“Friends don’t fall in love with the girl you like?” I say. “The girl who likes them back?”
“I found her,” he says. “Not him. Me. I met Sidra and Felicity in the forest, hunting duck. I was their friend first, and then I brought Baptiste to meet them. I would get Sidra, and he’d get Felicity. He knew that. I found them first. So I was entitled to first pick.”
“Yeah,” Dalton says. “Like when you’re hunting and you spot a herd of caribou. If you spot them first and bring your friend, you should get first shot, first pick of the herd. That’s how it works, and if he shoots first, he’s an asshole.”
Lane straightens. “Yes. You understand.”
“I understand if it’s a herd of caribou,” Dalton says. “But those were girls. Human beings. Not game animals. You can tell Baptiste you like Sidra, and if he’s a decent friend, he won’t make a play for her if there’s a chance she feels the same about you. But that isn’t how it went, was it?”
Lane shoots Dalton a look I can’t see.
“Sidra fell for Baptiste,” I say. “And he fell for her. He probably felt lousy about it, but from what I understand, you stood down. You told Baptiste it was fine … while you kept pursuing Sidra. She ran away with him, and you did what? Offered to help them? Bring their game to the Second Settlement in trade? Felicity backed off, but you stuck close in hopes of winning Sidra. Then along came a baby, and you couldn’t allow that. You took Summer. Stole her.”
“I had to,” he snarls. “A winter baby? How could Baptiste do that to Sidra? It proved he didn’t care about her. I did what needed to be done.”
“Taking their baby and giving it to the hostiles?”
His jaw sets. “I gave it to a wild woman who wanted a child. I heard Ellen mention the woman, and I knew that was the answ
er. I left the baby where the woman went to get water each morning, and she took her. She was happy to take her. Then Ellen showed up and stole her back. I’d been out hunting with Baptiste’s gun. As I headed home, I heard the baby, and I heard Ellen hushing her. I found them. I told Ellen to give me the baby, but she said no. She’d been hit on the head stealing her from the hostile woman, and she was confused. She ran, and I fired, and she kept running.”
“So you let her go?” I say.
He doesn’t answer.
“No, you didn’t,” I say. “You followed enough to see her lying down. She stopped to rest. Between the head injury and the shot, she was losing blood and confused, and she’d lain down to rest, and you left her there. You left her to die in the snow. You left the baby to die with her.”
“I did it for her,” he snarls. “For Sidra. To save her from him.”
For fourteen years I have worried that someday, holding a gun in my hand, I will repeat the mistake I made with Blaine. Someone will say something, and the rage—the absolute rage I felt then—will rise again, and my gun will rise too, and I will pull the trigger.
For fourteen years, that possibility has terrified me.
And now, in this split second, it evaporates.
I feel that rage again, a blind wave of it washing over me. I see Ellen, lying in the snow, a woman who only wanted to help.
I see Ellen dead with Summer in her arms, and I think of how close that baby came to dying horribly in the snow, and all this time, I’ve told myself it was a mistake. It had to be, didn’t it? No one would do that on purpose. Before me stands the boy who did it. On purpose. Murdered a kind and generous woman. Abandoned a baby to the elements. And for what? For a girl who never gave him a moment’s encouragement. To murder her child, destroy her life, and then try to kill her if he couldn’t have her?
Lane deserves my bullet more than Blaine Saratori ever did. He may even deserve it more than Val did. But I do not pull the trigger because I can control that impulse. The situation is under control, and we are in no immediate danger, and I cannot execute Lane for his crimes. That is not my place.
I know my place. I understand it, and I will never make that mistake again.
“Lane?” I say. “You are under arrest for the murder of Ellen and the attempted murder of Summer and Sidra and Baptiste. You will appear before a joint committee of the First and Second Settlements, who will determine your punishment—”
He runs at Dalton. I still don’t fire. My finger moves to the trigger, and I shout at him to stop, but I don’t need to shoot. Lane is a man with a bow in his hand, the arrows still in their quiver, and he’s running at a law enforcement officer with a gun.
Dalton doesn’t shoot either. When Lane draws near, he kicks, his foot connecting with a crack. The young man drops to one knee, and Dalton backs up, gun still aimed.
“Shoot me,” Lane says.
“I’m not—” Dalton begins.
“You’re going to have to. Because I won’t stop. If you let me live, I’ll never stop. I’ll find a way to kill Baptiste, kill that baby, and if Sidra won’t come with me, then I’ll kill her, too. She’s mine. Mine. I will kill everyone who comes between me and her, and then I’ll take her and—”
A figure rushes from the forest. It’s a blur. That’s all I see. A blur of motion, and I spin on it, my gun raised as it rushes Lane. The blur leaps on him, and only then do I see a face. A face not contorted in rage but ice-cold with it.
It’s Felicity. Her hand flies up as I shout at her to get back, and as that hand rises, I see the blade in it. A blade already bloodstained, droplets flecking the snow.