Not as he beat his face in with the butt of Paige’s revolver.
Three devastating blows.
But he didn’t kill him.
Grant struggled onto his feet, his face dotted with blood.
He turned and stared her down.
She thought she was dead, but still she didn’t pull.
Jim Moreton already struggling to move around the sofa to his daughter, and when Sophie blinked, Grant was at his sister’s side again.
Paige was moaning and he was telling her everything would be okay but there was so much blood.
Grant lifted Paige in his arms.
Sophie heard herself say, “I’m so sorry.”
She felt out-of-body.
Immoveable.
She had responded to the fear at the psychiatric hospital, but this was something else entirely.
Paige shot.
A trooper shot.
She was paralyzed.
Too much to process.
Grant was standing now, holding his sister, blood running down his arm and dripping off his elbow onto the floor.
He said something to his father that Sophie missed completely.
She called his name, and for a split second, he looked at her, his eyes so troubled, so distant.
She said, “Let me help.”
“Either shoot me or get out of my way.”
He pushed past her.
Ripped the door open a few more inches, worked his way through the opening and out onto the porch.
Jim Moreton shuffled after him.
They were already climbing into the car by the time Sophie stepped onto the front porch—Grant in back with Paige, his father struggling to install himself behind the steering wheel.
The engine cranked and roared, tires slinging gravel as Jim whipped the CR-V around and floored it down the road into the trees.
Sophie sat down on the weathered steps.
Her hands shook so badly she could barely pull the phone out of her jacket.
A single bar of 3G.
Her voice sounded so calm, so even making the report. Like she was giving her social security number to her credit card company.
“Do you know where the suspects are going?” the dispatcher asked.
“A hospital I would assume.”
“One moment ... Closest is in Leavenworth. It’s a level five trauma facility. Thirty-five miles east of your location. I’ll alert the local police department.”
“Thank you.”
“And I can tell them you’re en route?”
“Yes.”
She slipped back into the cabin and checked on Trooper Todd. He was still unconscious, but there was very little blood—the bullet had just grazed him.
Back outside, she hustled down the steps toward her car.
On some level of consciousness, she was becoming aware that everything about her life had just changed. That from this moment forward she would be a different person. That her only hope of survival lay in finding a way to live with the fact that she had utterly failed everyone in that cabin and probably cost Paige her life.
She should’ve stopped the trooper.
She should’ve stopped Grant.
She sped down the one-lane road between the hemlocks.
Turned out onto the highway.
Accelerated through the freezing fog.
Her eyes kept filling up with tears and she kept blinking them away.
The fir trees looked like somber ghosts streaming past on the shoulder of the road, and she couldn’t see anything beyond three hundred feet.
The road was climbing now.
The fog thickening.
She punched on the headlights.
The clock read a little past seven a.m., but it didn’t feel like morning.
It didn’t feel like any time she had ever known.
Her phone vibrated.
She didn’t answer.
Her ears popped.
She steered through switchbacks and there were reefs of dirty snow on the sides of the road that grew taller the higher she climbed.
The road straightened out.
One last burst of optimism and purpose.
She was going to Leavenworth. Grant would be there. Paige was going to be okay. She would do what she had to, and no one else would get hurt.
She was nearing the crest of the pass when she saw it. Her foot came off the gas pedal, and she brought her TrailBlazer to a stop in the middle of the road.
“Oh, God,” she said. “Please, no.”
Chapter 43
The CR-V barreled through the overgrowth while Grant cradled his sister’s head in his lap. His father could still handle a car, hooking it around potholes and dead logs while the meager headlights illuminated a solid wall of fog that was always just ahead of them.
Jim called back, “How far’s Leavenworth?”
“Forty-five minutes,” Grant said, dropping Paige’s phone on the seat.
“We’ll make it in half the time. And they have a hospital?”
“Barely.”
The headlights dipped suddenly as the SUV bottomed out with a sharp metallic scrape.
Paige’s head lifted and fell back into his lap.
She moaned, clutching her side.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” Jim said. “Didn’t catch that one in time.”
Grant could see the worried creases above his father’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“How we doing back there?” Jim asked.
“We’re doing great,” Grant said.
Paige mouthed, “Liar. It really hurts.”
“I know.”
“I can barely stand it.”
He held her hand and let her squeeze it.
The trip back to the highway took only half as long as the drive in.
Soon, they were speeding east on smooth pavement.
Grant pushed his fingers through Paige’s hair.
She stared up at him, cheeks pale, eyes heavy. Her skin felt cool and clammy.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice just a whisper now.
“Don’t. Just relax. Everything’s gonna be fine.”
“I made you hurt someone.”
“That man shot my sister. He got off easy.”
Paige’s smile showed dark-red blood between her teeth.
Grant’s stomach tightened.
A liver hit.
“Are you cold?”
She nodded.
He slipped out of his North Face and draped it over her.
They rode on.
Climbing.
Paige’s breathing growing faster, more shallow. Beads of sweat forming on her face.
Her eyes had become slivers of white.
“Stay with me,” Grant said, squeezing her hand.
She gasped and cut loose a rattling cough.
Red foam appeared at the corners of her mouth.
Her lips moved.
“What was that?” Grant brought his ear so close to her mouth he could hear the bloody vibrato in her lungs.
She drew a tiny breath, let it escape in the smallest whisper: “Bad sister.”
The words detonated inside of him.
Grant brushed a few strands of hair away from her face.
“Stop it.”
He could feel her blood soaking through his pants. There was too much of it.
Grant looked up.
“Hey.”
Caught his father’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
They were hauling ass around a sharp turn, the tires just beginning to screech.
“How much longer, Dad?”
“I don’t know. Twenty? Twenty-five?”
“We’re gonna be pushing it.”
Jim’s eyes took on a shadow. He focused back on the road.
Grant looked down at his sister.
He smiled through a sheet of tears.
She said, “I heard what you just said.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t hurt much anymore.”
“That’s good.”
“I’m thirsty.”
“We’ll find some water for you.”
“Everything looks grey. And I think ... that might be the end coming. I can hardly see you, Grant.”