"Where's John?" I growled, looking beyond Fletcher over to the truck but not seeing any sign of anyone inside.
Fletcher followed my gaze before turning back to me, pointing over to my van. "What the hell was that all about? I thought you were someone else, you scared the living Christ out of me."
I shook my head, feeling sweat beading on my forehead. "Tell me where John is!"
With one scolding look Fletcher looked dismissive, shrugging his shoulders at me. "None of my business what he does with his time," He concluded.
"He said he was helping you, so where did you last see him? Where did he go?" I persisted.
"He went with Hadley and Atheson, he's supposed to drive them back here. Didn't he tell you?" Fletcher questioned. I shook my head. "He didn't tell you that he's leaving town?"
"What? Why would he leave town?"
Fletcher grimaced, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Maybe I'm not supposed to say anything, I figured you knew."
I looked down to my wristwatch, it was only five minutes until the premonition came true. "Listen, I do not have time for this. You said he was coming here, but from where?"
There wasn't much use asking Fletcher anymore questions, I could tell he was trying to pretend like he didn't know what was going on so that he could save his own hide. I knew John wouldn't take off, that wasn't the way that he operated and he wouldn't do that after all we had talked about – especially because that would mean distancing himself from his mother, and again, that was something John would not do. I needed to know why Fletcher wanted to kill John, why he could not accept responsibility for the debts he owed instead of taking it out on everyone else.
"Tell me something, Fletcher, at what point did you think your plan to kill John was going to work?" I asked, snapping each word at him.
He looked confused, shaking his head at me. "Excuse me?"
"Yeah, you think I don't know about what you owe to Marik? You don't think I know how you blamed it on John, that you want Alana's money to pay off your debts? I know about all of it. You're going to kill John despite the fact that Marik is dead, but why – don't you have a clean slate now?" I questioned.
"I would never hurt my own nephew, you sick freak," Fletcher snapped back, gritting his teeth. "And what would you know about my dealings with Marik? You think just because he's dead that everything would just go away – like he was the only piece in the puzzle in order to secure my freedom? Even if that were the case, why would I kill John then? I can't believe you would even accuse me of anything like that."
"That's exactly it, isn't it? You want John dead so that you can inherit the money from Alana as well as becoming the power of attorney for her so that you can syphon money from John's life insurance policy to help pay off what you owe. I know you're going to kill him, I've seen it already Fletcher – you're going to kill him with the very same knife that is on your belt right now," I said, pointing down to it.
Fletcher scoffed, pulling the knife holder off of his belt before tossing it at me. "Whatever you've seen was false, my knife was stolen from me a few weeks ago."
I opened it up to see that he wasn't lying, trying to figure out how I got this wrong. "But why did you need John tonight?"
"I needed his help repairing some spark plugs in this car over here," Fletcher said, pointing to it. "The car that's for my daughter."
"Doesn't she have her own car already?"
"She does, but she doesn't have a car that isn't registered to her."
"Why would it matter if it was registered to her or not?" I said, pausing as I thought it through. Then it dawned on me: Hadley was going to make an escape from Harrow Hall because Fletcher couldn't pay back the money, and he was scared of her getting hurt or being used against him. She needed a car that wasn't registered to her so that she could go unnoticed to whichever place she was headed to. But there were still a few things that didn't add up. "But what about the money that you gave to Atheson – and the money from the casino?"
Fletcher raised his eyebrows, taking back the knife case from me. "That was to buy this car and repair it for Hadley, the money was to help her when she got to where she was heading so that she could start her life over with something to her name," Fletcher explained. "Say, how long have you been following me? Did you purposely burn your house down so that you had a reason to get close to me?"
"I didn't burn down my own house. I thought you were going to kill John to pay back the money you owed to Marik, but now that Marik's dead I thought you still wanted the money from John's life insurance."
"I wish I had thought of that," Fletcher said, laughing before his face went straight again. "I'm kidding. I would never hurt John, I love that kid. I wanted all of my family to get out of Harrow Hall, and the only way to keep them safe was to keep them together somewhere else. I convinced John that he was going to take Hadley and Atheson to the airport for a trip to Marie's, I put enough money together so that John could go to safety with them. Yes, I implicated John slightly by disclosing Alana's savings account, but I had to. What else was I going to do to convince Marik and his men that everything is fine, that I have some sort of leverage to pay them back? And you think I would take money from my own baby sister – the same sister that is forced to rot away in a godforsaken nursing home that treats her like garbage? What kind of person do you think I am?"
I gulped down the fact that I had been wrong about it all – but if Fletcher wasn't the one who was going to kill John, then who was? Fletcher shook his head at me, spitting to the side as he went back over to his truck to turn it off before returning to me.
"Listen, they'll be here any minute, then you can figure out whatever you need to from there. I don't know what is wrong with you, Ellion, but you need to get serious help," Fletcher snapped, lighting up a cigarette.
I felt defeated, unsure of what to do. Who was going to kill Johnathan Shop? Just as I thought the words, I heard a loud bang nearby. Both Fletcher and I turned towards the direction it had come from – the main part of Lake Newberry, possibly near the bridge. I looked to Fletcher who also looked concerned, both of us taking off in the direction of the noise. I could hear metal crumpling until finally it was silent, darting through the small trail from one parking lot to the other, seeing the glimmer of the lake beyond the trees. Fletcher tried to keep up with me, but his back screamed out in pain as he slowed down until finally coming to a complete stop. I had no time to waste, running the fastest that I ever had as my heart raced rampantly in my chest. This was where John was supposed to die, right at the shore that I was trying to get to. I had been so consumed with blaming Fletcher that it was nearly time for John's premonition to come true – less than one minute.
I could hear yelling and then the sound of water splashing, making a bee line out of the trees to see the altercation that I had seen in my premonition. Hadley was straddling John in the water, aiming the knife at his neck as he tried to fight her off. I screamed out at the top of my lungs, causing Hadley to look over her shoulder for a moment and giving John just enough time to knock the knife from her hands. I ran across the sand to the front line of the shore, tackling Hadley with all of my might, sending us flying into the deeper part of the water. The water swarmed around me, blocking out any sound as I tried to keep Hadley in my grasp. She fought against me and managed to get up for air, grabbing a handful of my hair as she held me under the water. John tried to get up from the shore but Hadley screamed something at him, reaching for the knife between them. John desperately tried to grab it away from her, but Hadley had it in her hands before he could get to it. I needed to get a breath of air, still being held under water by Hadley. Finally she allowed me to bob up from underneath the water, gasping for air as she held the knife up and readied it to come down towards my head. This was it – I was going to die. My eyes made contact with the tip of the blade, watching as it plunged down towards me. I closed my eyes and waited for the moment the blade would pierce my skin, but it never came.
I took a deep breath, realizing that I was still quite alive. Slowly, I opened my eyes to see a hand over top of Hadley's, over powering her so that they could grab the knife from her and began swinging the blade over and over again in her stomach. She grunted in pain, blood pouring from the new wounds as she let go of my head, the knife continuously going in and out of her skin. Shock covered her delicate features, gasping with every plunge of the knife into her stomach. There was one final stab, and then it was taken away, leaving Hadley to step backwards as she grabbed at her stomach. She looked down and then turned to look over her shoulder, seeing Mahala with the blade in her hand. Mahala didn't look impressed as she dropped the knife into the water, wiping the blood off on her tan pant suit. Hadley stepped back a few more times before losing her balance, falling backwards into the water as she continued to groan in pain. She was coughing up blood by this point, crying between each coughing fit. Mahala sighed as she looked to me, shaking her head.
"I always have to fix everything for you, sister," Mahala said, watching as I unsteadily got to my feet.
"You saved me?" I said, watching as Hadley continued to cough and try to pull herself up on shore. John stood on the shore with his hand over his mouth, tears forming as he watched the scene.
"It wasn't your time yet – cause and effect, remember?" Mahala said, not bothering to look back at Hadley who was now crawling up towards John's feet.
"But why? Didn't you want John dead?" I questioned.
Mahala nodded as she washed her hands in the water, bringing some up to splash on her face despite the fact that blood was soaking all throughout. "He had to die, not you."
"Is he still going to?" I asked, looking over to him as he got down on his knees, putting his arms around Hadley as she collapsed.
Mahala finally looked over to the scene of Hadley bleeding out, shrugging her shoulders. "If she dies, then no. A life for a life," She said, turning her attention back to me before bending over to place her hands on either side of my face. "But remember, sister, there is a cause and effect for every path taken. You've chosen yours, which means the future is now uncertain."
"What do you mean? How is it uncertain?"
She leaned forward to place a kiss on my forehead, I was in too much shock to fight her off. She looked back into my eyes, smiling her toothless smile at me. "Ask your mother," Mahala said before letting go of my face, cascading out of the water and leaving me exactly where I sat in the water. She didn't say anything more despite how many times I called out after her, she had done what she needed to do.
John was crying as he held his cousin in his arms, asking her why she would do such a thing and telling her that he forgave her, that he loved her too much to be angry. But Hadley was barely hanging on, bleeding out on the shore of Lake Newberry. As much as I will always feel guilty for this, I waited for her to die. She had made her bed and now she had to lie in it, saving John from his own premonition. Soon enough she took her last breath, securing John from death.