Page 100 of The Thief

I started to cry, my face screwing up as ugly tears burst free.

“Is... she... okay?” I spluttered.

“She’s fine. We’re both fine. Are you?”

I nodded. I couldn’t speak. My throat had closed up and there were no words. No words that I could use in this moment. All I could do was feel; relief, hurt, anger, frustration, gratitude. Feelings that ricocheted inside me like a fucked-up pinball. And all I wanted to do was go to them. I’d crawl over fucking glass to get to them and put my arms around them.

My soul had been shattered today, my nerves shredded, but my world... my world had been saved, and I would thank God every day for that. I’d thank the universe for listening to my prayers.

I stood on shaking legs and stumbled over to them, my ankle screaming in pain, but I didn’t care. I had to get to them. Touch them. Know that this was real and not a dream. And as I sank to my knees, crying, sobbing their names, Ava slowly turned her head to look at me and whispered, “What’s happened, Mummy? My ears are hurting.”

I wrapped my arms around them both, breathing them in. And I told her, “It’s okay. It was firecrackers. Like fireworks. But we’re okay. We’re gonna be okay.”

I heard movement close by, and tentatively, I lifted my head to see Adam kneeling beside Dan, the shadow that’d forced us to the ground. He pressed his fingers against the side of his neck, then announced quietly, “He’s dead,” and sat back on his haunches, letting out a sigh. “He took the bullet. He saved you.”

He took the bullet.

Those words rang in my ears.

He saved us.

Seconds.

That’s all it had taken to change the course of events.

If he hadn’t done what he did...

I couldn’t bear to think about it.

He was dead.

A man was dead.

We were amidst a tragedy of epic proportions. Devastation lying all around us. And yet, I didn’t feel the way I should’ve felt, that I might’ve felt in any other circumstance, because him being dead meant my daughter and Tyler weren’t.

A man was dead, but he died so they could live.

He’d sacrificed himself to save them.

He’d done the right thing.

They were alive.

Because of him.

Colton ran over to Adam, telling him, “We smoked that fucker.”

Again, I felt nothing but relief.

“What a shame we couldn’t give him the ending hedeserved.” Adam shrugged. “But we had to do what we had to do.”

“I don’t think death by firing squad was too good for him,” Colton replied. “It was exactly what he deserved. Sometimes, the gun is mightier than the sword.”

“Are you okay?” Tyler’s voice echoed through my brain, pulling me from my daze.

“I don’t know,” I replied; then, when I saw Ava clinging to Tyler, her big blue eyes shining up at me, I smiled. “I’ll be fine. I have you two. I’ll always be okay because of you.”

“I don’t know what’s going on and I’m scared,” Ava said, her little lip quivering as she started to cry.