Chapter Thirty-Three - Westin

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

WESTIN

I'm eaten alive by guilt.

She was never safe there. I should never have listened to her. I should have paid attention instead and acted, regardless of what she wanted. But I was so consumed by what I wanted—her—that I didn't realize how much she was willing to endure to save her land.

I'll regret that until I die.

And I'm going to do everything I can to fix it.

I take Rocky, and we retrieve Thomas' body. It's frozen solid, which makes it easier to pull behind as I ride back out to his house. Avery still sits at the table, his body bound. Before I left, I took a second to turn off the heat. He's frozen too.

My breath rises in white puffs as I drag Thomas' body into the kitchen and drop it on the floor. Then, I move to the bedroom, a thick bandana over my face, to where Diane slept.

Hanging from the ceiling is a rope, looped through a metal hook. It's tied to the door, and there's a knotted end laying on the bed. It takes me a second, but I realize it's an alarm system.

I pull back the pillow. Underneath is Jensen's gun.

It's no wonder she slept for days. She lived in a prison of fear, never knowing when the Garrisons would turn on her. Guilt, now familiar, floods my chest. If I had known it was this bad, I would have shot them all and taken her home, to hell with what she or Sovereign wanted.

I'd have dragged her kicking and screaming out of here.

Her things are ice cold in the dresser drawer. I gather them up, but she barely has anything of worth. Her toiletries consist of a bar of soap, a plastic razor, and two pads in a plastic bag.

In the end, I take only her copy of Canterbury Tales and the gun. Then, I retrieve a container of gas from the barn and douse the lower floor of the house. With another jug of gas, I soak the second level until it's dripping through the floorboards.

At the front door, I light a match. I want this house and the bodies in it burnt to ash.

I move to the barn, which still has electricity, and refill the horse's food and water. They all have access to a round hay bale, so they're not starving, and their water has a heating unit.

Someone from South Platte will see the smoke before sundown. Animal control will be out here to gather the horses before they run out of food.

I'm almost out the door when I hear a low whine. From the corner of my eye, I see a white and gray shape crouched in the dark, far corner.

It's Billie.

Crouching, I click my fingers. "Come here, Billie."

At the sound of her name, she crawls out on her belly and slinks to me. I rub behind her ears, her long hair matted with ice and dirt. I know she's starving, probably not in any fit shape to run back to Sovereign Mountain.

Rising, I find some rope and call Billie out to the yard. Rocky stands while I hoist her up and swing into the saddle behind her. Surprisingly, Billie lets me secure her with crisscrossed ropes to my torso. She probably would have held still on her own, but I don't want to risk hurting her. She means a lot to Diane.

We head back up to Sovereign Mountain. The sun is higher, and it's almost noon when I get back to the gatehouse. Normally, I'd go to Sovereign and let him know that the house is burning, but he's inside with Keira, and I don't want to disturb them.

After Rocky is dried and put away in his warm stall, I walk the plowed path to the gatehouse. Billie follows me without prompting. When we get to the door, she pushes her nose in the crack while I'm unlocking it and inhales. Her tail swishes.

"She's inside," I say.

Billie whines.

I unlock the door, and Billie cranes her neck around the corner, clearly hesitant. My eyes roam over the room and fall on a sight I wasn't expecting.

Diane is out of bed. Her golden hair is braided over her shoulder. Her body is engulfed in one of my red flannels that falls to her knees. The house smells of coffee, and something crackles on the stove.

I pause. This is it—my home, right here.

"Diane," I say.

She looks up, and Billie lets out a yelp before she propels through the door. Their bodies collide so hard, Diane lands on her ass. Billie whines and whips back and forth so hard, I fear she's going to crack in half.

"I think she missed you," I say, kicking my boots free of snow and shutting the door.

Diane scrambles to her feet. "Do you have any dog food?"

"There's some up at the house," I say.

She bites her lip. I know she's not ready to go up to the house where everyone else lives. I go to the fridge and pull out some chicken breast left over from a few nights ago. Diane takes the bag from me and tears it into shreds, reaching for a bowl.

"Give her a handful and see if it stays down," I say. "She hasn't been fed in a few days so her stomach is sensitive. I'll get the dog food later."

She nods, obeying. Billie shoves down the chicken and starts rummaging for more. I click my fingers once, making a sharp noise. She backs up and sits.

"Good girl," I say. "You lay down. "

She slinks to the living room and curls up on the rug before the fire. Diane watches her with a strange look on her face, almost wistful.

"Thank you for finding her," she says. "I know you probably didn't want to go out in the cold."

I decide not to mention I actually went out to burn the Garrisons and their home. Instead, I take her by the waist and pull her against me. She's too thin; she needs to rest and recover.

"I wish you'd told me how bad it was at the Garrisons'," I say.

She shakes her head. "You wouldn't have let me stay."

"No, I wouldn't have." My voice is tinged with cold.

She shakes back her flyaway hairs and, for the first time in a year, I see a tiny flicker of the girl I met before all the sweetness and hope was taken from her eyes.

Right then and there, I swear to myself I'll do anything I can so she can be soft again. When summer comes, she'll be sun-kissed, in the passenger side of my truck, my hat on her blonde head, not a single care in the world.

"Diane," I say. "What can I do to fix this?"

Her brows draw together. "You mean when you lied to me?"

I shake my head. "No, I don't regret that. You're hardheaded, darling. You'd have let them kill you to save your land, I see that now. I'm so fucking sorry."

She touches my chin. "It's not your fault."

My mind flashes with a single image: my father, standing at the edge of the woods by our house. He takes two bullets from his pocket and fits them into the shotgun. I stare up at him, the sun making my eyes stream. He's big and strong, my father.

"Let me tell you something, son," he says. "We're just complicated animals. At the end of the day, it's survival of the fittest."

I don't understand what that means, but I remember the silhouette of my father as he clicks the gun into place and lifts it. A shot rings out.

He ejects the casing with a savage snap. "Now, go on, let me teach you how to gut an animal. "

Diane is saying something. I jerk back to the present. Maybe my father was right to raise me the way he did. Maybe if I'd been more like him, Diane would never have endured so much pain at the hands of the Garrisons.

My father shot first and took what he wanted.

I hesitated. I waited.

And now, her light is dimmed.

I put her hand in mine and kiss her forehead. She gives me a little smile. I sit down at the head of the table with the ghost of my father hanging over my head. Diane makes up my plate and sets it before me. When she turns to leave, I catch her arm and pull her into my lap.

"I need you to know that I'm never leaving you alone again," I say quietly.

Her eyes are big, staring up at me. "It's okay."

"No," I say. "It will never happen again."

She purses her mouth, startled by something in my face. Then, she nods.

"I understand," she whispers.

She wriggles out of my grasp, and I let her go for the price of another kiss. Then, she brings her plate and sits beside me. We eat in silence and have coffee, steam rising from our silent table.

It feels like the beginning of peace.