The Fall of V (The Henchmen MC 13)

I knew then.

Without having to look.

Without having to hear them.

Without having to see them.

But I turned anyway, eyes scanning the woods, prying into the darkness.

It was the eyes I saw first.

My eyes.

Her eyes.

Our dead relative's eyes.

Mom.

Mom was here.

And if Mom was here, so was Dad, so was Aunt Lo, Aunt Janie, all the men and women at Hailstorm and The Henchmen compound.

I was surrounded.

Safe.

I was safer than I had been in a good long time.

I should have felt relief.

I should have felt warmth enveloping me like an embrace.

But all I felt was the rage still, and - what was more unsettling - a coldness, a deep, awful coldness that I had never known before, that was seeping into my bloodstream, organs, bones, until it was encoded into my DNA.

I don't know what prompted it.

When I had made the decision.

If it was a spur of the moment thing, or something that I had been considering for much longer.

But as soon as I saw Dad and Aunt Lo break out of the tree line, as soon as I knew Chris - and Mary too - were safe, I couldn't seem to stop the urge. I couldn't seem to command that my body carry me toward them.

No.

I turned.

I ran.

Away.

I ran away.

"That's my dad," I told Chris who was still just standing there shaking, unable, it seemed, to truly process what had happened. "And Aunt and Mom," I added, thinking maybe women would be of more comfort for someone who had been through what she had. "They'll take care of you," I added, running past.

Running.

Running away.

Even as my name split the night air.

Pained, worried.

My mother.

And another time.

Pained, commanding.

My father.

And others still, a chorus of the people who loved me enough to move heaven and earth to find me, to take lives without a second thought, to storm a heavily armed compound just to bring me home.

And here I was, leaving them all behind.

But I couldn't seem to think better of it.

I couldn't seem to think at all.

I just flew across the grounds, ever proof of why the track coaches had courted me relentlessly, my long legs giving me speed any of the team members would envy, even if I hated running, hated the uselessness of running in a circle to win some makeshift award.

But before I even felt my lungs starting to burn, I found myself buried in the woods, the canopy above blocking the light except for in sporadic slivers.

My bare feet met dirt and leaves, sticks, rocks, breaking them open, the searing pain something that somehow did manage to break through the blanket covering my mind, keeping thoughts at bay.

But I still didn't turn around.

I kept running.

While my lungs burned.

My muscles ached.

Until sweat was trickling over almost every inch of skin.

Until I hit a road.

Then disappeared into another set of woods.

Then hit another road.

Followed it until I found a bus stop, remembering at the last possible second to tuck the gun away.

I paid my fare, ignoring the concerned eyes of the driver and lone passenger, a guy maybe only a year or so older than me.

It felt like it took hours, but a look at the clock on the radio showed barely twenty minutes before we did it.

Broke into Navesink Bank.

I hopped off miles from my house, tearing down a back road, coming up through a space no larger than my body between fences like I had done countless times before. It was one of the few situations I was genuinely glad I had the frame of a pre-pubescent boy because no one else would ever fit.

Iggy's house was dark, quiet, as it should be for the hour. As it always was after nine p.m. when her parents' declared it was time for lights out.

I slipped through her backyard, coming up on the side of the house, knocking my knuckles on the pane of glass in a code we had used for as long as we figured out how to get past her parents' too-strict rules.

There was a pause.

Maybe confusion inside.

I tapped again.

There was a shuffle for a second before the blind moved.

And there she was.

Face ghost-white at seeing me.

At seeing whatever mess my face was in.

I didn't even know.

I hadn't seen it in so long.

She wasn't in pajamas like I thought she would be.

She was in jeans and a tee, some makeup even on her eyes.

Like she was going to go out.

There was a long pause before her hands grabbed frantically at her window, yanking it up, her voice not even quiet as she declared, "Ferryn! Oh, my God! Where have... does your Dad know you're... what are you doing here?"

"Let me in," I demanded, tapping on the screen that we had used to sneak me in so often that it barely fit within its track anymore.

"Okay, but Ferryn, your face..."

"Is a mess, I bet," I agreed, tone a little deader than usual. "Please. I will explain. But I need to come in. I need a shower. And food. Please."