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Another bang resounds. I flinch as a shotgun shell skids near my cheek.
“ZOEY!” I hear my name in the distance. October. October is calling me. My heart tries to flood with more than just fear and adrenaline.
“ZOEY!” Brian yells. I can’t see him. I can’t see Parry or Colt or Babette, but I hear all of them.
I whip my head back behind me, Ashton’s grip still tight on my ankle, but he’s stumbling backwards, staring wide-eyed at his shoulder. Blood soaks through his khaki cargo jacket. Right as I scramble to pull away, Ashton trips over loose rock and he begins to fall.
Taking me with him.
I shriek.
“ZOEY!” October screams.
I’m sliding. I’m sliding! I can’t slip over the edge. Don’t slip over the edge. On the other side of the cliff is a drop into endless oak and hickory trees. As Ashton stumbles backward, his weight is yanking me towards the edge, and he clutches me—not like a parachute.
But like he’s ready to die with me.
I kick him.
I kick and kick and kick like this is the last breath I might take. I’m so close to the fucking edge when my foot rips out of his grip. I roll quickly onto my ass and scuttle backwards, digging my elbows and heels into the dirt.
Before I can see Ashton fall backward, hands are underneath my armpits. “Don’t look!” Brian shouts and pulls me so far away from the edge. We’re back in the thick, muddy woods. Away from rock. Fog conceals the cliffside again, and I can only hear the breakage of tree branches and a final thump.
I try to catch my breath. I’m in safe hands that try to bring air to my starved lungs.
“I have you. I have you.” Brian helps me to my feet, his hands hovering over my trembling body while my chest rises and falls, and I try to make sense of what just happened. He’s studying me head to toe. “You’re bleeding.”
My leg… “It’s not that deep.” And I lock eyes with Brian—I lock eyes with my dad—and something powerful overwhelms every piece of me. Burns my gaze. Swells my throat.
My dad is here.
And I just feel in my heart of hearts—that everything is going to be okay. And isn’t that what dads do? They make things feel okay.
“Don’t leave me,” I choke out and toss my arms around him. He’s so surprised by the hug, it takes him a minute to hug back. But when he does, his arms tighten tenfold around me.
I feel like I’m seven. Knees scraped up from tripping over my feet. Needing my dad, but there comes my big brother instead.
My dad has been here all along.
When we pull back, I start to ask, “Where’s…?” I don’t need to finish. I see her. October, Parry, Colt, and Babette are barreling through the morning fog, and they stop when they reach us.
“Zoey,” October breathes a strangled breath. I must look like utter shit. She’s so beautiful, even with fear and determination icing her features into commanding stoicism.
“There you are,” I try to joke, but my voice sounds hoarse. “I thought I was meeting you here…” I’m walking to her.
“I’m here now.” She’s walking towards me. Until we both begin to sprint. We collide like there is nowhere else to go. Nowhere else that makes sense. When we embrace, we’re like her lovebirds landing softly together in a nest.
Safe at home.
My fingers curl around her pink peacoat. I bury my nose into the sweet scent of her hair. She holds onto me—holds me up—until my leg hurts enough that I kneel. October kneels with me. She cups my dirtied, scratched cheeks, and we kiss through silent tears.
I’m covered in mud. “Your coat.” I try unsuccessfully to pluck a chunk of mud from the fur. Now brown. “I’ll get it dry-cleaned.”
She glares like I’m the fool she loves. “I don’t care about the fucking coat.”
“I do…it belongs to you.”
October looks overwhelmed. She places a sweet kiss on my forehead. “Forget the coat, sweets.”
Brian, Parry, and Colt are around us as light rain continues to drizzle in the cold. They’re asking me about Ashton. How I ended up here, but I shake my head, a mess of confusion about other details.
He was shot, and before I ask them, I suddenly see a gun on the ground. Right beside October.
The bottom of my stomach drops. “Kenobi, did you…?” I trail off, remembering the shotgun shell.
The gun next to her is a pistol.
Our eyes meet.
“I didn’t,” she breathes. “It wasn’t me.”
“Then who…?”
Who shot Ashton?
“OB!” Babette calls out, and we all rotate to the right. Babette stands near a wooden sign that warns of the cliff ahead.
She’s not alone.
Amelia Roberts is here, and Miss Mistpoint herself has a shotgun slung on her back. She clutches her arms like she’s cold, but her green puffer rain jacket looks warm. Her glasses mist from the fog, and mud is caked up to her shins.
