She felt bad about her parents. But Shawn was right. “You’re an adult,” he said. “You own yourself. You’re not their child anymore.”
When she felt stronger, she’d write to them. They’d be angry, hurt, but maybe they’d understand that this was what she needed to finally heal.
Bonnie came to the final turn. A tilting mailbox with three red reflectors on a twisting rural road. He would be waiting here for her, he said. He went early because he wanted the house to be perfect when she arrived.
She hesitated.
Her life, her parents, her job, her friends. Why did she feel like if she made that turn, she might never be able to go back to any of it, not really?
She felt the beating of her own heart in her chest. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she should at least go back to that last gas station and call her mom.
But then she thought of him—his warmth, his gentleness, the way he knew her heart and her body. She put on her blinker though there was no one there to see her make the turn, and drove toward her new life.
thirty-seven
Then
We kept the crossbow in the barn near the house. The night had grown quieter, but I heard the crackle of gunfire off in the distance, the sound of shouting through the trees.
I took my crossbow down from its place, loaded it, and made my way toward the sound of my father’s voice.
I was just a kid that night, but I was older than my years in many ways, stronger than I would have been had we stayed in the life we had before my father returned. I was scared, but I was used to fear, knew how to push it deep, to focus on my breath and force away the chaos of my mind. He had taught me how to do that, when he taught me how to kill.
“Which one of you called them?” I heard my father roar as I climbed the porch steps. “After everything, after everything.”
His voice was a wild pitch of rage and sadness; my nerve endings sizzled as I made my way down the long hall to the kitchen. My feet were bare, the wood hard and cold beneath my soles. I was careful to keep my step light, not to make a sound.
“Get away from her.” Jay’s voice was a wail. “Get away from us.”
The scene revealed itself in pieces as I came to the door.
I know Jay saw me, but he didn’t move his gaze in my direction. My father’s broad back was to me, heaving with his rage. My mother was motionless on the floor, a pool of blood beneath her. Her head was at an unnatural angle against the hearth.
My mind distanced. It didn’t seem real. Her stillness was impossible; I knew that sight too well. Jay’s face was red and streaked with tears.
“Which one of you?” my father roared.
I lifted the crossbow, its butt against my shoulder, the red of my father’s shirt filling the sight.
“It was me,” I said. “I called the police.”
He spun at the sound of my voice, turning to face me. There was a gun in his hand, that flat black semiautomatic he favored for target practice. He, like Jay, rarely missed his mark. I felt the heat of his aim in the center of my chest.
“You?” he breathed. In the single syllable I heard amazement, anger, sadness. “Why?”
“Put down your gun, Dad,” I said. I had my stance, my aim. But did I have the will to shoot my father? I wasn’t sure; the crossbow quaked in my grip.
“Don’t you know what will happen to you now?” he said. “They’ll take you from this place and you’ll belong to them, to their government, to this sick world they’ve made.”
“Put the gun down.”
He started to cry, then, and my heart broke into a thousand little pieces in my chest.
He moved toward me. “What have you done, little bird?”
The room spun, my brain grappling with a moment that was too awful, too ugly.
“Dad. Put down your gun.” My voice didn’t even sound like mine. It was the voice of a young woman, someone powerful, someone who knew she could kill if she had to. “I don’t want to do this. Please.”
That’s when Jay tackled him from behind, issuing a warrior’s yell. As he knocked my father to the floor, the gun careened out of reach. I stood frozen, my bow aimed as they tangled on the ground.
“You killed her,” screamed Jay. “She’s gone.”
My eyes fell on my mother, her golden hair around her like a halo, her robin’s-egg blue eyes staring, the black-red of her blood spilled. She lay as beautiful and lifeless as that doe I killed.
There’s a peace to it, most people don’t know. A release, but not then, not for me.