Page 135 of I Will Ruin You

“I’d need a head start. A few hours.”

“They’ll find you,” I said. “It’s time to pay for your sins.”

I stopped looking him in the eye, and instead focused on the creature that was nearly up to his belt. Eventually Trent would have to look, would have to know what had caught my attention.

“You were always a good friend,” he said. “I don’t want to have to do this.”

I said nothing. Instead, I stayed focused on the praying mantis.

Trent finally had to follow my gaze. He glanced down at his side, saw the creature, and acted as I had hoped, and expected, he would. Rachel had told us how freaked out he was about bugs.

“Fuck!” he said, and swept his left hand down, swatting the bug, knocking it from his belt and to the floor.

I only had a second.

I charged him, grabbing him around the waist and bringing him down to the floor. I reached for his right arm, got both hands around it between wrist and elbow, and slammed it onto the floor once, twice, three times, before the gun shook loose from his hand.

I scrambled over him to grab it, landing on it as though it were a live grenade I was trying to save the rest of my unit from.

Trent scrambled to his feet, and instead of attacking me to get the gun back, he bolted, heading for the front door.

I didn’t want to chase him with the gun. He was unarmed now, there was no need to shoot him as he fled. But I didn’t want to leave it lying on the floor, either. I picked it up and quickly placed it on a high cupboard shelf, atop a stack of plates.

And then I ran out after him.

He was standing in the front yard, hands in the air. Marta’s unmarked cruiser was at the curb. She was out of the car, standing by the front bumper, hands clasped around a gun she had pointed at Trent.

“Don’t move, Mr. Wakely,” she said.

Driving up the street and coming to a stop behind the cruiser was Bonnie. She got out of the car and was about to open the back door for Rachel when she saw her sister training a weapon on my boss.

We all heard a rumbling.

One of those huge dump trucks was making its way up the street, the driver taking a shortcut once again through our neighborhood between the construction site and wherever he was taking all that landfill.

Trent saw it, too, and when the truck was only two houses away he dropped his arms and darted into the road. His timing could not have been better.

The driver hit the bullhorn not a millisecond before Trent ran in front of the beast, the bumper knocking him down like he was made of straw. The truck didn’t come to a full stop until the right front tire had rolled over Trent and ended whatever life might have been left in him after being hit by the bumper.

I ran to Bonnie, who was standing there, hand to mouth, eyes wide. I scooped up Rachel from the back of the car, pressing her head down onto my shoulder so she wouldn’t be able to see what had happened, and then the three of us went into the house where we would start the hard work of getting our lives back to normal.

I was thinking, Trent was right. We needed a break. Maybe a trip up to the lake. We’d take the boat.