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I’ve spent the last six weeks recovering, mourning the loss of friends, and making a plan.
Lying in the rubble of our Humvee, I saw everything. I remembered everything.
I have to get to Casper.
“You didn’t kill her.”
I jerk around to see Remy Townsend leaning against the wall in the waiting room that acts as baggage claim, looking for all the world like he’s been relaxing when I know it can’t possibly be that simple.
“Cassie,” he goes on. “You didn’t kill her.”
I don’t know what to say, because the last time I saw him, we were both being put on a medevac to get out of the desert.
I didn’t know if he’d remember, or if he’d kill me the first time he saw me because he thought I was responsible for his sister’s death.
“No man who would crawl, with shrapnel in his side, to make sure that the rest of us were pulled from the wreckage, would knowingly walk away from an accident involving a civilian.” He stares at me like he’s waiting for me to say something. But I don’t have any words for him, none that I can say before I tell Casper, at least.
“Do you know why Emmett and Sori told you to fly into this airport?” He grabs my bag from the attendant before I can and starts out the sliding glass doors without waiting for me.
I rush to catch up, ignoring the pinch in the back of my neck from my healing wound there. Absently, I rub it to ease the pain, and the scar from a piece of the shrapnel the doctors had removed is a constant reminder of that day.
“They wanted you to get into this airport because Linc and I flew into Bangor. We didn’t want Casper seeing you before I got a chance to talk to you. To clear the air.”
He throws my bag in the back of his truck, a sleek black model, but it doesn’t matter. The most important piece of luggage is already in my pocket.
Once we are on the road, I turn to look at him, waiting for him to go on. There isn’t anything I have to say to him, honestly.
My focus is entirely on Casper.
“I left her house about an hour ago.” Remy coughs again, and it seems like he is extremely uncomfortable. “She has Laurence with her, and she wasn’t feeling the best when I left her. But I know she misses you. Even from the few hours that I saw her today, I can see it. There are shadows under her eyes, and I can’t tell if that’s from losing Cassie or losing you.”
Unable to help myself, not when it comes to her, I break the code of silence I’ve adopted when it comes to her.
I won’t talk about her with Emmett or Sori. I won’t even talk with Mimi about her. Every single time I talk to my cousin on the phone, I can hear Laurence in the background asking about Auntie Caspie and it breaks my heart a little bit more.
The physical wounds from the explosion are nothing compared to the knowledge I carry about Cassie.
I know that I can’t leave him hanging about this. Not when he’s telling me what I so desperately need to know about her.
I don’t tell him that the shadows are because of me, though, because that’s none of his fucking business.
“Joel killed your sister.” My voice is hoarse from not using it in so long. “I didn’t cause their accident. When I tried to get him to stop, when I tried to save her, he drove me off the road. I hit the barrier, and my car flipped.”
Remy’s fists turn white as he grips the steering wheel and stares straight ahead. “The police ruled her death an accident. Are you telling me it wasn’t?”
I don’t want to describe what I saw to him. I don’t want to tell Casper, either. But I know I have to. I also know I’ll have to go to the police about it. However, I first have to tell the woman I love that I’m not responsible for her family’s misery.
“I was driving home to New York, through Mount Vernon.” I tap my fingers on the door panel and try to keep it together. “There was a car that sped up behind me, so I pulled to the right. When I glanced over, I saw her bright-red curls, and I saw her screaming for help, man. When he saw me watching them, he grabbed her hair and slammed her face into the dashboard.” I take a breath, pushing through the nausea that comes when I think about the accident now that all of the memories are there for me to relive, over and over again when I close my eyes.
When I am sure that I am not about to throw up from the stress of relaying it, I go on. “I saw her pain, swear that I heard her cries through the closed window. Then, before I could reach for my phone, he slammed into my car.” I paused, waiting for him to process what I’ve said. “That’s what I saw. And every night since our convoy was hit, I dream of it. I know what Casper looks like, every single freckle on her face. And the woman I saw looks exactly like her. I have nightmares of it being Casper instead. Ones that have me thanking God when I wake up in the morning that Casper is alive. Even if it means that your other sister is dead. Because knowing that the woman I love is alive is more important than anything else in my life.”
The entire time I speak, Remy keeps his eyes glued on the road. It isn’t until he slowly applies the brakes and pulls over in the middle of nowhere that I realize my words had an effect on him.
“I’m going to kill him.”
The words are torn from Remy’s soul. He alternates between clenching the wheel and flexing his fingers.
“I’m going to rip his flesh from his body and burn him until there’s nothing left, and then I’m going to take those ashes, and I’m going to melt them in lye. And there won’t be a single person in the world who ever knows what happens to him. Other than you.”
