Page 48 of Light My Fire

Stevie took the proffered binoculars. Some fifty feet away, a wooden hanging bridge spanned the cliff. She examined the shore where the forest thinned. A flash of orange made her pause, and she spotted a figure—the redhead—trekking through the woods, on the way to the bridge. She waited and spotted another—March. He’d taken off his fire shirt, just a white T-shirt underneath. And with him, Skye and Rio, walking ahead of him. Her father pulled up the rear.

“We need to get down there,” Tucker said.

But Stevie had pulled out the gun, now kneeling, propping her elbow on her knee.

“What are you doing?”

“If they’re going over that bridge, then I have a shot. The one I should have taken back at the cabin.”

He looked at her. “That’s a hand gun. A bear gun. You can’t make it from here.”

She raised an eyebrow. “That bear I told you about—it wasn’t the last bear that ever crept up on me, Tucker. I can and will shoot Eugene March.”

He met her eyes a moment. “Really? Because—”

“I can do this, Tucker. I have to do this. It’s my last bullet.”

He put the binoculars back to his eyes. “Please don’t shoot Skye.”

She didn’t need the binoculars to spot the redhead, in his orange shirt, edging out onto the bridge. Or to see Skye being pushed onto it by March. Rio went next, and then her father. Then… “I can make this.”

Please. But her hand trembled.

She could almost hear the roar of the past in her ears as she sighted March, her aim center mass as he followed Skye onto the bridge.

Then she exhaled slowly and pulled the trigger.

* * *

You can’t save everyone.

Stevie’s words flashed through Tucker’s brain as he watched the horror play out on the bridge. The shot shattering the morning air. Birds scattering from the poplar and birch, the froth and anger of March as he ducked, then grabbed Skye, pushing her forward to the other side of the bridge.

The other prisoner had already crossed and now disappeared into the woods at the far edge.

Rio and Archer Mills fled behind March.

“I missed!” Stevie said on a thin wisp of breath. She leaped to her feet. “I missed!”

“Maybe not—it’s hard to see.” Tucker held the binoculars on the drama unfolding. The way March grabbed Skye, held her body against his, as if a shield. Archer had hold of Rio, had pulled him behind a tree.

“I don’t see any blood on anyone.”

But now March held Stevie’s gun against Skye’s temple, staring almost directly at them.

A cold hand closed around his throat, tightened, cut off his breathing.

“He’s going to kill her,” Stevie said, her voice stripped, hollow. “How did I miss—”

Tucker couldn’t move, couldn’t answer—

Rio broke out of the forest, leaping at March, grabbing his arm, and forcing the gun away. Skye ducked under his grip, away from the gun—

It reported into the sky.

March rounded and slammed the gun against Rio’s head.

But Archer appeared, also leaping on March. They rolled as Rio stumbled to his feet. Another gunshot shredded the air.

---