Page 139 of Piece You Saved

“If you put a bullet in the right place, it will put most things down and keep them down.”

I lower my shaking hands, remember to secure the safety, and place the gun down as I lay flat on my back and stare up at the bruised sky.

It’s over.

He’s dead.

He’s really dead.

I should get up to make sure, but I’m laughing too hard to move. It just keeps on coming. Right from the gut. An endless wave I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to.

I’m still laughing, my entire body shaking from it, when I cover my face with both hands and my laughter turns into sobs that threaten to choke all the air from my lungs.

On my right, a wolf whines and a wet nose nudges my throat.

I lift my arm and throw it around the wolf, hauling him closer, still sobbing. I don’t know who it is. It could be Aden, Kade, or even Harley. I just know it isn’t Rylan because I buried a bullet in his right eye, and it isn’t Dariel, because his wolf is bigger than this one.

“Harley, get her inside.” Dariel’s voice comes from a few feet away.

I’m crying too hard to peel my palms from my face to check where he is.

The wolf lifts his head from my neck, snarling.

“Kade, stop snarling,” Dariel snaps out. “Shift. We need to deal with this mess.”

Arms slide under my back and knees, lifting me from the front lawn grass.

Kade. The wolf was Kade.

The snarling stops as Harley presses my face against soft cotton that smells of sweet citrus and wood cologne and carries me inside. Not up to my room as I thought he would, out, through the entryway and into the backyard.

I’m still sobbing with all my heart and all of my soul for the girl I was before Rylan, and who I might be again when Harley stops and lowers us both to the ground.

I sit crossways in his lap, my legs on the grass and earth, as he smooths his hand down the length of my hair. I want to stop crying, but I don’t know how, or even if I truly want to.

“Let it out,” Harley murmurs in my ear. “Let it all out.”

Rylan’s eye was the perfect place for my bullet, and as the scent of wildflowers soothes me, I learn that the garden where I can breathe is the perfect place for me.

Countless minutes track by as my sobs lessen. The tension slowly leaves my body, and I relax into Harley’s chest. I’m sure I hear voices, maybe even scratching noises, but I can’t be sure, and I don’t want to lift my head to check. A car starts up. It pulls away from the house. Minutes later, so does another.

I lie still with my face buried against Harley’s throat as he strokes his hand up from my hair, down to the small of my back, and back up again.

His slow and steady breaths are something to hold on to, so I do, and I let them steady my own. I never want to move.

“That was some shot, Jane,” Harley is smiling as he speaks into my hair. Don’t ask me how I know. I just do. “We should’ve had you at the upstairs window.”

I peel my face from his throat, wanting to laugh, but more confused than anything else. “Upstairs window?”

His eyes search my face, his right hand coming up to thumb away the tears that continue to leak onto my cheeks. “Who’d have thought the hastiest plan in the world would work out?”

The hastiest plan?

Confusion clouds my mind until I remember Dariel’s inaudible murmur as I crossed the entryway, and Kade holding the front door closed, slowing me down. Stopping me.

On purpose.

“Hastiest plan?” I ask.

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