Vengeance (Private 14)

At that moment the door opened. I prayed it was the police, but then I saw the shiny black boots in the doorway.

“Graham! You promised you wouldn’t do it without me!” Cheyenne whined.

Graham lowered the gun and started to turn. I used the moment of distraction to grab the stun gun out of my waistband with my right hand. Cheyenne’s eyes went wide, but she was too late. I lunged for Graham and hit the button, shocking him right in the lower leg. He went down, hard, and the gun went off. The shot was so loud my ears instantly began to ring. For a second the whole world went black as fear overtook every inch of my body, but then I realized I wasn’t hit.

And Cheyenne was on the floor.

“You bitch!” she screeched, holding on to her shin. Blood seeped between her fingers even as she tried to shimmy on her side toward the gun. My legs still bound, I crawled toward the gun on my one good hand and my knees, snaking past a twitching Graham Hathaway. Cheyenne reached out one blood-covered hand, just as my own fingers clasped around the gun’s handle. I trained it right on her face and braced my cast against the back of the couch, struggling my way to my feet.

“Don’t. Move,” I said through my teeth.

Cheyenne gaped at me for a moment, like she couldn’t believe I was standing there alive. Like she couldn’t believe she had lost. Then she curled into a ball and started to cry.

At that moment Sawyer and Noelle came bursting into the room, out of breath but very much alive, with half a dozen cops at their backs. I looked at them as they took in the scene: Graham on his back, drooling out the side of his mouth; Cheyenne mewling and bleeding all over the floor; and me clutching a gun I had no clue how to use, precariously leaned against the back of the couch with my ankles tied together.

“Thanks, guys,” I said. “But this time I saved myself.”

CRAZY PEOPLE

“Every time something like this happens to you, I think there’s no way anything like this can possibly happen to you again, because what are the chances?” Noelle said, leaning against a stone planter at the front of Cheyenne’s house as the evil walking-dead girl herself was loaded into an ambulance. “But then—”

“It always happens again,” I finished for her.

She nodded, narrowing her eyes. “Have you ever thought about getting a gun? You looked pretty badass back there, holding that thing over Cheyenne. And if anyone I knew ever needed one . . .”

I mentally scrolled through all my near-death experiences: Ariana on the Billings roof; Sabine at Kiran’s birthday party; pretty much all of St. Barths; and now this. “I’m anti guns, but you do make an interesting point,” I conceded.

Noelle lifted an arm and laid it around my shoulder, pulling me to her side. “We have met more than our fair share of bat-shit crazy people over the past two years, haven’t we?”

We both watched as a pair of uniformed police officers dragged Graham past us, his hands cuffed behind him, and practically tossed him into a police car. My heart felt sick and heavy and withered, like it was being bathed in battery acid. Graham Hathaway. I never would have thought he had it in him.

“Yes,” I replied, holding my cast against my chest and pushing my other hand into the pocket of my jacket, which had been returned to me by Detective Hauer. He was now standing about thirty yards away, taking statements from Taylor, Kiran, and Ivy. I had already called Josh to thank him for phoning in my backup, but he’d said that when he’d called, the police were already on their way. Apparently, Sawyer had dialed 911 right after texting me to run. I guess his phone call had been more convincing than mine. In any case I was practically itching to get home to Josh for a nice, long hug. “Yes, we have.”

“Do you think it’ll be better at Yale?” Noelle pondered, tipping her face up toward the now clearing sky.

“God, it better be,” I replied.

And somehow, we both managed to laugh.

A familiar figure appeared at the door of the house. Sawyer. He locked eyes with me and I could feel all the sorrow and fear pouring off of him. I stood up straight as he approached, his steps tentative, like if I made any sudden movements he was ready to bolt. I tried to smile. Sawyer, of all people, had nothing to fear from me.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

Noelle looked back and forth between the two of us and tugged out her phone. “I think I’m gonna call Dash.”

Then she moved a few feet away, giving us room to talk.

“I am so, so sorry, Reed,” Sawyer began, reaching toward me, but then letting his hand fall, like he didn’t know what to do with it. “I knew Graham was trying to sabotage Billings, but I had no clue he was going to try to hurt you, I swear.”

“I know,” I said.

“You do?” Sawyer asked, dubious.

“Sawyer, I know you. If you knew he was going to hurt me, you would have told someone,” I said, walking up a couple of steps to sit down on a flat portion of the wide stair wall. The rain had stopped, but the concrete was cold and still wet. I thought about moving, but decided I was too exhausted to care.

“I only just figured it out last night. I walked in on him Skyping with Cheyenne, talking about him stealing my father’s gun,” Sawyer said, sitting next to me, his shoulders hunched. “When I confronted him about it, he said it was all a joke and then he kind of tricked me into coming here. I was able to send you that one text about not going to the banquet tonight before they locked me up and took my phones. I managed to lift mine off of him when he came in to check on me just before you guys got here. That’s how I sent that warning text and called the police. I’m just sorry it took so long.”