Page 122 of Trigger Happy

Feels good.

Ma whistles behind me. “Call it mother’s intuition, but I feel like all this woodchopping has something to do with that girl. Is she why you grew a mustache? I hate to say this, hon, but if you’re trying to win that girl back, the seventies shaggy ’stache is not the most handsome look on you.”

That’s the point. Sabrina hates mustaches, so I grew a fucking mustache.

I’m not going to insult her intelligence by lying, but I will call her out. “Sabrina, Ma. Not ‘that girl.’ And no, I’m not trying to get her back.”

I’m trying to convince myself not to put a knife to her throat, and it’s a lot easier than it should be. She deserves to hurt for what she did, but dammit, I can’t do it.

She tosses me another log. “Are you going to tell me what she did? Or do I have to guess? You know how I adore playing Clue, so I wouldn’t mind.”

“No.”

“No, you’re not gonna tell me, or no, I’m not supposed to guess?”

I bring the axe down again, splitting the log clean. Sweat’s already dripping down my temples even though it’s in the mid-seventies. This is good. This is what I need, an outlet for all this rage.

I haven’t told Ma about Sabrina yet, but I know I need to. If I do, she’ll give me her infamous I told you so lecture and possibly nuke Sabrina’s life, and I don’t want anyone hating her but me.

I hurl the axe down.

Ma sighs. “Hon, if you love that girl—”

“Sabrina,” I grunt, tossing the wood pieces into a pile on the grass. It hits me I corrected her on the girl and not the love part of that statement.

She takes a seat on the wooden bench Walker and I carved for her for her fiftieth birthday. “Fine. If you love Sabrina, which you clearly do based on the way you’re treating that wood worse than a corpse, talk to her about whatever is bothering you. Silence is the biggest killer of relationships.”

Surprise rips through me. “I thought you hated her?”

Her lips purse. “Your father might have talked some sense into me. I won’t stand in your way. I love you more than I hate her parents, and if it doesn’t work out, you know how much I enjoy a good I told you so.”

If she knew the truth, she wouldn’t be saying that.

I stare down at the wood, the weight in my chest throbbing harder than my heart.

Of course she would give me her approval now. Ma doesn’t know the extent of Sabrina’s lies. I haven’t spoken to her much. When I flew back home, I spent all day in target practice, imagining Sabrina’s face as I threw the knives. The day after that, I bruised my knuckle from punching a wall. That’s when Ma smacked me in the head and told me to patch the drywall.

I wish I could fall out of love with Sabrina. She’s done the unforgivable, but there’s no kill switch with love. It’d be a hell of a lot easier if I had a way to power it down.

Ma rubs my back. “Just talk to me, hon. What happened?”

There’s a brightness in her eyes that wasn’t there during those weeks after Walker passed, and color is back in her cheeks, so I almost don’t say it.

“She killed him,” I force out, clenching the axe. “It wasn’t her mom. Sabrina killed Walker.”

She goes deathly quiet. I think I can hear her heart thumping. This will break her, but it’s better she knows the truth. Ignorance might be easy, but it’s not that helpful. I wrap my hand around hers, doing what I can to hold her together.

Dad steps onto the porch, wiping his hands on a dish towel. “Lawton!” he hollers. “There’s someone here for you!”

Sabrina.

Every nerve ending in my body fires up, but when I turn around, it’s not her steel eyes I see, it’s Arch walking through the pasture.

“Montoya.” He stops in front of me. “We need to talk.”

60Sabrina

You can do this,” I tell myself, using my hip to shut the door of the truck I was forced to rent because it was the last option. “You’re just going to tell him, grovel a little, or a lot, and then if he decides to kill you, you’ve still got that bulletproof vest on.”