“No, you won’t,” Sunday said with a knowing grin as he leaned back and pulled on the belt with all his might. “Not in my universe. No—”
The flash, the explosion, and the impact seemed to happen all at once.
It felt like some invisible force had swatted Sunday, backhanded him as if he were no more than a fly. The bullet caught him square in the chest and flung him against the rear wall of the container car.
Looking down, Sunday saw the bright red color expand on his shirt like a rose unfolding, and he felt sick and began to slide down the wall, all too aware that he had lost his grip on the belt around Cross’s neck.
“No,” Sunday rasped, already tasting blood in his throat. “There’s no meaning … no point if he doesn’t …”
The hatch door at the far end of the container opened as the blood poured from him, and his breath got labored and raspy, and Sunday’s life began to ebb away. But not before one last image registered in his brain, a final vision that filled him with acute terror as he died.
A sunbeam had come in through the open hatch door, run across the container floor, and lit up Cross, who was not two feet away, fighting for air.
CHAPTER
98
I CAN’T SAY THAT I remember everything that happened in the moments after Sunday began to strangle me again, only that Nana Mama was yelling and then she shot. And for what seemed an eternity after that shot, there was nothing but the ringing in my ears, blood rushing to my head, and me wanting air.
Then someone was cutting the duct tape that bound my wrists and hands to my head. Flames shot through my shoulder, and I gagged against the dry, bruised sensation in my throat as someone turned me over. It was Tess Aaliyah. She was grinning through her tears.
“They’re
all safe!” she said. “They’re all alive!”
I looked beyond and around her, seeing Damon sitting on the edge of his bunk, and Bree smiling sleepily, and Jannie and Ali being freed by Louisiana state troopers. A U.S. Coast Guard medic was already working on my grandmother.
All alive.
All safe.
Never abandoned.
“Help me up,” I said to Aaliyah in a harsh whisper.
“Let’s get you—”
“Help me up,” I demanded. “I want to hold them.”
The detective hesitated, but then she got me under my good arm and lifted me to my feet. The container car swam, and then steadied.
I went to Bree first, put my hand on her bare shoulder and my forehead against hers, and the dam burst, and I broke down weeping.
“There were times when I thought I might never …” I choked.
“Shhh, now, sugar,” my wife said with a slight slur, stroking my cheek. “We’re good now. It’s all good and good.”
Through my tears, I could see her pupils were constricted and her gaze was drifting. I drew my head back, saw a tiny trickle of blood in her ear, and panicked. “She’s got a closed-head injury,” I shouted.
Another Coast Guard medic who’d just come into the container rushed to her side, did a quick exam, and said, “Okay, her vitals are good, but she’s on the first flight out.”
“And great-grandma,” said the other medic. “She’s having trouble breathing and I don’t like the sound of her heart.”
I turned from Bree and crouched by Nana Mama, whose breathing was labored. She looked at me sideways, and then her hand shot out and grabbed mine tight.
“I did the right thing, didn’t I?” She gasped. “You have to put mad dogs down, don’t you?”
I started to break down again as I nodded. “I’m sorry.”