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Safe Haven(58)

By:Nicholas Sparks


     



 

Praying that Katie was still alive.


Kevin saw  the gun in the same instant she did and dove for it, reaching it first.  He snatched it up and pointed it at her, enraged. He grabbed her by the  hair and put the gun to her head as he began dragging her across the  lot.

"Leave me? You can't leave me!"

Behind the store,  beneath a tree, she saw his car, with its Massachusetts plates. The heat  from the fire scorched her face, singeing the hair on her arms. Kevin  was raging at her, his voice slurred and raw.

"You're my wife!"

In the distance, she could faintly make out sirens, but they seemed so far away.

When  they reached the car, she tried to fight again but Kevin slammed her  head onto the roof and she almost passed out. He opened the trunk and  tried to force her in. Somehow she turned and managed to drive her knee  into his groin. She heard him gasp and felt his grip loosen momentarily.

She  pushed blindly, tearing out of his grasp, and started running for her  life. She knew the bullet was coming, that she was about to die.


He  couldn't understand why she was fighting, could barely breathe through  the pain. She'd never fought him before, had never scratched at his eyes  or kicked or bitten him. She wasn't acting like his wife and her hair  was brown but she sounded like Erin …  He started staggering after her,  raising the gun, aiming, but there were two Erins and both were running.


He pulled the trigger.


Katie  gasped as she heard the shot, waiting for the flash of pain, but it  didn't come. She kept running and suddenly it occurred to her that he'd  missed. She veered left and then right, still in the lot, desperate for  some kind of shelter. But there was nothing.


Kevin staggered  after her, his hands slippery with blood, slipping on the trigger. He  felt like he was about to vomit again. She was getting farther away,  moving from side to side, and he couldn't keep her in sight. She was  trying to get away but she wouldn't because she was his wife. He would  bring her home because he loved her, and then he would shoot her dead  because he hated her.


Katie saw the headlights of a car on  the road, moving as fast as a race car. She wanted to get to the road,  to flag the car down, but she knew she wouldn't reach the road in time.  Surprising her, the car suddenly began to slow, and all at once, she  recognized the jeep as it careened into the lot, recognized Alex behind  the wheel.

Roaring past her, toward Kevin.

The sirens were getting closer now. People were coming and she felt a surge of hope.


Kevin  saw the jeep coming and raised the gun. He began firing, but the jeep  kept coming toward him. He leapt out of the way as the jeep roared past,  but it clipped his hand, breaking all the bones and knocking the gun  somewhere into the darkness.

Kevin screamed in agony,  instinctively cradling his hand as the jeep careened forward, past the  burning wreckage of the store, skidding on the gravel and crashing  headlong into the storage shed.

There were sirens in the  distance. He wanted to chase Erin but he would get arrested if he  stayed. The fear took over and Kevin began to limp and jog to his car,  knowing that he had to get out of there and wondering how everything had  gone so wrong.


Katie watched Kevin tear out of the lot,  gravel spinning, onto the main road. Turning around, she saw that Alex's  jeep was half buried in the storage shed, its engine still spewing  exhaust, and she raced toward it. The fire cast its flickering light on  the rear of the car and she felt panic rising inside her, as she prayed  for Alex to show himself.

She was closing in on the car when her  foot hit something hard, making her stumble. Spotting the gun she'd  tripped on, she picked it up and started toward the car again.

Ahead,  the door of the car pushed open slightly, but it was blocked by debris  on either side. She felt a surge of relief that Alex was alive at the  same instant she remembered that Josh and Kristen were missing.

"Alex!"  she cried. She reached the back of the jeep and started to pound on it.  "You have to get out! The kids are out there-need to find them!"

The  door was still jammed but he was able to roll down the window. When he  leaned out, she saw he was bleeding from his forehead and his voice was  weak. "They're okay …  I brought them to your house … "

Ice flooded  her veins. "Oh, my God," she croaked out, thinking, No, no, no …  "Hurry  up!" She pounded the rear of the car. "Get out! Kevin just left!" She  could hear the raw fear in her own voice. "That's the direction he  went!"


The pain in his hand was beyond anything he'd ever  experienced, and he felt dizzy from blood loss. Nothing was making any  sense, and his hand was useless now. He heard the sirens coming but he  would wait for Erin at her house, because he knew she would be home  tonight or tomorrow.         

     



 

He parked behind the other, deserted  cottage. Strangely, he saw Amber standing behind a tree, asking if he  wanted to buy her a drink, but then her image vanished. He remembered  that he had cleaned the house and mowed the lawn but he had never  learned how to do laundry and now Erin was calling herself Katie.


There  was nothing to drink and he was getting so tired. Blood stained his  pants and he realized that his fingers and arm were bleeding, too, but  he couldn't remember how that had happened. He wanted so much to sleep.  He needed to rest for a while because the police would be searching for  him and he needed to be fresh if they got close.

The world around  him was growing faint and distant, as if viewed through the far end of a  telescope. He heard the trees swaying back and forth, but instead of a  breeze, all he felt was the hot summer air. He began to shiver, but he  was sweating, too. So much blood, and it drained out of his hands and  arm, wouldn't seem to stop. He needed to rest, couldn't stay awake, and  his eyes began to close.


Alex slammed the jeep into reverse  and revved the engine, listening to the wheels spinning, but the jeep  was going nowhere. His mind raced frantically with the knowledge that  Josh and Kristen were in danger.

He lifted his foot off the gas,  engaged the four-wheel drive, and tried again. This time the jeep began  to move, the side mirrors ripping off, debris scraping and bending its  body. The jeep came free with a final lurch. Katie pulled futilely at  the passenger door until Alex rotated in his seat and kicked at it,  flinging it open. Katie jumped in.

Alex turned the jeep around  and accelerated hard, gaining the road as the fire trucks pulled in.  Neither said a word as he slammed the pedal to the floor. Alex had never  been more frightened in his life.

Around the bend, the gravel  road. Alex turned sharply, the car skidding out. The rear fishtailed and  he accelerated again. Up ahead, he spotted the cottages, lights glowing  in the windows of Katie's. No sign of Kevin's car, and he exhaled  before he even realized he'd been holding his breath.


Kevin heard the sound of an engine coming down the gravel road and he jerked awake.

The  police, he thought, and he automatically reached for his gun using his  crippled hand. He screamed in pain and confusion as he realized that the  gun wasn't there. It had been on the front seat but it wasn't there now  and none of this made sense.

He got out of the car and looked up  the road. The jeep pulled into view, the one from the store parking  lot, the one that had almost killed him. It came to a stop and Erin  leapt out. At first he couldn't believe his good fortune, but then he  remembered that she lived here and it was the reason he'd come.

His  good hand was shaking hard as he opened the trunk and removed the  crowbar. He saw Erin and her lover racing to the porch. He staggered and  limped toward the house, unwilling and unable to stop, because Erin was  his wife and he loved her and the gray-haired man had to die.

* * *

Alex  skidded to a stop in front of the house and both of them jumped out  simultaneously, running for the door, calling the kids' names. Katie  still held the gun. They reached the door just as Josh opened it, and as  soon as he saw his son, Alex swept him up in his arms. Kristen came out  from behind the couch and rushed toward them. Alex opened his arms to  her as well, catching her easily as she jumped.

Katie stood just  inside the doorway, watching with tears of relief in her eyes. Kristen  reached out for her, too, and Katie moved closer, accepting Kristen's  hug with a blind rush of happiness.

Lost in the tidal wave of  emotion, none of them noticed Kevin appear in the doorway, crowbar  raised high. He swung hard, sending Alex crashing to the floor and the  kids stumbling and falling backward in horror and shock.


Kevin  heard the satisfying thud of the crowbar, felt the vibration up his  arm. The gray-haired man lay crumpled on the floor and Erin screamed.


In  that instant, Alex and the kids were all that mattered to her, and  Katie instinctively rushed toward Kevin, driving him back out the door.  There were only two porch steps, but it was enough, and Kevin toppled  backward into the dirt.