The Fall of V

by Jessica Gadziala

The answer involved her needing to take one of these men down to get it.

  There was a small swelling of pride, in her drive, in her ability to pull that off, to utilize her many years of training. But that was all drowned out by the knowledge of how bad the situation must have been for her to take that leap.

  Because she had to know we were coming. She had to know that we were using every tool available to us to get her home. She knew that she could have waited it out.

  But something had happened to make her feel like that was not an option.

  Something had driven her to rise up, to take charge, to free not only herself but this other girl as well.

  My stomach twisted to think of what that motivator could have been.

  We all watched in stunned silence as she eyed the crumbling retaining wall. She could do it. We all knew she could do it. She had been climbing trees and walls and anything else she could get her hands on since she was old enough to pull up her own weight. And after a few hard hits and skinned knees and palms, she learned how to do it without getting hurt.

  She could do it.

  But she didn't.

  And I couldn't help but wonder if it was because she intrinsically knew that the girl with her could not make it.

  The survival instinct was an interesting thing, wild and primal.

  And usually selfish.

  If it came to life or death, most people worried only about themselves. With a few exceptions being made for children.

  But my daughter - my good, sweet, amazing daughter - was willing to take a more risky route in order to save this other girl who she barely knew.

  Her body shifted, peeking out into the back of the grounds, finding danger, and jerking back.

  Then she was moving toward the front, toward me, toward us.

  She didn't know we were there.

  She didn't know we had her back.

  But she continued on with her friend behind her, looking at the lone guard in the front, seeing him get called away, then whispering something to the other girl before they both ran like hell.

  But her friend was snagged from behind, her young body jerking violently back, slamming into V's shoulder. Her beautiful, broken face seemed to crumble as the cold muzzle of a gun pressed into her temple, like the weight of the world was on her, like she knew what was ahead for her when she got dragged back inside, how V would make her suffer for trying to escape. My heart broke for her, even knowing we were going to save her, get her back at any cost, take her away from this hell, I could feel - even from across a field - the deep, hopeless anguish coming from her even as V taunted Ferryn, made her stop dead in her tracks, turning back, away from me, making it impossible to see if there was fear there, horror, uncertainty on how to proceed.

  She could have chosen the easy path.

  She could have kept running.

  To her freedom.

  Leave the doomed girl to her fate.

  But no.

  Not my daughter.

  My daughter screamed across the field, told my mother to give it up, informed her that she had a black hole for a heart, reminded her of the torture she had inflicted upon me all those years ago.

  But then the girl, her friend, mouthed an apology, making Ferryn's shoulders widen, her spine straighten.

  And then V - my mother - signed her death certificate.

  By threatening to have the girl raped in front of my daughter, forcing her to watch, blaming her for the incident.

  I didn't fully seem to register the arm raising, the gun pointing.

  The only thing I was aware of was the bang of the explosion as the bullet left the barrel.

  As it soared through the air.

  As it hit V right in the forehead.

  "Oh my God," I hissed, unable to quite grasp it, to accept that my daughter - this girl so innocent in life aside from silly teenaged stuff - had just taken a life.

  But there was no time to think on that as men came running, as Henchmen and Hailstorm men and women took them out.

  Ferryn stayed frozen at first, watching the carnage before finally turning, seeking us in the tree line.

  And she looked right at me.

  Right at me.

  I couldn't explain the look I found in her eyes - eyes so much like my own that I had always found them easily readable.

  And that was chilling.

  Not to be able to read her.

  To have her staring right at me, somehow seeing me even in the distance, and not be able to know what she was thinking.

  Her look was shut down.

  Not blank.

  Guarded.

  Reinforced.

  As I sat too stunned to move, Reign broke free from my side, Lo from my other, both of them charging forward.

  I saw the second she recognized them.

  But there wasn't relief.

  There was something else.

  Something that almost looked like a grim determination.

  Before she did something that, no matter how I thought on it after, I could never understand.

  She turn and ran.

  But not before telling her friend that she was safe, that her dad and aunt and me would take care of her.

  I jumped up as I saw her disappear toward the back of the house, watching as Cash, Virgin, and Pagan took off after her.

  I wasn't even aware of the sensation of running until I was in the back of the property, seeing Malcolm and Edison tear into the woods as well, on her trail.

  They wouldn't catch her.

  Don't ask me why I thought that, how I knew that, but I did.

  They wouldn't catch her.

  And maybe part of that had to do with the fact that she was fast. So fast that sometimes she blurred when she ran.

  But a bigger part, I was sure, had to do with the decision to go.

  The decision to leave.

  To run away from us instead of toward us.

  When she was clearly in her right mind enough to know that she was safe, that we were a means of protection since she told her friend exactly that.

  I would never catch her.

  I felt an overwhelming sense of uselessness as I stood in that yard as half a dozen of my loved ones - my husband included - tore into those woods after her, while the rest stayed behind, guns out, moving inside the house.

  The house where there were likely still threats.

  Threats that could open up a window and shoot out at any moment, take my life right from me.

  But I couldn't seem to muster the drive to find shelter until the storm passed as I stood planted there, eyes on the woods.

  Minutes.

  Hours passed.

  And then Reign re-emerged.

  One look at the shocked, desperate, worried look on his face told me all I needed to know.

  She was gone.

  Ferryn was gone.

  And don't ask me how or why, but I simply knew she wasn't coming back.

  And it was right about then that it hit me.

  That I couldn't find the strength to hold it together anymore.

  And I just broke.

  --

  Lo

  The leader in me knew I should have gone into the house, neutralized the threats with my team.

  But everything within me felt pulled to the girl who slowly lowered down to her knees in the front yard, like they had finally, finally given up on her.

  She dropped down there, just an inch from the dead body of a woman who had held her captive for an untold amount of time, seemingly unable to find any strength even to move a few feet away.

  Just giving up.

  And I knew that look.

  In her eyes.

  I knew that goddamn look.

  I had seen it so many times.

  Too many times.

  On the faces of far too many girls and women.

  But the one that came to mind the most, the one that looked as wrecked as she did right then wasn't one of those masses.

  It was Jan
ie.

  She looked just like Janie had.

  When I found her.

  When I simply knew what she had been through, tried to save her.

  When she begged for me to just let her die.

  That was who this girl looked like.

  That was the haunted terror in her eyes.

  That was the hopelessness there, the realization that even if her body were now safe, her mind would never be.

  I felt it back then, and I felt it as I carefully approached this girl.

  A deep-rooted need to wrap her up, to protect her, to love her, to give her some of my strength, to convince her that this wasn't the end, to build her back up, to make her into the woman I knew she could be, a woman who wasn't defined by something that happened to her, a woman who would pave her own way in life.

  It was an animalistic thing, something encoded into my DNA.

  Something, maybe, just maybe, I would call a maternal instinct.

  "Honey," I said, tone low and lilting, the kind you'd use on a scared animal. Which, well, was - if you thought about it - exactly what I was dealing with. I slowly knelt down in front of her. "My name is Lo. I'm Ferryn's aunt," I explained, wondering if she was even hearing me. She seemed zoned out, somewhere else entirely. "What's your name?" I asked, pushing the AK backward, making the strap between my breasts make a scratching sound against the material of my shirt.

  I didn't even think twice about it until her eyes sought the gun, making me wonder if I should have discarded it before approaching her.

  But she didn't jerk back or stiffen up; she just looked at where it was poking out at my hip for a long moment before her gaze rose to mine.

  "Chris. I'm Chris."

  "Chris," I agreed, nodding a little. "Do you maybe want to get out of here?" I asked. "I have a car. We can go anywhere you want."

  "I want a shower," she said immediately, making me aware suddenly of the dried blood and dirt on her skin, the grease and mats in her hair.

  A shower was the last thing you wanted to do after being raped.

  It destroyed evidence.

  And there was no mistaking it.

  She had been raped.

  If I knew anything about it - and I did - many, many times. By many men.

  But my people, well, they had orders.

  Namely, we were cleaning house.

  No prisoners.

  Just bodies.

  There was no redeeming these people.

  Our court system seemed unwilling to take rape cases to trial, let alone convict them.

  So we were handling justice this time.

  Whether that was right or not was open to interpretation.

  But it was what was going to happen.

  So there would be no need for evidence collection.

  There was no reason she couldn't shower.

  "Okay. A shower. We can do that," I agreed, standing slowly, reaching my hand down toward her.

  She looked at it for a long moment before placing hers there, letting me pull her onto her feet.

  "And food," she added, voice barely a whisper as she fell into step beside me, her hand still clutching the toilet tank cover.

  She could keep it.

  On the walk back to the car, the drive out of this town and into Navesink bank, then the short walk up the driveway of mine and Cash's home, she did, she kept it.

  Just in case.

  She could keep it.

  As long as she needed it.

  Then I would replace it.

  With a knife.

  A gun.

  She would never feel defenseless again if I had any say in the matter.

  And as I handed her a pile of fresh clothes that made tears well up in her eyes, and switched on the water for her, seeing her head hang as she finally let the tears come, not even bothering to swat them away, knowing more would just replace them, I decided I would.

  Have a say in it.

  "Don't," she yelped when I slowly started backing toward the door, deciding to let her have her moment in peace.

  "Don't what?" I asked, watching her back.

  "Don't leave," she begged, turning over her shoulder to look at me.

  Raw.

  She was so raw.

  A bleeding, open wound.

  My heart - hardened by so many years of witnessing the evils of my fellow humans - softened, crushed at seeing it.

  "Okay," I agreed, nodding, closing the door behind me, leaning into it.

  In case Cash came home.

  Looking for me.

  Full of questions.

  Barreling in because there had never been a reason to knock over showers before.

  "Why don't you get in at the end, then throw your clothes out?" I suggested when she just stood there, torn for her need of my presence, and that for modesty.

  "Okay."

  With that, she did.

  Her clothes were flung out.

  After that, I heard the clatter of bottles as she sorted out body wash, shampoo, and soap. Likely reapplying ten times, but not feeling any cleaner.

  Then there was nothing.

  Just the sniffles as she cried silently.

  For ten minutes.

  Twenty.

  Until the whole bathroom steamed up, making my shirt stick to me with sweat.

  Then, finally, likely out of hot water, her hand stuck out, reaching for a towel, then another.

  "Do you want me to leave, so you can get dressed? I can go order food."

  More like have Cash do it.

  Because I could hear him coming in the front door.

  "Okay."

  "What kind of food? It's late, but the Chinese place is open. And the diner. So they have anything."

  "Fries," she said immediately, making me smile slightly. Sometimes teenagers - even horribly abused ones - were just, well, teenagers. "And mozzarella sticks. Grilled cheese."

  "Anything else?" I asked, sensing a hesitation like she was worried she was asking for too much.

  "A salad," she surprised me by saying. I must have shown my confusion, because she shrugged a shoulder. "I haven't had a vegetable in four months," she supplied, reminding me of V's many atrocities. She didn't just like to have women raped. She liked to starve them too.

  "You got it. I will be right downstairs. Or if you want, there is a bedroom right across the hall."

  With that, I left her, running down the stairs, my hand slamming into Cash's chest as he tried to turn to go up them as well.

  "Sh," I demanded, pushing him through the house out to the front door.

  "You brought the girl here," he guessed when we were outside.

  "Yeah. She wanted a shower."

  His face, already pale, seemed to pale further in the realization of why that would be. "She's young."

  "Fifteen or sixteen," I agreed.

  "Probably got parents worried sick about her," he said, giving me a much-needed reminder. Not all lost girls were strays I could take in. I had to have that talk with her when I went back inside.

  "Yeah. We haven't gotten that far yet. She wanted a shower. And I need you to go get her food. Fries. Mozzarella sticks. Grilled cheese. And a salad. Maybe a side of veggies too."

  "And you want me to leave the bags on the step," he guessed.

  "I'm sorry," I said immediately, knowing I should have asked him first, knowing this wasn't just my home, my decisions to make.

  "Don't apologize, sweetheart. You're doing the right thing. I just wanted to check on you before I headed out."

  I didn't even know what happened.

  Hadn't thought to check my phone.

  I had only one focus.

  But my team - and Reign's team - were all trained and capable of handling what might have gone down.

  "Out where?"

  "Ferryn ran away," he told me, the words a punch to the gut.

  "What?" I asked, knowing she had run, but figuring it was just shock, that someone she knew would catch her, calm her down, bring her home.r />
  "Dunno. She took off into the forest. No one could find her."

  "Get Gunner. Baird's guy. Get him to try to track her."

  He nodded at that. "He's on his way."

  "I'm so sorry, Cash," I said, moving forward, wrapping my arms around him.

  This was supposed to be it.

  We were going to get our girl back.

  Get her home safe.

  The worry that had been churning inside of us for days would be gone.

  But there would be no relief.

  Not until we found her.

  Not until we knew she was okay.

  "That fucking bitch," he growled into my ear, making me have to take a deep breath at the pain behind his words.

  "She's dead," I reminded him, giving him a squeeze.

  "Yeah, but what damage had she done first?"

  "Don't jump to conclusions," I said, even though I couldn't seem to fathom why else she would run like that. "We don't know that happened."

  "It better not the fuck have."

  There was determination in his voice. Even though there was nothing to be done even if that had happened.

  V was dead.

  Her men were dead.

  There was no one else to take vengeance on.

  "She killed her," he added.

  I exhaled hard. "Yeah," I agreed.

  She'd killed someone.

  And while I was glad she had the know-how to do it, had the guts to follow through in the moment when she felt she needed to, I hated that she had to.

  I never thought all the training I had done with her over the years would be necessary in a real-life scenario.

  Because we always made sure she was safe.

  We were never going to let her get into situations where she might need to use those skills.

  Except we'd failed her.

  She'd needed to.

  "Killing someone takes something from you," I reminded him, though he damn well knew this himself. "Especially that first time. And especially that young. She's probably just freaked, trying to process it. She's going to come back, Cash."

  "She has to," he agreed, voice shattered.

  Without having them ourselves, the kids of the club in general had become like kids to us as well. Especially so with Ferryn, the oldest, the first to come drooling and crying into our lives on weekends when we would take her so Reign and Summer could have some free time, time to just be two people, a couple.

  The older she got, the more involved we seemed to get. Training and teaching her things.