Snowflakes & Fire Escapes

by Darhower, J. M.

  Those eyes.

  I know those eyes.

  Cody.

  The world stops, as I stare at him, seeing his face for the first time in a year. His expression is blank, but those eyes always told stories nobody but me ever bothered to listen to. His face has hardened, aged a century in just twelve months, but I read the softness in his gaze and listen to the confession he doesn’t speak.

  Behind me, the door shoves open in the apartment, wood splintering, feet stomping along the floor as they coming closer. Each footstep feels like a punch in the chest. Cody just stands there, right in front of me, less than a foot away, blocking my only way to escape. And I’m frozen, because he’s here, but I’m afraid, because he’s not.

  He’s standing in front of me, but my Cody … my Cody’s gone.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, he reaches toward me.

  I stand still, so still.

  My feet are cemented in spot and my voice won’t work.

  He grasps the chain around my neck, pulling the locket out from beneath the hoodie. His hoodie. His thumb brushes along the snowflake on the outside of it before he pops it open, looking inside.

  Nothing.

  There’s nothing in it.

  He stares into the empty locket for a moment before meeting my eyes, snapping it right back closed. He lets go, letting out a deep sigh, as he looks away from me.

  Ten seconds.

  He gives it ten seconds, before speaking words that make my world implode.

  “She’s out here,” he shouts. “I got her.”

  ***

  Thirty minutes.

  That was all I had.

  Thirty minutes to say goodbye to my life.

  The Marshal stood in front of me in the apartment, while numerous police officers flanked the building, unmarked cars parked all over the street, agents keeping an eye on things to ensure we were safe in here for the time being. He was still talking … he hadn’t stopped talking since the moment he introduced himself at the school … but I stopped listening when he said those words.

  Thirty minutes.

  In class sophomore year, we had this drill during fire safety week—if your house was burning down, what would you grab on your way out the door? They gave us thirty seconds … thirty seconds to decide what was most important to us.

  It was an easy decision: I took my memories.

  My pictures. My mementos. My journal.

  I didn’t even need thirty seconds.

  But sitting there, thirty minutes ticking away as they waited for me to grab whatever it was I wanted to take, I drew a blank. Because all of that—all of my memories—I wasn’t allowed to keep.

  I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

  “It’s a mistake,” I whispered, blinking rapidly as I shook my head. It had to be a mistake. This couldn’t be happening. These things … they only happened in movies. They didn’t happen in real life. They certainly didn’t happen to me. “It’s all a mistake.”

  Witness Protection.

  Unfathomable.

  “I’m afraid it’s not,” he said, looking at his watch. “Twenty-seven minutes until we’re out the door.”

  His voice was all business, yet there was some casualness about it, like this situation didn’t disturb him at all. I clearly wasn’t the first person whose life he disrupted, not the first person whose memories he stole. This, to him, was just another day at work.

  But this was my life.

  “Time’s ticking,” he said, casually strolling over to the window when I still didn’t make a move to pack anything. “Twenty-five minutes to go.”

  Everything was a blur. I blinked and I was on my feet; another blink and I was running for the door. It was stupid. I knew that. There was nowhere for me to go. I made it as far as the hallway, bursting right out the door, when an officer grabbed a hold of me, shoving me against the closest wall.

  BAM

  It knocked the breath from my lungs, forcing tears to my eyes as I struggled against the hands restraining me, gasping and shouting. “Let me go! Please! I don’t want to go!”

  The tears broke free, streaming down my cheeks.

  I didn’t understand how his could be happening to me.

  “Let her go,” the Marshal said calmly from the doorway to the apartment. The officer loosened his hold on me right away, slowly backing up.

  I glanced over at the Marshal, wiping my eyes, but the traitorous tears wouldn’t stop. “I can’t … I can’t do this. I can’t just leave. You can’t make me!”

  He stared at me for a moment, frowning, before saying simply, “You’re down to twenty minutes now.”

  Twenty minutes.

  They flew by in another blink. I went into my room and filled up a duffel bag—just one bag was all I was allowed to take. I didn’t know what I threw in it, nor did I care. The rule was ‘don’t pack anything that can be linked to Grace Callaghan.’

  The Marshal shifted through my bag when I finished, pulling out a few things and tossing them aside—my iPod, a t-shirt bearing the name of my school, a monogrammed purse that says ‘I love New York’. After he was satisfied, he zipped up the bag, handing it off to the officer in the hallway, who disappeared with it downstairs.

  Stepping toward me, the Marshal surveyed my clothing before reaching for the locket around my neck. He turned it over, and my stomach dropped. No.

  “Please,” I whispered, knowing he saw the engraving. “Just this one thing.”

  He said nothing in response to my plea as he flipped it open, looking at what was inside of it. He seemed to contemplate before pulling out the picture, closing his fist around it before securing the locket again, leaving it hanging around my neck. “Time’s up.”

  He let go and motioned toward the front door. I didn’t have time to think, barely had time to process anything, when I was ushered out, not having the chance to even look back. I was rushed straight out of the building, toward an awaiting van parked right along the curb. It was black as midnight, and even the windows were all obscured. The Marshal forced me into the backseat and climbed in beside me as engine started up for us to leave.

  Glancing out the back window, I stared at the building I lived in my whole life, surveying the fire escape, realizing I’d never see it again … I’d never see any of this again. If these people, if these men, got their way, I’d never step foot in Hell’s Kitchen for as long as I lived.

  It was what I always wanted, wasn’t it?

  But no … not like this.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  I wasn’t supposed to be doing it alone.

  I was supposed to be with him.

  Him.

  My eyes met his the second that thought passed through my mind, the moment my gaze drifted to the street outside the side window. Cody stood there, just a few feet away from the idling van, where he often hung out with his friends, but today he was alone. Something inside of me lurched, my heart stalling for a beat. Frantic, I tried the handle as I shouted his name, but the door was locked. It wouldn’t open and the window wouldn’t roll down, so I beat on it, banging my fist against the tinted glass as I screamed for him. “Cody! Cody! Please! Cody!”

  He stared at the van like he was staring through it, hands in his pants pockets. His scowl cracked after a moment. Slowly, ever so slowly, his lips curved until he was smiling.

  He was smiling.

  In a blink, he was gone.

  The van sped away down the street. I spun around in my seat, watching out the back window again as the neighborhood faded away and with it, Cody.

  “I’d appreciate it if you put on your seatbelt,” the Marshal said, ignoring my outburst. “It’s my job to make sure you stay safe.”

  ***

  Unlike his son, Cormac Moran hasn’t aged a day. He stands in front of me, in the empty apartment, beside the boy I encountered at the library last night. I stand still, trying not to fidget, but my hands won’t stop shaking and my heart still hasn’t slowed. I stare
straight at Cormac, watching him, trying to ignore Cody’s presence beside me.

  Trying not to fall to pieces because of him.

  He slipped in the window behind me after silently motioning for me to go back in where I came from. He’s spoken not a word to me. He hasn’t even looked at me again. His gaze is trained on the floor, his hands shoved in his pockets, as he waits, like me, for Cormac to do whatever it is he has planned.

  I want to scream at him, ask him why he’s doing this, why he’s being this person I know he’s not, but the words are lodged in my throat, beaten back by Holden’s warnings that I stupidly ignored. He said I couldn’t ever come back here. He said this life was over, that I’d never find here what it was I was looking for. I was a different person this past year. Why would I think Cody wouldn’t be, too?

  Cormac just stands there, eyes studying me, before his gaze flickers to his son. He stares at him for only a moment, but it’s a moment that says so much. He’s surprised by his loyalty, surprised that his son didn’t just let me go.

  I’m surprised, too.

  My Cody would have.

  “Miss Callaghan,” Cormac says, smiling deviously as he turns his attention back to me. “Or should I call you Miss Kennedy?”

  I say nothing, trying to fight the swell of sickness that rushes through me at the fact that he knows. He knows that other girl exists, the one I’ve tried to be, and he somehow knows who she is.

  “Maybe we’ll just stick with Grace then,” he says when I don’t humor that with a response. “At any rate, it’s nice to see you home again. I love what you guys did with the place.”

  He motions around us, at the vacant apartment.

  I don’t find him nearly as funny as he seems to think he is.

  “What do you want from me?” I ask, my voice shaking. I don’t want to play this game with him. I’ve already been crushed. I don’t need toyed with on top of it.

  “I think you know what I want,” he says, reaching over and grasping the boy beside him on the shoulder. “To be honest, when I heard from Joey here that you were in town, my first thought was just to kill you. Slit your throat, drop you off a building … you know, send a message to your father. I wanted to … planned to … until another idea surfaced.”

  Hope swells inside of me, mixing with a dash of terror. He might not be planning to kill me right now, but some things are just as bad as death. “What idea?”

  “That we could use you for more than just sending a message,” he says. “You see, killing you would destroy your father, but maybe if we give him some hope … give him an ultimatum of sorts, tell him we’ll let you walk away if he recants … it could work in our favor.”

  I want to say my father would never do that, but I’m not sure.

  “Brilliant, huh?” Cormac grins. “It was my son’s idea. Said there was no reason to be hasty putting a bullet through your skull when we could use that pretty face to get something we want first.”

  My gaze darts to Cody, whose attention is still fixated on the floor.

  “So settle in,” Cormac continues. “This will be your home again until we’re done with you. Joey will take first watch. You know, make sure you don’t try to disappear out the window.”

  Cormac turns, heading out the door, leaving it open behind him. Cody hesitates for a second before starting after his father, pausing only briefly to bend down and pick something up. My phone, I realize. I’d dropped it when I was talking to Holden. Cody snaps it closed, his eyes drifting my way, meeting mine for only a second, before he slips the phone in his pocket and walks out.

  I stare at the broken door after it closes. Joey walks over, leaning back against it, securing it with his body since they broke the locks coming in. He crosses his arms over his chest, regarding me.

  “Get comfortable,” he says. “It’s going to be a long day.”

  A long day it is.

  Minutes feel like hours.

  Joey tries to talk to me, to pass the time, but I have nothing to say. I slide right back onto the floor, watching the shadows from the sunlight move across the room as the day fades away. It’s cold and my stomach hurts. Adrenaline and fear nauseate me, bile burning the back of my throat.

  Giving up eventually, I lie back down, huddling into a ball and wishing this all would go away. I close my eyes, squeezing them shut tightly, letting the blackness of sleep take me.

  “Gracie.”

  My name, whispered in that voice, feels like a dream. A long ago memory. Sudden warmth swaddles me. I wrap myself in it, getting lost in the sensation, until I hear it again. That voice. My name.

  “Gracie.”

  My eyes snap open. I’m greeted by darkness, a reality that’s ugly and bitter cold. Gasping, I sit straight up, my back pressing against the wall. Confusion rattles me. A thick blanket covers me. Crouching down right in front of me is him.

  Cody.

  It takes a moment for the world to come back into focus, for me to remember how the hell I got to this place. My eyes scan the room suspiciously, looking for Joey or Cormac or somebody else … anybody … but it’s only him. They must’ve traded off watch while I was sleeping.

  “I brought you something to eat,” Cody says, holding out a bag of take-out. “Figured you must be hungry.”

  Carefully, I take it from him, setting it down on the floor in front of me. I don’t look inside. I’m not going to eat it, whatever it is. Cody seems to realize that and frowns, standing back up and turning away from me.

  I’m not sure why I expect him to leave when he reaches the door, but he doesn’t, instead sitting down on the floor beside it, back pressed against the wall. He pulls his knees up, resting his arms on them, while I pull the blanket up around me, shielding myself with it, blocking out some of the cold. I’m not sure where it came from, but I’m assuming from the same one who brought me food.

  We’re alone.

  That realization does something to me, twisting my insides in knots. My anger and fear tinges with something else: betrayal.

  I don’t say anything to him.

  I don’t know what to say to this boy.

  After a while, Cody clears his throat. “It was the library, you know.”

  I look over at him with confusion.

  “You used the name at the library—Grace Kennedy. Joseph saw it written on the sign in sheet and put the pieces together. One of your neighbors said they heard noises up here in the apartment, and well … here we are.”

  I’m kicking myself for not considering what name I used at the library, but in the grand scheme of things, that feels inconsequential at this point. Cormac already has me. Finding me isn’t really a concern anymore.

  Silence surrounds us. It’s awkward. For the second time in my life, I find myself nervous in Cody’s presence. Pulling my legs up, I wrap my arms around them, laying my head on my knees. I face away from him, staring blankly at a wall.

  “I’ve thought about you,” he says quietly. “Every day. I still come around here sometimes, just hanging out on the corner across the street. I knew you left, but being here, being where you used to be … it still made me feel close to you.”

  I don’t know if those words are meant to comfort me, but they only make everything about this feel worse. Tears sting my eyes, and I try to fight them, try to contain them, but the hurt just runs too deep.

  “I never wanted it to come to this,” he continues. “You have to believe me, Gracie.”

  “Don’t call me that,” I say, tears streaming down my cheeks. Gracie. The word is like my Kryptonite. I don’t want a thing to do with it. “Please. Just … don’t.”

  He sighs so loudly it seems to echo through the room. Brushing my tears away, I glance over at him, seeing his face is now covered with his hands. Defeat slumps his shoulders, and I know I shouldn’t care … I shouldn’t … but we’ve always been so connected that we shared pain.

  Old habits are hard to break.

  He pulls himself together after a moment, sitti
ng up straighter, his expression going stone cold. Slowly, he reaches beneath his shirt, into the waistband of his pants, pulling out the last thing I ever expect to see in his hand.

  A gun.

  I’m so woozy I feel like I might pass out.

  He holds it in his lap, tinkering with it in the darkness, the click-click-click of the cylinder as he spins it tightening my chest, confirming what I feared. My Cody—the boy who loved to use his fists when words just wouldn’t suffice—had never touched a gun in his life.

  Hours pass.

  Maybe it’s minutes.

  Days. Weeks. Months. Years.

  My life is a ticking clock that’s destined to stop eventually.

  Eventually Cody gets to his feet, tucking the gun back away as he strolls across the room. My gaze trails his feet, refusing to meet his eyes, even when he pauses right beside me. He shoves the window open, and I shudder at the blast of cold air that sweeps inside. Pulling the blanket tighter around me, I shiver, watching as he climbs out on the fire escape.

  He pauses there, right outside, so close I can still see him, so close he could hear me if I tried to run. My eyes drift to the door anyway, scanning it instinctively, wondering how easy it would be to escape. I could make it to the hallway before he even made it back inside.

  I know this building better than Cody.

  I navigated it nearly my entire life, while he was never allowed inside.

  I could run, and he might never catch me.

  All I’d need to do is make it outside.

  “He’s here,” Cody says, just loud enough for his voice to filter in the open window, with it the subtle familiar scent of smoke. “Cormac’s sitting downstairs in his car, watching, waiting … fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s doing. But he’s here. So you can try to run if you want, but you won’t make it very far.”

  After all the time, he’s still in my head.

  I almost feel violated, but he just spared me from more pain.

  I would’ve done it.

  I would’ve tried.

  Ten more seconds and I would’ve been out the door only to be caught the second I stepped outside.