Across the Vanishing Sky (Starlight Grove, #1)(127)

Pain was there now, fighting for supremacy against the nausea. A human life. A person who made this world better—stolen for money and drugs.

“I told you, I didn’t do a fucking thing,” Miller clipped. “And I’m not about to ask those motherfuckers running the show what they did with her. But if you don’t stop digging, they’re gonna end our arrangement, and the only way they do that is with a bullet to the brain.”

Panic gripped me in the kind of vise that locked my muscles and seized my lungs. “I’ll stop,” I croaked.

It was a lie, and Miller knew it. But I had to try. The image of Owen’s face swirled in my mind. I was his only parent. The only person on this earth he had left. I couldn’t leave him. I wouldn’t.

And Dex. A wave of memories hit me. The way those dark-hazel eyes sparked with gold as he laughed. The quiet way he explained computer skills to my son. The reverent look on his face when he spoke those three little words—the ones that meant everything to me.

“I know you won’t.” Miller shoved me forward. “You never stop. I hoped you would after that delusional ex of yours had all that stuff on his computer, but here you are again. I’m driving by, and there’s your damn car. I can’t risk it. Too much is at stake.”

Panic washed through me. “Dex knows where I am. He’s only a couple of minutes away. If I’m not here, it’ll only bring more attention to the area.”

Miller let out a scoff. “Not when they find your body in the river. They’ll know I was right all along. It’s easy for tourists to fall in and get dead. Or maybe they’ll think you couldn’t take it anymore, missing that friend you call a sister.”

No. No. No. I wouldn’t let that happen.

“I’m sorry, Brae. I didn’t want it to come to this.” Miller lifted his gun. “Step off the trail.”

I saw where we were now. The same spot where Nova had disappeared.

“Depression can get the best of people,” Miller went on. “And you’ve been through a lot lately. Your ex showing up and attacking you. Learning that he likely killed your best friend. All that guilt. It won’t be a surprise when they find you downstream somewhere. Maybe you couldn’t take any of it anymore.”

Rage, fast and blazing, blasted through me. “No.”

Miller’s brown eyes flashed. “I can make this easy, or I can make this real fuckin’ hard. I’ve got good aim. A little graze to the head, and the ME will just think the injuries were from getting bashed against the rocks.”

“I’m not making this easy on you.” I wasn’t taking it lying down either. I’d done that too many times. Letting Vincent walk all over me. Not telling my parents what I really thought of them and their judgmental ways. No more.

Because I’d found my strength along the way. And I’d built it. I’d made a home for Owen and me. I’d kept him safe and happy. I’d made a life I was proud of.

Miller lifted the gun a little higher. “Your choice.”

The sound wasn’t like I’d imagined. There was no rocketing blast. It was more of a pop. Like a balloon squeezed too tightly.

I didn’t have time to brace for pain or try to dive out of the way. But agony didn’t come, and neither did nothingness. Instead, Miller crumpled to the ground, blood spreading on his chest and turning his uniform a sickly shade of red.

My gaze jumped around, trying to see where the shot had come from. Movement caught my eye, and a figure emerged from the trees. All the air left my lungs on a whoosh.

I bent over, trying to catch my breath before finally straightening and taking in my rescuer. Tears of relief sprang to my eyes at the familiar face, the one that had always shown me kindness. “Thank you. I—”

His head cocked to the side slightly, the move so animalistic it halted my words. And then he lifted a gun.

Another shot rang out. The sound was different. Something hit me, like lightning striking me over and over, and I was suddenly on the ground.

The man stepped over me. “I’m sorry, Brae.”

I blinked up at him. “Travis?” I rasped. And then everything went black.





54





DEX





Yeti shoved her head out the window, a look of pure glee on her face.

I chuckled, making the turn that would take me toward Three Creeks Canyon trailhead. “Enjoy that good hair day. And let me tell you, you smell a hell of a lot better.”

Yeti let out a howl of happiness, chattering away into the wind.

A ring came through my SUV’s speakers, and I took in the name on my vehicle’s screen. I hit a button on my steering wheel. “Hey, Kol.”

“Hey—what is that sound?”

“Yeti has her head out the car window, and she’s very happy about it.”

Kol grunted. “Are you some sort of over-the-top dog dad now?”

“Hey, Yeti and I have bonded.” That bond might be comprised of her trying to crush my skull by sleeping on my head every night and suffocating me with her one-hundred-forty-two-pound love, but it was a bond nonetheless.

“Jesus,” Kol muttered.

“You needed something?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m heading to the Three Creeks Canyon trailhead to meet Brae and Aster.”