by Nicole Snow
“What do you mean?”
“Your lawyer, whatever his face...he was sloppy when he took down that statement about what happened when Kendra quit. And holy shit, that was the best way to go out I've ever seen. Except for how he went ballistic on her after, I mean.” She narrows her eyes, giving me a look like she can't believe she has to explain everything. “Gannon called him in a rage a few days after you busted up his face, and he could talk again. I thought you knew?”
I don't know shit. Just regret not pitching Charlie off his balcony, thirty floors to the steaming Phoenix pavement, when I had the chance. My eyes go to Lizzie, the only thing in this room that gives me some peace.
Shaking my head, I lean forward, a warning in my eyes. “Get to the damn point. This isn't cocktail hour.”
“Well, Gannon was pretty pissed, like I said. I heard the whole thing. He was screaming in his office, making all kinds of threats, some your guy should've recorded if he was any use. That was about a day before I think his beating hit the local news, and your buddy, Wright, got in touch. Your lawyer told him to back off, that he had solid evidence against him if he didn't. My boss is too stupid to know when to quit. He must've pressed your lawyer's buttons because he got Kendra's statement faxed over. That's how he had her handwriting to work with when he came up with those stupid grids, and spent a week hunched on the floor like a monkey, practicing his letters over and over again like he was back in grade school, making me help check for similarities...hey, are you okay?”
On the surface, I'm a rock. A stern, immovable boulder, timeless in my anger, looking through her at my beautiful daughter because if I look anywhere else, I'll explode.
Inside, it's volcanic.
Rage at my stupidity, falling for this obvious shit I should've seen coming after two wars, and three tours in hellholes chasing blood diamonds.
Pain at my loss, and pain without mercy, knowing I deserve every end of the finger pointing for making what they tried to pull a thousand times worse.
Agony. Fiery, sharp, and fatal.
A snake named remorse bites my heart, injecting truth venom, making me feel every rotten thing I did to my woman, my love, my beautiful almost bride. And all because I got so twisted up in the games these fucking liars played, I became one myself.
I'm on my feet, standing, pacing the room. I don't say anything before I walk over, lift my little girl high in my arms, and hear her laugh.
It's the only way I remember how to smile, even if it's empty and full of pain.
“Yo, are we done, or...?” Lydia shifts her chair around to face me, brow furrowed, wondering if I've lost my mind.
“No. You'll do what you're paid for, and right now I need a babysitter.”
“Um, what? That's not what we agreed –“
“Two thousand dollars to shut up, stay close, and watch my kid. Should be on the house for how you've torched my life, and Kendra's too, but there might be something left to save. Lucky you. Shake your ass,” I growl, shooting her a sharp look. “We're getting out of here and visiting asshole's studio. I need evidence. You'll help me find it to nail his coffin shut. Then you're coming along while I visit my girl and explain everything.”
I can't get my sister on the line, and I don't know why. We swing by ma's place anyway before we head downtown. That's where I learn my sister went out this evening.
With Sunflower. And she hasn't been back for hours.
Shit. Ignoring the dirty looks ma gives Lydia, I tell her she's a substitute babysitter, and now I need to get her home. I'll find out if Jamie needs a ride on the way. Lizzie is already asleep by the time I pass her to grandma.
When we're back in my truck, the bubblegum mercenary isn't even staring at her phone. She's looking down at her fidgeting hands, face pale, too afraid to look me in the eye. Can't blame her when my rage might cause spontaneous combustion across a room.
“I'm really sorry about this. I didn't expect anyone else would get involved, you know.”
“Quit apologizing. I'm not changing our terms or my mind. If Jamie and Kendra are all right, you walk with the payment we agreed to.” And if they're not...
I roll over the nightmarish options in my head. I see myself digging a lonely grave out in the desert, and there's not a shred of remorse. It's too kind a fate for the self-serving creature next to me, and it isn't a tenth of what I'll do to Victor and Gannon if they've hurt my family, my wife.
No. Fuck this anger, this static in my head. It isn't helping. I force myself to grip the wheel, a road bound meditation, eyes locked on the highway, heading into Phoenix.
I'm somewhere else. Inside the stormy landscape where possibilities multiply, a thin roll of the dice all it takes to determine which thrive, and which die. I'm between Schrodinger's cat and cosmic miracles, where everything is uncertain, dread building in my heart.
I reach through the darkness for an anchor, the lone emotion blazing like a beacon in my heart, throbbing for the same people over and over again.
Kendra. Lizzie. Jamie. Ma.
Kendra.
“Oh, Jesus – he's here!” Lydia gasps, covering her mouth, pointing to the black car parked at the end of the narrow alley as we near the studio.
Unsurprising, and irrelevant.
I know what I have to do.
“Hey, hey, what the fuck are you doing?” she hisses as I park the truck, reaching behind me for the tactical gear in its steel case. Her scared eyes double their darkness when she sees me pull the nine, check to make sure it's locked and loaded, and stuff it into the holster near my belt. “Deals' off. I can't be a part of this, buddy. I totally did not sign up to be an accessory to murder and –“
“Shut up.” I grab her wrist, twisting it into a helpless position, waiting until I see the look that recognizes I'm not fucking around. “You'll stay behind me. I'll keep you safe. You know the place better than anybody else. I want to go in through the front. He won't expect it.”
“You know what happens if he catches us, right?”
My look hardens. “And you know what happens if he's hurt my sis and the woman I'm marrying, yeah? He's not alone in there.”
She looks past me, noticing the other vehicle in the lot, behind the artist's black car. The lump scraping her throat as she swallows is loud and audible. “God. Okay, okay, if we have to...”
“Make it fast. Stay behind me. If you've still got a key or something, I want you to have it ready by the time we're at the door.”
For once in her life, the hedgehog listens. She even beats me to the entrance by a pace or two, hands over her face, looking through the glass. By all appearances, its empty in the waiting area, her old desk bare except for a few wires hanging out.
“We were closing up and moving out this weekend,” she whispers, fumbling her code into the keypad next to the door. “Bastard didn't even offer real severance outside this stupid acting gig. Said what I'd made on this job was more than enough.”
I'm grateful Gannon is such a snake I've turned his little pet. But if he's as big a viper as I think he is, the same as Victor, I should also be very afraid, knowing he's in there with Kendra and Jamie.
My turn to swallow worry, pain, bitter optimism. That last emotion, I cling to when the door opens, and I blow past her, storming into the building. I haven't charged in with my gun drawn since Africa.
It's alien here in Phoenix, brushing past the receptionist's desk, slowing when I get to the studio's door. I give myself two whole seconds, listening for voices, any obvious hints at what I'm walking into.
There's nothing. It's eerily quiet, except for something that sounds like a fan running. My hand hits the door before my brain consciously realizes it's someone breathing.
Heavy. Strained. Helpless.
I'm in, eyes adjusting to the darkness, ears tuned to the most sinister words I've heard outside a bad action movie. Only, this evil fuckery is right in front of me. “A pity you're so clueless. If you had any idea how rich your gorgeous, alabaster sk
in is going to make me on the black market once it's picked from your bones and cured, you'd simply –“
“Knox!” Two women scream my name in unison.
“Asshole!” I slam into him like a freight train, knocking him away from the table he's leaning over.
I hear something heavy and metallic hit the floor, see it slide across the room, silvery and sharp in the dull light. He's lost the knife he was holding. I've also lost my gun, knocked out of my hand in the struggle with this prick.
I can't see where it went, and there isn't time to sweep my hands over the floor looking. Not if I want to keep the edge.
Fine. Let's do this the old fashioned way.
My fists take over, slamming into his putrid face, hellbent on erasing him from this world.
Screams surround me. The artist is faster than he looks, and greasy, too. It's hard to get a hold around his throat, so I just keep punching. His hands go everywhere, desperate and weaker than mine, but he's frantic. Completely drunk on adrenaline, which makes Johnny Average a beast.
I look around, searching for a weakness. But I'm in too big a rage, too distracted when I look up, watching Sunflower's green eyes go bright with a plea, her face turned toward me from the table.
“Your side!” she yells, a split second before another voice behind me starts screaming the same thing.
“Knox, holy shit, behind you!“ That voice belongs to my sister.
And it's the last thing I hear before the resounding gunshot. Hellfire cuts through my guts, rips through several organs, draining my life shockingly fast.
Gannon's eyelids flutter hatefully under me. He's getting stronger by the nano-second, and I'm getting weaker, trying like hell to hit him one more time.
But I can't.
I'm shot. I'm paralyzed. I'm losing a lot of fucking blood.
I collapse on top of him, a lifeless weight, vaguely noticing how he struggles to get his hands between us to pry me off. More screaming, so much more, but I can't tell from who.
I can't make out anything.
I'm dying.
15
Paradise Has a Pulse (Kendra)
Three Days Later
“He's coming out of it, Ms. Sawyer. Any second now.” The nurse taps her finger lightly against the IV hooked to his arm, frowning when his vitals don't improve on the monitor.
“It's Carlisle soon,” So I hope. It comes out more harshly than I'd like. Lizzie squirms in my arms, roused from her nap. Outrageous optimism will do that, I guess...assuming it's not delusion.
I have no idea what Knox will say when he wakes up.
Our last earthly talk before the studio had him confused, betrayed. I saw his love become hate in his eyes. Lights became chasms.
Then he saved my life. All of us here, really. The sleepy little girl on my lap, the best friend holding the old woman's hand, both of them blotting at their eyes.
We're staring at the same man. He's never looked more powerful with his eyes shut, elysian chest rising and falling, his hospital gown slightly ruffled from pulling on it in his sleep.
He's a dreaming irony. Somehow, he's become the center of the universe in this bed, the rock tethering so many lives, stronger than he ever was in his camo, his battle hardened bloodlust, his eyes like burning stars.
He saved your life, idiot. It runs through my mind with a thousand other emotions, none I can catch for long enough to define, outside the gratitude in the very air filling this room.
His lips move first. He's trying to say his first words in days. I lean in, hugging Lizzie tighter, napalm in my eyes. They're the hot, blinding tears I promised myself a dozen times wouldn't come when we reached this moment.
So much for that.
It's a bigger challenge trying to stop myself from blubbering like a baby when the throat I just want to kiss starts moving, struggling to add words to twitching lips. “Sun...Sunflower. Oh, Christ. Where the...where the hell am I?”
He winces, sitting up, scanning the room. It's dead silent, except for the door closing as his nurse steps out, giving us some privacy. Knox takes us in one at a time.
“Easy,” I whisper, leaning in.
“I didn't...die?” he whispers, glancing at the source of his pain under the sheet, the long stitches running through his abdomen.
“Hardly, Mr. Drama King.” Jamie's words are little sister sarcasm, but her tone is fluid honey. “You're alive. In Phoenix. On planet earth. Lucky us.”
He shoots her a scornful look. Then she stands, leans over me, and pecks him on the forehead. “No, idiot. I'm serious about the last part – lucky us. Welcome back, Knox.”
His mother moves in for a quick kiss, too, whispering a few indistinct words to her baby boy. I'm bouncing Lizzie gently, trying to wake the little girl from her nap as much as I am distracting myself. I can't breakdown in front of him.
I promised I'd be strong, present, here for him when he shows me what he needs. My heart also drums a furious beat through my bones, uncertainty its music.
I don't know what happens next.
I don't know how he feels.
I don't know how we forget the wreck the last time we spoke.
Or how we love again.
“Sunflower...” He whispers my nickname again, eyes fixed on me, flitting briefly to the little girl when Jamers and Mrs. Carlisle give us some space. “How?”
I pause, staring at the others, soft smiles shining on their faces.
It's time, just like we discussed.
“Let's give you kids some time alone,” his mother says, brushing her granddaughter's hair over her ear before she turns, heading for the door. Jamie winks, as if to say good luck, and then she's gone, too.
“Daddy? You're okay, okay?” Lizzie slides forward in my arms, tapping him gently on the shoulder.
That gets a smile from both of us. It's the first we share since our own little hell, and then the big one Gannon and Wright created.
“I'm breathing and in one piece...or near enough. Thanks for reminding me to count my blessings, peewee.” He reaches out, ruffling the little girl's hair. She wraps her tiny hands around his finger while Knox looks at me. “Thought I'd lost you and my own life. What happened?”
My smile withers. I hate having to re-live the most heart-stopping moments of my life, but I'm able to because, deep down, they're over. “You lost a lot of blood. I saw his hand going for the gun and cried out, tried to warn you.”
“Too little, too late,” he says, nodding.
“You were...hurt.” I pause, staring at Lizzie's curious face. I pull her in close, careful to cover her ears. It isn't more than a few seconds before she's drifting off again, sleepy and content. “He pulled the trigger before we could do anything. I was in no shape to fight. He punched Jamie in the face, held me down on that table, whispered those horrible things. If you hadn't gotten there when you did...”
“Lucky timing. Thought my luck ran out as soon as I felt that bullet slice through me. How the hell am I still alive? And you, Sunflower?”
“He cracked when he saw the blood. I don't know if he was delusional, confused from you hitting him, or what...but you went down hard. Trapped him. He tried to push you off and got his hands bloody. Then he started screaming, thrashing, shooting wildly into the ceiling until there was nothing left to fire. Lydia rushed in when she heard his gun clicking.”
Knox snorts, shaking his head. “Saved by a fucking hedgehog? Life has a sicker sense of humor than I thought.”
“Well...not quite.” I close my eyes briefly, re-living the last time I saw Eric Gannon. “Lydia rushed in, holding a big black rock she pulled from the junk in the corner. One of his old Zen explorations pieces. She was about to bash his head, put him out cold, but he started screaming again. He got out from under you, running for the door.”
Knox's face tenses. “Don't tell me. He got away?”
“No. He ran straight into your friend, Wright, who must've known he was a loose cannon. He showed up surrounded by guy
s in black body armor, half a dozen, maybe. They looked like a SWAT team.”
“Fuck,” Knox growls, lowering his eyes. When he brings them back to me, they're alive again. Conscious with a fire that's still willing to kill, if need be, to make this right.
I'm grateful he won't have to.
“The rest of it was just a blur, honestly. They grabbed Gannon, restrained him. He never had a chance against so many. Then they noticed Jamers, pointing her finger and screaming, telling them to get an ambulance out here, stat. The men, I can only think they recognized you.”
“My old acquisitions crew,” Knox says, finally understanding. “Christ. They'd be the only ones he could trust, if he meant to put down a rabid dog and not say anything about it.”
“He never had a chance. They turned on him as soon as they saw you bleeding out. He screamed all kinds of threats when one of them refused to drop his phone. I saw your eyes open when they put Victor Wright in handcuffs, too, and held him there while we waited for the police. I hoped you saw, but I guess you didn't, or maybe you don't remember.”
“Thought it was as dream, darling,” he says quietly, running his fingers over mine. “Some sort of hallucination before I left this world, my mind seeing what I wanted to happen, what I needed to save you from, before it went bad.”
“You did save us, Knox. Does it really matter who finished it? Without you, God only knows where it would've went. Nowhere good. Look at us,” I say, a tremor in my voice, grasping his hand. It's so warm, just like the little girl in my grip. “Everybody's here. Alive. Safe. Happy.” Or soon to be, I mentally add, bracing for what happens next, now that the how is over.
Next, he'll want whys. And those damn whys are what always matter most.
“I was wrong about you, Kendra,” he says, grasping my hand more firmly, bringing it to his chest. “Walked straight into their trap, willing to believe the lies I should've seen through from the very first second.”
I look away. It's too much. If I hold his eyes, I will start crying again, and I really don't want to wake up Lizzie when she's sleeping so peacefully. “Forget it. It's not like you could've known. Obviously, we're not happy over it, but people make mistakes.”