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It was funny how you reacted when something unimaginable happened to you—like having a loaded gun pointed in your direction. My ears picked up every sound—the sirens getting closer by the second, an owl hooting nearby. My eyes noticed every detail—the way the
wind blew Derek’s hair into his eyes but he refused to brush it out of the way, how his beard looked rough and unkempt, and the way his roughly loosened tie hung crooked. But my brain—my brain couldn’t process the words he said and make them make sense. My senses were heightened, but my mind seemed dulled.
Derek scoffed at me. “I would never take Matson from her. What would I do with a kid?”
My brain raced, spinning in circles but still unable to figure shit out. If he hadn’t threatened to take Matson from her, then what exactly had he threatened her with?
“Still confused, huh? All looks and no brains? Let me spell it out for you.” He raised the weapon higher, aiming for my head. “I told her I’d kill you. She knew I meant it after I told her what I’d done to one of our classmates back in high school.”
“Why?”
“Guess you’ll never know,” he said, smirking like this was the most enjoyable thing he’d done all day.
Sirens blared, but Derek remained unconcerned. I wondered if he even heard them or not. Maybe his brain was on point, but his senses were dulled like mine.
“The cops are getting closer.”
“You think I don’t hear them?” he shouted before lowering the gun and kicking at the dirt. He started hitting his own head with his free hand the way someone who was at their wit’s end would do. “Why did you have to be around? None of this would be happening if you had just gone away like you were supposed to!”
Although tires skidded and screeched to a stop nearby, Derek continued ranting, blaming me for all his problems and saying everything was all my fault.
I held up my hands. “If you shoot me, you’ll go to jail. You can’t get whatever it is you want from behind bars.” It was a reach, but I had to try something. Otherwise, this guy was going to kill me, and I really didn’t want to die.
He laughed again, the sick smirk back on his face. “You think I’d go to jail? You really don’t know anything, do you, Ryan? My father would never allow that to happen. Huntingtons don’t go to jail.”
“Put down the gun,” a voice boomed over a megaphone, but Derek’s wild eyes stayed fixed on mine.
He was going to shoot me. I was going to die. They say your life flashes before your eyes just before you die, and they were right. In that moment, it happened for me.
It was more like a movie montage, scenes of my childhood with Frank and my parents mixing with my present day. I saw both my brothers, their girlfriends, my mom and dad, Grant—and, of course, Sofia and Matson. They whipped through my mind’s eye in a flash, each image filled with smiles and happiness. I was thankful for having the chance to have experienced that, the joy and the love.
“Put it down!” the voice demanded again, and my blood ran cold.
Derek’s finger tightened on the trigger in slow motion as shots rang out. I covered my ears with my hands, the sounds so fucking loud around me as I bent over, convinced I could duck and avoid any flying bullets or shrapnel. Dirt kicked up, gravel hit me in the shin, but otherwise I was unhurt.
Derek’s body recoiled three times in rapid succession before his footing gave way and he fell to the ground. Blood poured from his chest, his body unmoving, but his eyes remained open. It was the first time I’d ever seen a dead body, and I hoped it would be my last.
Blood pooled around him, thicker and darker than I’d imagined it would be. Blood doesn’t flow like Kool-Aid the way they show it on TV and in the movies. Real blood is thick and moves slowly like molasses as it leaves your body.
Police surrounded me, demanding I get on my knees with my hands behind my head.
I yelled at them to get Sofia out, desperately pointing toward her car before I followed their directions. I had no idea how much time had passed, but my girl still hadn’t moved.
Family
Ryan
Once the police had determined I wasn’t a threat, I bolted toward the ambulance where the paramedics already had Sofia strapped in and were preparing to take her to the hospital.
“Where are you taking her?” I asked the paramedic.
“General,” he said.
“Is she going to be okay?” I was frantic. She looked so pale, already hooked up to an IV, machines reporting her vitals with annoying beeps. But what bothered me most was that her eyes were still closed.
“She’s stable. I gave her something for the pain.”
“She was awake?” How much she had seen and heard?
