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Darren picks up the gun and raises it. My panic, which spiked higher than it’s ever been, starts to decrease, but it’s short-lived.
JD stares at Darren in disbelief. “You wouldn’t dare. Bro, you realize it’s her or me.”
Darren lowers the gun. “I said to get the hell out of here.”
JD spots the switchblade on the floor. Grabbing it, he scrambles to his feet and leaps toward me.
I lurch to the side and tumble to the floor, taking the chair with me, hoping to throw his target.
The gun goes off. Not once. But three times. Blood splatters over me. I’m frozen, half expecting to feel cold steel go through my body. But I hear a loud thump and the clatter of the knife against the floor.
After seconds—or eons; I can’t tell—I open my eyes to see JD prone on the floor, shot three times in the chest.
Darren quickly unties me from the chair and pulls me away from JD. I collapse into his arms, my body shaking violently as if I have hypothermia. Darren holds me close, and his embrace is the only thing keeping me from falling into hysterics.
Marshall comes running down the stairs. “I heard shots—”
He stops when he sees JD’s motionless body.
“We’ll talk later,” Darren tells him.
Marshall nods.
Darren scoops me up and carries me up the stairs. The house we’re in is foreign to me, but I don’t think I’d notice even if the place was familiar. My mind’s capacity to process anything is limited.
Once inside the bathroom, Darren wordlessly removes my clothes and sets me in the bathtub. He turns on the water and, kneeling by the tub, proceeds to wash me. I’m still shaking. I feel his searching gaze on me, but it takes some time before the shock to my system finally fades a little.
Do I dare hope that I’m no longer in imminent danger or should I still make a run for it? Do I dare trust Darren?
He saved my life once, though he never acknowledged that’s what he’d intended. But now I’m sure he did. Because he’s done it again. And by…shooting his own cousin. Someone he grew up with. Someone who was like a brother to him.
I turn to look at him. His eyes are no longer full of anger. But what must he be going through? Does he realize what he’s done?
“You knew all along?” he asks me.
“I knew that Amy knew,” I say, trying to pick my words carefully. “She overheard him on some call.”
Darren lowers and shakes his head. “Fucking JD. Fuck fucking JD.”
I hear the anguish in his voice, the pain. I want to put my arms around him.
He looks up and pins me with his stare. “Is that why you left? You were running away?”
I nod.
“Should I believe you?”
“Yes!” I insist. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“Because you’ve been lying to me all this time.”
“What? What do you mean?”
His jaw has a firm and tight set. “You think I don’t know, Bridge?”
I falter. Is he referring to Ethan?
“You weren’t ever going to tell me, were you?”
