Lola on Fire

by Rio Youers

“This is how it’s going to work,” Jimmy returned, his voice clear in the stillness. “You’re going to send your boy out to get her. While he’s doing that, my men will remove any guns you’re carrying from the equation. It’s better for everyone that we don’t have any nasty surprises.”

  “I agree,” Lola said.

  “Then your kids slowly get into the truck, while you slowly get out. My men will pat you down—again, no surprises—and the little tots drive away.” Jimmy growled contentedly. Even this came through the earpiece. “Everybody’s happy. Except you, Lola. You most certainly will not be happy. But you know that, don’t you?”

  “Let’s do this,” Lola said, her voice remarkably calm. She killed the call and tossed her phone into the cupholder.

  Blair started to walk Molly toward the truck.

  “Go get your sister,” Lola said.

  “Mom, I—”

  “Now, Brody. You said you’d do exactly what I need you to do. This is what I need. So do it.”

  Brody felt something tear inside him. It was small, but vital. A connection between his heart and brain. Or his body and soul. It spilled emotion instead of blood: anger, grief, fear, sadness, confusion, relief, disappointment. A copious flow. He reflected on his mom’s rare show of emotion—how she’d cried at the side of the road. And this was the reason why: because she was quitting, throwing in the towel, giving up.

  “You can’t do this,” Brody whispered. “You can’t let Jimmy win.”

  “Jimmy always wins.”

  “He killed Dad. You remember him, right? Ethan Anthony Ellis. You had two kids with him. Used to watch the sunrise together.”

  “Brody—”

  “And Renée. Oh Jesus, she was so sweet and kind. And Jimmy killed her—just fucking killed her.”

  “Right, and I am not going to let him kill you.” Lola’s voice remained calm but there were sparks in her eyes. “This is the only way, Brody. Look out the window: sixteen armed guys plus Blair, who equals at least another five—”

  “Sixteen?” Brody frowned.

  “Ten surrounding the truck. Four on the roof. Two with Jimmy.”

  Brody looked at the warehouse roof and saw the outlines of four gunmen.

  “We can’t beat them all,” Lola said.

  “But if we’d planned something, hit them by surprise—”

  “You’re inexperienced,” Lola said. “I’m old and slow. This was never a fight we could win.”

  “But I was willing to die trying.”

  “Right. You’d be dead, then Jimmy would kill Molly, too. And I can’t let that happen.” She took a deep breath—as steady as her voice—and placed one cool hand on his face. “I left you twelve years ago to get you out of danger. I’m doing the same thing now.”

  Blair had walked Molly one-third of the way toward the truck and stopped. Her eyes—they were different shades of brown, Brody remembered—were narrowed, ready for anything.

  “Go get your sister,” Lola said again.

  Brody nodded, and memories skated briefly through his mind: the old days with Mom, Dad, and Molly—magical Christmas mornings, camping at Crow Wing Lake, carol-singing dressed as snowmen. And more recent times, from their long conversations in the spare room to her teaching him how to load a fifteen-round mag.

  He looked at her, his mouth open, and he was about to say that he didn’t want to lose her again, then he bled out. No memories. No emotions. Only numbness.

  He opened the passenger door and stepped outside.

  * * *

  Two armed goons advanced on him. One wore a bulletproof vest and a riot helmet. “Hands in the air,” he shouted. Brody did as he was ordered. The other gunman turned Brody around and pushed him against the truck. His hands were everywhere: in Brody’s crotch, around his ankles, down both sides of his rib cage. He turned Brody again and frisked his front.

  “Clear.”

  The goon in the riot helmet shoved Brody ahead of the truck. “Get moving.” Brody reeled and fell to one knee. “Up. Get up.” Brody got up. He started walking toward Blair and Molly. The goon followed, urging Brody along with the muzzle of his AR-15.

  Blair gave a signal. Three more gunmen moved on the truck. They checked the cargo bed—empty—and opened the rear doors. One of them lifted the carryall of weapons from the backseat. Lola sat behind the wheel and didn’t move. Jimmy’s boys emptied their bags, spilling clothes everywhere. They checked beneath the seats, the center console, the glove compartment.

  “Clear.”

  Brody had almost reached Molly by this point. Her clothes were dirty and bloodstained, and she wore only one sneaker. A heartbreaking detail, Brody thought. She looked at him through one eye—the other was bruised closed—and spoke his name softly.

  Blair said his name, too. “Heya, Bro.” She pushed Molly toward him, and Brody lunged to catch her.

  “Molly,” he said, lifting her, holding her. “Molly, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Oh, Brody,” she said, placing her hand on his face where their mom had. “None of this is your fault.”

  They held each other a moment longer, then Blair sneered, “So sweet,” and Brody looked at her. There was no anger in his expression, only that numbness—an empty, spiritless stare. This appeared to unnerve Blair just a touch. That wily glint in her eye faded and she pressed her lips together.

  Brody had no words for her, either. No breath. He simply gathered Molly closer and turned back to the truck.

  “Wait,” Blair said.

  He stopped, looked over his shoulder. Molly stumbled against him. He propped her up as gently as he could, fixing Blair with that same numb gaze.

  “You did everything I wanted you to. You’ve earned this . . .” Blair reached into her back pocket, took out a worn black wallet, and offered it to him. “I told you I’d destroyed it. That was a lie. One of many, as it turns out.”

  This earned the slightest reaction; his left eyebrow twitched. He took the wallet, let it fall open. The face on the South Carolina driver’s license was his. The name on the Social Security card, and on the numerous maxed-out store and credit cards, was his.

  “This isn’t your problem anymore,” Blair said. “Get out of here. And don’t even think about going to the cops, or you’ll be in a whole new kind of shitstorm—one even I couldn’t dream up.”

  Brody said nothing. He pushed his wallet into his pocket, then he and Molly staggered back to the truck, stepping into the glare of the headlights like two broken characters walking into the sunset. The goon in the riot helmet followed them the whole way, his rifle unnecessarily poised.

  As Brody helped Molly onto the backseat, Blair shouted, “Okay, bitch. Out of the truck. And remember, there are seventeen guns pointed at your kids.” Brody climbed in on the passenger side as his mom stepped out on the driver’s. “Slowly. Hands where I can see them.” She didn’t get the chance to raise her hands; four bruisers—two in riot gear—jumped forward. They threw her over the hood, her arms and legs spread. One of them cracked her head against the hard steel. The sound was loud inside the truck—a dull, metallic thonk. They frisked her forcefully, their monstrous hands probing, grabbing. As they lifted her, turned her around, Brody saw a shallow cut over her eye. Blood trickled from it, down her face, around her jawline. A single drop fell and splashed on the hood. It stood out on the silver paint with shocking clarity.

  They searched her from the front, taking every opportunity to express their ugliness. One of them forced her mouth open and ran his finger around her gums, checking for a cyanide pill, Brody thought.

  “Clear.”

  Lola was turned around and marched toward the warehouse. She had a gunman on each arm, one in front—walking backward with his rifle in her face—and one behind. In the second before being led away, she had looked at Brody through the truck’s windshield.

  I love you, she had mouthed.

  The other gunmen fell in behind. Two of them kept their sights locked on the truck. This didn�
��t surprise Brody; the entire switch had been executed with military precision. Except for one small detail: they’d neglected to check under the dashboard.

  “Brody . . .” Molly groaned from the backseat.

  “I’m here, Moll,” he said. But he wasn’t. Not really.

  He slid behind the wheel, started the ignition, and backed away.

  * * *

  He got as far as the lane that ran beside the rumbling factory, then stepped on the brake. It was the blood—that single drop of blood on the hood. Brody couldn’t take his eye off it, the way it spread as the truck picked up speed. It looked like . . . like . . .

  “Brody?” Molly said. “What are you doing?”

  “Can you drive?” he asked.

  “Can I . . .” Molly groaned. “Jesus, Brody. My left leg’s messed up and I can only see out of one eye.”

  That drop of blood. It looked like the bright, burning coal that Brody had forged earlier—a symbol of his rage and resolve. With this association, the coal reignited. A spark, a flame. It melted his numbness.

  “You work the gas and brake with your right foot,” he said, looking at Molly in the rearview. “And you only need one eye to see.”

  “See? Brody, let’s go.” Molly lowered her head. “Can we . . . let’s please . . . let’s just go.”

  “I can’t turn away from this, Moll,” he said. “It’s too big. I’ll never be able to live with myself.”

  “I don’t know what you’re saying,” she mumbled. “I just . . . I don’t.”

  He pulled a thin wrap of notes from his pocket, turned in his seat, and handed it to her. “Two hundred and eighty-four dollars. That’s all the money we have left. It’ll cover some of your meds and a new pair of sneakers. Then get yourself a bus ticket.”

  “Brody—”

  “Go to Nebraska,” he said. “Owlfeather Farm. It’s just outside a small town called Lone Arrow. Will you remember that?”

  “Mom’s farm,” Molly said. Renée had obviously told her what she’d found, probably right before Jimmy came knocking.

  “It’s your farm now,” Brody said. He clasped her hand and smiled weakly. “You’ll love it. You have horses.”

  “I’m not going on my own.”

  His eye drifted back to the drop of blood on the hood. It had lost it shape, but not its color—its redness. And it was no longer just his mom’s blood. It was his dad’s, and Renée’s, and Karl Janko’s. It was every drop of blood that Jimmy had ever spilled. It was every vile thing he’d done.

  “You have to,” he said.

  “I don’t know what you’re planning,” Molly said, grasping as he pulled his hand from hers. “But I know it’s something stupid.”

  “Yeah, it is.” He reached beneath the dashboard. “This whole thing started when I did something stupid. I guess that’s how it should end.”

  “Please, Brody . . . don’t do this.”

  He grabbed the sawed-off shotgun and freed it from the clips holding it in place. The weight of it in his palm, its cold metalwork and the smooth wood of its stock, stirred the newly realized hardness in his veins.

  “Jesus Christ, Brody,” Molly grabbed the shoulder of his leather jacket. “This isn’t just stupid. It’s suicide.”

  Brody shook her off, opened the door, and hopped down from the truck. The night was icy and smelled sour. Smoke from the factory billowed overhead, a dirty shade of orange.

  “Brody.”

  “I love you, Molly. You’re the best thing in my life by a thousand miles.” Brody bypassed all the combative emotion—all the rage and grief—and gave her the biggest smile he could. “Now get out of here.”

  He started toward the warehouse, the shotgun clasped in one hand. Only two cartridges in the side-by-side barrels, but he only needed to kill two people.

  * * *

  Jimmy walked down to meet her, taking his sweet time, savoring every moment. His hair was now completely silver. The expensive oils he’d applied made it shine. No wrinkles across his brow or around his eyes, though. The scarring had kept his face from aging.

  He stopped, looked her in the eye. They were the same height, five-foot-six. Good for fucking, he’d once snarled at her, laughing it off as flirtation when she knew he was being horribly serious. He didn’t have fucking on his mind now, though. He curled the hard ridge of tissue that passed for his upper lip and spat in her face. His saliva was warm and it smelled and Lola didn’t flinch.

  “I was beginning to wonder if this day would ever come.” His voice was raspier. He’d lost that Italian smoothness. Maybe his vocal cords had been damaged in the fire. “But here you are.”

  She said nothing.

  “You have Blair to thank.” He nodded toward Blair, who stood with her hands on her hips, close to her .45s—two of the many guns brought to the party. Lola thought that, if she moved suddenly, the jumpier soldiers would pull their triggers. There might even be some friendly fire. A small consolation, particularly if Jimmy got caught in the crossfire. At the very least, Lola would bleed out before he could have his fun.

  “Go ahead,” Blair said. “Thank me.”

  Lola looked at Jimmy and remained silent.

  “She’s like you, only better, stronger, faster.” He pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek. His eyes glowed, all but crackling. “And smarter. Much smarter. I’d put you in a cage with her, a fight to the death, for the sheer spectacle, but I fear it’d be over too soon.”

  “Oh, it would,” Blair said.

  Jimmy ran his palm across Lola’s face, smearing the blood and spit away. “I want this to last a long, long time.” He held his hand up for her to see, then licked the blood clean, not to shock her—he couldn’t do that—but because he was thirsty.

  “I’ve dreamed you,” he said simply, sadly, then balled the hand he’d just licked and struck her across the jaw. He had terrific power for a man in his sixties—for a man who should have died twenty-six years ago, who’d breathed through a machine and navigated a coma. I could never beat you, she thought with bitterness and consternation. I was foolish to ever think I could.

  She tried to stay upright but couldn’t. The pain mapped a route from her jaw, to her spine, to her hips, then down her legs. She dropped heavily, blood leaking from her mouth onto the gravel.

  This was just the beginning. There would be weeks of this. Maybe months. Lola spat more blood and sought out that desolate place inside her—that detached, solemn box she had lived in as a child—but instead found herself peering longingly down the gravel track. She frowned, then sighed. Her ground-level perspective showed her a pair of blue and white sneakers advancing behind the parked vehicles on the right-hand side of the track, moving stealthily from one to the next. Brody’s sneakers, of course, because the goddamn kid didn’t know when to quit.

  “Fuck,” she said.

  No desolate place, no box. Not yet. Now she had to protect her child.

  Now she had to fight.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Brody expected to infiltrate the warehouse, sneak between crates and boxes, avoiding surveillance, until he found Blair and Jimmy. He’d envisioned a scenario where they were in a room together, unarmed, with no means of egress. Sitting ducks. Two shots. Boom boom, as John Lee Hooker famously sang.

  Not the case. Blair, Jimmy, and his band of soldiers were still outside, forming a loose circle around Lola. Their weapons were lowered, but that didn’t mean they weren’t on high alert. One small sound—a sniff, a broken twig—and those barrels would be raised. The gunmen on the warehouse roof were a bigger problem. Their vantage point offered a greater probability of Brody being spotted as he closed in. For now, all eyes were on Jimmy.

  Brody’s were, too. He watched as Jimmy hit his mom—a bone-jarring right hook that dropped her to the ground. The coal inside Brody flared, its heat rising. He crept forward, using the parked vehicles for cover. He’d never fired a shotgun. The one thing he knew was that closer equaled deadlier. This was likely ev
en truer with eighteen inches lopped off the barrels.

  Gravel crunched beneath his sneakers. He stopped, held his breath, counted to ten. Nobody had heard; their attention was on the boss, holding court with his cruelty. Keeping low, Brody moved to the next vehicle—close enough now to hear Jimmy’s voice.

  “. . . if you’ll scream as loud as Vincent screamed. You know, Lola, for all his toughness . . .”

  There were two more vehicles parked along this side, which would bring Brody to within range of his targets—lethal range, hopefully, depending on the shotgun’s spread. He had a decision to make, though. Should he use the vehicles to get closer and risk being spotted? Or break cover and take the shot now, guaranteeing the element of surprise, but sacrificing the shotgun’s effectiveness?

  Closer, he thought. If this was his last act on this godforsaken earth, he’d for damn sure make it count. He wanted Blair—wanted to blast the cunningness out of her eyes. But what he really wanted was the man who had killed his father.

  “. . . and I will enjoy every moment, every drop of blood . . .”

  The coal burned. Brody felt it in his fingertips, in the soles of his feet. It blazed through his heart. He shifted to the next vehicle. The nearest gunman stood with his back to Brody, maybe eight feet away. Brody could lift him out of his boots with one trigger pull.

  Tempting, but no . . .

  Jimmy kicked Lola in the ribs—a savage, eye-watering strike—and Brody used the distraction to move up to the final parked vehicle. This was it—as close as he could get. He took a moment to visualize what he had to do.

  Two shots: Jimmy and Blair.

  He brought his father’s face to mind, then popped up from behind the hood, raising the shotgun. Lola moved at the same time. So did one of the gunmen on the roof.

  The gunman fired first. The shot was desperate and missed Brody by a few inches, but it was close enough to stagger him. He jerked the front trigger and sent a comet of lead shot into the night sky. The report was formidable. The recoil more so. It knocked Brody backward and he sat down with a thud, behind the car and out of sight.

  Another round zipped through the air where he’d been standing only a second before.