Eva
WHEN REID PULLS UP outside a small shack, I can’t decide if I’m more afraid or relieved. Nate’s truck is coming up behind us as I steady myself for what comes next. I don’t think Reid understands that no amount of explanation will change my acceptance. He’s a killer. I’m not going to ride off into the sunset with him. The best-case scenario here is that he survives the next half hour.
“We can’t stay here. I hoped we could for a little while, but that won’t work . . . unless we kill Bouchet.” Reid twists his body so he’s face-to-face with me. “I can do it.”
“No. Neither of us will kill Nate.” My hand tightens on the pistol, fearing that he’ll try to take it.
Instead, Reid sighs. “Fine. We can get Grace and then shoot him in the knees or something.”
My mouth drops open, but I don’t even know how to formulate a reply. After almost an hour of listening to Reid describe killing and the things he did when he was alone in his room with pictures of me, I feel like no amount of bathing will ever get the disgust off of my skin.
“Grace is in there?” I ask.
“Locked in safely,” Reid answers. “Do you want me to go get her?”
“Please.”
“As you wish.” Reid gets out of the car with his keys in hand, and without a look behind him, he walks to the little cabin. I hear the keys on his ring jangle as he sorts through them.
Nate is beside my door, opening it. “Are you okay?”
“I will be.” I turn and climb out of Reid’s car.
“Don’t touch Eva, Bouchet,” Reid calls back to us. “She’s mine. I explained everything. We’re going to get Grace and go.”
Nate looks at me and raises both brows, but he says nothing. He doesn’t need to: we both know that I’m not going anywhere else with Reid. He brought me to Grace. That was what I needed. Now that we’re here, I’m staying with her and Nate.
“Maybe we can lock him in there,” I whisper. I want a solution that doesn’t include another death. “We get Grace, lock him in, and wait for the police.”
“It’s worth a try,” Nate agrees.
I still think we might be okay—until Reid opens the door. That’s when everything falls apart. He lets out a howl of pain. Grace is there. I can see her swinging a lantern at Reid.
“Run, Eva!” she yells.
Nate runs toward the door to help Grace.
Reid ducks and grabs a chain that is hanging from around her throat. He yanks, and she stumbles. She’s trying to dig her heels in to stop him from dragging her to him.
I stare in shock. For a moment, I’m too stunned to react. Grace was chained up.
“Asshole,” Grace yells at him. She grabs the chain—which Reid is still using to jerk her toward him—and yanks back, but even in her anger, she’s not stronger than him.
Nate leaps on Reid, knocking him to his knees, and Reid releases the end of the chain that’s attached to some sort of collar around Grace’s throat. She crab-crawls backward and struggles to her feet.
I’m trying to reach her, but I’m on one crutch and holding a gun in my hand. I move far too slowly, and even if I can reach her, my only way to help is to shoot Reid. I don’t want to do that. I keep thinking of my vision of his death. It’s almost like it’s superimposed on the world around me.
Just as Grace is passing Reid, he shoves away from Nate and grabs her again.
Nate takes another swing, knocking Reid into Grace accidentally, and they all tumble together on the ground in a mess of legs, arms, and chain.
Both Grace and Nate are hitting Reid now.
Everything feels like it’s happening at once. Grace is screaming; Reid is punching Nate—who is returning his blows.
“Stop it!” I yell. “Stop!”
No one listens. Reid has the loose end of the chain and is pulling it around Nate’s throat. This is it: Reid’s death.
I thought I’d stopped it. I want to stop it.
This isn’t what I want.
I have to stop it.
“Just shove him in the cabin!” I yell.
Reid is staring at me. “What?”
His calm vanishes, and he grabs Grace and throws her to the ground. There’s a sickening thunk as her head hits something, a rock or tree root, I can’t tell. It doesn’t matter though. What matters is that she’s not moving.
“Grace!”
At my scream, Nate sees that Grace is motionless. He’s distracted and in that moment Reid takes advantage of his inattention to slam his elbow into Nate’s throat.
Nate lets out a gurgling noise, as Reid follows the throat-blow with a kick to the groin.
Nate goes down. He and Grace are on the ground. I’m not sure how badly she’s hurt, but Nate, at least, is conscious. He’s trying to get to his feet, but he’s clearly in too much pain.
Reid pushes to his feet. “Get in the car, Eva.”
He raises his foot to stomp on Nate’s throat.
“No!” I take aim and squeeze the trigger.
The sound Reid makes is more of a scream than a yell.
He falls to the ground.
He clutches his wound. The blood is thick and instant.
It’s not exactly the same as my vision. In the real moment, I made a different choice: I had aimed for his upper leg, and that’s what I hit.
I hear a car coming, but I move closer to them instead of turning to see who’s arrived.
Grace isn’t moving, but her eyes flutter open. She starts to pull herself toward me, farther away from Reid, who is sprawled on the ground, hands clutching his bleeding leg.
I lift the gun again, aim it at Reid, and ask, “Did he . . . what did he do to you, Grace?”
“Nothing. I’m okay, Eva,” Grace says in a raspy voice. “I swear it.”
Nate crawls toward Grace and pulls her into his arms. “Her head is bleeding,” he says. His hand is wet with her blood, and his face is filled with scrapes and the yellow beginnings of bruises.
I hear car doors closing now. I turn to see who’s arrived.
My gun arm is partway up again when I hear Detective Grant order, “Lower it, Eva.”
I swallow a sob and realize that I started crying at some point.
Then the detective is beside me. She takes the gun from my hand carefully and hands it to another officer.
Several more officers arrive. One of them is restraining Reid; another is checking on Grace. In a matter of minutes, an ambulance arrives, as do my parents and the Yeungs and Nate’s mother.
EMTs take over care for Grace, Nate, and Reid. They’ve taken Grace and Reid away from where we all were, but Nate is still on the ground near me. I hear him say, “I can stand.”
Officers go into the cabin. I watch it all in a stunned silence. It’s all so fast. I feel like they’re on fast-forward, and I’m moving on slow.
“Is he going to die?” I finally ask. I look at Detective Grant and say, “I’m the one who shot him. It was only me. No one else knew about the gun.”
My parents are hugging me, and I see that my mother is crying. I don’t look away from the detective though. “I can make a full statement. I texted him on Grace’s phone, set a trap, and then I brought my mother’s gun. I held him at gunpoint while he drove me to—”
“Nate called us, Eva,” she interrupts gently. “We know.”
I nod. I’m not sure how Nate called after he gave me his phone. I glance at him.
“Backup cell because of . . . the things you told me before,” he says in a still-hoarse voice.
My visions of Nate and my decision to trust Nate enough to tell him about the vision, those are what changed everything. He had a second phone; he called for help.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
I want to be in his arms right now, but my mother is clutching me to her. My father gives Nate a wide smile, and then he reaches down and squeezes Nate’s shoulder. Then his arms are around my mother—who is still hugging me.
When they release me, I turn so I can see Grace. The EMTs are still with her, and her parents are hovering at Grace’s side. When Mrs. Yeung sees me looking at them, she murmurs something to Grace and comes toward me.
“You’re utterly irresponsible, and I can’t believe you put yourself in this kind of danger, and”—she wraps both arms around me—“you saved my Gracie. Thank you. I’m furious at the risks you took, but right now, thank you.”
I nod again. I swallow, and try to say something, but I’m not sure what it would be so I close my mouth again.
“Are you charging her?” my dad asks, and I realize that Detective Grant has joined us.
“Charging her? With what?” Mrs. Yeung asks with a frown.
“Eva shot Reid.” My mother sniffles as she says it, and then she turns to the detective. “It was self-defense.”
Detective Grant shakes her head at us. “We’ll sort it all out. Right now, Miss Tilling should see the EMTs. She’s in shock. Then we’ll deal with the rest.”
“Shock,” I echo. That makes sense. I just shot a boy I’ve known my whole life. I’m in shock. I nod again, and then my parents and I sit down while a very nice man examines me.
Afterward, my parents take me in their car to the hospital. Nate is with his mother, following us. The police need to take possession of his truck temporarily to collect evidence. He couldn’t have driven it anyhow. He wasn’t injured enough to go in the ambulance, but he wasn’t in any shape to drive either.
I know that there are things that have to happen, but I need to be there for Grace, as she was for me, and I need Nate with me. I try to explain this to my parents several times, but they aren’t able to help me. Grace, Nate, and I all need to be checked out by the doctors and talk to the police. We’re all in separate vehicles—Grace in the ambulance, Nate with his mother, and me with my parents. After the past few hours, that seems wrong. We should be together.
Thoughts of the things Reid did, the awful events I heard about and the ones I saw, threaten to overwhelm me. I don’t want to think about any of it. Mixed in with all of those horrible details is one more truth that repeats like a refrain: I shot a boy tonight.
I shot him.
In that last moment, I wanted to kill him.
I shot him.
For a moment, I came near to shooting him again.
“Eva?” My mother’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts and closer to the world around me.
“I shot him,” I whisper to her.
“I know,” she says.
I reach up and take her hand in mine. I try not to think about sitting in another car earlier tonight. My mother’s hand in mine is an anchor, one I am afraid to release. “He would’ve killed Grace. She wasn’t moving. I wasn’t sure . . . I thought she might have died for a minute, and then Reid was going to kill Nate. He told me to get in his car, and he wanted to kill them, and I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Shhh,” my mother says. She holds my hand tighter. “It’s okay. They’re safe. You’re safe.”
“Everything is going to be all right,” my father adds. He has both hands on the steering wheel, and I can see how tightly he holds it. “Everyone is safe now, and your grandfather’s attorney is already at the police station. You’ll be fine, Eva.”