When I can breathe again, I have to swallow several times to keep from throwing up. It’s horrible. A terrible, horrifying tragedy. All because of a mistaken identity.
I almost feel guilty for asking, but it’s the first thing I want to know. “Is my brother alive?”
Reed continues to stare into his memories, almost oblivious to the barely bridled chaos about to explode around him.
“Reed.” I place my hand on his shoulder, willing him to come back from wherever he is. “Is there a chance my brother is—”
“Sam’s dead,” Reed says, cutting me off, his voice loud and detached. “He got sick. He fell asleep and never woke up. It was years ago.”
His words pass through us like a shock wave. Feet shuffle, gasps and whispers drift through the circle, and silence follows, heavy and still.
My parents’ faces pale, and I can see the denial in their eyes. Dad shakes his head, like Reed said something he can’t understand. A moment that resembles eternity passes, and then the stunned silence is broken. A ragged sob escapes Mom, and Dad pulls her to him, wrapping his arms around her. Was this was it looked like when they first heard Sam was missing?
As my parents slip over the edge into heartbreak, something shatters inside me. I realize why the funerals seemed so surreal to me, why I never felt closure. Some part of me knew, deep down, that they weren’t dead, that sixth-sense kind of thing that siblings share. It’s why we could never heal, because it wasn’t really over yet. And now, hearing those words that fall into my heart like stones, I realize what just broke.
Hope.
The shards rip me apart as they go, and when the tears come, it’s not the healing ones I’ve come to experience within the forest. These burn with regret and endless pain. We’re here, once again, hearing my brother is dead. Will the last ten years of my life repeat now that we’re back to square one? I don’t think I can endure it.
“That’s it, then,” Sheriff Hanson says quietly. “We’re done.” He motions to the men on his left, and they move forward, one of them unwrapping cable cord from a tightly wound roll.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I say as threateningly as I can.
“We’re taking Reed home.”
And with those words, all hell breaks loose.
A scream of rage erupts from the trees behind us, and a young ten-foot pine tree, roots still intact, comes sailing across the clearing, taking out half the circle around us, including my father. Mom yells at me to run, swinging around to fire shots into the trees. Reed jerks me down and throws himself over me and as much of Bee as he can. The other men scramble to take cover behind the trees when rocks come flying along with chunks of rotted tree trunk.
“Stop!” I scream. “Stop shooting!”
There is a pause in the fire. I can hear shell cartridges fall and magazines loaded. “Leah, get up,” Dad yells. “Get out of here.”
“No. He thinks you’ve hurt Bee. You need to leave!”
“Michael, we need to get it done,” Coach Banks yells.
The sheriff and two others rush toward us, dodging the nonstop barrage of whatever the Sasquatch can throw at them.
The sheriff and Keith reach for Reed, pulling him off us and pinning his arms behind him. Dad is next, and the fact that he doesn’t want to hurt my cast arm is the only thing that gives me leverage. I twist out of his grip and roll over Bee, putting her between us. “Leah, baby, please, you’ve got to come with me.”
“Why? So you can kill her? I’m not letting you.” I see the knife in Charlie’s hand as he tries to dodge around me and a kicking Reed.
“We’re not going to kill her.”
“Then why do you have a knife?” I point at Charlie. Dad moves while I’m distracted, sweeping me up in his arms and running to where Mom is. Reed lands a kick to Sheriff Hanson’s leg, sweeping it out from under him and taking them all to the ground. Reed moves like an animal, like something born of the forest. With two swift jabs, he’s incapacitated both men, leaving them lying on the grass. He spins on Charlie, and the blade flies, landing somewhere out of sight. When I look back, Charlie’s just as unconscious as the other two.
“Nora, now,” Dad says, wrapping his arms around me.
I watch as Mom gets to her feet, reaching for a gun strapped to her back. She swings it over with practiced ease, takes aim, and fires.
The scream dies in my throat as a dart imbeds itself in Reed’s chest. He jerks, looking down in surprise. “Reed!” I yell as he slumps to his knees. “Mom, what are you doing?”
“What needs to be done,” she says, and starts walking toward the Sasquatch still screaming at us from the trees, unfazed by his relentless show of aggression.
“Don’t miss,” Dad whispers, watching her walk away.
Mom slings the dart gun over her shoulder and reaches for the Glock at her hip. “Dad, what is she doing?” Dad doesn’t answer; he just buckles down and holds me tighter, like I can even try to run now. Mom ducks out of the way when a branch comes flying toward her, crashing into a tree and sending splinters raining down on us. I feel nothing but disbelief when she raises the gun and takes aim. “Mom?” I yell. “Mom, please!”
She hits her mark.
Blood flies from his shoulder, and his piercing scream reaches down into my soul. It’s the kind of sound you know will find you in your dreams.
Mom hesitates before her second shot. She edges back as he utters a guttural howl, a mix of pain and helpless fury. I think I’m screaming, but I can’t tell. All I can hear is this tremendous rumbling. She raises her arms again, aiming for him one more time. The Sasquatch stops, suddenly as motionless as the rest of us. There is something so human in his gaze—acceptance, regret—that it stills my breath. Can’t she see it?
Something moves out of the corner of my eye and Mom flies off her feet, the bullet missing its mark, tackled by a blur with blond hair and a letterman jacket. Matt twists his body so he takes the brunt of the fall, crashing among the debris and sending the gun flying. Mom lunges away from him, her goal in clear view. My brother wraps her up in a bear hug and kicks the gun away from her desperate reach. “Matt, let me go! You have to let me do this.”
“You’ve lost your damn mind! What are you doing?” he screams, and the shock of his outburst reverberates through my parents.
“He stole my baby. He stole Sam!” Her voice is raw, her hands digging into the dirt as she inches forward. “And now I’ll never get him back.”
“What?” Matt freezes. “Sam . . . Sam’s not alive? But the folder, his picture . . .”
“Reed said he died.” Mom’s voice breaks. “We thought he was with them. We’ve been trying to find him.”
Matt’s bewildered gaze finds mine. Suddenly my brother looks like a little lost boy. It’s more than I can stand.
Dad’s arms loosen when he feels the first sob rack my body. “Dad, let me go,” I whisper, and he slowly relents. I crawl toward Reed, slumped on the ground beside Bee, my cast arm tucked to my stomach.
“He took your brother away from us!” Mom screeches, still trying to get the gun. The Sasquatch has become a blur of brown among green as tears streak down my face.
Matt snaps out of his fog, desolation replaced by fury. “He took a lot more than that, and you and Dad never bothered to fix it,” Matt yells. “You’ve forgotten about us!” Mom and Dad stare at him like they’ve never seen him before.
“That’s not true!” Mom cries, reaching one last time for the gun.
“It is, or you wouldn’t be fighting me for a gun when your daughter and Reed are both lying on the ground needing your help!”
I halt in my slow trek across the ground. The selfish part of me wants to see her face, hoping that his words did something to her, but I’m not prepared for the guilt I feel when I meet her eyes. I watch as my mother falls apart in my brother’s arms, but I don’t move. Her tormented cries fill the woods around us, masking the sound of the wounded Sasquatch retreating through the trees.
Ashley stands over Reed, her body frozen in disbelief. Ben moves off to the side, trying to wake the men Reed left unconscious. The scuffed-up RZR stands a few yards away, windshield missing. Bee’s open eyes watch me, then she reaches out to place a hand on Reed’s chest where he lies beside her.
Ashley places her hands over her mouth as Bee pulls the dart from Reed’s body. She drops it to the ground and strokes his hair, just like she did to me. “Ashley, it’s okay.” I can see her frantic nod, but she doesn’t look at me. She walks around slowly, kneeling at her brother’s head. She moves the hair out of his face and her hand brushes against another one, large and black. She stills, and with tears streaming down her face, she slides her hand next to the one that’s not quite human.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I flinch at the hurt in her voice.
“I didn’t want them to get hurt.”
“Well, that really worked out well, didn’t it? How could you not tell it was him, Leah? Look at him.”
I am, and it’s twisting something inside me until I can’t breathe. I want to reach out, touch him, and remind myself that he was mine, if only for a little while, but even that’s been suddenly taken away. He’s no longer the wild boy from the forest. He’s Reed Hutton, brother to Ashley, and no longer my secret.
I never thought I would regret that. I’m happy my best friend has her brother back from the dead, but it has come with such a cost. Looking around this circle of lies, I wonder how much more we’ll have to pay before these sins have been atoned. I realize my secrets pale before those of my parents. They have played their parts so well I don’t even know them anymore.
“Ashley.” Sheriff Hanson hands her a black-cased cell phone. “Call your mother. Tell her to meet us at the hospital.”
Ashley takes the phone obediently. “Where are you taking him?” I ask, circling a protective hand around Reed’s wrist.
“To the hospital you should still be in,” he says ruefully. “But thanks to you, we’ve accomplished more than we hoped.” He smiles warmly at me and nudges Bee with the toe of his boot. She jerks away from his touch and fury rises like bitter bile in my throat. I squeeze Reed’s arm, willing him to wake up and protect his adopted sister.
“You’re going to let her go.” The threat feels empty, and we both know it.
“Of course we are.”
The sheriff plunges a wide needle into Bee’s thick skin. I watch her eyes widen in fear and pain as a tiny silver transmitter slides into her body. He jerks the syringe out and passes it to Jim Stephens, the local veterinarian.
“What are you doing?”
“Just protecting our evidence. The government doesn’t allow proof to come to light, but we’ve worked too hard to let them just disappear again. Now that we’ll always know where she is, she’s free to go.”
“You can’t do this to her. She’s not an animal.”
Any hope I had of him undoing this unspeakable act fades as he shakes his head with a smile. He can’t see the truth, only a trophy lying on the ground. “Well, no sense in wasting a lucrative investment. This is better than winning the lottery.” He chuckles to himself. “And like I said, Leah, we couldn’t have done it without you.”