Chapter 38: Chapter 38

WREN

On Wednesday, I head in to work in the field office in the livestock barn with the main team of guys, including Grant.

They’re talking about the list of tasks for the day and discussing who will train me on what.

As we head out to treat a few cows with superficial wounds and undiagnosed illnesses, Lance comes in.

“Hey, I just wanted to come say goodbye,” Lance says with a smile. He wraps me in a hug and kisses my lips. “Stay out of trouble today, okay?”

I laugh and wave to the guys who say they’ll meet me out front. Lance watches until they are clear of the barn.

Lance turns to me, the smile vanishes from his face and concern takes its place.

“You sure you want to do this?”

I swallow hard and nod.

Lance cups my cheek with his hand and looks at me intently. “Positive? We can find another way.”

I shake my head. “I’m done hiding, Lance, it’s time to end this.”

He nods, kisses me quickly, then puts his lips near my ear. “Stay safe, stay smart. I’ll be right behind you.”

I nod, take a deep breath, then plant a smile on my face.

“Have a good trip! I love you!” I say loudly as I leave the barn with Lance.

He goes in the opposite direction, where he piles into a truck with his family and they take off down the driveway.

Lance’s parents really are going to meet the livestock commissioner, but they’ll be stopping on the road near the south pasture where Lance will be getting out, hopping the fence, and taking the trail back through the woods toward Big Red.

I join back up with the guys, who are treating sick or injured cattle in the small pen where we corralled them yesterday.

After an hour or so, all the cows have been treated or diagnosed and most of the group prepares to move the rest of the cattle herd from the furthest pasture up to the pasture behind the pavilion.

“I’m going to head back to the barn and finish tuning up the combine,” I say. Everybody nods and says their goodbyes.

As I’m walking away, I hear Grant tell the others that he needs to check something in the office and will meet them on their way back from the far pasture.

~Here we go.~

Back in Big Red, I take Puck up to my apartment and lock him in with the radio on so he isn’t startled by any loud noises he might hear. I don’t want to chance him getting hurt or killed again.

After locking the door, I slip the key under a jar on a shelf nearby. I double-check the stun gun in my back pocket and the switchblade in my boot.

Then I take my phone out and start recording before putting it back in my other back pocket with the speaker facing up. Finally, I take a deep breath and head downstairs.

I sit on a stool by the combine so I have a view of the door. I know I need to get him talking, but I don’t want to be surprised either.

Just then, I hear a gun cock behind me and a sharp poke in my back.

“Don’t. Fucking. Move.”

I slowly put my hands up. “When did you—?” I ask.

“While you were locking your mutt up. Stand slowly and put your hands on your head.”

I stand up and turn my head to get a look at him, but he jams the barrel of the gun into my spine.

“I said don’t fucking move. You’ve gotten lucky so far—has your luck run out yet?”

“Okay, okay, calm down. Let’s just talk about this,” I say calmly, even though my heart is thumping so hard I’m sure he can hear it.

I feel his hand reach into my back pocket and pull my stun gun out, then my phone—which is still on record.

~Fuck, this is not how this is supposed to go. Please don’t let there be a text from Lance on there.~

His hand slides down both legs and into my boots where he eventually finds the switchblade.

~Dammit.~

“Anything else I should know about?”

I shake my head.

“Good, now let’s go.”

“Where?”

A hand wraps around my throat from behind and squeezes.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to,” he hisses. “If you had just left, if you had just moved on, we wouldn’t be here.”

Suddenly, I realize the voice isn’t Grant’s. He releases my throat and I turn around to see Logan pointing a gun at my face.

He is tall, at least 6’4”, and his normal, friendly smile has been replaced by one that can only be described as pure hate.

“I don’t understand,” I say truthfully.

“Of course you don’t. You haven’t spent the last ten years kissing ass and scooping shit out of stalls just to see some whore come in and take your job,” he growls.

“I didn’t take anything,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.

“Didn’t you? All you had to do is fuck your boss and suddenly you’re getting a cushy job with even nicer living quarters for way more than what we make,” he says. “Tell me, how is that fair?”

“Did you talk to them? Did you ask them about moving up?”

“Of course I did. I was supposed to get a promotion when Lance almost died. He wasn’t supposed to come back—and you certainly weren’t a part of the plan,” he says, his grip tightening on the gun.

“After we learned Lance was returning, Grant caught me sniffing around the safe and they’ve had me mucking out stalls ever since.”

“The safe? Did you... Did you hire Tad to rob us?”

He blows air out his nose indignantly.

“Tad is a hothead, easily manipulated by money,” he sneers. He gets close to me, towering over me as he stares straight into my eyes. “But I did enjoy watching him beat the shit out of you.”

“Jesus, you were here? So Emma wasn’t behind all the sabotages?”

Logan sneers. “I don’t work for free,” he says.

“She paid you?”

“We’re done with the Q&A, let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“What the fuck did I just say?”

My mind is racing a million miles a second. Logan approaches me and spins me around. The gun presses sharply into my back and his grip on my arm is almost painful.

“We’re going for a little walk.”

“What if someone sees?”

“We’ll be going out the back door, the camera doesn’t span that far. And everyone is either gone or in the far pasture already.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

He chuckles, which terrifies me.

“It’s the only way. Emma will run to comfort Lance, who will be too devastated to work. I’ll get back into Grant’s good graces and finally get out of the fucking bunkhouse. Everyone wins.

“Well, except you, of course.”

Logan pushes me out the back door first, then slinks out behind me. All I can think is, ~“Please let Lance find us, and please, please, please don’t let him be seen by Logan.”~

“How do you plan to cover up my death?”

“Shut up,” he growls as we start walking down the trail into the woods. My eyes are carefully scanning the landscape for Lance. I hope he sees us before Logan sees him.

“I mean, they’re going to suspect you if they find me with a gunshot wound.”

For a few seconds, the only sound is our footsteps.

“Well, I considered just making you disappear altogether and letting Lance believe you just left. But we started to think he might not believe that,” Logan said.

“So a well-placed suicide note should do the trick.”

“Was it written by a left-handed person? Did you match my handwriting?”

“Shut the fuck up,” he says.

“I just want to make sure you thought of everything.” I manage to keep my voice steady but panic is rising in my chest. Realization is dawning on me.

If Lance doesn’t intervene, I may die today.

As we approach the river, Logan starts pushing me down the hill to a sheltered part of the bank, literally one of the first places Lance and I walked all those weeks ago.

Logan pauses and looks around. He selects a rock for me to sit on. As he looks at me, I see a movement in the rocks behind him.

Lance.

I see Logan working out how he’s going to shoot me so it looks like a suicide. First he goes to my right side, then my left. Finally, he positions himself in front of me.

“I don’t want to chance you being a good liar, so I guess you’re going to eat this gun. We’ll figure out the details after.”

I swallow hard, willing myself not to look in the area behind Logan.

“Give me your hands.”

Logan wraps my hands around the gun and forces my thumb on the trigger. My eyes are focused on the barrel inches from my face.

Suddenly, I hear the cock of a gun.

“Don’t move, asshole.” Lance’s voice is loud and angry. I move my head as Logan and I both close our hands over the gun.

Logan somehow spins me around as I try to get control of the gun and fail. He presses the barrel to my temple and crouches behind me.

“Lance, what a surprise,” Logan says.

“Logan, what the fuck are you doing?” Lance demands.

“Taking what’s mine! Now put your gun down or I’ll kill her—I swear!”

“Yeah? And what then? There’s no way out of this now. Your best bet is to surrender,” Lance says.

“If I have nothing to lose…” Logan presses the gun harder into my head. I grimace.

“Okay! Okay! Stop it!” Lance yells as he lifts his gun up.

“Unload, then drop it.”

Lance drops the clip out of his handgun and places both on the ground in front of him. With Logan’s arm around my neck, he removes the gun from my head and points it at Lance.

“Bye, Lance.”

Suddenly, I reach out and dig my claws into Logan’s outstretched arm as hard as I can. I feel them penetrate his skin and he cries out.

Lance ducks as the gun fires. He moves forward and grabs Logan’s arm. Logan’s other arm tightens around my neck, cutting off my air. I claw at it furiously but his strength far outweighs mine.

Lance slams Logan’s hand against a tree, and he finally releases the gun, which goes toppling to the ground. Lance bends down to grab it, but Logan kicks it down the bank just in time.

Logan puts his bloody arm on the back of my head and deepens his choke hold. Lance launches forward and punches Logan in the face, forcing him to finally let go of my neck.

I drop to the ground, gasping for air. I hear them scuffling and look around for anything I can use as a weapon.

Just then Logan elbows Lance in the face, and I see him drop to the ground like a lead weight.

Logan stands up, picks up a large rock, and holds it over his head like he’s going to bring it down on Lance’s skull.

I dive for the gun Lance unloaded and put on the ground. There’s no time to load it, so I just pray there’s still a bullet in the chamber. I turn around, aim it at Logan, and pull the trigger.

The bang is deafening. Logan’s eyes go wide as he drops the huge rock on the ground in front of him. I grab the clip and reload the gun, then train it back on him.

Lance scurries away and comes up to me. Logan looks down at the hole in his chest, then drops to his knees before falling forward on his stomach.

Lance looks at me and squeezes my shoulder with one hand as he grabs the gun from my trembling hands with the other.

“Are you okay?”

I nod quickly but my whole body is shaking from fear and adrenaline. Lance approaches Logan with the gun aimed at him. He reaches down and feels for a pulse on his neck.

“He’s still alive. Here, call 911,” Lance says as he tosses me his phone. Just then, we hear an engine up on the trail.

“Hey! What’s going on down there?!”

Grant’s face appears at the top of the hill. He gets off the four-wheeler and stumbles down to where we are. Lance still has a gun on Logan and I call 911.

“Logan was about to kill Wren,” Lance says. “He’s been behind everything. Wren shot him as he tried to cave my head in.”

Shock registers on Grant’s face as he looks between the three of us.

“Jesus, is he dead?”

“He still had a pulse a minute ago.”

Grant reaches down to check Logan’s pulse. “It’s pretty faint, but still there.” Grant runs his hand over his face. “Why? Why would he do all this?”

They both look at me, but I’m still on the phone with 911. They’re on their way, but ask me to stay on the line with them.

My head starts to swim with the details and magnitude of what just happened. Suddenly, I start to feel weak and my vision goes dark as I faint.