Patch helped her up and out into the light.
The storm clouds dismantled till blues sketched the horizon. Saint fell to her knees and retched and coughed as Patch knelt beside and placed a hand on her back.
“You’re safe,” he said.
“You killed him,” Saint said.
She panted, coughed again, and felt the pain sear her throat, her chest weak. She sat back and he knelt beside her, stroked the hair from her eyes and pressed his hand lightly to her cheek. She saw him then. She thought of Tooms and Nix, thought of Monta Clare and how far they had drifted from home.
The gun lay on the ground, and with a heavy heart she picked it up and climbed to her feet.
His smile met her tears.
She held her gun out, level with his chest.
He stared at the barrel, at the steady of her hands.
Patch turned and did not run, instead raised his hands in a surrender that near broke her.
Saint looked past him, at the big house that stirred a memory of their town, of finding Charlotte watching the screen, her father’s work bringing a family back from that total loss of hope.
“The house,” she said. She looked at him, at the toll of each year, a boy and now a man, a shadow in the light. “Tell me it was her, Patch.”
“It was her.” He looked in the direction of the barn, where Grace stayed and hid and waited for the end.
Saint cried then. The search was over.
“You’ll look after her,” Patch said.
“You know that I will.”
“You look after everyone, Saint.”
“Just not the one person that matters most.”
“You do the right thing. Always. And I love you for it.”
She kept the gun out, wiped her tears. “They’re coming for you, kid.”
He smiled. “I think they’re already here, Saint.”
She slipped the handcuffs from her belt.
“How is Charlotte?” he said, as he watched her.
“She’s doing good.”
“She’s tough, like her mother. Like her friend.”
“And like her father.”
In the distance she heard the call of sirens, the troopers closing the net. In hours he would return to prison, where he would pay for a crime he had committed. Saint knew that for some it was written in the stars that no matter how hard they fought their road did not lead somewhere good.
“At first I thought it must’ve taken someone pretty smart to get you out of there. Maybe some money. Some bribes. But then I realized it just took a lot of heart. A desire to right something wrong,” Saint said.
“You got me now. You don’t need to—”
“I won’t. I’m not interested in who exactly helped you escape. Though I could guess who was at the center. And he’d never survive on common food,” she said.
He took a breath and looked back toward the barn, where Grace stood like a ghost, like a vision he could finally let go.
Patch smiled at her as he spoke to Saint. “So this is how it ends.”
She took a step closer. “Regrets?”
“Too few to mention.”
Saint hugged him tightly.
Behind them the clouds eased apart for a rainbow of light they did not notice.
The sirens grew louder.
They held together.
Saint would not let him go.
To love and be loved was more than could ever be expected, more than enough for a thousand ordinary lifetimes.
She did not understand that until then.