Chapter Text
And I loved her, all of her,
for how I watched her crawl
beneath my skin and into my Soul.
And I loved her, all of
her, for how she would glide
over my dark fields and leave
trails of roses left to grow.
And I loved her, all of her,
for how she devoured me whole
and made sense of all my bones.
But most of all, I loved her,
all of her, for healing my
pieces and guiding them all
back home.
- RM Drake
"Come on out, Kate, no point in putting off the inevitable.”
Richie’s voice calls from outside the bathroom door. Kate fumbles at the zipper of her jeans. She’s trying, but her fingers shake so badly she can barely get a hold of anything properly. Fear is an ice-cold fist in her gut; her thoughts are turning themselves in circles. How could this be happening? Who are these men? And why them, why her family? This is something that happens in the movies, not real life.
Eventually she gets the pants situated, wiping her hands down her thighs to get rid of the clammy sweat that’s overtaken her. She looks up into the mirror, into green eyes with pupils shrunken to pinpricks. Tries to swallow, once, twice before it finally works; her mouth and throat are bone dry.
She reaches with trembling fingers for the lock, fumbling for a moment before managing to open it. As it swings open she shrugs into her plaid overshirt, pulling the sleeves down past her fingertips out of habit. The words mean less than nothing, right now, but she can’t help but want to protect that part of herself from these men. Time’s up, Princess, she thinks wanly. And it is. It is.
“Do you, Daddy? Really?”
“Kate, what the hell,” Scott hisses, but the other man, not Richie, is speaking now, and she ignores Scott in favor of obeying the man with the gun.
Despite her current feelings towards her Daddy, she can barely stand to watch him go. At least he’s going alone, without a gun at his back. She takes a seat over at the table by the window, folding her hands demurely in her lap. She’ll be a good little hostage, if only for her family’s sake. It’s not like she’s got any kind of superpowers or hidden abilities that will magically get her out of this mess.
Scott and Richie are next, and she’s left with the leader - with Seth. It’s what she heard Richie call him. Richie, that freak that was currently with her little brother. She feels herself heat all over at the thought of the things she’d told him. God, Kate, sure, just blab your deepest, darkest secrets to the first cute guy that looks your way! That’s not shallow or desperate at all!
Kyle barely figures into her thoughts; how could he, right now, with so much going on?
Absently she rubs at her wrist, where her mark sits. No, Kyle doesn’t get too much of her time these days, and after yesterday? Screw you, Kyle, she thinks vindictively, and that’s the last she thinks of him for a very long time.
Then she realizes something: she’s barefoot. She’s been running her feet along the carpet, back and forth, the whole time she’s been sitting there. With a little sigh, she reaches down, picking her sneakers up from where she had placed them under the table.
As she’s tugging them on she can feel the shift in the man’s focus; he’s watching her now. He’s intense, but in a different way than Richie, who seems to have a few screws loose. This guy likes control, likes power; it’s clear he gets off on it. Whatever his deal is, he’s just as terrifying as his brother.
Obstinately, she makes a meal of tying her shoes, making sure the loops are nice and even, the tongues fully out. She hears him sigh as he watches her. “Oh-kay,” he mutters, as if to himself. Then he clears his throat to get her attention.
“Time’s up, Princess. I think you’ve got ‘em good and tied.”
What.
Her brain. Stalls.
Everything else - her breath, her body, her heart - freezes as well. She doesn’t move from her position bent over her shoes, lips and fingers gone numb. The laces sit pathetically in her limp grasp. Distantly, she feels a dull, burning sensation begin on her inner right wrist.
“Hey, kid, I'm talking to you.”
She jerks back to life at the proximity of his voice. He sounds closer now, and then she sees the tips of his shoes appear in her line of vision. That, more than anything, animates her, and slowly, agonizingly, she sits back up. To her horror, she can feel tears threatening behind her eyelids. She blinks them away frantically. She is not going to cry in front of him.
When she sits up, he nods, twitching the gun towards her. “Good girl.”
Something in her stomach twists painfully. This can’t be happening. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe this is just one of those lucid dreams she’s heard of. Based on her life lately, Mama dying, Daddy guilty of something she’s afraid to put words to - it’s likely she’s cooked up this little fantasy all in her head.
Except. She can’t escape the burning, pinching feeling on her forearm. Something is growing there, she knows with this with a dreadful, all-encompassing certainty. Something damning and repulsive. She couldn’t make this up if she tried.
She can still feel his eyes on her; her skin crawls with the familiarity she feels imbued behind the weight of his gaze. It’s so wrong, it’s - it’s all wrong. This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.
She was supposed to go to college. Maybe she’d drop her pen in one of her classes, and some cute boy in front of her would turn around and pick it up for her, smiling a dimpled smile. The test would just have ended, but she’d take it back from him with a smile and she’d try to scribble in just one more answer, and he’d say -
That dream is dust, now. For I eat ashes as my food, and mingle my drink with tears, she thinks dully. The taste of them coat her tongue.
Her wrist still throbs.
He’s talking to her again, completely unaware of the monumental paradigm shift he’s just set off within her. She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, trying to shake off the shock. He. Has. A. Gun. Idiot. She reminds herself savagely. She can’t afford to lose track of anything he says or does. It’s not only her life she’s playing with, now. She has to think of her family.
Oh, God, what would Daddy have to say about all this?
Then she reminds herself that she doesn’t much care what her Daddy thinks at the moment. He may or may not have caused her Mama’s death, and she can’t forget that. She won’t forget that.
But he’s still talking to her. “Did…” he hesitates, looking oddly unsettled, “my brother didn’t do anything to you, did he?”
That’s…not what she was expecting. Slowly, she shakes her head, eyes rising to meet his.
They’re the color of whiskey, with thick, dark fluttery lashes and equally dark, heavy brows. Right now they’re creased in what might be concern, if it were anybody else. There’s something in her, some insidious little voice, telling her to soothe it, to tell him she’s alright. But she can’t speak. If she does, he’ll know. The mark will burn, and bloom, and everything will be in ruins.
She marvels that whatever eventually comes out of her mouth, no matter how many times she changes it in her head, no matter what she eventually chooses…whatever she says will be on that man’s body somewhere. The very thought gives her chills.
And it is inevitable. She felt the mark burn the minute he closed his mouth, the second he was done uttering those damning words. She wonders what it looks like now; tiny, hideous buds of some secret flower furled in their little shells, waiting, with the patience of death itself, to come into bloom.
“Alright,” he says, checking his watch, “showtime.” Then he looks up at her; she can see him from the corner of one eye. “Hey, look at me,” and his voice is gentler than she was expecting; not cruel or demanding, but almost entreating.
So she looks, doing her best not to flinch. “Just remember, you do what I say and when, and you’ll get outta this, no bumps or scrapes. Okay?”
Again, she nods, watching his face. He gestures at her, gun held loosely in his fist, and she gets up, goes to the door, the strap of her backpack held in a deathgrip.
He blows out a hard breath through his nose. “Alright,” he mutters, and puts the hand with the gun against her back; she can feel the cold of the barrel seep through her layers of clothes, and tries not to shudder. “Here goes nothin’.”
When she spots the Ranger, she freezes again. Everything, the wind, her own breath, the beating of her heart, all slows to a crawl. From out the corner of her eye, Seth moves, stepping out of the doorway into the Ranger’s view.
And then time starts moving at breakneck speed; Seth’s scooping her up in one arm, hauling her up against him, and for the most terrifying, hysterical moment she thinks he means to put her out in front of him as a shield.
But he doesn’t. What he does is swing her out to one side, still flush against him, and she scrambles frantically for his arm to keep herself upright, otherwise she feels as if she’ll go careening away into freefall.
Gunfire; her ears feel as if they’ll never stop ringing. They dive back through the door they just came through, and he pushes her into one corner, placing himself in front of her, an arm across her chest. “Just stay put and do what I say, remember? No bumps or scrapes.”
She gives a frantic, jerky nod, still not daring to say anything. The only thing that crosses her mind, in the moment, is that he’s put her behind him again. There’s something off about this, but beyond that, she can’t think. There’s no room for error here; he’s seriously on edge and trigger-happy, and one wrong move could result in her very untimely demise.
Distantly she can hear more gunfire, steadily moving closer. Then, without warning, one long leg careens through the busted-open door to their left, and there stands Richie, own pistol brandished and ready to use.
“Goddammit, Richard, do you want a cap in your ass? Next time fucking knock or something. Would go a long way towards your not getting shot.”
Richie ignores this. “RVs been moved around back, it’s ready to go.”
“It’s what? Why?”
“Just trust me, brother. I know what I’m doing.”
“Jesus Christ, Richard.”
Then everything is moving loud and in fast-forward, and before she realizes it, Richie is scooping her under his arm and hauling her away from Seth as he fires back at the Ranger.
One more bang, and then comes the blood, misting pink in the air. She screams, shrill, panicking. Not him, please not him.
She doesn’t have time to process what she’s thinking, simply reacts to whatever Richie is telling her to do, moving on autopilot. Everything inside her is screaming to run back, to see if Seth -
Her thoughts are broken and scattered and mean nothing. Later, she’ll resent them for what they are - the soulmate bond doing its job. As far as she can tell, they got that part of the lore correct, though it’s been disputed, just like everything else about it. No one can seem to decide on any one theory as one hundred percent canonical.
Yet the bond hasn’t been sealed. It’s still one-sided, laying open like a circle that forgot to grasp the other end. And she. Can’t do it. She can’t speak to him, or it will all be over. Her life as she knows it has already been turned ass over teakettle, as her uncle likes to say. To close the circuit would be - she can’t fathom it.
So why it should already be working its will, she couldn’t say. It’s already trying to drag her, kicking and screaming, towards him. The thought makes her almost ill. Something inside of her, some unknown entity, stirring from its lifelong slumber, activated by three innocuous words - yes, something foreign is inside of her right now, making her think and feel things she never could have before. It’s the soulmate bond. It’s got to be.
Does she even want him to live?
The thought shocks her into stillness. Of course, she thinks to herself. Of course, she doesn’t want anyone to die. What a horrible thought.
Still. She probes at her own thoughts, wondering, turning them over. If he were dead…if he were gone…would Richie leave them, to avenge his brother? Most likely, from the little she’s seen of him. He seems the type; he’s completely off his rocker.
Or - and this truly terrifies her - would he blame her family? Would he avenge Seth by killing them off, one by one, horribly, slowly, painfully? Or would it just be a bullet, swift and brutal? She shudders. She doesn’t like the path she’s headed down in her head, so she attempts to focus on something other than - than her soulmate, what an insane thing to be able to say - dying.
Not to mention the chill it leaves in her gut, at the thought of it. The immediate repulsion she feels at thinking it. He can’t, she thinks, trying not to panic.
So she focuses instead on where Richie is. Up front, talking to their Daddy in low, threatening tones. Ok, so now she knows where the danger is. Now, Scott.
He’s sitting tense and still next to her, eyes on Richie’s back, the same as her. Probably doing the same thing; watching for the more, immediate danger should things go South.
The gunfire has ceased, which is…worrying. Who won? The good guys or the bad? And does that make her family bad guys, too? Surely not.
Out of nowhere, there’s a resounding thump on the roof of the RV. She and Scott both flinch, looking up. Footsteps, grunts, and the unmistakable sound of flesh hitting flesh. Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me, she thinks distantly.
Then there’s a stretched pause in which everyone seems to hold their breath. Then she hears it: a rap at the back of the RV. She tries not to let her relief show. Relief! At the thought that their kidnapper made it safely back to them.
This soulmate thing is going to drive her crazy, she just knows it.
Seth eventually crawls in through the cracked-open door, slamming it behind him in obvious relief.
“Told you,” says Richie, smugly.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re a fucking genius,” says Seth rather breathlessly. He swivels, taking in the position of everyone. “Everything copacetic here?”
“Running smooth and right on schedule.”
They lean in closer, speaking in low voices that Kate can’t quite make out. But they both seem satisfied by the exchange, and to her relief, it’s Seth that goes to keep her father company. The less contact she has with him, the better, she tells herself. Richie takes a seat in front of them, gun held loosely on the table.
Sometime later, she’s not sure how much, she’s rubbing her arm again. It still itches, though not as much. She wonders what it looks like now. That’s when she has an idea.
“I need to use the restroom,” she says softly to Richie, using her big, limpid eye routine.
He shrugs, “Sure,” and stands to walk her over to the door. “Don’t take too long,” he warns her, but there’s no real heat behind his words. They’ve been making somewhat polite, stilted conversation - after Scott was done antagonizing him, of course - and she’s grateful that they’ve managed to keep the peace for this long. She has no real idea how long this trip from Hell is going to take, and it would go much more smoothly if everyone could just be cool.
She ducks into the bathroom, unsure whether to lock it behind her. He didn’t say she couldn’t, but she’s too nervous to attempt it, so she doesn’t. She doesn’t really care how that looks.
Ok. Moment of truth, Katie. Holding her breath, she slowly slides her overshirt off her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. She raises her right forearm. Pulls up the sleeve of her blouse. Looks. And feels something in her chest constrict painfully.
Thorns. They’re short little nubs at this point, twining delicately around her words, but it’s obvious that’s what they are. In the corner, at the end of Princess, there’s a single, tiny, furled bud. Just one.
Roses? She thinks wildly. Roses. Fucking. Roses. It has to be. She can't think of any other flower that has thorns at the moment. She wonders what color it will be. Oh, Lord, anything but red. She knows what red means. She’s read up on soulmate marks over the years, knows there’s all kinds of plants that could bloom, not just flowers. Knows they all mean something different, that their different colors also have their own meaning. For her thirteenth birthday, her Mama had given her a book on Victorian flower meanings, that she’d read until the spine cracked in two and fell apart.
And roses…well. Their colors all signify something different, but the main one? It’s unthinkable. Impossible. The mere thought that she could - that he could -
Her head is spinning. You can’t think about this right now, she tells herself frantically. You can’t let this distract you. You’re in danger, you airhead. This isn’t the time to start swooning over flowers and dangerous men with guns. This isn’t a cheap paperback novel.
She’s read plenty of them; bodice rippers, her mom had called them with a giggle. Trashy soulmate romance novels that she’d hidden in the back of her closet, about dangerous, lone-wolf men that met their soulmate, usually some sort of damsel in distress type, and were somehow magically changed for the better through the power of True Love.
She feels bile rise in the back of her throat; her nostrils sting with it. This isn’t it, Kate, she reminds herself forcefully. This is real life. Stuff like that just doesn’t happen.
Like getting kidnapped at gunpoint? A little voice in the back of her head whispers. Like finding out your soulmate is actually your kidnapper? ‘Cause that’s not something that would ever happen in one of your books, it continues derisively.
Oh, God, she’s going to puke.
Kate has to swallow several times to force it back down, trembling hands pressed to her face to stymie the tears. She thinks about praying, but it’s too much right now. She can’t find the right words. Help me, Lord. That’s all she has in her. It’ll have to do, for now.
She sucks down a few shaky breaths, willing herself back to some semblance of calm, and picks her flannel shirt back up, slipping it on, making sure the sleeves are pushed down all the way. She barely remembers to flush, and runs the water for a moment. Then she slips from the bathroom, not looking at Richie, who looks as if he’s been standing there the whole time. Embarrassing much? She’s glad she didn’t actually have to go.
Scott glances at her as she takes her seat. “You good?” He mutters to her, as Richie also sits, gun once more pointed in their general direction.
She must still look somewhat distraught, because Richie cocks his head at her, waiting for her to answer. She nods, not quite trusting her voice, and manages a small smile in her brother’s direction. She wraps her arms around her middle almost absently, tucking her right arm underneath the left, clutching at it protectively.
But now she sees, from the corner of her eye, Richie’s brows furrow. He’s staring at her, and he’s got that look on his face she remembers from the pool, when he’d talked about her Mama.
Oh, oh no. Not now. He can’t possibly know anything’s wrong, can he? There’s no way he can know.
Richie’s eyes narrow, and he leans forward, gun seemingly forgotten. He opens his mouth, but Kate beats him to it.
“I started my period, okay?” She snaps in a low voice, shunting a look to her brother. As she thought he would, he makes a face, and leans back in his seat. In front of her, Richie’s brows shoot up, but he just nods, reclining as well, looking satisfied.
Kate takes a slow, steadying breath, and tries to look discomfited. It’s not hard. She tightens her arms around herself and ducks her head, thinking of the blossoming mark on her arm, and the color of roses.
She’s not sure how the argument even started.
One minute they’re sitting there in the back, Richie craning his head around to check on his brother; the next minute, he’s looked back around at them, and something like panic crosses his face. He jumps to his feet, gun cocked and trained on Scott.
Kate cries out, loud enough for her father to obviously hear her, because he hollers, “what’s goin’ on back there?”
Richie is backing up, eyes riveted to her brother. Seth appears behind Richie, and grabs him by the elbow of his free arm. “What the actual fuck - “ and he drags Richie around to face him, forcing his brother to lower his gun somewhat.
Kate feels her her heart beating like a war-drum high in her throat. Her hands shake as she clutches at her arms, and she presses her lips together tightly to keep from crying. This is too much, on top of everything else. Bad enough when Richie had been threatening to shoot Scott earlier. What in God’s name had set him off this time?
“Hey. Hey.” It’s Seth, addressing Scott and her. “What the fuck did you do?” He aims this more at her brother than her, she’s relieved to note.
Immediately Scott swells up, leaning forward. “Nothing! We weren’t even talking, and your whack-job of a brother pulls his - “
“Kid, you watch your mouth, you understand me?” Seth snarls, hand going to his own gun.
Kate curls in around herself, shivering, and breathes to Scott, “don’t antagonize them.”
“You have something you’d like to add, Miley?”
Kate’s shoulders come up to her ears, and her stomach drops. Keeping her eyes on the table, she fervently shakes her head.
There’s a pause, and she can feel Seth staring her down. “What. Happened.”
Scott starts to speak again, but Seth snaps his fingers at him. “You. Shut the fuck up. You.” Now he’s addressing Kate directly, and she turns her face away to stare at the wall. “Spill it.”
She takes a very deep, slow breath through her nose, squeezing her eyes shut. She won’t turn, won’t look at him, won’t open her mouth. She won’t.
Another pause, this one even more loaded, souring Kate’s stomach. She feels like she might vomit again. “Hey. You look at me when I’m talking to you, kid.”
“Leave her alone, asshole! She doesn’t have to talk to you!”
“No, see, I asked her a question, and like a good little preacher’s daughter, she’s gonna answer me. Miss Priss, you do have a voice, don’t you?”
Scott is shouting something, and Richie is chiming in. Whatever they’re saying, she can’t make out over the roaring of her pulse in her ears. Seth’s voice rises above the din of the others. “There a reason you won’t talk to me, princess? Huh?”
Princess.
Her head whips around, and before she can stop herself, she’s shouting, too. “Because you’re a monster!”
A heartbeat passes, and then Kate claps a hand to her mouth, horror turning her entire body ice cold. No. No. What have I done.
Her Daddy’s yelling from the front now, and Scott is snapping something viciously, but the brothers have gone quiet, deathly so. It takes the others a minute before they catch on, and stumble to a halt. Beside her, Scott is quivering indignantly, but then he gets a good look at her and goes still. “Kate?”
She meets Seth’s eyes across the table. He looks like he got hit head-on with a two-by-four, just as stunned. In her peripheral, she sees his right hand drift towards his left arm.
“Kate, what’s wrong?” Scott asks in a low voice, angling his body away from the brothers, partially shielding her. But she’s still facing forward, still watching Seth. All she can see is the look on his face.
Her hand slowly comes away from her mouth. With monumental effort, she tears her eyes away from Seth’s and looks at her brother. Tears spill down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to,” she whispers.
Richie’s gone up to the front with her father, snapping something at him. A minute later, the RV is groaning to a stop on the shoulder of the road.
Seth is slowly backing away from them, swallowing heavily. Before the RV’s even come to a complete stop, he’s out the door, down the steps and outside.
“What the hell did you two do to my kids?” Her Daddy is being guided by gunpoint out the door as well, by Richie, and then all three are outside, the door banging not quite closed behind them, slowly swinging back open from the incline of the shoulder on which they've parked. Distantly, she and Scott can hear them talking, though they can’t make out any individual words.
Scott stares at the door for a beat or two, then turns back to her, scowling heavily. “Kate, what the hell is happening?”
She says nothing, but sobs into her hands. His scowl melts, replaced by worry. “Jeez, Kate, what is it?” he puts his hand tentatively on her shoulder.
Wordlessly, hands shaking, she lowers her hands. Then, very slowly, she grips her right sleeve, and peels it back.
They both stare down at her wrist, where, as they watch, thorns slowly lengthen, piercing her words through, sharp and deadly looking. At the end of it, slowly, unhurriedly, a flower unfurls, as if it has all the time in the world.
It isn’t a rose; a far cry from it, in fact. It's spindly and alien-looking, a blood-red stain that spreads across her skin like spider legs uncurling.
“Jesus Christ,” breathes Scott. “No way.”
Kate takes a deep, rattling breath. Her head is swimming, and her arm - it burns. Burns as if she’d set it against a live stove top, a white-hot blaze. She whimpers, doubling over on herself.
“Kate, oh, my God,” Scott grabs both of her shoulders, pulling her into him. She sobs again, breath catching in her chest.
“Make it stop, please,” she whispers pitifully. When she manages to look back up at her brother, his eyes are glittering, bright with unshed tears. His chest is heaving, as if fighting back something.
“Kate…” he trails off, his voice breaking. “Katie, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry…” and he wraps his arms around her, pulling her head to his chest, underneath his chin.
“Fucking Geckos,” he spits after a few moments, and unwinds his arms from her, leaning back and taking her by her upper arms. “This is all their fault. If they’d just left us alone, if they’d just picked somebody else - “
“I don’t think they could have, Scott,” she whispers. He looks back at her, disbelief twisting his features.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I - I don’t know. I don’t know.” And she curls up in on herself, feeling utterly bereft, tears pouring down her cheeks again.
Scott’s face twists further. “That’s it. I’m done with this.” He grabs up his bag, ripping it open and pulling out -
Kate’s heart stammers, leaping into her throat again. “Scott, where did you get that?” Her voice rises, hysterical.
“Doesn’t matter; this ends now.” And he rises from the table, gun clenched in one trembling fist, and steps outside.
Kate sits frozen for several heartbeats, feeling it throb high and fast in her throat. Then, swallowing thickly, she scrambles up from her seat and flies outside after Scott.
Waiting outside the RV is a waking nightmare: Scott and Seth, guns pointed at each other’s heads, and Richie, Richie’s gun trained on their Daddy. Everyone’s yelling.
“You fucking bastard! All of this is your fault!”
“You better think long and hard about pulling that trigger, kid, or your old man’s brains will be painting the landscape before you can even twitch.”
“Stop,” she whispers, but of course nobody hears her. It’s her father that notices her first, and holds out a hand to stop her.
“Katie, please, sweetheart, get back in the RV - “
“Guys, Scott, please don’t do this - “ she moans, stepping forward on legs as wobbly as a newborn colt’s. Neither responds; neither seems to have heard her.
“Think about it, Bruce, you don’t want Daddy to get a bullet between his eyes, do you?” That’s Richie, gun cocked and ready to fire.
Scott snarls. Cocks his own gun. Her blood is a low roar in her ears, and before she even realizes what she’s doing, she’s between her brother and Seth. Between the two guns, loaded and aiming right at her.
Her Daddy screams something that she can’t make out above the din of her pulse. Scott’s eyes widen; she has no idea what Seth looks like right now; she can’t bring herself to face him. Instead she looks at her brother, pleading, “Scott, you can’t do this, please, you can’t shoot anyone - “
“Listen to your sister, Scott,” comes Richie’s voice again. Seth has remained silent behind her.
“Kate, get out of the way!” Her brother’s face is contorted with hatred now; he’s trying to maneuver around her, but she keeps step with him, eyes flicking from the gun in his hand to his face, and back again. She stretches out imploring hands; one towards Scott, the other behind her in Seth’s direction.
“Just…just put it down, Scott, please.” Her gaze travels towards their father, whose face is white as a sheet as he watches them. Richie’s gun is still trained unwaveringly on his head. She swallows heavily, feeling herself teeter, dangerously off balance as she scrambles to keep up with Scott.
“Kate, for fuck’s sake, move!” Scott screams at her, face as pale as their Daddy’s, the pistol shaking in his hands.
“Look at Daddy! Look at him, Scott!” She sobs, gesturing wildly towards their father. Scott swallows, and she sees tears in his eyes. He shakes his head.
“I have to, Kate, I’m not gonna let this happen.”
He’s talking about her, she realizes. He is, in his own way, trying to save her. Something grips her heart tight in acknowledgment.
“Scott, he’s got a gun on Daddy,” she says, lowering her voice, striving to be gentle, to be calm, like Mama, she thinks. “If you shoot him - “ she can’t bring herself to call him by name, not now, “ - then Daddy’s gonna get shot, too. Please. Please, just think this through.” The thought barely has time to cross her mind, and I might not make it, either.
Her brother’s eyes are tortured, his aim unsteady. Richie speaks up behind them. “She’s right, kid. You shoot my brother, your old man is dead.” His voice is hard and sure.
Kate reaches imploringly for Scott. She takes a step, then another, until she’s right in front of him, the gun inches from her fingertips. She sees him swallow again, and a tear spills down one cheek. “Katie, please,” he whispers.
“Give me the gun, Scott,” she breathes back. Her hand stretches out, beckoning.
Slowly his face crumples, and then the gun lowers, inch by inch, into her hands. She scoops it up, holding onto it awkwardly as Scott’s shoulders slump. He stares at her, forlorn, and she stares back, trying to tell him with her eyes alone how much she loves him, how much what he tried to do means to her.
From the corner of her eye she sees Richie approaching them, then Scott’s gun is being yanked out of her relenting grasp. “Back in the RV,” he says in a low rumble. His voice is quietly dangerous; Kate feels goosebumps erupt on her flesh when she meets his freezing gaze. She swallows and nods, waiting for Scott to go ahead of her.
Her Daddy’s waiting for her at the door. “Katie,” he whispers hoarsely, “Katie.”
He wraps a shaking arm around her shoulders, but Richie snaps, “inside, now, goddammit,” and her father winces, retracting his arm and climbing the steps back up into the vehicle.
It’s just her, Richie, and Seth now. Before she can follow her Daddy up the steps, Richie stops her with a hand on her shoulder, not ungently. “Kate,” he begins in a low voice, “we have to talk about this.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she mutters back. Inexorably, her eyes find Seth. Seth who’s still standing at the back corner of the RV, gun held in a limp hand, feet braced wide as if having trouble keeping himself upright. She looks over, Richie hovering behind her, and meets his eyes.
It’s only for a moment, and then he flinches, eyes dropping to the ground.
She swallows, shifting so that Richie’s hand slides off her shoulder, and steps up into the RV.