Page 46 of The Wrong Drive

Chapter 21

Turner

There’sanger in her eyes. I know she thinks I’m weak, but that’s not true. If I was weak, I’d give in to the urge I had to kill her, and bury her body next to my brother’s. I’m finally strong enough, because of her, to do what should’ve been done a long time ago. Sometimes, it’s better to put a wounded animal out of its misery than let it live with its disability.

“I’ll pull the trigger,” Em says, her voice calm and collected. “And then I’ll take Gunner and I’ll leave this hell I was trapped in for weeks. Don’t you worry.”

My chest swells. “Good girl.”

A tear rolls down her cheek as her lower lip trembles. “But first, I want you to tell meeverything.” Her voice strains as she presses it harder into my temple, doing the job I planned to do myself—andwilldo myself. I won’t let her be the one who pulls the trigger.

But I’ll let her feel in control in this moment.

“Where do you want me to start?” I ask her, a strange calmness settling in my body.

“What happened to your brother?”

I let out a long, heavy sigh. “I killed him.”

“How?” she demands, her eyes alight withanger.“How did you kill him?”

“I shot him with my rifle. Something was wrong with me,” I begin, the truth spilling easier than I expected. “I got this weird urge, like I was in the middle of war—but there weren’t any flashbacks. It all just went dark.”

She nods. “He could tell something was wrong, but Gunner helps you, yeah?”

I smile up at her, my eyes growing wet. “He’s a damn good dog, and the only reason I’m still here—but that was before you showed up. You can take him and give him a good life.”

“He’d be lost without you.”

“He’d be less stressed,” I chuckle, wiping away the first tear I’ve cried in decades.

Em’s lip quivers, but she holds it together. “Keep going. What happened?”

I blow out a breath. “I…I went outside. He went with me—Gunner, too. I just needed air. Or something?” I pause, shaking my head. “I felt off. I didn’t have a gun with me at the time. He said something to me? He told me I needed to get help and he would take me to see my doctor. I argued with him, saying nothing was wrong, but then he said I had thisdead, distantlook in my eyes. I’d seen it myself. It scared me, Em.”

“Then what?”

“Then it all went dark. I don’t know what happened.” I can’t look her in the face as I finish, explaining the gun, my dying brother, and the way I buried him where he asked. “I wanted to call the cops, and turn myself in. I knew I’d be committed. That’s what they wanted to do when I had my first…episode.”

She nods. “At the grocery store.”

My eyes widen with surprise. “How do you know?”

“The journal. Your parents got in a car accident on the way to pick you up, and your brother went to them instead of you.”

“He did the right thing,” I say, ignoring the blast of grief in my chest. “I guess technically I’ve killed three of my four dead family members.” I bite down on the inside of my cheek.

“No,” she reasons, shaking her head as she sinks deeper into my lap, her body warm against mine. “No, you didn’t. That’s not how it works. If a kid is waiting for their mom to pick them up from school, and she dies on the way there, it’s not the kid’s fault.”

“Kid’s probably not playing war in the bathroom, either.”

“Still doesn’t make it your fault.”

“Okay, but the others are.”

Emersyn nods. “Yeah, they are. Why don’t you tell me what you did?”

Unable to meet her eyes, I explain the first time I caught a hunter trespassing, he tried to shoot, but I was faster—and then every time someone else was caught, I shot first and never asked questions. I buried them all, too, but didn’t put crosses in the ground.

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