocks on his arms.

“Full-blooded Scot, thank you.” It didn’t matter. But it absolutely mattered.

“I don’t give a shit.” Henderson hacked another cough, and Ian realized that the blood coming from his mouth wasn’t just from his fists.

“Broken ribs suck, don’t they?” He wrenched hard again, hoping to aggravate the injury.

“I said don’t move.” The gun stabilized on his forehead and pressed in. Capillaries split and broke under his skin, and Ian wrestled again, grunting under the weight of the man crushing his arms. Henderson chambered a round and he went still.

Dear God.

He wouldn’t get to say goodbye.

The tears he’d held onto released and rolled down the sides of his eyes. Danny, Claire, Emelie, Finlay, Solsken’s residents that had become his family and ... “Mam,” he whispered.

He focused on a single snowflake breaking free from the swirling wind and drifted toward his face. With a shaking breath, he released the broken boy inside—his constant companion—and abandoned his need for revenge.

Looking up beyond his island, beyond the cloud-filled sky, he embraced this final penance for every mistake, every wrong. “Save a dram of your finest for me, my friend.”

Fin’s voice tore through the quiet. “Ian.”

Three shots rang out and Ian’s world went black.