Page 90 of Hearts of Fairlake

"You're not the only one responsible for that," I reminded her without thinking what I was saying.

Her gaze drifted to where my hand was resting on my gun. “Gonna shoot me, Ian?"

"I really hope you don't bring it to that," I said, knowing Trevor was making sure the other officers were moving people away from behind Isabelle in case it did come to that. The stall Isabelle was pinned against was one of the many food shops circled around a small clearing, and I could still hear the food sizzling away on the grills somewhere behind her. Hopefully, the stall runners had managed to get away safely. I didn't know if I'd be able to live with myself if someone got hurt because of her.

"Oh c'mon, we both know you'dloveto," she said, her eyes sliding over to Kyle, making her lip curl. "Though your little fairy boyfriend looks like he wants to do it instead."

"Fairy boyfriend? She sounds like a nineties teen movie bully," Kyle muttered.

Isabelle couldn't hear him, I didn't think, but she clearly knew when she wasn't being taken seriously, and she yanked Ayla with her. All of us were forced to watch as she dragged my daughter behind the stall. For a moment, I thought she was reaching for a weapon she had stowed away, but my motions to quickly shuffle around and get eyes on her stopped when I saw the lighter in her hand and a mangled-looking cigarette in the other that she lit.

"I want...what's mine," Isabelle said, setting the lighter on the counter. She had to use the hand holding Ayla to smoke, but that didn't seem to deter her as she made sure to keep the lit end of the cigarette dangling near Ayla's face.

"There is nothing here for you, nothing that's yours," I told her. I was torn between the rage rolling and seething inside me and the sheer terror of my daughter being in this disaster. Never in all my life had I felt as helpless and useless as I did then while my ex held our daughter hostage, smoking dangerously close to what I knew had to be propane tanks for the grills.

"You act like you're better than me, always have," she said, and I didn't like how calm she was now. She was surrounded, not just by the crowd, but by several cops, and there were plenty of officers around to catch her if she tried to escape. She should have had no reason to be calm suddenly. "All because...you've got this perfect life? Fucked up as it is."

"You had your chance to be part of my life...repeatedly," I told her in a calm voice, even as my anger bubbled higher and higher. "In Ayla and my lives. You didn't want it, and now you're...what? Going to try to take it? Going to destroywhat's here? You know that can't work out for you, there's too many people, too many cops."

"So many pigs around," she said with a roll of her eyes, her body jerking as she kicked out in anger, hitting something beside her.

"Are you guys...going to do anything?" Kyle asked softly. "She's up to something, and I don't like her being up to something."

"She's always up to something," I said grimly. "But you're right."

"Dad, she…" Ayla began and then winced when Isabelle's hand twitched again.

"Shut it," Isabelle snarled. "No need to ruin the surprise."

I didn't know what the chief had in mind because the radios had gone silent, probably because they'd switched to another channel. I would be out of the loop because Isabelle's focus was purely on me, and the slightest movement from me could potentially provoke her. The only thing I could hope was that whatever they had in mind would settle this without anyone getting hurt. Well, anyone innocent, that was. I wasn't concerned if Isabelle ended up hurt again. She had done all this and if the consequences found her, then all the better.

"Plenty of them to roast," she said, shoving Ayla forward and sending her careening over the back of the stall she'd positioned them behind. Ayla flailed as she tried to catch herself, but she’d been caught by surprise and had no time to recover. She flipped over the shelf and landed on the ground with a grunt. I was moving before I knew what I was doing, and I barely paid attention as Isabelle reached for something, and I heard the Chief yell at me to stop.

Ayla was already pushing to her feet to throw her arms out as she yelled. “The tanks, she...opened the tanks! Run!"

I caught up to my daughter just in time to connect thedots and look up at Isabelle. The silver lighter was in her hand, lit and tossed upward, spiraling through the air in a graceful, smooth arc. Only then did I realize I could hear the hissing of the tanks she had probably kicked earlier.

Shouts erupted as some made the same connection, but none felt as loud as the one that bellowed up out of my chest as I yanked Ayla to her feet. “Run!"

DEVIN

"I'm not saying you're wrong," I began with amusement. "But there were probably better ways of handling that."

"You were uncomfortable. I made her stop groping you."

"She was drunk."

"Yeah, and? Would you be saying the same thing if it was some random guy who came up and groped you repeatedly while trying to talk about what he wanted to do to you?"

Alright, that was a fair point. “Probably not. But I'm pretty sure you scared the piss out of her."

"All I said was if she didn't remove her hands, she was going to have a bigger problem than tomorrow's hangover," Chase said, taking what I assumed was a retaliatory bite out of the caramel apple we'd found at one of the stalls.

I raised a brow. “There were several more curse words in there, and then you told her that her other problem would be the stumps where her hands were."

Chase shrugged. “Well, drunk or not, you don't put your hands on other people."

I turned to stop in front of him, smirking. “Especially when that person is yours?"

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