"Got it," she agreed with a firm nod, closing both her hands around it, following me as we made our way to the stairs, both spreading our legs wide to step only on the outsides of the planks where they were stapled down, where they were least likely to creak.
Getting to the top, my stomach swirling, my pulse pounding, I pushed the door open, steeling myself for any possible encounter as I poked out my head.
But there was no one.
Not even the sounds of anyone.
And, well, why would there be?
They were probably all figuring their comrade had it under control, gearing up for the "fun" they were supposed to be having with Chris.
I looked back, giving her a small smile, not quite victorious because we were nowhere near freedom yet, but letting her know that we had won a small battle in the war.
I moved out a foot only to feel my arm snagged in a surprisingly strong grip. Turning, Chris pointed toward the far end of the hall. Likely because it was quieter. And since she had a lot more experience with this place than I did, I moved across the hall with her barely two feet behind, sneaking like curious kids through the halls on Christmas Eve night.
The thoughts moved through my mind, unbidden, as I was worried even thinking them might jinx us, as we rounded a corner that I knew from counting my steps that first night would lead to the garage.
This is too easy.
But why would they feel the need to station guards all around when they kept us chained in a basement behind a locked door?
My breath was stuck in my lungs as my hand grabbed the doorknob, feeling it turn easily in my hand, opening without a sound.
Unable to help it, I shot Chris an incredulous look over my shoulder before moving into the dark space. Unable to see, I felt Chris brush against me as she came in.
I closed the door with a quiet click as Chris's hand felt around the wall, found a switch, flicked on a fluttering bulb overhead.
I cringed at it, wondering if the light might draw attention, but it was pitch. We needed to be able to make out our surroundings.
The car that had been my very temporary prison was gone, leaving nothing but a drip spot darkening the concrete of the floor.
Long, weather-worn workbenches lined one wall, tools of every form, for every task, hung and lay there, some new and shiny, others dusty, connected to one another by long filmy strips of old cobwebs.
It smelled like a garage too - all dirt and oil and airlessness.
"There's a door," Chris declared, waving a hand out to the side of the electric garage door - something that would make too much noise, but would have been the only option otherwise.
I nodded at her, eyes moving across the workbenches for anything of use. "Do you see a flashlight? It's nighttime," I added since it was easy to lose track of day cycles in a darkened basement. "I don't know if we are escaping into the woods or what, but a flashlight would be handy."
And a lighter.
Something weatherproof.
But I wasn't hoping for miracles.
We would make do.
"There," I whispered, seeing the telltale silver of a Maglite butted up on a shelf near the door.
We moved in that direction, Chris instinctively taking my six, letting me lead, trusting me.
Trusting me.
When I was as young as she was.
But, I reminded myself, squashing down the insecurity that had been bubbling up, I had led a very different life, had very distinct skills that she likely lacked. She probably picked up on that, decided I was better equipped to take the lead.
My hand reached for the flashlight, closing over the reassuring weight, knowing it could easily break a nose or eye-socket. Or front tooth. Like what happened to Malc a few months back, giving everyone nightmares about it for weeks while he got a nice crown and acted like it was no big deal.
I hoped it had batteries as my palm slipped over the grips on the handle, my thumb finding the button on the end, pushing.
And it lit up.
Right on something very familiar on the floor beside the door.
Something I had with me when they took me.
Something they had used to pull me back, catch me off-guard.
My purse.
I didn't even think.
Didn't stop to wonder if the contents were worth taking it, worth the extra weight. It was like there was some primal drive not to have any part of me left here save for maybe some blood stains on the floor.
I grabbed it, throwing it over my shoulder, but keeping the flashlight in my hand, just flicking it back off.
"Take a deep breath," I told Chris.
Because we were likely going to run like we never had before.
But also because we had no idea what we were walking into, what we might have to face, and a steadying breath was likely something we both desperately needed.
I sucked one in until my lungs burned, until my belly was distended, holding it for a second before letting it slowly out.
"Ready?"
"Yes."
There was conviction in that word, something deep and certain, something that said she felt it right down to her marrow.
And that determination was only going to do us good as I reached for the door, turned the lock, and moved outside.
The air felt colder than I expected, prickling over my too-exposed skin, making goosebumps form over every inch of me as a shiver racked my system.
The moon was blessedly bright, not hiding behind some clouds, making an already difficult task downright impossible, illuminating the grounds, massive and tree-lined.
We must have been facing the side property, a giant, crumbling retaining wall holding back a mass of overgrown vegetation, trees that were more like weeds, brambles, leaves that looks suspiciously shiny even in the nighttime - poison ivy.
It would have been the closest way to freedom, the side yard.
And while I was a pretty decent climber, I didn't know about Chris. And this didn't exactly seem like the time for a long conversation about anything.
I moved out a few feet, keeping my body pinned to the side of the house as Chris moved back a foot, shutting the door with a click that was quieted by the sounds of the night. Wind rustling leaves. Crickets chirping - 'stridulating,' Rey would have informed me, being a bottomless pit of critter knowledge. Whatever it was, it was loud, a symphony playing our escape music.
I was sure I would never hear it the same way again.
I took a few more steps, pulling in another breath before I popped my head out from the corner of the house to check out the backyard.
I yanked back with a hiss, heart slamming.
"What?" Chris whispered, barely loud enough to meet my ear, and I was only inches away.
"Three guys," I told her, leaving out that they had semi-automatics strapped around them, one hand on the guns themselves, ready to use them.
If there was that kind of force in the back, the front was likely no better. But we had to check.
Worst case, we could scale it.
I wasn't the strongest of girls, but with fear and adrenaline coursing through me, I was sure I could pull Chris up with me if she couldn't manage on her own.
I moved around her, nodding toward the front. "Gotta check," I whispered, hip brushing against hers as I moved.
It was only maybe twelve feet, but felt the length of a football field before I was at the other corner, steadying myself as I peeked my head around to see.
There was one guy toward the far end of the property, eyes scanning around before there was the distinct - but indecipherable from this far away - sound of a man's voice. I froze, watching as the man in the front smiled, then followed the voice, seemingly toward the back with his friends.
"We need to run like hell," I told Chris, giving her just a second of eye-contact to be sure she was with me, then turning back.
I didn't think.
I didn't weigh the pros and cons.
I just threw my legs o
ut - suddenly incredibly thankful that I had inherited them from my father - and ran as fast as they could carry me, heart slamming, wind whipping through my hair, the sound whooshing against my ears.
I didn't realize I was alone until I heard her.
Not Chris.
No.
V.
My grandmother.
"Missing something, Ferryn?" her voiced called, sickly sweet, like a witch asking children to come inside for tea when she intended to bake them into cookies.
I knew.
I knew without turning.
But turn was what I did.
To face my grandmother.
To find her with Chris right in front of her, a gun pointed at her temple.
She must have frozen.
Chris.
She must have frozen when she felt a hand grab her, because she was still holding the top to the toilet tank, could have used it before that gun pressed into her temple.
I wondered a bit fleetingly if she knew V, if she knew she was behind the whole operation, if she understood what was happening right now.
One look at her face showed sheer panic, her eyes taking on the look of a deer in the headlights, her body trembling visibly even from a distance.
"Give it up!" I demanded, voice raising enough to make the man who had abandoned his post a moment ago coming running back.
"Excuse me?" V asked, seemingly put off that I wasn't similarly shaking, wasn't begging for our lives.
"Give it up. What do you stand to gain here? What do you want from me? My mom? She's too smart to walk in here without a plan and backup, and you know it."
"A mother will do just about anything for the love of her child."
"Love," I scoffed, trying to keep her talking, trying to give Chris a chance to fight or even just sink to the ground, get out of the path of a bullet. "What could you possibly know about love with that black hole of a heart in your chest?"
"Love has many forms," V insisted, a muscle starting to tick in her jaw.
"Really? And scars across your daughter's back, and threats of rape against your granddaughter... what kind of love could that possibly be?"
There was no answer to that.
She fumbled with that realization for a second as my eyes begged Chris to do something. Anything at all.
But all she could do was shake.
Mouth I'm sorry to me.
She was sorry.
Her.
Not my grandmother.
Her.
Somehow, that made the rage boil through my veins again.
There wasn't a single thing this girl who had been brutalized for months, with no hope of an end, should be sorry for.
But the woman behind her?
The woman with a gun?
The woman who wanted to use her to get to me?
To have her men abuse her in my name?
Yeah, no, that bitch had everything to be sorry for.
"Get back in the house, Ferryn," she finally said, breaking the deafening silence, sounding so much like a frustrated mom that it was almost laughable.
But she wasn't a mom.
She was a demon wearing the flesh of a woman who once so happened to give birth to someone.
That was all.
My chin was in the process of lifting a bit higher, something almost all of the women in the girls club did, a sign of pride and stubbornness I was proud to inherit, when she spoke again.
"Do it now, Ferryn," she said, voice low and lethal. The woman had a blade of a knife instead of a tongue. "If you make this difficult, I will make you watch while the men have fun with your friend, just so you know what damage your insolence has."
I didn't think.
I wasn't even aware that the signal had gone from my brain to my arm until my eyes noticed it lifting.
I wasn't capable of being aware of thoughts when all I could feel was the kind of rage that felt like an out of control wildfire ravaging through my system, destroying everything in its wake.
My finger slipped to the trigger.
Pulled.
Everything seemed to slow as I felt the explosion of the bullet leaving the muzzle, felt the kickback of it through my hand and arm.
I'd swear I saw it as it barreled outward, a small flash and a lethal metallic bullet slicing through the air.
But even as I became aware of that, it was suddenly soaring through the air faster than an eye could follow.
The next thing I knew, a hole was forced into the skull of my grandmother, stark red blood and pink brain matter exploding outward from the pressure, splattering the side of Chris' face as - just like that - the life left my grandmother.
Her body swayed on its feet for a long second, her face plastered in her death-shock, eyes - so much like mine - huge, lips parted, like she couldn't believe this pathetic standoff was what finally put her in the ground, closer to the depths of hell where she had clearly come from.
There was no time for the realization to hit me as the man - V's man - roared, making me horrifyingly aware of the semi-automatic in his hand, the kind of damage he could do with it. Easily. With no effort at all.
Even as I thought it, the boots of the others on the ground as they scrambled to see what was going on filled my ears.
But then there was something else.
A whoosh.
A thump.
I knew that sound.
I knew it.
But I couldn't place it until I saw the man's body jolt, then fall backward, likely dead before his body hit the ground.
The whoosh.
That was a gun with a silencer.
The thunk was the bullet hitting home.
There was a mere second of utter silence before the other men appeared, each jolting and falling as soon as they were in view.
I knew then.
Without having to look.
Without having to hear them.
Without having to see them.
But I turned anyway, eyes scanning the woods, prying into the darkness.
It was the eyes I saw first.
My eyes.
Her eyes.
Our dead relative's eyes.
Mom.
Mom was here.
And if Mom was here, so was Dad, so was Aunt Lo, Aunt Janie, all the men and women at Hailstorm and The Henchmen compound.
I was surrounded.
Safe.
I was safer than I had been in a good long time.
I should have felt relief.
I should have felt warmth enveloping me like an embrace.
But all I felt was the rage still, and - what was more unsettling - a coldness, a deep, awful coldness that I had never known before, that was seeping into my bloodstream, organs, bones, until it was encoded into my DNA.
I don't know what prompted it.
When I had made the decision.
If it was a spur of the moment thing, or something that I had been considering for much longer.
But as soon as I saw Dad and Aunt Lo break out of the tree line, as soon as I knew Chris - and Mary too - were safe, I couldn't seem to stop the urge. I couldn't seem to command that my body carry me toward them.
No.
I turned.
I ran.
Away.
I ran away.
"That's my dad," I told Chris who was still just standing there shaking, unable, it seemed, to truly process what had happened. "And Aunt and Mom," I added, thinking maybe women would be of more comfort for someone who had been through what she had. "They'll take care of you," I added, running past.
Running.
Running away.
Even as my name split the night air.
Pained, worried.
My mother.
And another time.
Pained, commanding.
My father.
And others still, a chorus of the people who loved me enough to move heaven and earth to find me, to take lives without a second thought, to storm a heavily armed
compound just to bring me home.
And here I was, leaving them all behind.
But I couldn't seem to think better of it.
I couldn't seem to think at all.
I just flew across the grounds, ever proof of why the track coaches had courted me relentlessly, my long legs giving me speed any of the team members would envy, even if I hated running, hated the uselessness of running in a circle to win some makeshift award.
But before I even felt my lungs starting to burn, I found myself buried in the woods, the canopy above blocking the light except for in sporadic slivers.
My bare feet met dirt and leaves, sticks, rocks, breaking them open, the searing pain something that somehow did manage to break through the blanket covering my mind, keeping thoughts at bay.
But I still didn't turn around.
I kept running.
While my lungs burned.
My muscles ached.
Until sweat was trickling over almost every inch of skin.
Until I hit a road.
Then disappeared into another set of woods.
Then hit another road.
Followed it until I found a bus stop, remembering at the last possible second to tuck the gun away.
I paid my fare, ignoring the concerned eyes of the driver and lone passenger, a guy maybe only a year or so older than me.
It felt like it took hours, but a look at the clock on the radio showed barely twenty minutes before we did it.
Broke into Navesink Bank.
I hopped off miles from my house, tearing down a back road, coming up through a space no larger than my body between fences like I had done countless times before. It was one of the few situations I was genuinely glad I had the frame of a pre-pubescent boy because no one else would ever fit.
Iggy's house was dark, quiet, as it should be for the hour. As it always was after nine p.m. when her parents' declared it was time for lights out.
I slipped through her backyard, coming up on the side of the house, knocking my knuckles on the pane of glass in a code we had used for as long as we figured out how to get past her parents' too-strict rules.
There was a pause.
Maybe confusion inside.
I tapped again.
There was a shuffle for a second before the blind moved.
And there she was.
Face ghost-white at seeing me.
At seeing whatever mess my face was in.
The Fall of V Page 12