Charlie

by Elin Peer

  “Ciara, you’re drugged. You don’t know what you’re doing. This is crazy!”

  Her eyes were foggy when she blinked a few times and looked around. “Where’s Maximum? We need to go now.”

  Atlas took his mother’s outstretched hand and broke Liv’s hold on him.

  “No, Atlas, don’t do it.” This time it was Lumi who reached out for him with her face red from crying.

  “Don’t!” Conor turned his gun on her chest and it made Aisha once again step in front of her daughter.

  The bang sounded like someone had dropped a pan on a kitchen floor, and then Aisha’s white silk pajamas grew red in front.

  Time stood still as I stared at Aisha.

  “Nooo!” Lumi’s large brown eyes were double the size as she failed to keep her mom from falling. “Mom. Mom.” Lumi fell to the floor with her mom, cupping her face and calling for her.

  With disbelief in her eyes, Aisha looked at Conor, and then she gasped for air one last time before she closed her eyes.

  “Noooo…” The wail from Lumi was heart wrenching and sent chills down my spine.

  “She’s not gone Lumi, you’ll meet her again in a minute.” With Conor aiming his gun at Lumi’s head. I reacted on instinct and threw myself forward in a tackle.

  Conor flew down on his back with me landing on top of him fighting to get a hold of his gun.

  In that moment, the entrance doors slammed open and men dressed in black came storming in, shouting for us to get down. They looked like a SWAT team with their helmets, bulletproof vests, and assault rifles. The officers kept shouting for everyone to get down. I was already on the floor and rolled away from Conor, afraid that they would mistake us and shoot me. I had managed to get the gun from him and placed it to my side. Lumi, was on the floor too, holding on to her mom while screaming as the men came toward us. Liv got down on her stomach and held her hands on top of her head, while Atlas looked confused.

  The music with the heavy bass kept playing and my eyes went to Conor, who picked up another gun he’d dropped when I knocked him over.

  “Drop your gun! Get down on the floor,” the guards shouted at Atlas, who kneeled down and placed the gun he’d been given earlier on the rug in front of him. A garda kicked it away and pushed him down all the way to the floor, where he handcuffed Atlas.

  Ciara put down her gun too, but Conor was determined to carry out his plan and went for another of the five guns used tonight. I didn’t have a chance to react before he fired at me. His shot went over my head and took down a vase, but in response to his opening fire, a police officer shot Conor in his shoulder. Still on the floor, he screamed in pain and threw himself around.

  “No, don’t kill him.” Ciara got up and held out her arms to shield Conor from the officers pointing their gun at him.

  Deep male voices screamed at her to get down.

  With the music blasting, the guards shouting, Lumi sobbing, and Conor screaming in pain, my head was exploding from the noise and inferno of human angst in the room.

  “You can’t control us,” Ciara shouted just as a large guard in ballistic vest and helmet went for Conor, who twisted his body and managed to fire his gun one more time before he lay dead with a bullet to his brain.

  “Nooo…” Ciara’s loud scream penetrated the noise of the music as she threw herself down next to Conor.

  “Garda down.”

  Through my sensory overload, I saw a guard on the floor in the direction Conor had shot. The man was on top of Lumi, covering her with his body.

  Another loud shot made me turn my head back to Ciara. “Shit!” She lay in front of me with a gun in her mouth and dead eyes. The garda behind her had blood all over his pants and was swearing out loud.

  “Is the girl all right?” Someone called out. “Is she shot?”

  “No, Rook took the bullet.”

  It seemed like there were police barking orders at us from every angle.

  Twenty-eight people with great careers and bright futures lay dead around us. I was stunned and my body was shaking with adrenaline and fear when a garda pulled me to my feet and handcuffed me. As we walked outside, I stared at the long line of dead people that I’d called family a few days ago and knew their faces would forever be burned into my memory.

  “There are three children upstairs in the room at the end of the hall to the right,” I told the guard who led me outside.

  “We’ll find them.” He motioned for me to sit down on the cold ground. Soon, Liv and Atlas were walked out too and sat down next to me.

  “Do any of you need medical attention?” the garda leading them asked us.

  I shook my head and looked up when a large man came out carrying Lumi in his arms.

  “Is she okay?” Liv asked and got up.

  “Sit down,” a brute of a policeman ordered, but Liv had reached a boiling point and pushed her jaw out.

  “I’m not the enemy here. That girl over there just watched her mother get killed and I need to go to her and comfort her. Right now!”

  I was quick to support Liv. “We’re the ones who called you to come in the first place.”

  “The house is cleared.” Three officers came out with River, Maximum, and Nathan. “We’re going to secure the scene and let the technicians take over.”

  “Liv.” River shouted and ran to us. When the girl wrapped her arms around Liv, the handcuffs made it impossible for Liv to hug her back. Instead she tried to compensate by lowering her head to River’s hair.

  “Hang on.” The guard left for a second and then he came back. “I just spoke with the sergeant and we’re takin’ off yer handcuffs, but don’t go anywhere. We’ll need yer statements for the report.”

  “Thank you.”

  Liv, and I walked with the children to Lumi, who sat in an ambulance where a paramedic was looking at her ankle.

  “What happened to you?” Liv asked and crawled up to sit next to her.

  “I’m afraid it was my fault.” One of the ERU guards stood on the ground in front of the ambulance. He had removed his vest and taken off his helmet. “I landed on her ankle when I fell on top of her. That’s why I carried her out here.”

  “Damian?” Liv’s voice was full of disbelief. “I didn’t recognize you with all your equipment on.”

  “Nah, ye would nae but I recognized ye.” He turned his attention to the paramedic who was wrapping Lumi’s ankle. “How is she?”

  “Minor injury. She’ll be fine.”

  “Good.” Looking back at Liv, he sighed. “Ye and Kit were serious about that guy being a lunatic, eh?”

  “Where’s Kit?” I looked around for her and pulled out my phone to call her. “Last time I saw her, she was behind the house.”

  Kit came running a few minutes later. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I was so scared that ye’d all been killed.”

  “It was close.” Damian picked up his vest and studied where the bullet had hit him.

  “Ye took a bullet?” Kit leaned in to see.

  “I just saw him swingin’ a gun in the direction of the girl so I threw myself on top of her.” Damian, whose hair was wet from sweat, nodded to Lumi, who sat in the ambulance with Liv next to her.

  Lumi turned to look at Damian and there was such sorrow and pain in her large brown eyes that it tore at my heart.

  “Thank you for saving Lumi’s life.” I reached out my hand to shake his. “You’re a true hero.”

  “Nah, it’s what I’m trained to do. Do not worry about it. It’s my pleasure.”

  “Let me see where the bullet hit ye.” Kit pulled at Damian’s uniform shirt and he took it off and turned his back on her. The man was ripped.

  “Bloody hell, I see a mark.” Kit’s hand touched his back. “Yer goin’ to be well purple, I reckon.”

  “It’s not too bad.” He shrugged and gave Lumi a small smile. “For ye, my love, I’d take a bullet any day.”

  His kind words only made Lumi tear up, but River tugged at his sleeve.

  �
�What about me? Would you take a bullet for me?” River asked with large eyes.

  Damian looked down at the blond girl and tousled her hair. “Of course. Any of us men here would. It’s why we go to work. To stop the bad guys from hurting innocent people like yerself.”

  “But what happened?” River looked back at the house. “That man over there covered my eyes and carried me outside. He said that we didn’t need to see it.”

  We all turned to look at the guard in question and when he saw us watching him, he came to join us and placed a hand on Damian’s shoulder. He was in his early forties and looked weathered, with wrinkles and dark circles under his eyes.

  I reached out my hand to shake his, just as I’d done with Damian, and I lowered my voice, “Thank you for not letting the kids see the bodies. It’s enough that the rest of us will have that image haunt us forever.”

  “I’ve been with the Gardai for almost twenty years and I’ve never seen anything like it. Being a father myself, I reckoned that I wouldn’t want my kids to see something that gruesome.” Turning to Damian, the older guard patted his shoulder hard. “Ye did good rookie, but I wonder if maybe ye should have become a bodyguard instead. Throwin’ yerself in front of flyin’ bullets and all.” He shook his head.

  “I acted on instinct.”

  “Aye, I could tell.”

  A stern-looking man came over. “We would like to interview the witnesses. Are you done here?”

  Damian picked up his vest and helmet and leaned in to give Kit a kiss on her cheek. “I’ll talk to ye later, sis.” When he walked away, he looked back over his shoulder, and then turned to walk backward. “Hey, Lumi.”

  The girl gave a nod to show she had heard him.

  “I’ll check up on ye later, okay?”

  She answered with a tiny nod.

  We gave witness statements and answered the same questions over and over. A social worker came to take care of the children, but River and Nathan wouldn’t be separated from Liv, who argued with the social worker that they had already been traumatized enough.

  In the end, the older woman agreed that Liv and I should accompany the children to a temporary facility until she could figure out what their family relations were.

  Liv looked exhausted and it made me protective of her and the children. In the end, I refused to answer any more questions until we’d had some sleep. At the facility the five kids, Liv, and I were given a family room with extra mattresses on the floor and as we were trying to fall asleep, the children’s questions started.

  “Is my mother with Conor and the others now? On the other side, like he said?”

  It was Liv who answered Lumi’s question. “No, sweetheart, I don’t think that’s how it works. I think your mom is with her ancestors.”

  “Good. I don’t think she would have liked to meet Conor again in the next life. Not after he shot her.” I was surprised that Lumi wasn’t crying while speaking about it, but then she had already cried on and off for the last five hours.

  The light in the room was dimmed, with only a bit of light coming from the bathroom. Liv and I were on two mattresses on the floor with River sleeping on Liv’s other side. The other four children were in two bunk beds along the walls.

  “At least your mom put herself between you and my dad. Aisha took a bullet to save your life while Ciara helped my dad try and kill us all,” Atlas muttered.

  Lumi was in the lower bunk with Nathan above her. She was on her side with her hands under her cheek. “I just wish my mom had survived.”

  I moved closer to Liv, who was holding River’s hand. “I wish they all had survived.”

  “Conor too?” Nathan asked.

  “Yes. I wish he hadn’t gotten away so easily. It would have been better if he’d been forced to spend the rest of his days behind bars, reflecting on what he did to the people who loved him.”

  “But why did he want everyone to die?” River asked. “I don’t understand it. He told us he was excited that Carlos was going to teach us all about quantum physics next week. Carlos used to be a science professor before he started doing drag shows, did you know that?”

  I answered her with the only explanation I could find. “No, I didn’t know that, but to answer your question, I think what happened tonight was that Conor lost his mind. He knew the guards were coming for him and he didn’t want to go down alone.”

  “Did you say that twenty-eight people died tonight?” The question came from Nathan.

  “Yes,” Liv answered.

  I swallowed hard, and Liv and I intertwined her free hand with mine. For a while we were all quiet before River asked in a small voice. “What’s going to happen to us now?”

  Nathan sniffled and only now did I notice that the boy was crying. “They’re going to split us up and send us to orphanages.”

  “No, I don’t want that,” River cried and pressed her face against Liv’s shoulder.

  I propped myself up on an elbow and spoke with all the confidence I could muster in a situation like this. “No one is going to an orphanage. Liv and I will take care of you until we find your other family. Right?” I looked at Liv, who nodded.

  “That’s right.”

  As the children finally fell asleep, Liv and I lay close and whispered.

  “What happened in the bathroom between you and Conor?”

  “He tried to force himself on me.”

  “Then why didn’t you leave with me?”

  “Because I had promised the children that I’d be there for them. I always knew he was dangerous, and after what he did to Nathan, I couldn’t just leave them defenseless.”

  “I wish you would have told me. I would have killed him then, and then everyone else would still be alive.”

  Liv sighed. “First of all, you didn’t give me a chance to explain, and you’re not a killer.”

  She was right of course. I squeezed her hand. “The thought of him forcing himself on you makes me so angry. I should have been there to protect you. If I’d known what he was really like…”

  We fell quiet for a moment, until I looked into her eyes. “I know about the report and my grandfather asking you to come here.”

  She held her breath. “Are you disappointed that it wasn’t a random meeting between us?”

  “I’m confused about what was real and what was not.”

  She pointed from me to her. “This is real.”

  My Adam’s apple bobbed in my throat. “You sure? I mean it feels real, but it turns out that I’m not the best judge of character.”

  “I love you, Charles.” She moved closer and kissed me. “You can trust that.”

  “Why would you be with someone stupid enough to fall for a scammer like Conor?”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong. None of you did. He was a master at deception and if I hadn’t been warned before going in, there’s a real chance that I would have fallen for his charm as well. And for what it’s worth, I’m happy you brought me here?”

  I pulled back a little. “How can you say that?”

  She frowned. “Look around you. Five children are alive because you brought me in there. Who would have stopped him? Who would have called the cops? Who would have insisted three of the children stay away from the meeting? Without you becoming a member, things might have turned out very differently for these kids.”

  “Huh.” I thought about it. “I see what you mean, but if I hadn’t been there, my grandfather wouldn’t have started an investigation, and then there wouldn’t have been the same pressure on Conor. People might still be alive if he hadn’t been pushed to a breaking point.

  “It would have happened sooner or later. I’m only sorry that the police didn’t arrest him before he lost his shit.”

  I yawned. “And I’m sorry that I believed all his lies.”

  Liv let her finger run from the tip of my nose to my lips. “It was his lies that brought me to you. Are you sorry about that?”

  I pulled her in and kissed her. “No. For that I�
�m grateful. The day I met you again was one of the best days in my life, and I will happily spend the rest of my life making up for all the awful things that I’ve put you through.”

  “The rest of your life, huh?” She smiled at me as we lay nose to nose.

  “And every life after that.” I moved forward, placing a long soft kiss on her lips.

  “Wow, that’s commitment.”

  “Yeah. It is.” I let my hand slide up her arm. “Does it scare you?”

  “No. If anything it excites me.”

  For a moment she was quiet. “Charles.”

  “Mmm.”

  “I worry about the children. What are the chances of them staying together?”

  I groaned. “Slim. If Nathan has family, they’re most likely in England where his parents were from, and I’m pretty sure Ciara had sisters up in the northern part of Ireland. I remember her talking about them.”

  “What about Lumi? Aisha was from India, right?”

  “Yeah, but she grew up in London. Her family shunned her after she got pregnant outside of wedlock.”

  “But if her family cut her off then why was she of interest to Conor? Did they still give her money?”

  “Yes, she used to joke that they were paying her to stay hidden to avoid bringing public shame to them. I don’t know what story the family has been telling their social circle, but they never wanted anything to do with Lumi before, so I doubt they’ll want her now.”

  Liv bit her lip and whispered, “And River? Her mom is in a psychiatric hospital. What if she’ll never be capable of taking care of her daughter?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe there’s some other family.”

  Liv closed her eyes and opened them with a sigh. “I can’t bear the thought of them being split up and maybe never seeing each other again. They need each other.”

  “Maybe a fresh start for them isn’t so bad.”

  “They’ve suffered a severe trauma and I guarantee you that it will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Can you imagine growing up in a suicide cult and having no one who understands what it was like? They have a shared history, and only the five can relate to the issues that they’re bound to have in the future. I would adopt them all if I could but I doubt the Irish would let a foreigner adopt here.”