CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

SPARROW

“ALL DONE.” BROCK stood up and wiped off the coat of sweat on his forehead.

He’d taken over digging the grave two hours or so ago. Finally, he’d realized I was in no shape to do it myself, especially if he wanted that hole deep enough for my body before Thanksgiving.

He’d also found the damn white sheet, throwing it my way, victory printed all over his disgusting face. It wasn’t so white anymore, but it was there.

I tried to smell the sheet, browned by dirt and mud, desperate to feel her, to connect to something that might have still been there. But I couldn’t. All I felt was disappointment. Disappointment in my mom, in my husband.

“Why are you doing this?” I howled.

Brock was leaning against a tall tree, pulling at his brown hair, on edge. Well, he was about to take a life. My life. He was looking down at me while I was sitting on the ground. My forehead had stopped bleeding, the blood gluing my hair to my skin, and my foot throbbed like it was being slowly cut off with a chainsaw. It wasn’t my best moment to say the least.

“I get that you hate Troy. I get that you loath the Brennans. But why do you feel the urge to hurt me?”

“I’m not sure.” He pinched his eyebrows, actually giving it thought. “Maybe it’s just my fragile ego, you know? I’m better looking, certainly nicer than Troy Brennan. Yet he always gets the chicks, doesn’t he?” He snorted. “Yeah, that’s it. Maybe I’m just bitter about you being so obviously blind to what he is and what I am.”

“You’re both as bad as each other,” I shot. “Both monsters from hell.”

But even as I said it, I didn’t believe it. Because after all the secrets were out, after knowing what Troy did to my mother and what went down, I still couldn’t hate him as much as I hated Brock. Troy wasn’t malicious. Or maybe he was, but not toward me. Brock, on the other hand…he had every chance to stop the blood bath and everything that had happened, at least most of it, but he kept the freak show running.

“Aw…” He put his hand over his heart. “Now that’s just straight out insulting. Any other last words, Mrs. Brennan?”

“Yeah,” I said, letting go of the white sheet and watching it drop back to the ground. “There’s someone behind you.”

Brock pivoted to see who was coming, He gasped when Troy’s panting figure sliced through the tall bushes like a storm.

He pointed his gun to Brock’s head and shouted, “Don’t shoot her!”

Brock dropped his gun, his mouth hanging open and realization washing over his face. It was over for him.

“Don’t do this,” Troy shouted again.

I was confused. What? Brock wasn’t holding the gun anymore.

“You devil,” Brock whispered, the accusation directed at my husband. “I’ll save you a place in hell.”

“Don’t wait up.” Troy’s voice dropped considerably. “I’ll be late.”

Then, with a smile, Troy produced a panicked scream. “I said drop the gun now!”

A shot rang through the air. Brock fell to the ground, his body hitting with a thud that echoed between the towering trees. My head shot up. Still shaking, everything shaking, I gaped at his prone body next to me. Horror etched his face. I saw the surprise in his eyes as the dark red stain of blood bloomed on his mouse-gray jacket, spreading like an oil spill with every second that passed.

Too stunned and weak to try and get up, I lay there near the hole he dug for me.

Next thing, I saw Troy’s shoes as he stopped inches from my face. Relief washed over me. I sobbed, releasing every single tear I’d been holding all day. He was here. Troy was here, and all of a sudden, everything was okay. Despite what I knew, what I didn’t want to know, despite my life with him being over, it was okay. I knew I’d be okay.

I was so tired of being strong. Being taken care of, even by him, was a concession I was glad to make.

“Sorry, Red.” He picked up Brock’s gun with a handkerchief and walked to where Brock had been standing before the bullet hit him. “I promise I won’t even graze your ear.”

Then he shot me.

Troy Brennan, my husband, shot me.

He missed my ear by an inch, but I still felt the heat radiating from the bullet as it flew next to me. The scent of gunpowder burned my nostrils, and my eyes rolled back in their sockets.

I lost it for a moment, barely noticing Troy’s arms closing around me. The next thing I knew he was picking me up. He carried me like an altar boy, and I was his cross. Swinging my arms over his neck, hugging me tight like I could evaporate at any moment.

I clung to my mother’s white sheet and sobbed. I don’t think he noticed the sheet. I’m not even sure that I noticed what I was doing at this point. So much had happened so fast, it was almost like I was an outsider peeking into a reality that wasn’t really mine.

A second person ran through the trees in our direction. A small man with utilitarian clothes and sharp nose. A cop. He hurried toward Brock’s body and felt for a pulse.

I was still woozy and incoherent, but I noticed Brock’s gun was back in his hand.

My husband, ever the fixer.

“You shot him?” he roared at Troy.

Troy’s arms tightened around my body protectively. It started to hurt. So did my forehead and foot. Everything hurt. Everything felt broken. Especially my heart.

“Self defense,” Troy said, and I felt him through my shoulder pointing his chin at Brock. “He shot my wife, missed only by a few inches, and he was going to try again.”

Not true. Brock never did any such thing. Troy was the one who shot him, and Troy was the one who used Brock’s gun. Of course, I didn’t utter a word to the cop. I let Troy carry me to a black SUV I didn’t recognize, my arms flailing like they were no longer part of my body. I released my hold on the sheet, but he bent down, picked it up and flung it over his shoulder. He knew I knew, and somehow, that made me even sadder.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry, Red.” He kept on repeating it, more to himself than to me.

“I know everything,” I whispered into his chest. “How could you have done that to my mom? How could they have done this to us?”

His muscles tensed around my body. Chest, biceps and even his fingers stiffened.

“Sparrow—”

I fainted the second he placed me on the seat, and for the first time since everything happened, I truly didn’t give a damn if I woke up or not. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. Nothing.

I didn’t come to until I was at the hospital, and even then, everything was a blur. The first few minutes, I thought I was still in the woods, still with Brock, or even worse, dead. Then I felt the needle in my wrist and the scent of antiseptic and anesthetics attacked my nose. Blinking slowly, trying to gain some control over my vision, I saw a hazy figure sitting by my bed. I realized it was Pops, his head between his hands. His body shook, and I figured he was crying.

Lucy perched on the window sill, looking out, but mostly looking worried.

Daisy was digging dirt from under her fingernail absently, leaning against the wall, popping pink bubblegum.

I found comfort in the simplicity of everything around me. The walls were naked and everything was white or pale. The linoleum on the floor, basic furniture, blind-covered windows. It was boring, it was bare, and I loved it. My current self couldn’t handle detail, or stomach anything more complex than what was in front of me.

And most importantly, I was surrounded by the three, only important people in my life.

My husband was no longer a part of this short list. Not after what he did.

Pops and Lucy must’ve heard me gasping when I tried to move my foot—unsuccessfully, by the way—because Lucy jumped from where she was sitting and appeared by my bed.

“I’m sorry, honey. You broke your foot.”

“Actually, Brock broke it for me.” I winced, but stopped trying to move my leg. It was so sore, no amount of morphine in the world would be able to subdue the pain.

By the looks on their faces, they were confused and still in the dark. I wondered how much they knew.

“Where’s Troy?” I licked inside my mouth, trying to fight the dryness.

Lucy and Daisy exchanged glances, and I didn’t like what was written on their faces. It pained me to admit that even though Troy did unthinkable things to a lot of people, the woman who gave birth to me included, I still cared about him. Still didn’t want him to get into trouble. Even if I couldn’t be with him, that didn’t make him any less important.

If anything, it made me worry for him even more. The cancer has successfully taken over my whole body. I was infected head to toe. Resistant to any medicine, immune to anything he might do. In fact, I knew that even if the bullet he shot at me pierced my skin, I would still love him. Very much. It sucked, because I knew that I couldn’t forgive him.

It also sucked to know he might be a free man, but he wasn’t in the room, because he didn’t want me anymore.

Pops was the one to break the news, since Lucy and Daisy were too empathetic to do such thing.

“He’s at the police station,” he said, unblinking. “Giving his statement about what happened.”

I looked out the window. It was pitch black outside, a street lamp illuminating the fog and rain.

“What time is it?”

“One a.m.”

Damn, it’d been almost twenty-four hours since I ran into Brock, but it felt like it was years ago.

“And Brock?”

This time Lucy had no trouble delivering the news. “He’s dead. Don’t worry. You poor thing. You were in quite a state when Troy found you. I can’t believe Brock kidnapped you because he fell in love with you and couldn’t stomach the fact you were married. What a psycho.”

Ah. He now had a cover story, too.

“How did Troy find me?”

“The housekeeper,” they answered in unison. Maria.

I let my head sink back into the pillow, closing my eyes and fighting the tears stinging the back of my eyeballs. Why was I crying now? Because I had my life back. Because I had my family around me. Because everything was supposed to be okay now, yet it wasn’t. Never would be. Troy was right—I was bound to run away from him. I needed to run away from him. There was no repairing our relationship after what he’d done.

Even The Fixer couldn’t fix this.

“Can we get you anything at all?” Daisy pulled at her gum, twirling it around her finger. I almost smiled. Almost.

“Hot chocolate,” I said, and before I knew it, she dashed out of the room.

“Your forehead looks nasty,” Lucy commented, brushing her hand along my temple in a motherly gesture.

“I bet my foot doesn’t look too good either.”

“No,” she agreed.

I frowned. “You mean, my foot modeling days are over?”

“Afraid so.”

The three of us laughed—me, Lucy and Pops—and the smile felt good on my lips again. Not natural, but good.

It would take a long time until I laughed again, really laughed, or felt genuinely happy, but this was a start.

I was taking baby steps, but with a broken foot and a shattered heart, this was something, too.