Reid's Redemption, page 16
That was all they needed.
The two men descended into a fistfight right in the center of the community room. They swung punches and lunged at each other as the crowd cheered them onward, pushing the energy of the room to a frenzy. Carter and Reid struggled against each other—two men evenly matched for a moment like this. Soon, they were a blur of shoves, kicks, punches, groans, and contact, all of which made it impossible to determine who was winning the fight. Not every blow landed its mark, but many did. People gathered around, shouting, taking out their phones to record the melee. My heart raced as I watched, helpless to stop them. And I kept waiting for someone to intervene, for someone else to wake up and realize this was not the way to handle things.
No one did.
I scrambled atop an empty chair and yelled at one of the deputies. He shot an empty stare in my direction then shrugged. Fine. Screw this. If he wasn’t going to help me, then I’d get someone who would. I pushed through the tight crowd and ran to Glen’s side. He was the mayor. The town leader. He’d step up.
“You have to stop this,” I pleaded. “You have to. Now.”
“I can’t.” Glen kept one eye on the melee. “They need to fight this out.”
“Not here, not like this.” I gave the scuffle another frantic look. It wasn’t getting better or slowing down. It was getting worse. “Please, this isn’t the way to settle something.”
I didn’t understand why I was the only one who seemed rational at that moment, why I was the only person who still had a clear head. Fighting at the civic center wouldn’t solve any of the town’s issues, and if it didn’t stop soon, it might escalate further, to something irrevocable.
We can’t afford to see what that looks like.
“You’re the mayor. The mayor,” I added, and my voice broke into a sob. I tossed a glance at the melee. “You have stop this. Now. No matter what you think about Reid Powell, this can’t go on. Fighting like this isn’t going to solve the problem.”
He blinked at me. More punches flew. The frenzy grew.
“Please.” I almost screamed it. “Please do something.”
“Okay,” he said after another long moment. “You’re right.”
Glen raised the gavel and banged four times on the podium. The sound shattered the room, and rose above the fighting, above the mob. “This ends now.”
He banged the gavel two more times.
“That’s it. I am ordering you to stop. This fight is officially over. No more of this.”
The group seemed to wake up then, and people pulled away from each other. Two men separated Reid and Carter, who were now both bloody and bruised. I let out a small sigh of relief. At least the physical altercation had stopped.
“I’m the mayor of this town and I declare this meeting adjourned,” hollered Glen over the dying rumble. “This gathering is over, and before there are any arrests, I hereby order everyone in this room to disperse. Gather your things. Go to your homes. Exit this building in an orderly fashion. The deputies are under my orders to take into custody anyone who lingers here past eight forty-five. This public hearing is closed.”
A rumble of discontent rolled through the room.
“What did I say? This gathering has ended. Now.”
At least Glen sounded strong, and he did have authority, but the frowns and crossed arms in the room told me that his decision didn’t satisfy many. Still, as they put on their coats and filed out of the aisles, I took advantage of the break and rushed over to Reid, leaving Nora to help my father get to the car.
He nursed a split lip with two fingers and looked like he had the beginning of a black eye. Blood spatter sprayed across his shirt, and his jacket sleeve was torn. He rolled his right shoulder a few times, as if he wanted to stretch it.
“Oh my God.” Gingerly, I reached two fingers to his face. “Are you okay? Did you lose any teeth?”
“No, I didn’t.” He gave me a weak smile. “Also, I don’t know if you could tell, but I was winning.”
I smiled at his joke, but it didn’t do much to assuage my concerns. “That lip might need stitches. Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“You should see the other guy.”
He nodded in Carter’s direction, and I looked over at him for the first time. He was in slightly worse shape than Reid and like he also might have the start of a black eye. But I realized I didn’t recognize that man any more. He wasn’t the kind, friendly man who’d asked me to dinner and inquired about my dad. He was a stranger.
I turned back to Reid. “Let’s go. I’ll walk you to your car.”
We caught some nasty looks and snide comments as we walked to Reid’s car, but for the most part we were able to make it to the parking lot without incident.
“I don’t feel good about what happened,” I said on a sigh when we arrived at the driver’s side of his F-150. I was close to crying, and struggling to hold it back, to choke down all the raw emotions that night had dredged up inside of me. We failed, and it’s my fault… “I was the one who encouraged you to come tonight, to lay yourself bare on what you wanted to do, to try to connect with these people again.”
“At least we tried.”
I took his hand in mine. He winced, and I knew he’d have swollen fingers the following morning from all the punches he threw. “I shouldn’t have pushed you to come tonight. That was the wrong idea, and it was too soon for them in there. It was like setting you up for failure.”
“You can’t control them, Tarryn.” He dropped my hand and shoved his deep into the pockets of his coat, which he pulled tighter around him.
“I want them to see how good-hearted you really are.”
“Don’t worry about me. Worry about them.” He jerked his head in the direction of the community center and the dwindling crowd. “And you know what? In one way, it’s refreshing. Carter has always wanted to fight me. I don’t think he’ll try it again.”
“Still, I feel so bad.”
“I’ll be fine. Eventually.” His eyes searched my face. “I’d kiss you right now, but I’m still bleeding from this fat lip.”
I smiled again. Reid had every reason to be angry and combative, but he wasn’t. I marveled at his steady resolve. “I’ll come by later, okay? After I get my father home. I’ll come by and check on you.”
“Sounds good,” he said, then a slight frown crossed his face. “Wait, I totally forgot—”
“Forgot what?”
He pulled his clinched right hand from his coat pocket. “This. I forgot this.” He held his fist out to me, then opened the palm. “I think this fell off the night of the storm. I never got it back to you.”
There, in the middle of his hand, lay my sterling silver monogram necklace, the one with my initials etched into a delicate pendant. I hadn’t even noticed it was missing.
“I kept meaning to get it back to you,” he said. “And for whatever reason, it was never the right time.”
“Thank you,” I breathed as I took the jewelry from him. I put it around my neck and took a deep breath, glad I had it. “Thank you so much for holding on to it. My dad gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday. I can’t believe I didn’t notice that I’d lost it.”
“You’re the one, Tarryn. The one who changed everything for me. You make me feel alive,” he added and got into his truck.
I stood in the parking lot and watched until he drove away.
Dad and Nora were beside his car when I walked up to it a few moments later. He was talking to a few deputies, but when they saw me approach, they excused themselves and moved to another group of people who lingered in the parking lot. Still further away, several television crews interviewed a few stragglers about the meeting and the fight.
“Well, that was interesting,” Nora commented as I helped her get Dad into the car. “One for the town’s history books.”
“What? All the forums in Allen don’t regularly end in epic fist fights?”
Dad laughed at my joke and Nora gave me a small smile. “He was winning before you put an end to it,” she said. “And I’ll admit that I liked seeing that happen. Reid has some fight in him, and I’d forgotten that. He’s tough.”
I straightened Dad’s seatbelt. “One of the reasons I like him.”
“I honestly have to say, I’m sorry that this community keeps handing him the burden of his family. You can’t pick your parents, or your siblings. People have been unfair to him, and I realized that tonight, during all of that screaming.” Nora frowned. “They aren’t considering the whole picture. It’s like they’ve lost their way. No, we’ve all lost our way.”
“I guess raw emotion will do that to people.”
“A shame,” Dad added.
I nodded, shut the passenger door of our car, and got in the driver’s seat. The three of us drove home in an awkward silence, and I used the trip to try to process what I could about what had happened. And most of it, I couldn’t wrap my head around.
“I’m going for a drive,” I announced when we were home, and after I’d helped my dad get settled into bed. “I’ll be back later. I need to clear my head.”
It wasn’t an entirely true statement, and I suspected my father knew that, but he didn’t challenge me on it.
I got back in the car and decided that before I checked on Reid, I would simply drive around Allen, letting the cold winter air and crisp darkness iron out some of the anger, despair, and disappointment I felt.
No matter what Reid did to win their affection and respect, the people in his town wouldn’t ever fully forgive him for his family’s past transgressions. He would always be an outcast to them, an outsider they would blame for all the misfortunes that occurred. They’d found their whipping boy, and they were going to make sure he got punished. Maybe forever.
When I turned onto Main Street near the center town square, I saw a small crowd of men.
They huddled together, hunched shoulders in thick winter coats. They all wore hats to ward off the cold, and heavy boots to keep their feet warm. They talked together in a small circle.
Something about it made me curious.
I parked my car about twenty feet away and watched as they talked. I cracked my window and tried to hear what they were discussing, but I was too far away to make it out clearly.
But then I saw Carter standing in the center. He said a few more things to the people around him, then on his signal, the group dispersed and moved to their waiting cars. Each person got behind the wheel, then formed a line in the street.
When the last car rolled away from its spot, I decided to follow it. And I knew where they were going the moment they turned onto the highway. There was no other explanation. No other reason for their actions.
They were going to confront Reid.
Judging by the residual anger and the stiff, determined way they held themselves, it wasn’t going to be with words alone. No other way to see things. Not after what had happened at the meeting.
Oh, God…
As I followed them, I located my phone with one hand and tried to call Reid through voice command. I needed to warn him that they were coming. If he was alone, he deserved a heads-up about the danger that was on its way.
I called him once. No answer. Twice. No answer. Three times. No answer.
By the third try, the panic in my body overwhelmed me. My hands shook as I drove the car. A cold sweat broke out on my brow. A flash of adrenaline coursed up and down my neck.
But he still didn’t call back.
Damnit.
I parked the car away from the group, which traveled up to Springhill Lane in a long, snaking caravan. The men didn’t notice me. They got out of their cars and moved toward the house, which had several lights on in various rooms.
Instinct told me everything about this. We needed the police out here immediately, so I called 911 before I got out of the car. A dispatcher picked up and didn’t sound thrilled or motivated about sending anyone out to Springhill. Why not? Shit. I still had my phone in my hand, so I tried calling Reid one more time. “Pick up. Please pick up. Please…”
Nothing.
I didn’t want to reveal my presence to the gang of men, so instead of using the main road to the house, I cut a path through the brush and trees that rimmed the property. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing, but I kept my attention on the men, fixed on what they were doing so I could recount it later. I sent Reid a text as I crept closer to the house. The men gathered in a group, said a few grumbling phrases, and then one pushed forward up the steps to the front door of the house. I took a few photos and some video.
Then I hid behind a large tree and peeked around it to watch. One man screamed Reid’s name a few times. No answer for him either.
And then I heard a hissing whisper.
“Tarryn.”
When Reid got home from the meeting, he changed his clothes, laced up his snow boots, bundled himself inside a heavy parka, and decided to go for a walk around the property. Sometimes, long walks helped him clear his head. Gave him the perspective he needed. Kept him from drinking too much.
More than anything, he needed clarity tonight.
Reid was in the cemetery when the caravan of cars arrived, standing in front of the side-by-side graves of his father, mother, and Logan. His fingers were bruised. His face bloodied. His neck hurt.
And he was praying.
He’d tried to help Allen. He’d tried to do what his father wanted. He’d tried to bring about change.
But Reid had failed. Epically and utterly failed.
Whatever happened next for this community wouldn’t come from him—it had to come from something bigger than he could provide. Reid knew that now. They didn’t want his help, didn’t want to see him as any different from the people who’d let them down in the past. He wasn’t the savior they needed. He never would be.
In a way, he guessed he should have expected the mob to come. The confrontation between Carter and him was in no way finished, and Reid knew it. Carter wanted another shot to prove he was a better man, and Reid could have guessed by the way the deputies reacted to the initial fight that the story wouldn’t end at the community center.
And of course, Carter hadn’t arrived alone. He hadn’t left this moment to only himself and Reid. He’d brought reinforcements. A lot.
This is it.
Reid crept through the trees as he watched the group circle together. He took cautious steps, his eyes on them the whole time.
Fuck. I should have brought my gun.
He balled his hands in his coat pockets and remembered that he’d thrown his phone in there on the way out the back door. A call to the police might not do any good, but at least he’d know he made the attempt. He took the device from his pocket and unlocked the screen.
Tarryn’s phone calls and messages greeted him.
Damn it, he’d placed his phone on silent before the meeting, and he hadn’t remembered to flip it back. Each message grew more frantic than the last, and by the last one, he was confident that Tarryn was on her way to the property, or even there at that moment. Then he saw her, hiding behind one of the largest oak trees in the forest on the far side of the cemetery.
“Tarryn.”
He called her name in a hushed whisper, before his head got the best of him. He was glad to see her again and impressed she’d followed what looked like a group of broken-ass vigilantes to his house. But he was also scared. If something happened to her, he wasn’t sure he could take it.
“Tarryn,” he tried again, a little louder. “Tarryn.”
She turned her head on his third attempt. “Reid.”
She rushed over to him, carefully avoiding the broken branches and twigs that littered the snow, trying to not make noise that might alert the men to their presence.
“Holy shit,” Tarryn said when she reached him. She also barely spoke above a whisper. “What the hell is happening?”
He pulled her against the trunk of a thick ash tree and raised a finger to his lips. Then he leaned into her ear. “I’m sure you realize it’s Carter and his friends.”
She met his gaze and nodded. Her breath was ragged, and her chest heaved. “Reid, I don’t—”
“Shh.” He gripped her arm. He saw terror in her eyes, and he felt that way, too. He knew Carter’s need for vengeance hadn’t been satisfied at the community center and he was here for blood. “Keep your voice down.”
“I have a horrible feeling about this, Reid. I think I’m going to throw up,” she said on a strangled breath.
He pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her as tight as they could go. Whatever happened next, he needed her. I won’t let her out of my sight.
“I’ve never been so terrified in my life,” she said, the warmth of her breath stinging the frigid air.
Together, from their place in the forest, Tarryn and Reid watched one of Carter’s associates bang several times on the front door, then return to the group with his hands in the air. “Where is he?”
“He’s such a fucking coward.” Carter stepped away from the disgruntled group. He turned his whole body to the house and yelled, “I know you’re in the house, you bastard. Come out here.”
“He’s insane.” Tarryn choked on the word. “I don’t even recognize him anymore.”
“Let’s finish this,” Carter roared at the house. “Right now, Reid Powell. Tonight.”
Carter returned to the other men, and they spoke for a few seconds. Then one person broke away from the group and stumbled to the garage. He shoved his shoulder against it several times until the door broke open on the last heave. He disappeared into the structure and returned with a large canister of gasoline.
“Look what I found.” The man held up the can. “I think this will be useful.”
A low rumble passed through the men, and Tarryn turned to Reid.
“Oh my god,” she hissed. “They’re going to burn your house. They’re going to set it on fire.”
She moved as if she wanted to get up, as if she planned to make herself known to the group, but Reid grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. “Don’t go over there right now.” He grasped both sides of her face. “What if they try to kill you?”
