Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 70628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“I told you. Because I love you. I can’t have your safety put in jeopardy because of me. Look at what’s happened to you already. You were knocked unconscious and left to bleed out and die. Two people are dead. Gloria and her husband. Dead people are following me around, Buck. I desperately don’t want you to be one of them.”
14
ASPEN
What else can I say?
It’s the whole truth. It’s why I don’t want my father involved in this. Why I don’t want Katelyn and Luke involved in this.
And mostly why I don’t want Buck involved in this.
He doesn’t say anything.
But he’s angry and hurt. It’s pouring off him in waves.
He thinks I don’t trust him when the opposite is true.
It’s the others I don’t trust. I trust him with my life. I trust him to stand in front of a bullet for me.
And that’s exactly why I don’t want him caught up in this.
“Let’s go,” he says.
“Buck…”
“No arguments. Not a fucking one.” He grips my shoulders. “I’m serious. This is over. We’re in this together, Aspen. Nothing you can say or do will change that.”
I sigh. There’s nothing more I can say, so I leave with Buck. We meet Luke in the parking lot and head home in his Tesla.
Back at the beach house, Edgar greets me. I pick him up and kiss his soft head. I missed this little fellow, and I wasn’t even gone that long. Jed is happy to see me too, and I give him loves and snuggles as well.
But it’s Katelyn… Katelyn comes to me, and she’s not happy. She’s not smiling. “How could you do this? How could you worry us like this?”
Apparently there was no reason for her to be worried. Luke knew where I was the whole time.
But I understand. I understand that she’s angry. She’s feeling much the same way Buck is feeling.
She thinks I don’t trust her.
When the opposite is true.
I could argue with her. I could tell her my reasoning on everything, and I open my mouth to do so—
But all that comes out is, “I’m sorry.”
She launches herself at me and gives me a bear hug. “Don’t ever do this again. Haven’t we spent enough of our lives worrying about each other?”
Is she talking about the island?
Did she truly worry about others on the island?
The island was a funny place. We didn’t make friends. We couldn’t. Because in the back of our minds we always hoped one of the others got chosen instead of us on any given night.
Hoping for the pain-and-suffering of a friend… Yeah, doesn’t really work that way.
So we weren’t friends.
We didn’t discuss what happened to us when we went out on the hunt.
Perhaps Katelyn considered that we were friends because we were two of the three who sometimes sat in the common room and watched the old sitcoms on the TV.
But we didn’t talk.
We only started talking at the retreat center and then in Manhattan. And even then, we didn’t truly talk until we went out for coffee that one time.
Still, I look at her now, and she is my best friend. I’ve never had a friend who cares quite as much as Katelyn.
“I won’t,” I promise.
This time I mean it.
I won’t go off on my own again.
If it hurts these people I care about that much, then I’m not accomplishing what I set out to do—which was keep them out of danger, but also out of pain.
“I need to tell you all something, though,” I continue.
“What is it?” Katelyn asks.
“I’m not backing down.”
Buck opens his mouth to speak, but I hold up a hand.
“I know your feelings on the matter, Buck, and I respect them. I respect all of you so much. Which is why I didn’t want to lead you into any danger. I love you all. But this is something I have to do. In the marrow of my bones I know it. I have to see justice served.”
“Baby…”
“No, Buck. I know how you feel. I know you think it’s better for me to just get over it.”
“Aspen,” Buck says, “I know it’s not that simple. You don’t just get over things. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a real thing. I of all people should know that.”
“You can’t bring the people who harmed you to justice,” I tell him. “They’re in another country. And for all we know they could be dead by now anyway. But the people who harmed me? They’re here. And they’re alive. They’ve killed two people, and they tried to kill you too. We have to bring them down, Buck. We can’t let them be outside walking the streets. Who knows who else they will harm?”
Buck lets out a sigh.
A really big sigh.
A huge part of him understands. He always has.
“Maybe I don’t get a vote here—” Luke begins.