Watching them together is fascinating in ways I never noticed before. Alex is like granite; patient, stoic, and immovable. But Dallas is the exact opposite; her face has a million expressions, her big dark eyes constantly moving, searching like she wants to see everything in the universe. I wonder if both of them were always this way, or if they used to be different. Was Alex always so serious? Did Dallas’s zeal for life ever falter? Or did Colson carry the burden of loss for everyone?
But I get it. Sometimes you don’t even need to speak, because sometimes you find someone who can carry on a conversation with their own secret language.
Dallas envelopes me in a tight hug and then pulls back, squeezing my shoulders, “How are you feeling?” her face falls and she exhales, gazing down at my ever-growing belly, “I still feel terrible. I could’ve done more, I could’ve—”
“Stop,” I cut her off, she’s already done this too many times, “you did what you were supposed to do—what I asked you to do. And we’re all still here.”
“Where’s Serg?” Alex nods to Colson as he walks up behind me.
“Picking up more supplies,” Colson stretches his arms behind his head with a yawn, “he said something about pretty colors and loud noises.”
“Shit,” Alex sighs as he gazes across the grass toward the forest.
“Ray Marcum, the fire chief, is coming,” Colson waggles his eyebrows with excitement, “said he has a fresh batch of rookies in need of more training. I told him we’d oblige him.”
Colson did at least agree to that. I’m not about to be responsible for a wildfire just because they want a good show. Ray brought out his crew the other day to clear a radius around the structure so it won’t catch the rest of the trees on fire. But it’s still summer, so we have to do it now. The closer it gets to fall, the more dangerous it gets out here.
“They better prepare for disappointment,” Alex pushes his sunglasses up onto his head and looks away wistfully, “we have beer for them, but no extra women.”
Dallas rolls her eyes, “Oh yeah, what a bummer.”
“You think our parties now could be just as wild as the ones back in the day?” Mason asks Colson with a glint in his eye.
“Sure,” Colson muses, “ride around in the back of your truck, get wasted, throw some bows…” he smiles impishly.
Alex scoffs with a shake of his head, “We were just kids…” he pauses in thought, “I never imagined this is where I’d end up, after all this time…with you of all people,” he smirks.
Alex isn’t the only one who can’t believe this is where he ended up…with Colson, of all people. But it’s no coincidence we all ended up back in the woods—why this had to end back in the woods. The forest is a place of rebirth just as much as it is a place of death. You go on a walk, disappear, nature claims you, the animals prey on you, the scavengers steal your bones, the earth absorbs you, and new life grows. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Wrong place, wrong time…
Or is it? Because I have plenty of my own secrets, too.
I told the sheriff’s office and the FBI the truth about what happened that day, about how I saw Bowen at my window, and then later he appeared in my house, seeking retribution for yet another woman’s slight against him. They know what happened in Canaan that one night after I came home from a bike ride. They know how I ran and hid, and ran some more until Colson brought me to this hideaway at the base of the Rockies. They know I wrote a book about what happened, and how it took on a life of its own.
What they don’t know is that I knew Bowen was watching. I knew I’d get his attention eventually, just like I knew he and his latest pawn-turned-girlfriend, Valerie Marston, would come running as soon as Dallas leaked my restraining order and posted his face all over the Internet.
Like blood in the water.
Law enforcement knows that Valerie followed my every move on social media and then rammed into the back of my 4Runner with my old Tahoe after she found out where I’d be for the Spice Ghouls interview with Tyler. But they don’t know that I already knew what she was up to, and that I pretended my car wouldn’t start just so I could get closer to her and start to get under her skin.
They know that Valerie offered to take me to and from the car dealership so she could find out where I lived. But they don’t know that I made sure she’d keep coming back for more, starving for all the breadcrumbs I was feeding her to draw them both further into my world.
And it is my world.
They don’t know that when I invited Valerie into my house, I was really inviting Bowen. They don’t know that Colson stayed on the slope of the mountain for days, watching and waiting for him to come. They don’t know that Dallas and Alex watched closely from across the valley. They don’t know that we were the pack of werewolves in the woods, drawing them out and surrounding our prey.
They don’t know that there were others, 1,400 miles away, doing their own bidding for their own reasons, their eyes dead set on vengeance.
They don’t know that Bowen’s demise was predetermined as soon as I typed the words, The End. The only question was how exactly it would go down.
Lying by omission is still lying, Brett…
Maybe. Or maybe not.
But this time, when the deputies and agents left my hospital room, they smiled their sweet smiles, told me to feel better, and told Colson they’d see him soon. And they will—at work, off-duty, working a side gig, at the bars down in Gunnison, at his dad’s house on the outskirts of town, and at our house, lounging on the deck in the sun or hidden behind a deer blind in the forest.
Because now we have people, too.
I could’ve taken the shot earlier. I could’ve ended it sooner. But the brain is a bitch, and she still likes to play games even after you think you’ve won.
Back in college, before I knew Colson and he knew me, years before I knew Bowen existed, I sat in an auditorium, listening to my epidemiology professor talk about AIDS. She explained that it’s so difficult to develop a cure for AIDS because the virus learns how to evade treatment. It’s practically sentient in its ability to recognize a threat, retreat to a different part of the body, and essentially hide out until the threat passes. Then, it comes back out and resumes its assault.
It was one of the most frightening things I’d ever heard. But that’s what trauma does. Our brains can protect us with blackouts and repression, but it still hangs onto the things that hurt us the most. It hides the memories deep inside, and reveals the snapshots when we threaten to step out of line.
I’ve seen Bowen every day since I fled that house. My brain won’t let me forget him, no matter how hard I try. That’s why I had to make sure he was actually here, on my property, in front of my eyes. Because you can’t kill ghosts with bullets or knives.
I had to draw him out into the light, tempt him with his unfinished business, and mine, too. Because only when ghosts are revealed does the real fun begin. He’s not the boogeyman. He’s not a ghoul or a phantom or a shadow in the darkness. He’s flesh and bones. He’s your friend, your husband, your brother, your boyfriend, your father…
He has a heart, and many have loved him, but he only loves himself. He’ll never know what loving good feels like, or what it’s like to be part of something bigger than himself; that love that makes you lay down your life for someone else or that all-encompassing love that tears you apart at the seams.
Colson might’ve started out whole, only to be beaten down and bent by tragedy and guilt, but his hollowed-out heart made room for me. The demon will never have a chance to reveal himself again because I walk with nightmares like Colson, and I’d rather sit in the darkness with him than wake up without him.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
Colson
Two Weeks Later
Sergei finally shows up with his bags full of enough explosives to turn the mountain into a pyrotechnic hellscape, which Ray Marcum may or may not be excited about. But I promised him a show, so he knew what this was.
