Rogue Wave (The Water Keepers, Book 2) (42 page)

Ash wasn’t sure why he bothered, maybe because he had nothing left to lose, but he dragged his legs into the elevator and let it send him to the roof. Perhaps there was still the tiniest hope inside him that his father would be waiting there to greet him with forgiving arms and a welcoming hand. Ash laughed without humor as the elevator chimed. What kind of dream world did he think he was living in?

But the blood kicked back through Ash’s system as he stepped onto the deck and found the commotion from downstairs still unraveling before him.

His father stood at the side of the pool, Sadie’s mother, Leena, still trapped against him by his gun. Hamlin inched forward towards them, trying to talk Voss into reason, but even Ash knew his father was far beyond that now. Voss was a madman, and Ash knew it, but he would always be his father, he had no control over that. And the sad truth was, he was all Ash had left.

Ash moved forward cautiously across the deck and called out, “What’s the point of this, Father? I mean really…What’s this going to accomplish? I know how painful it was losing Mom, for both of us, but killing this woman won’t make it any better. It won’t bring her back.”

Ash took another step forward, and Voss moved his gun quickly in his direction. “Stay out of this, son. I thought you understood, but you obviously don’t get it.”

Voss moved the gun back to Leena’s head. “You ruined my life, Hamlin. You sent me to that wasteland, Cayno, to rot in a living nightmare. You deserve to watch her die.”

Hamlin’s voice remained steady. “Don’t you remember, old friend? Both Orion and myself tried to argue your defense to the Council. We did what we could. We pled for a lesser sentence, but we were outnumbered twenty-eight to two. Your crimes were too severe. Justice had to be served.”

“
Justice
,” Voss scoffed. “The Council understands nothing about justice. Was justice served when they agreed to your appeal to send Syreen out on that mission? When you all sentenced her to die right before her son’s eyes? Was that justice? Did she get what she deserved? Is that what happened?”

Hamlin’s whole body shook as he spoke. “You don’t think I hate myself for letting her go that day? I loved her too, Voss. She begged me to let her go. How could I deny her? How could I do that to her when I knew I’d been denying her of what she truly wanted ever since the day we left the Academy? This isn’t about her death, Voss. This is about our entire lives; this about you never forgiving me, even when I gave you what you wanted, even when I gave Syreen up for
you
. We both knew she loved me first, but I let you have her. I cared so much about trying to save our friendship that I turned her down, for
you
. And now, after all those years I had to suffer, watching from afar as you lived a life with Syreen that I never had, and after I finally found Leena, someone who filled that void in my life and took away my pain, who finally made me feel whole again…Now you want to take
her
away from me, too? Why can’t you just allow me this one piece of happiness?”

Voss’s eye’s narrowed. “Why should I let you have happiness when there is none left for me? When you never allowed me to enjoy a single moment of my time with her from the very start?”

Hamlin took a deep breath. “When will you learn to take responsibility for you own actions? You broke her heart too, you know. And I had to watch it break over and over again, every time you turned your back on her, every time you accused her of something she didn’t even do.”

Ash couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Father, what is he talking about?” Ash called out in alarm.

Voss’s jaw trembled with anger. “Just stay out of this, Ash. This doesn’t concern you.”

“It
does
concern him,” Hamlin cut in. “You’ve been treating your son poorly since the day he was born, and he doesn’t even know why. Don’t you think he deserves an explanation? Why don’t you tell him what really happened, Voss? Why don’t you tell him how, deep down, you always believed his mother was having an affair with me, and how you never really believed he was your son.”

Ash’s worst fears seemed to crash down around him and swallow him whole as he heard the words come out of Hamlin’s mouth. Ash searched his father’s eyes, pleading for him to say it wasn’t true, waiting to hear the one thing that his father had been withholding from him his entire life.

Just tell me that you’re proud of me
, Ash longed for in his heart.
Just tell me that you care, that you believed in me even once. Just tell me that you loved me at all.

But Voss’s cold silence lingered on without an answer. Ash’s hands shook as the fear and frustration turned into anger. “Is this
true
, Father?” he demanded. “Is this really what you think of me?”

“Why don’t you ask Hamlin if it’s true,” Voss sneered. “He’s the one who ruined our lives. He’s the one who turned your mother against me.”

Ash turned to glare at Hamlin. “You better tell me the truth and do it now. Did you have an affair with my mother?”

“I loved her,” Hamlin said boldly. “But I swear on every sacred drop of Healing Water in Banya that I never acted upon those feelings.”

Before Ash could decide if he believed Hamlin or not, his father broke down. “It doesn’t even make a difference at this point,” Voss seethed. “You talk like you were a helpless victim in all this, Hamlin. But you always had to keep your foot wedged between us, didn’t you. I was Syreen’s husband. She chose
me
. For more than sixty years I fought a losing battle because you were always in the way. Why couldn’t you just let her be free to live her life with her family where she belonged?”

“I took every assignment possible,” Hamlin said through clenched teeth. “I lived the entire first half of my life on Earth as a Keeper for all those years, away from my friends, away from my family, away from everyone I loved. And I did it for her, so she could be happy. I wanted her to move on. I wanted her to forget I ever existed, especially after I found out she was having a child. I wanted you all to have a chance at the life that I never had a chance to have. She deserved that more than anything else, and I gave her every opportunity. So if you think for one minute that the reason she wasn’t happy, or didn’t enjoy every minute of her life with you, had anything to do with me…then you’re living in nothing but denial.”

Voss’s eyes grew more wild than Ash had ever seen as his hand clamped viciously around Leena’s neck, almost choking her beneath his grip, causing her to cry out and gasp for air.

“Don’t they teach Keepers anything at the Academy?” Voss said. “You’re not supposed to provoke the person holding your sweetheart’s life in his hands. I don’t even need the gun. I could snap her neck with one flick of my wrist if I wanted.”

“Wait,” Hamlin pled as his face fell with humility, his pride taking a back seat to save the woman he loved. “You’re right about everything,” Hamlin said. “It was my fault. I handled everything wrong. I should have tried harder. I’m sorry. I really mean it, I’m sorry. Just please, let Leena go. She has nothing to do with any of this. If you want justice, here I am. You can do whatever you want with me, just let Leena go.”

Voss’s upper lip curled into a menacing smile. “You want me to show mercy? Then why don’t you get down on your knees and beg for it.” Hamlin jolted in pain and Leena cried out as the bullet from Voss’s gun tore through Hamlin’s knee and sent him to the ground.

“What’s the matter,
Linny
?” Voss mocked. “Your little cavalry from Banya isn’t here to do your dirty work this time?”

Another shot rang out as Voss took his aim on Hamlin’s right arm.

Ash stood, stunned, glancing back and forth from Hamlin’s bleeding limbs to his father’s hand digging deeper into Leena’s neck. Ash thought he could handle it, do anything his father wanted him to do despite the consequences, anything to earn his father’s approval. But now he was torn, unsure if he could go through with it.

Voss hardly paused to blink as he continued playing his game. “It’s tough being left to fend for yourself, don’t you think?” he said to Hamlin, who seemed to be holding onto courage despite his deep, ragged breaths. “But you haven’t even come close to that yet, Linny. No, not yet. But when your friends all start to look at you like you’re no better than a rat from the sewer, and the people you’ve worked with and trusted your entire life suddenly decide you’re not even worthy of the fungus that grows beneath their toes…then you’ll know. No, you’re not quite there yet, dear Linny. But you will be. You will be very soon.”

Voss’s trigger-happy finger lifted again to aim just as the door to the stairs crashed open. Everyone’s heads turned in unison as Hamlin’s two personal guards broke through the doorway, guns ready.

A split-second later, Voss’s gun went off, hitting Hamlin in the chest, the impact forcing Hamlin’s body backward into the pool. Voss shoved Leena into the water right after Hamlin with her hands still tied behind her back, causing her to kick and flail as her body sunk quickly to the bottom. Before Hamlin’s guards could get off a shot, Ash sent out two bullets to take them both down.

Ash never missed. Everyone knew that. Yet, both guards had only flesh wounds, slowing them down just enough to let Ash and his father get away, while leaving the guards strong enough to jump into the pool to save the two drowning bodies.

There was no question Leena would survive, thanks to Ash’s inability to be all his father wanted him to be. And despite the gun wound in Hamlin’s chest, Ash knew Hamlin would survive as well, just like his guards. Ash could tell from Hamlin’s fully lit eyes that he hadn’t been away from the Threshold for even an hour. The Healing Water would still be strong in Hamlin’s system.

Ash ran toward the far side of the roof toward their private helicopter pad, where his father was already sitting in the pilot seat warming up the engine. More than anything else, Ash hoped his father hadn’t noticed him purposely letting the guards live so Hamlin and Leena could survive, but Ash knew the odds weren’t in his favor; Voss wasn’t one to overlook the details.

Ash stopped halfway between the thundering helicopter propellers and the scene in the pool behind him, his hair whipping in the wind around his head just like the chaos in his mind.

Was there any point in continuing with the plan? Was there anything he could possibly do that would ever make his father proud? But he paused for only a second before reality set in. He had no other choice. He had passed the point of no return. If he stayed here now, they would probably haul him off to prison in Banya. And even if they didn’t, there was nothing left there for him to go back to.

Without another backward glance, Ash continued forward to the helicopter, getting ready to circle around to the passenger side. But just as the helicopter was within reach, the aircraft began to lift off the ground.

“Father, wait!” Ash yelled through the noise. “I’m here. I’m coming with you.” Ash ran to the pilot side of the aircraft, signaling with his arms to get his father’s attention, but the helicopter continued to hover out of reach, rising several feet in the air.

“Father, what are you doing?” he yelled again in a panic. But he realized his father wouldn’t even be able to hear him through the noise of the helicopter. Without thinking, Ash jumped up and grabbed the metal skid at the base of the landing gear, pulling his body up on the bar. Then he yanked open the helicopter door and braced himself in the opening.

Ash stared desperately at his father’s face, every insecure moment in his life gathering against him all at once. “Father, don’t leave me,” he begged.

“I don’t have time for this,” Voss scolded. “Are you trying to get us both killed?”

“Why didn’t you wait for me?” Ash said, jaw trembling. “There was plenty of time. There still is.” Ash shot his windblown head back in the direction of the deck where the guards were pulling Hamlin and Leena safely out of the pool. “Just take off now; I can hold on until we’re out of range.”

Suddenly, his father clenched his fist around Ash’s shirt, pulling Ash up toward his face. “You are
weak
, Ash. You always will be. Too weak to be any son of mine.”

“No,” Ash cried. “That’s not true.”

Voss scowled. “It should have been you who died that day…not her.” Ash groaned as his father’s piercing words stabbed straight through his heart.

It was as if Ash’s core had been ripped apart from the inside out, the last shred of hope gouged violently from his being forever. Then, as if Ash’s agony wasn’t enough, he felt his father’s kick against his chest, a final blow to drive the pain deep through Ash’s heart, shoving him into the air like a worthless piece of nothing.

Ash’s body landed with a thud on the ground, shattering his last remaining fragments of self-worth to pieces on the concrete below. He hardly noticed when Hamlin’s guards took hold of his body to drag him into custody. All he could see was the helicopter and his father disappearing into the clouds, leaving Ash alone and deserted, with nothing left to live for.

33. RAYNE RISKS IT ALL

Rayne weaved in and out of traffic as fast as the Range Rover would take him, whipping his head back to the road every few seconds between staring at Sadie’s motionless face.

How could it all come down to this? How could he let her get to this point, so close to the end, so close to losing her forever? He just barely figured it all out in his life. After all this time he finally understood what he really wanted, the purpose of it all. Even if he didn’t have the answers, and life wasn’t making sense, it was all worth it in the end because of her. And now he was on the verge of losing her forever. Then, life would be meaningless.

He thought of a future without her, without her smile, without the inner glow like sunshine she carried with her wherever she went, warming the hearts of everyone around her. Without her, his world would be too bleak, too hopeless and gray…too empty.

No, he couldn’t let himself even think it. It was too painful. Sadie would be okay. He had to hold onto hope. She would make it through this even if he had to risk everything else, because she had to survive. Otherwise, Rayne would cease to exist.