by Ella James
I can feel it in the air, the way you feel a draft, as I walk out what I realize is the back door of the barber shop and into some kind of equally decrepit common area. There’s a cracked fountain in the middle, surrounded by some old-ass benches and a couple of closed doors I think used to lead to little shops.
My eyes catch on a red door with peeling paint on the back side of the fountain. As I start toward it, voices rise and fall in a sharp burst of sound; I stop mid-stride as a louder, familiar voice rises over the rest.
Fuck.
That sounds like Tony.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Luca
I hold my breath as I move closer to the red door.
It’s the door to the old movie theater. It’s got a narrow, vertical window, and near the top there’s a peeling sticker-poster that’s shaped like a film reel.
I don’t know what I’m planning. Maybe just to peek in. But when I look through the smudged glass, I see my dad.
He’s down at the bottom of the room, on the theater stage, his torso duct-taped to a chair. All around him, guys in dark clothes—half a dozen of them. My blood runs cold as I see Tony up in front. I don’t recognize the others, but I count five.
There’s a moment that I think of running. It’s self-preservation, like a reflex. But I’m not someone who runs. I keep looking through the window, trying to understand what’s happening and why and how. Tony crouches by my dad, waving his arm as he says something I can’t quite hear. Maybe my dad doesn’t answer. I don’t know, but Tony backhands him. My dad’s head snaps back, and pure rage billows through me.
My mind feels blank and focused as I push the door open. All seven heads turn toward me. It’s my father’s face my eyes are fixed on. There’s tape over his mouth; even from twenty or thirty yards away, I can see his face is bleeding.
“What the fuck?” Tony gives a throaty chuckle as he swaggers up the aisle, moving past folded red chairs toward me. His eyes widen as they meet mine and his face twists into a hard smile. “Look who it is,” he says in a raised voice. “It’s Bowser Junior. Come to see big Bowser one last time?”
I don’t see a gun on him, so with a few long strides, I close the gap between us.
“What the fuck is this shit, Tony?”
“Diamond to you,” he snaps, and my stomach feels like I got on a roller coaster.
I move slightly closer to him. “Why’s my dad taped to a chair?”
I’m grabbed so fast, there’s no time to struggle. Someone’s hands are twisting both my arms behind my back, and my legs buckle from the pain. I’m blinking through tears, on the floor. I can’t hold in a moan as I try to grab the hurt shoulder.
“Whoa! Someone’s rocking the head wound. Careful with his melon, Bobby.” Tony holds a hand out for me, but I’d rather die than take it, so I struggle up on my own.
He smirks. “We wanna let you go, my little dude. This is not the place for baby Bowsies. Your old man’s one thing, but you’re my brother’s buddy. You need to get going. My man Bobby B. will help you get the fuck out.”
My dad groans—or tries to speak; I can’t tell because of the tape over his mouth. I look from him to Tony, and it’s happening again. This feeling like I’m not inside my body. Like it’s not really me that says, “I can’t go until I know what this is about.”
“Your old man’s a rat,” one of the guys down in the front says. He’s some scruffy guy with a ponytail, who throws his hand up as he says it. I realize belatedly he’s brandishing a handgun.
Everything slows down another big notch. The room feels farther away.
Someone else—some random thug type to the right, says, “We can’t let him go, Di.”
Tony shakes his head like that’s just bullshit. “Bobby can watch him.”
My eyes move to Bobby—a burly guy even for this crowd.
Someone snickers: Tony’s friend Josh. “This the one on Roberto’s dick?” He walks a few rows closer to me. “What, you come to save the day?”
“See him out,” a loud voice from the front growls; I can’t tell who it belongs to.
“You can’t kill him,” my voice says.
“He’s a fucking rat, and we got no more time.” The guy behind me pulls on my sore shoulder. I twist out of his grip, gasping as stars explode in my eyes.
“Let him go! He didn’t do anything! Let him go!”
“Or what?” Tony swaggers down the aisle toward the curtain-framed stage, climbs inelegantly atop it, and yanks the strip of tape off Dad’s mouth. My dad’s eyes squeeze shut as a splotch of blood appears over his upper lip. He’s panting, and I notice for the first time how beat up he really is.
“How’d you get that fucked up face, Galante? How you ever get that fucked up face?”
Tony’s voice is easy, but I hear the latent threat—as well as his derision.
“Nobody with real balls tries to save someone who kicks their ass, eh?”
I grit my teeth. I can feel my body moving toward my dad, my legs walking like everything is okay. I stop right beside the stage.
“Dad, what’d you do?” My voice is raspy, barely whispered.
“Tell him, shoe guy,” Tony sneers. “Tell him what you did.”
Then he’s got a gun. He’s twirling a big ass revolver clumsily in his hand. Dad’s quiet, and Tony laughs. “Well, Bowsie, I guess he’ll take this one to the grave.”
“Dad.”
“Unless you wanna take his place? What do you say, Bowsie? Wanna sit in for your dad?”
“Dad, what did you fucking do?”
His blood-shot eyes flicker to mine. His eyelids are half shut and I can tell he doesn’t want to look at me—but for a second, he does. “Took some risks…and made some mistakes. I’m gonna be fine. Luca, go home to…your mother.” When I don’t move—because I can’t; my eyes have filled with tears and my whole body feels like it’s boiling—my dad jerks his chin up. “Go. Now,” he says through gritted teeth.
“I tell you what, Bowzie, I’ve got a deal you can’t turn down.” Tony gives me a shit-eating grin. “Take his place, and I won’t even off you outright. You can do roulette.” He holds up his black revolver. “Just two rounds. Good odds for you.”
Someone growls something dissenting. “Fuck you,” Tony snaps.
For a second, I feel like I’m stuck under an ocean wave. My eyes fly up and down my father, taking in what this is. The whole room feels like it’s tilting.
“Is that a real offer?” I manage.
“You want me to let him go?” Tony reaches out toward my dad, who yelps as Tony slashes through a piece of the tape with what I realize belatedly is a knife. Blood blooms on my dad’s shoulder. My heart is beating a million miles a minute and I’m sort of worried I might pass out, but somehow I look Tony in the eye and make myself nod.
“Yeah, I want you to let him go, and I’ll help figure out what happened.”
Everyone guffaws at once—a jeering laugh track that makes me cold down to the bone.
“Fuck, you got some nerve kid,” someone murmurs.
I latch my gaze onto my dad’s and don’t let go until his eyes flicker to mine. “Did you do it?”
Someone barks “Sbrigati”—telling Tony to get moving.
Tony shoves me. “Do or die, kid.” He laughs. “And by that I mean go or die.” He looks me over, his face turning serious. “Go now, Luca. Don’t be fucking stupid.”
Tears are streaming down my cheeks as I lock eyes with my dad. All I feel is love for him. I love him because he’s my dad. He’s fucked up, but he’s my dad. I don’t want to hurt him. I can’t let someone else fuck with him either.
I look into his red eyes. I forgive you. It’ll be okay.
Then I brace for pain and jump on Tony. There’s a scuffle. I end up on top of Tony, braced on my unhurt arm. It takes every ounce of strength I have to wrestle him for the gun. Pain ignites all through me like a fucking fire. We roll on the stage and he’s on top, then I’m on top, trying to r
each between us to get to his fucking hand…
My fingertips brush metal.
Then things go black. When I blink, I’m being hauled off the stage. Up the aisle toward the room’s back door. I hear fluent, hard Italian from behind me and I wrench around so I can see if—
Still alive. Oh fuck, my head. Hurts so bad I gag as my legs buckle.
“C’mon,” someone hisses. They’ve each got an arm.
Someone smacks me in the mouth. I know it’s gotta be the butt of a gun because it pings against one of my teeth, and pain explodes through my face.
“FUCK!”
I get a punch in, whirl, and see a gun pressed to my dad’s cheek. I don’t think. I just break free and run toward him.
I hear someone yell “Do it,” and everything slows down.
Seconds pass while I’m trying to climb on stage with just the one arm. In those seconds, Tony kicks my dad’s chair over. As I heft myself onto the stage, a deafening BOOM!
I feel like the world is folding inward as I sink to the floor. Blood spreads out around my father’s body—thick, dark crimson, separating into slim vertical lines as it spreads across the smooth, wax-polished boards of the stage.
Two slow blinks cement it in my mind forever: the hunch of his back, the way his hands are purple—tied too tightly with a rope, the swollen fingers. He’s got blue jeans on; I watch as the little denim fibers go red. Then my eyes shift to his ruined head.
The floor is hard under my shoe soles and the impact hurts somewhere far off. Distantly I know my legs are pumping, body’s moving—I can feel the air around me.
Something slams into me—it’s the peeling red door. I sling it open, unaware of anything until I’m outside of the building. I hear guttural screaming and I’m outside in the street. Someone is howling in the street. People shouting, tires are squealing. I smell burning rubber.
I can’t go back inside.
I can’t leave my dad like that.
Someone’s screaming too loud. Someone’s going to get killed.
I’m inside my house and something awful happened. Something awful happened. Something awful happened and I can’t…
And so I get the baseball bat he kept at his bedside and swing it, swing it, swing it till there’s black spots in my eyes and then it’s all black. Everyone…brought down by something.
I curl over on my knees and let it take me.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Elise
In the dream, we’re on a boat. We’re standing on the bow like in that movie Titanic. His arms are wrapped around me from behind, and I feel good. So it’s strange that someone’s screaming “HELP!”
I smile at him. Then the screams cut through the dream. I sit up, reeling in my dark room, gripped with knowing. This is real—and I know what the screams mean even as I jump out of my bed and fly toward my sister’s room.
When I find Becca on the bed and Maura leaning over her, counting in a reedy voice as she does chest compressions, I’m not surprised. Only horrified as I move toward the bed, my eyes locked onto Becca’s blue lips.
I hear a shout. My father nearly knocks me over rushing to the bed. He pushes Maura off Becca and grabs my sister’s head—too rough. It makes my stomach lurch, the way her body’s limp.
“Becca! C’mon baby!”
Then my mom’s shrieking behind me. She’s a rush of silk and braided hair. She doesn’t get near my sister, instead grabs the bedside phone from Maura. The nurse moves away. My mother sobs as she holds the phone.
My sister is dying.
“Becca!” I dash over to the bed and lean down over her. “I love you.”
“Get back, Elise!”
Maura scuffles with my dad. She’s back in charge of CPR. My dad says, “Come back, Becca. You can do it!”
Her lips are so dark. What happened?
“Becca bear…” The word cracks as I reach for her, pushing dark locks off her forehead. “I love you.” Her skin is cool and rubbery. I have the thought: She’s dead already.
My eyes sweep her small form—lingering on her diaper, folded back the way she likes it. Something swells in my throat, something too big that I push out like a sob.
“I love you!”
I know that this time she won’t be back. My mother’s wailing rises to the ceiling, falls back down the walls. She pushes Maura off my sister.
“My angel!”
My father nudges my mom off Bec, resumes CPR.
My mother’s sobbing. She shouts at me, telling me to back away, but no way. I’m talking to her—this will be the last time that I ever tell her anything—and Mom shoves at me again. I scream something at her and her fingernail catches my shoulder near my throat.
“Get out!” Her words are guttural. She means business, but I can’t move. I just can’t, and so my mom is leaning over me and Dad is shouting his counts, Maura weeping. Every time Dad pushes Becca’s chest, her grayish head lolls back.
“Sweet one is gone,” Maura says from somewhere that feels far away as Mom shrieks and my dad slaps Bec’s cheek and growls her name.
None of this can be real.
I get closer so I can stoke her hair, so maybe that’s what she’ll remember as she passes on. She’ll remember that I loved her…so much. “I love you, I love you Becca.”
Her eyelids tremble. Only for a second, they flutter. Her lower lip twitches. I can feel her focus on me, see the parting smile she wants to give me. Then it’s over and my mother must have seen because she’s wailing. She runs into Maura’s arms. My father stops the CPR but quickly starts again.
I can feel it—that she’s gone. Something hot and cold and heavy passes through me. My knees almost buckle and I wonder if the planet might stop spinning.
I can see my mom’s dark red nails as she slaps Becca’s cheek. My sister died!
I hear hushed tones and the crackle of a radio as I flee, dashing to the laundry room for shoes I barely get on my feet. I rush out as paramedics reach the front door. I’m dying as I move. I’m going to die just like my sister.
In the hall, I’m by the elevator. Going down, and I should have some trinket with me. I should have her with me somehow. I put my hand over my throat and close my eyes and spots flare underneath my lids. I’m shorting out. Can people die from pain? I can’t breathe.
You have got to breathe.
I walk out of the building, shaking like a leaf in the breeze. I see the ambulance and hate it, hate it. I rush down a little way and hail a cab and, with a strange and foreign voice, I give the driver an address in Red Hook.
Down the dark and sparse streets, through the traffic lights—weak lights—and past the buildings that I know like home. I’m silent. The cab driver is a youngish guy—somewhere between my parents’ age and mine. He’s listening to NPR and wearing good cologne.
Underneath the tunnel, and it’s very surreal. There are places in the burroughs where I’ve never been. Red Hook is one. I wait for it like a meteor or like a savior. Expectation. It looks black and white, broken and dingy. I don’t mind the way it is. My sister’s dead.
Industrial. Train tracks, docks, and narrow streets with buildings that are neither tall nor short but lean a bit, as if they’re thinking of throwing themselves onto sidewalks. A red-light jolt, a squeal of brakes that need new brake pads or new rotors; I don’t know. I don’t know about cars.
My driver says, “You sure about this?”
“Yes.”
He frowns at me in the mirror. I can feel concern, but I don’t want that.
Garages, neighborhood stores with neon window signs, bars on broken windows, old cars parked on curbsides. Narrow streets. I wonder why they are so narrow.
Streetlights, pools of dim light, dirty sidewalks. I feel sad for Luca, but the feeling’s distant. My sister is dead. Tonight she died. Obituaries, caskets. There will be no going back. A jump off of a ledge and falling. I wonder for how long.
Luca’s street is drab and dark and quieter than some others.
The cab pulls to the curb, the brakes squeak, and he asks again if I’m sure.
“Thank you. Yes.”
I step out and tilt my head back to look at the building. Four stories. It’s square and brick, with stairs and balconies and doors on the outside, like a horror movie motel. His unit is 104. I laugh; the sound is hollow.
Hi, Luca, my sister’s dead.
His door is right there waiting for me. The zero between the one and four is missing. The door’s wood is warped in one spot. I notice an ashtray in the dirt beside the door. I think of Luca going through that door and can’t imagine.
I knock twice softly before realizing that I can’t. I can’t just show up. What time is it? I remember seeing a 3 on the clock inside the cab. Is it 3 a.m. or something:30?
I sit with my back against the door and draw my knees up to my chest. What if someone bothers me or…gets me? Do teen girls get gotten? Yes, of course they do. All the girls get gotten, isn’t that the story? I’ll be trafficked as a sex slave. I think of riding in a horse trailer and feeling wind come through the slits. Nothing clears the fog from my head. I know I should think of Becca but I can’t. That’s all a dream.
Why did I come here? I don’t want to tell Luca.
There’s an alley right beside his unit. I stand up and walk toward it, and that’s when I hear the talking. Deep, male voices. I don’t care—I almost want to see them—but then suddenly I do care. I don’t want to die tonight. It’s too much for my parents. I scoot myself behind a bush beside his door and hold my breath. As they walk past, tears well in my eyes.
They look…rougher than I’m used to. They sound angry, maybe drunk. Or maybe you’re just sheltered.