Page 87 of Tangled Up In You
Another voice. A man’s voice, one she knew somewhere, deep in the marrow of her bones. “Gracie!”
Thirty feet from the two figures…twenty feet…ten…
Another bullet kicked up dirt beside her feet just as she collided with Edward’s chest, his arms coming around her, pulling her tight into him, before someone else captured them both from the side, tackling them into the brush just as gunfire rained down on the cabin.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
EDWARD
Edward didn’t care about the thorns or the branches or the cold. He was never letting go of her.
Voices rose, footsteps pounded toward them, muted shouts and directions. Ren was curled into a tight ball in his arms, hands over her ears, shaking violently. “Ren, shhh, I got you,” he told her. “I got you. I got you.”
“What’s happening?” she asked into his chest. “Where are they? Are they coming?”
“You’re safe,” Chris said, sending a careful hand over her back.
“They were shooting,” she sobbed into Edward’s chest. “Were they shooting at me? Were my parents shooting at me?”
Edward’s helpless gaze met Chris’s over the top of Ren’s head. Panicked, he shook his head, not knowing what to say.
“The police are here,” Chris said softly. “Lots and lots of them. It’s going to be okay.”
Edward knew Chris was probably right, but Edward wasn’t entirely convinced yet. There was a lot of yelling, and something somewhere was on fire. He was aware of a handful of SWAT officers moving past them down the driveway, the dark, ominous sound of gunfire, and then the piercing, high-pitched misery of Gloria’s scream.
Ren violently flinched in his arms. “What happened? Oh my God, what’s happening?”
He craned his neck, trying to see anything, but it was suddenly impossible, with another cluster of bodies in dark combat gear jogging past. All he could sense was that the energy had shifted, and everything quieted. And then two medics sprinted past with heavy bags.
“I think they’ve got the cabin surrounded,” he told her.
“Is Gloria okay?” she asked. “Is Steve okay?”
Edward looked over the top of her head to meet Chris’s eyes again—because honestly, he wasn’t sure that everyone in that cabin was going to make it out—but Chris was staring at his daughter in Edward’s arms, tears brimming.
“Hey,” Edward said gently, urging Chris to look at him. “Should we move back there?” He lifted his chin to where the police cars, ambulances, and SWAT vans were parked in the darkness.
Just as he said it, a low voice came from beside them in the bushes: “Guys, we gotta move you out.”
Movies always made the climax of a story seem so tidy, so compact. Police surrounded the suspects, apprehended them, carted them away in cop cars, sirens wailing victoriously. The victims were tucked safely in the back of an ambulance with a cup of tea and a blanket over their shoulders. Viewers caught up four months later with the characters, now smiling and healthy, walking in the park with a new puppy.
In reality, it wasn’t anything like that. In reality, the supposed climax was confusing, cold, dark, and time passed without any obvious plan or momentum. After the agents brought Ren, Edward, and Chris back to the protected line of cars, vans, and ambulances, she was quickly whisked off to the care of a pair of emergency medics; Chris was led to another ambulance a bit farther down the road, and Edward was asked to wait, out of the way, for further instruction.
Out of the way could mean a lot of things, he thought, and he moved so he was near the driver’s-side door of Ren’s ambulance. He eavesdropped while they spoke to her in low, calming voices. He could hear others nearby, too. Cops and medics and federal agents and all the various special-ops people they brought in to face any potential insanity on the homestead, all speaking too quietly for him to make out, but the movement around him gave him some clues about what had happened. Police tape was unrolled liberally, cordoning off large swaths of land. Dogs were brought in to search the premises for drugs, guns, maybe even people. He had no idea. With Ren shielded from view by a van, Gloria was escorted into an unmarked car and driven away—he caught only a glimpse of wild eyes and tousled hair before she was somewhat roughly guided into the backseat—but Steve’s whereabouts remained a bit of a mystery. That was, until a CSI van backed down the driveway and the coroner arrived.
The idea of this, that the only mother Ren had ever known had just been arrested, that the only father she’d known was leaving his property in a body bag, was too much. He couldn’t stay out of the way anymore.
Edward walked to where Ren sat in the back of the ambulance, partially hidden by the medic who was carefully dabbing at two large scrapes across her arm. She looked tiny and terrified, dwarfed by the big flannel blanket around her. She glanced up as his shoes crunched through the gravel, her eyes watery and bloodshot: a portrait of grief and confusion.
“Hi,” he said, and the single syllable felt heavy in his mouth.
“Hi.” She swallowed a sob. “How did you get here?”
“Airplane,” he said. “Then cop car.” In an effort to diffuse some of the tension, he whispered, “For once, I was not in handcuffs.”
Ren gave a watery laugh, and when the medic stepped away, Edward offered her his hand. She grabbed it between both of hers, wordlessly tugging him forward, needing a hug. Without hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her while she shook. “I’m here. I got you.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, but he knew that she did. She did, but it was too terrible to comprehend, and there was nothing he could say to make it any less horrific. Slowly, she pulled away and tilted her face up to his. “Who was that in the bushes? Was—”