Wyatt shrugs. “Swore to God, swore to Jesus, swore on my mom that I’d take care of you, and, well, I did.”
Jessup realizes his phone is buzzing. It’s buzzed a bunch in the last twenty minutes, texts coming through. He hasn’t checked, but now it’s ringing, a call. He pulls it out and looks at it. His mom. But he’s got a bunch of texts from Deanne, from Derek and Mike, a couple of other guys from school—what happened at the gate is on the news already, and everybody wants to know if he’s okay—some texts from his mom and at least one from David John. Jessup sends the call to voicemail.
“We better head back,” Jessup says.
Wyatt has his phone out, too. “Yeah. My mom is having kittens.”
Jessup texts his mom to say he’ll be back in a few minutes, looks up at Wyatt. “What do we tell them?”
“Nothing,” Wyatt says. “We went for a walk because we were freaked out. They’ll believe that. They’re freaked out. The only person other than you who knows what really happened is Brandon, and I can’t imagine he’s going to tell the cops that the reason he got shot was because the guy he asked to shoot you in the head missed.”
“You okay?” Jessup says. “I mean, you . . . Jesus. You killed Brody Ellis.”
“I’ll be okay,” Wyatt says. “Besides, I didn’t pick Brody. Brandon picked Brody. Whatever. I’m sure that I’m supposed to say all of this has fucked me up, but the truth of the matter is that, at least right now, I feel pretty good. I saved your life. You owe me. I’m serious. I saved your life. Think it through. If I’d said no, Brandon would have found somebody else and you’d be dead. And if I hadn’t shot Brody Ellis, Brandon would have figured out that I didn’t miss you on accident and he’d have me killed, afraid I’d tell somebody. Kill you, too, to protect himself.”
“Seriously? You think Brandon Rogers has the stones to kill somebody?”
Wyatt shrugs. “Doubt he’d do it himself. More likely he’d find somebody to do his dirty work. It’s not that hard to convince people that the ends justify the means. And I wouldn’t underestimate what Brandon will do to save his own skin.”
They start walking, back to Earl’s house, faster now, a destination ahead of them, a purpose.
“But are you going to be okay?” Jessup asks.
Wyatt says, “Don’t see that I have a choice.”
Jessup shivers. “But what about the other people? There was somebody down on the road. A woman. And a couple of other protesters got shot.”
“Like I said, not me,” Wyatt said. “Our guys were jumpy. Couldn’t tell who it was, but definitely our guys. They can call themselves a militia all they want, but they’re a bunch of amateurs. Fingers on the trigger. As soon as I fired there were at least two, maybe three of them that let loose. Got to hand it to the cops. They actually held their shit together pretty well.”
“Man,” Jessup says. “This is going to be a spectacle.”
“Yeah, well,” Wyatt says. “People are going to go to jail over this. There’s a dead protester, people shot. The cops will match ballistics and some of our guys are going to do time. This is national news, man. Somebody has to take a fall. The good thing, though, is that with all the noise, it won’t be you. Maybe you can just slip through the cracks.”
Dead bodies, Jessup thinks. He thinks of Corson. The sound of Corson’s body. He doesn’t deserve to be able to just walk away.