Bile rises in my throat. I didn’t mean to do this. I didn’t mean to shoot her. She might die because of this. But it wasn’t my fault. I had to do it. It was her or me.
Somehow that doesn’t make it easier.
I close my eyes for a moment and take a deep breath. I don’t have time to freak out about Mrs. Nelson. I have to keep moving. She might not be a danger to me anymore, but my son is still with that maniac.
I’ve got to save him.
Hang in there, Josh!
I limp around the side of the car, clutching the gun in my right hand. I feel comforted that I have it, but Shane may have one too. And truth to be told, I don’t know how to fire this thing. I understand that you pull the trigger, but that’s about the extent of it. I certainly can’t aim worth a damn.
But as I start into the woods, a small figure emerges from between the trees. It takes a second to recognize that it’s Josh. He’s all alone, and he’s sobbing hysterically. But he looks unharmed.
“Mom!” he manages. “Mommy!”
I shove the gun into my coat pocket so he doesn’t see it. He races into my arms and clings to my body for dear life. “Josh, what did he do to you?”
“Mom!” He raises his face, which is streaked with tears. “There was an accident! I think Shane is hurt!”
What?
“A snowdrift fell on him from a tree!” Josh hiccups. “He’s over there!”
My ankle is screaming in pain, but I allow Josh to tug me deeper into the woods. Just when I can’t stand it another second, I spot the snowman in the distance—the one Shane and Josh had been building together. Josh tightens his grip on my arm. “That’s where he is!”
I don’t want to keep walking, and it has nothing to do with the fact that my ankle is killing me. Eleven years ago, Shane Nelson tried to kill me. Five minutes ago, his mother tried to kill me. Even if he is temporally incapacitated, there’s no telling what he might do to me out here, with no witnesses aside from a scared little boy.
What if this is a trick? What if he is lying in wait, and the second I get over there, he’s going to jump up and wrap his fingers around my neck?
“Mom!” Josh is tugging on my arm. “You have to come help him!”
I reach into my pocket and wrap my fingers around the gun. If he tries to attack me, I’m going to be ready for him. I shot his mother. I can shoot him too.
I push on for the last ten yards, my hand gripping the pistol. Just past the snowman, there’s a figure lying in the snow. The figure appears completely still.
And not just that, but there are droplets of crimson around his head, marring the perfect white of the snow.
“Is he okay, Mom?” Josh wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “The ice from that tree over there just all fell on him at once!”
The trees are all covered in frozen icicles that hang down like ornaments on a Christmas tree. It’s actually very beautiful. My hand is shaking around the gun as I tentatively step closer to get a better look at Shane, lying in the snow. His body is half-covered with snow and ice, and his face is bloody. There’s a gash in his forehead much bigger than the one I sewed up all those months ago.
And his eyes are open and not blinking.
“You need to call an ambulance!” Josh tugs on my sleeve again. “He needs to go to the hospital!”
I can’t bear to tell him the truth. I hated this man, but Josh doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know that the icicles from the tree may have saved his life. He doesn’t know that the man lying in front of us in the snow is his father—the one he has been desperate to meet all these years.