The blade falls again, slamming into Lane’s back, and I shout at her to stop, but I do not stop her.
I know my place, and it is not my place to stop her.
Only when she falls back, breathing hard, her hands clutching the bloody knife, does Dalton run over and pull her back. Lane falls face-first to the snow.
Felicity drops the knife and then wrenches from Dalton’s grip. He lets her go. She walks over and drops to her knees beside Lane.
“You should have killed me while you had the chance,” she says. “But that was always your mistake. You underestimated me. Underestimated Sidra. We made that mistake, too. We underestimated you.” She leans down to his ear, her voice a hoarse whisper as she says, “Not this time. I did not underestimate you this time, Lane.”
She stays there, at his side, until he breathes his last.
FORTY-TWO
There’s no time to process what has happened. No time to help Felicity process it, and I know from experience that will not happen immediately. She’s done what she needed to do to protect her friend. Later, the doubts and second-guessing will come, and I don’t know whether she’ll let me help with that, but I will if I can.
Right now, our biggest concern is Petra. She has an arrow in her chest, and we are hours from Rockton. Dalton runs ahead to bring help and motorized transport. While he’s gone, we fashion a stretcher for Petra. Storm pulls it, and Sidra and I help. While Baptiste and Felicity try to do their part, both are injured—Baptiste with a minor shoulder wound and Felicity with a head injury, inflicted when Lane found her in the forest. Their job is to walk behind the sled and make sure Petra stays awake and lucid.
We’ve been walking for almost two hours when I hear the whine of a snowmobile and the rumble of the ATV. Dalton cuts through brush on the snowmobile and then takes over the stretcher, guiding it through to where the ATV waits on a wider path.
Dalton sends me in the ATV with Sidra. I know why he picks her to go. He doesn’t need to say it, but I know. After he sets Petra up for the ride, he stays behind with Anders to get the rest of the group to Rockton.
I drive the ATV as fast as I dare through the well-packed snow of the main trail. Sidra doesn’t clutch the grab handles for dear life. She stares straight ahead, her face drawn, her mind already at our destination and what waits there.
I drive the ATV straight into town. April waits on the clinic stairs, Diana with her to help, several of the men ready to carry Petra inside. And as we pull to a halt, another figure appears from inside the clinic. Jen, holding a baby-size bundle to her chest.
Sidra is out of the ATV before it stops. She stumbles forward, tripping over her feet and nearly falling in her scramble to get to her baby. Jen descends the stairs and meets her, holding Summer out. Sidra doesn’t take her. She wobbles there and then collapses to her knees, crying in relief, and Jen bends in front of her, letting Sidra take the baby there, kneeling in the snow.
I turn away from the scene and help the men with Petra.
* * *
It’s morning. Early morning, not yet light. I’m beside Petra’s bed in the clinic. She’s stable. The arrow entered above her heart, piercing less than an inch. She’s lost a lot of blood, and she’ll need time to recover, but she’s all right, sleeping soundly as I keep watch.
I’ve been here all night, not leaving the clinic since I arrived.
Hiding here? Yes, I have the self-awareness to admit that. April needed me, and I wanted to be here for Petra, but it also gave me the excuse not to face the joyous parent-and- child reunion.
I slept here, in this chair. In the night, I woke to find Dalton in a chair beside me, a blanket draped over us. When I wake again at six thirty, he’s already gone, and I feel the regret of that, but I feel something else, too. Relief. I’m not ready to face him. I need time to process this and grieve on my own. And as soon as that thought comes, another follows it, a realization that has my cheeks flaming and my ass out of that chair in a heartbeat.
I check Petra. Then I hurry out to see Kenny walking past, and I ask him to step in and watch Petra for me.
“Actually, I was just coming for you,” he says. “The kids are leaving soon, and they really want to see you first.”
I hesitate, which is a shitty and selfish thing to do, and I am ashamed to admit it. I’m also snared between two sources of shame—the one that wants to flee any last moments with Summer and the one that needs to talk to Dalton.
“I should speak to Eric first,” I say. “Is he around?”
“He’s with the boy. Baptiste. They’re talking, and Sidra wanted to bring the baby over to speak to you alone before they go.”
I hesitate again, that childish impulse filling me, the impulse to lie and say I cannot see her. Nope, sorry, terribly, terribly busy. I squash it and say, “Of course. Send her over to the house, and let Eric know we’re there.”
“Before you go,” he says. “The hot tub is ready. Where—?”
“Later,” I say. “We’ll talk later.”
“But it’s…”
His voice trails off as I hurry away.