by Mia Ford
“Cici…” Drips fall from me, sweat, tears, and blood, all combining together on the ground. “Cici.”
“Will! Oh my God, Will! Are you okay?” I hear Jones calling out to me, but it’s like background noise. “Will looks hurt. Someone get an ambulance. When are they getting here?” That’s good news, it sounds like some medical professionals are on the way which is a good thing. But will it be enough? I still don’t know and the crawl over to Cici’s body feels like it’s taking forever. “Someone grab Will, we need to keep him safe.”
I get just close enough to Cici to reach out and touch her. My fingers brush against her still warm skin just as a strong set of arms scoop underneath me and lift me flying into the air. A scream bursts free from my chest as I grapple, trying to grip onto her again. I don’t have any answers, only more questions. Is she okay? Has the worst thing in the world happened to her? Has she died because of my work? I didn’t get long enough with her, I wasn’t given the chance to touch her properly. I need to feel her, to see her, to love her. Why can’t everyone else see that? What are they doing to me? Trying to fucking kill me?
“Will, we’re here,” Jones gasps at me. “Sorry we didn’t get here sooner but this will all be over soon.”
Maybe too over for me, maybe my whole life is about to disintegrate. Sleep is coming for me, I can feel my body shutting down as it tries to shield me away from the obvious truth. I battle it, I struggle my hardest to keep my eyes open, but the blackness is determined to claim me. I’ve fought enough today, I can’t keep battling. This adversary is too powerful for me. I don’t stand a God damn chance…
Chapter Thirty One – Cici
My eyes flicker, I can feel an intense whiteness shining in between the small slits which makes it far too painful to open them properly. I don’t know what’s going on, I have no idea where I even am, but I’m consumed by the terrible sense that everything is wrong. I rack through my brain trying to locate the last memory that I have but it all hurts too much. It’s like I have the worst damn headache in the entire world.
Where am I? I try to ask, but my throat is thick and my tongue has swollen large. My body feels raw from this inside out which only confirms that something terrible has happened. Help, me. Someone.
Since I can’t wrench my eyes open, I scan through, trying to clasp onto memories of anything. I can see Jordan, my gorgeous baby boy, Michelle, my good friend, my mother, my auntie, Will… Will! Something happened with Will. He was hurt, or he was going to get hurt, I’m not totally sure. It was bad anyway, I can clearly recall the intense panic that tore through my system as I watched it unfold. But what’s it? What happened?
Landon. All of a sudden, I gasp in a deep and intense breath. Landon, I remember it all now. He was a bad guy, the bad guy, Kingpin. He faced Will and told him that he would have to murder him now. He wanted to kill Will and I don’t know if he succeeded in that or not. All I can remember after that is noise and pain.
“Cici?” A voice filters through into my brain. “Are you there? Are you stirring?”
“Hmmm, urgh, nugh.” I try to speak, but it’s impossible. Something is in my throat still. “Argnh.”
“Oh my God, Cici. She’s awake. Someone. I need someone, she’s waking up!”
It’s Mom, I can tell that it’s her. As soon as that realization hits me I find some deep inner strength. I drag my eyes open, allowing the brightness to taint my irises for a moment until everything becomes clear. Right now, I need my mom. I need to know what’s happened here and she might well be the only one who I’ll be able to take it from. I don’t know what way it’s going to go and I need a shoulder to cry on.
Finally, I can see her. Well, sort of. My vision is blurry, I can’t really see more than a shape, but I know that it’s her. That’s her smell, her presence, her aura. All I want to do is reach out and touch her, I need her to hug me, but it’s like I’m pinned to something. I can’t move, however much I want to. It’s a nightmare.
“Oh, Cici, darling. You’re in the hospital. I don’t know if you’re aware of that already, but you are…”
The word hospital evokes a lot of terrible feelings inside of me. People don’t go there when all is good. Is it me hurt? Or someone else? God, I hope so badly that it isn’t someone else. I would take any bullet for them.
“Shall I get a doctor? Do you need someone to check over you? Oh no, what can I do?”
“W… water,” I pant out. I don’t want to see any medical professional until I know where I stand. “Drink.”
Mom presses a glass to my lips and I suck back the ice cool water like I’m in the middle of the desert and I’m desperate. I suppose in a way that might be the case. The coolness brings my organs back to life, reviving me from the brink of death… or at least enough for me to feel a lot more aware anyway. I want a conversation.
“Mom,” I rasp out while looking up at her. “What happened? Where’s Jordan?”
“Oh, your baby boy is fine, don’t you worry about that. He’s with your Auntie Mary and Michelle. They’re in the dining hall right now getting something to eat. That boy is hungry and he’s growing well.” Her eyes hang low and she grabs onto my hands. “I know that you’ve been feeding him yourself, but you’ve been out for four days and we had to make a decision.” I shake my head, letting her know that’s okay. “We had to look after him.”
So, Jordan is okay, Michelle is alright, but what about Will? I suppose Mom might not know about him, or she didn’t before, but she must do now. She at hasn’t mentioned him and that scares me.
“You… you had a bad time, didn’t you?” Mom muses as she continues. “I can’t believe I didn’t know what was going on. I did think it was strange that you didn’t want to talk about Jordan’s father… but I didn’t know why. Now, I’ve heard the whole story and I know that you had to do it to keep Jordan safe. Us too. I guess I’m just upset that you went through all of this alone. It can’t have been easy for you.”
I make a little noise, trying to let her know that I’ve survived it. It’s okay. I don’t really want to think about this anymore, I just want to move past it. I can’t do that until I know about Will.
“And Will… well.” Mom shakes her head which makes me feel sick to my stomach. “He’s a lovely guy, isn’t he? A little gruff to begin with, but he’s good. He’s been wonderful with us all in the hospital anyway.”
Is. That’s present tense which is wonderful news. “Where is he?” I ask as forcefully as I can manage.
“He’s at the police station at the moment. I think he’s got a lot of paperwork to get through, what with everything that’s happened. I gather it’s one of the biggest cases that they’ve ever had and there’s a lot to get through. But he did tell me that he’ll be back here soon enough. I know he wants to see you.”
I feel like I should be able to relax now, I don’t know the full details of anything but it’s all very good news. Knowing that everyone I care about is okay should make all of this much easier to digest, but it doesn’t. There’s still a tight knot, my stomach feels all weird, everything is flip flopping inside of me. I don’t know why.
Oh… Landon… all of a sudden, another memory comes back. Him telling me that Annabelle ordered for me to be killed. Not just me but my child as well. After everything that we’ve been through, she doesn’t care for me at all. She wanted me dead and buried so she could continue on with her drug empire.
“Annabelle?” I ask, bracing myself while I wait for the answer. “Landon?”
“Well.” Mom shifts uncomfortably on her chair. Now that my vision has returned, I can even see the tight expression on her face. I don’t think this is something she wants to discuss at all, but I need to know. I can’t even think about myself and my health until I have found out as much as I can. “As you may or may not remember, Landon was killed in the… scuffle.” I almost laugh, aside from the fact that it isn’t really funny. Only my mom could refer to something with a lot of cops and guns as a scuffl
e. “Landon was killed, I gather he threatened you and Will directly and he tried to carry out that threat, so Will had to take him down.”
“Oh wow…” That isn’t good. I mean, it’s better for him to go than Will, but he forced his best friend to shoot him and that’s something I know for sure that Will is going to struggle with. “That’s heavy.”
“Oh yes, I know. None of this is ideal. It’s a terrible mess really.”
“Yeah… I can’t believe that we’re in the middle of it. Who would have thought it?”
“Well, maybe we should have been more vigilant since Annabelle was such a big part of it.”
“Oh.” I feel like shit, even worse than before. Annabelle did want me dead and I hate that. Every positive childhood memory that I have with her, before things got weird, is now tainted. All the playing, all the fun, all the mischief that we used to get into together… it’s all gone now. I helped her marrying the guy who she then ordered to kill me. How fucked up is that? She was important to me. I can’t believe she did that. “I see.”
“Now, she’s denying it. She kicked off like crazy when the police officers arrested her, but they’ve found evidence that she was more than a part of it.” Mom looks sad. “I can’t believe it, can you?”
“I don’t know…” Nothing feels real anymore. “I don’t know what to think.”
“Well, I don’t think she was involved with the drugs side of things, but she definitely knew about it. I think she might have been somewhat involved in the money laundering. She sure as hell spent it.”
“Landon said she wanted me dead.” Mom already isn’t impressed with Annabelle, I feel like she might as well know it all. I don’t know if I’ll tell Auntie Mary that side of things, I’ll have to make a judgement call on that. “Apparently, she asked him to get rid of me and Will. Jordan too. She asked for us to die.”
Mom nods. “I have heard that. I don’t know if you knew that, but yes. Of course, Annabelle is denying that like crazy, but I suppose we’ll never know for sure. It’s a he said she said thing, and he is dead.”
Fuck. That’s messed up. I know I’ll never be sure, but I have a funny feeling that I do know. Annabelle has gone so far over to the dark side that she wanted me dead. Everything that we’ve ever shared is dead now. I don’t ever want to think of her again. She’s in the past. I need to move forwards.
“So, what happened to me?” I ask with a small smile. “I feel like death, so I presume it wasn’t good.”
“You were shot. I think Will thought that you’d been killed, but I suppose it was either a warning shot or a terrible shooter. Anyway, it pierced you in the side but not too badly. You bed a lot, but nothing major was punctured. The doctor has said that you might be in a lot of pain for a while, but you’ll be fine.”
I was shot. Me. The teacher from a small town, the person who doesn’t ever affect anyone. I never ever thought that I would be in the middle of something so messed up, it’s insane. The day that Annabelle married Landon, the day that I met Will, everything changed. I was thrown head first into the middle of something insane and I haven’t been able to extract myself since. But it seems like it’s over now. It’s done. All that’s left to do is pick up the pieces. I just don’t know what will happen when it comes to that.
I will return to being a mother, I will go back to my life, I will even return to teaching one day. That’s all pretty much standard, but what about Will? Things have been rocky, they haven’t been great, and I don’t know where we stand now. That’s pretty nuts. It probably shouldn’t be the thing that I’m concentrating on, but I can’t stop it.
“Okay, I suppose you better get the doctor in now,” I tell Mom firmly. “I want to know from a medical professional what’s happening with me. I want to know when I can get out of here. Oh, and grab Jordan too. I miss my baby boy like crazy.”
Will can come later. For now, I need to meet my boy.
Chapter Thirty Two – Will
The last few weeks have been hard. Almost more difficult than the weeks leading up to the shooting. Dealing with Kingpin sucked, but knowing his identity is the roughest thing ever. I still can’t get over it. Everything that I’ve ever known has turned on its head. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust my own judgement again. I keep looking at everyone with utter distrust and I’m not sure when I’ll recover from that.
But at least Cici is okay. She’s still alive. That’s the main thing. Me, Jordan, and Cici are all okay. Cici was injured and she’s been in the hospital for a while as she recovers, which isn’t ideal, but she’s okay now. She’s living, so I’ve got everything that I wished for. I don’t know where my life is at the moment, but I have that.
“Are you okay?” I ask her quietly as I guide Cici to the car. “I bet you’re ready to go home.”
She turns and gives me a thin smile. “I suppose so. But home, where is that?”
Of course, I want her to come and live with me again, I want to pick up where we’ve left off, but since we haven’t exactly had that conversation then I don’t know where we stand. We haven’t had a chance, I’ve been crazy with work trying to straighten everything out to do with this case, and Cici has been focused on her recovery. Our conversations have mostly been status updates about those things and chats about Jordan. All very practical stuff. Things weren’t amazing just before all of this kicked off, we had our issues, so maybe this will be the moment where she chooses to walk away from it all. She could, and I don’t think I could blame her for that.
“Well, we could go to the apartment,” I offer. “All of Jordan’s stuff is there. It makes sense.”
She smiles genuinely down at the baby seat in the back of the car where Will sit. Seeing that we’re here causes Cici’s mom to slide out of the car. “I’ll leave you to it,” she says quietly. “But Cici, call me if you want me.”
I’ve been honest with everyone. After being so hidden away for far too long I feel like I need to be truthful about everything. Cici’s family knows that things haven’t been great so they’re aware that it might all implode now. I’ve been brutally honest about my side of the things, I’ve laid myself out on the table. I want them to know that they might need to be there for her. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but you never know.
Me and Cici slide into the car and she immediately turns around to see her son. “How have things been with you and Jordan? Have you both been okay? Sorry I haven’t been here for you. It must have been hard.”
“Hey, you did it for a while, so it was my turn,” I tell her warmly. “And it’s been good for us. We’ve been able to bond and recover from the time I missed out on. It’s been good. Although we have missed you a lot.”
Cici turns to face the road as we move, and she’s silent for a while. I keep wanting to talk, there’s so much that I want to say, but I don’t want to push it. I don’t want to force her. She’s been through so much already.
“It feels like forever,” she murmurs quietly. “Since I’ve seen the apartment. It feels weird, like a life time ago.”
I know that she’s struggling, it’s obvious it isn’t easy for her to have her whole world torn apart. I might have lost my best friend in a terrible brutal way, be she’s had to find out that her cousin wanted her dead. It’s messed up. I wish I could do something to make it okay again, but there’s only so much I can say.
“It was a life time ago, wasn’t it? Things were so different back then.” Almost perfect, but not really.
When we pull up outside, I immediately go to get Jordan. I’m sure that Cici needs a moment to digest this before she goes inside. She’s been in the hospital forever, I’m sure this isn’t going to be easy. I focus on my son while she has some time. As I grab his car seat I suddenly realize that my heart is racing. I’m anxious, almost sickly so. I have a horrible feeling that this isn’t going to go well at all. I take a second to recall the first time that I brought Cici here, the night of the wedding. Back then she was supposed to be a one night stand
. I knew right away that she’d be different, I went for the sweet looking red head rather than a peroxide blonde, but I didn’t know how different. I wasn’t aware that she’d be the one for me. I didn’t know that we’d fall in love, have a baby, and face a life and death situation together. It’s insane. Absolutely crazy.
I don’t want this to be a small chapter in our stories. I don’t want to end up as footnotes. I want us to be each other’s happy ever after. I want to cling onto this, to make it work. I want to do things right this time. I was a bad boyfriend before, I didn’t behave anything like I should have, and I want to make up for that.
“Shall we go inside?” I ask, my voice thick with emotion. “Get things sorted.”
Out here, we can’t do anything, we can’t talk about it at all, we need to get inside before we can have the honest chat we need. I could let it fester, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to be tackled because ignorance is bliss, but we have to. We can’t just keep not talking about it. We need to move forwards.
“Yes, okay.” Cici nods slowly. “I think we should. It’s time to go inside.”
We walk slowly, almost as if we’re heading towards our doom, and we step into the elevator. Jordan seems fidgety, and I’m sure it’s because he can sense the emotions fizzing between us. I’m realizing that he’s very in tune with other people for a baby. It makes me worry about all the things that he’s been through before.