“What? Why?” he asked, resisting.
“Because she came to apologize and to help us. My mom was never in any danger. Now Trinity’s in trouble and I can’t just stand by and let Aisha take her. Not without a fight.
She’l kil her.”
Bo’s lips thinned, a clear indication that he didn’t like my reasoning, but it didn’t stop him from coming to my aid. I knew he was the one person I could always count on to help me.
“Alright, let’s go. But you need to promise me you’l let me take care of this. I saw the girl as she left. She’s mad and she’s dangerous.”
“I know, Bo. That’s why we have to go now.”
Without further hesitation, Bo took my hand and we raced away, speeding over the thick grass of my yard. The sun had set and dusk was stretching across the streets and lawns like dark, yawning mouths gobbling up the last bits of light.
We flitted from shadow to shadow, clinging to the gloom as we tracked the fetid stench of Aisha’s dying flesh.
Night had al but fal en when we reached an old abandoned barn. It sat on the back property line of a large farm that lay at the outskirts of my subdivision. I’d crossed the wide field surrounding the rickety structure dozens of times. That summer, Drew and I would meet some of our friends to go swimming at the river that ran across the property. We’d played in the water for hours on warm days
—before, in what seemed like a different life.
Now, I would never see that field in the same way again. I could smel Aisha’s horrible stench as we drew closer to the barn.
At the front of the structure was a big wooden door that hung crookedly off one hinge. Bo and I slipped quietly through the crack, stepping into the deeply shadowed interior. He stopped and scanned the darkness. I did the same. Al my senses were wide open and stretched out before me like so many fingers, feeling the air and the ground around me.
My eyes stopped on an old, defunct piece of farm equipment. It looked like a big, rusty tractor with sharp metal teeth attached to its front end. There were about ten of them, each tooth easily as thick as my arm. They curved upward like the tines of a pitch fork.
A figure stood in front of the old tractor. It swayed gently back and forth, rocking from one foot to the other. It was Aisha. I could see that her arms were stretched high over her head. Draped across her hands, lying perfectly stil , was Trinity.
She was conscious. Even in the dark, I could see that her eyes were on me.
Bo and I stood perfectly stil and watched Aisha. It appeared that she was looking right through us, but I wasn’t fooled. I’d seen that look before—on Summer. Aisha knew we were there and it would be a grave mistake to assume otherwise.
I’d never wished so much in al my life that I could read another person’s thoughts than I did right then. I desperately needed to know what Bo was thinking, how we could work together to see that Trinity wasn’t hurt.
But there was no need for that. Both Aisha and Trinity had made up their mind and we were too late to stop them from proceeding. Aisha wanted Trinity’s life and Trinity was wil ing to give it. I knew it the instant Trinity opened her mouth.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
That single word sent my heart into a panic and my legs into action. Simultaneously, Bo and I launched ourselves across the room toward the couple.
At the first sign of our movement, Aisha turned toward the machine behind her. With a cry that brought chil s to the skin al over my body, she threw Trinity’s body onto the sharp teeth of the tractor.
The echo of air leaving Trinity’s punctured chest rang through the stil barn long after the sound of her breaking bones had faded. It hissed inside my head like a cobra of death.
Within a fraction of a second, Bo and I were upon them. I lost al thought of anyone and anything else, however, when I stopped in front of Trinity.
I bent and gently lifted her broken and bloodied body from the tractor’s tines. It was clear that one sharp point had ravaged her heart. As I turned with Trinity in my arms, I saw Aisha’s headless body fly across the room and hit the wood-plank wal on the other side of the barn. It barely even registered; I just knew it was one less thing I had to worry about, one less thing to distract me from my dying friend.
As I laid Trinity on the dirt floor of the barn, I heard Bo’s heavy, labored breathing from somewhere to my left. But it was soon drowned out by the failing beat of Trinity’s heart and that’s what I focused al my attention on.
I settled her on her back as gently as I could and then I knelt at her side, taking her hand in mine. Trinity rol ed her blue eyes toward me and I saw her chin tremble with emotion. Though she was trying to be brave, I could plainly see the fear in her eyes. And the regret.
“It’s okay, Ridley. I want to go.”
Trinity’s face blurred as my eyes wel ed with tears of sadness that spil ed down my cheeks. I knew in that moment that there was only one thing I could give her that would make a difference, one thing that would ease her suffering.
I leaned down and whispered into Trinity’s ear, “I forgive you.”
Trinity squeezed my hand and when I leaned back she was smiling. The gesture assured me that I’d done the right thing, that I’d given her the one thing she needed more than life—forgiveness.
Then, with the last breath leaving her body like a sigh of relief, Trinity’s hand went lax in mine and she was gone.
“Omigod, Trinity,” I moaned, bringing her limp hand to my mouth.
I bent over her lifeless body and I cried. I cried for Trinity. I cried for the loss of a friend I’d known most of my life. I cried for the tragedy that she’d brought to so many of those around her. I cried for the forgiveness she’d never win from the others. I cried for the person she became only a short time before her death. I cried for her violent death and the guilt that caused her to give up so easily. It was for that Trinity—
the self-less, truly remorseful, honestly sincere Trinity—that I grieved. It was the image of her limp yet peaceful body that I would carry with me for the rest of my life, however long that life might be.
After some time, Bo squatted at my side.
“Let me take you home. I’l come back and take care of them.”
“What do you mean ‘take care of them’?”
“I’l bury them. They were your friends and they deserve that. Besides, there’s no reason for people to know what went on here. It would only cause more hurt and confusion.”
He was so good to me—so considerate of me and of others—that I ached with love for him.