by S. Poirier
Narrowing my eyes at him I inhale a large breath and spit the blood in his face. “Fuck you.”
He wipes the blood out his eyes with the back of his hand. The wild look that ignites in his eyes sends a shiver up my spine as he punches me in the jaw. This time I can’t hold back my pain filled groan.
“You’re in trouble James, and killing me won’t solve anything. People will know about your shenanigans soon enough. Whether you kill me or not, you’re going down, along with Fiddle and anyone else they find out to be involved.” I knew saying that would only make matters worse for me, but if he was going to kill me I wanted him to know I was the one who exposed him for the scumbag he truly was.
“No, killing you won’t solve anything. I’m doing it out of pleasure, revenge for ruining my life. Your time is up, Max.” He throws his head back and laughs. The sound is pure evil, and I know he has completely lost his mind. “Now I’m going to beat you. I’m going to beat your face in so badly that that assassin who failed to do his job won’t recognize you. And after June identifies your body I’m going to kill her too.” He gets right in my face, his nose almost brushing against mine. “One of my informants saw you kiss that man; I’m assuming he is that assassin. I may not have the chance to end his life, but I will make him want to end his own.”
With those words spoken I start counting the blows to my face.
One. He’s calling me a cunt. Two. He’s starting to breath heavily. Three. Four. Five. Now he’s roaring with pure rage. And after the sixth blow to my face I, thankfully, black out.
****
Catch
“If you don’t slow down you’re going to get us killed,” Snitch says as I take a hard left. June is squealing in the backseat with every bump, turn, and brake I hit.
I wasn’t going to kill anyone. I’ve had more practice driving this Ford around my parents’ property than most kids got in driver’s education before the DMV handed over their licenses. I knew the way this car drove like the back of my hand.
“Catch, take another left here.” I hit the brakes and steer the car so the back end drags around the turn. The smell of burnt rubber wafts through my rolled down window. When I straighten the wheel I rev the engine and the car shoots down the road.
I’m so focused on getting to her that I haven’t said a word since we left the hotel. I need to concentrate only on getting to Max as quickly as possible. My knuckles tighten around the steering wheel and my jaw works back and forth as I think about Kelly putting his hands on her. For his sake I hoped he hasn’t laid one finger on her. But my gut tells me differently. Max is in so much trouble right now I know I can’t get to her fast enough.
“Stop here, Catch. We can’t pull up to the front door. We don’t know what he’s capable of,” Snitch says as he points out the front windshield. “That building over there. The unmarked warehouse.”
I pull my gun and slide the magazine out before pushing it back in place. In my mind’s eye I can see Max doing the same thing and then shrugging saying it was a habit. The memory makes me grip the gun so tightly I’m not satisfied until I feel metal digging into my skin. I push the door open as I hear Snitch telling June to lie across the backseat and stay put.
Snitch steps out the car and looks at me over the hood of the car. “I have guys on standby. If there’s a mess they can be here in a matter of minutes.” I nod, now very grateful that he is here. “I’ll take the front…”
“No,” I growl. “I want to walk through that fucking front door. Take the back and cover me.” He nods in response.
The street is lined with nothing but warehouses. As we make our way towards the back of the closest warehouse I notice that the street is deserted. He picked a place that would be empty. Kelly knew there wouldn’t be anyone out here after hours.
We move in the shadows provided by the large metal buildings and don’t split up until we reach the warehouse right next to the one we believe Max to be in. Snitch whistles a tune and I look up to see him pointing at the front of the building. There’s a guy pacing.
I nod and Snitch disappears around the back. I press my body against the cool metal wall and slowly make my way to the front. I don’t want to bring any attention to Kelly who is likely inside, so I time his steps and by the time he clears the corner of the building again I’m there. His eyes widen and before he can think of pointing his gun at me I pistol whip him, and catch his body so he doesn’t make a sound as I lie him down on the ground.
I round the corner of the building and put my hand on the knob. It’s locked. At the exact moment my phone vibrates in my pocket.
Snitch: Backdoor locked.
Me: Front too. Count to ten then blast it open.
I close my eyes and take those ten seconds to try and prepare my mind for what I might see in there. By the time I get to five I know that there will never be enough time to prepare myself. My chest tightens at the idea of how bad this situation could be.
Ten.
I fire two shots and the door gives way. I kick it open and hold the gun in position to shoot anyone who stands in my way. I don’t have to go far to find them. He has her in the middle of the room tied to a chair. She’s slumped over, her beautiful red hair curtaining her face, and she’s not responding.
My throat clogs and I have to fight to get the words out. “Max, babe, look at me,” I call out to her. James Kelly is standing directly across from her with a gun pointed at her. I recognize the gun. It’s hers.
“Sorry, she checked about two minutes ago,” he chuckled.
“Put it down Kelly. You’re surrounded,” I warn. He gives me a wild smirk. “Don’t believe me?” To prove my point I whistle and a second later I hear Snitch’s familiar whistle answer me. “Put the gun down or I’ll empty mine in you,” I roar. I’m starting to lose it. Thick panic is forming in my chest the longer he holds that gun on Max. My hands want to start shaking, but I grip the gun tighter. I want to shoot him, but I have to be careful. If I start shooting he may shoot Max. I need him to put the gun down before I kill him.
“This bitch has ruined my life, and I have you to thank. None of us would be in this shit if you would have just done your job.” The gun in his hand dips slightly and then as he raises it again I pull the trigger and just keep pulling it until I hear the familiar click echoing through the warehouse.
James Kelly is on the floor, every bullet from my gun embedded deep in his chest. Snitch runs into the room. He’s already on the phone with his clean up guy.
I pull the pocket knife from my pocket and kneel beside Max. “Baby, open your eyes. Please look at me.” I cut the cords from her hands, and then I move to her ankles. She still hasn’t said anything. My heart is pounding and sweat is rolling down my face. “Max, please.”
I pull her from the chair and look at her face. It’s bruised. Every single inch of her beautiful face is swollen and turning different shades of purple. My eyes travel down her body, and absolute horror fills me when I see blood covering the abdomen of her shirt.
“Snitch! NO!” I roar, as I start pulling her shirt up. My eyes land on the bullet hole and my heart stalls. “Max, love, open your eyes. Please, baby…” I can feel the sting of tears. I haven’t cried since my dad died, but somehow I know that if she dies this will be much, much worse.
Her eyes flutter open and she looks up at me. I gasp at the contrasts of her green eyes against her bruised face. “Max, talk to me, say something.”
“Is that son-of-a-bitch dead?” she mumbles. I nod because I just don’t trust myself to talk right now. “Good.” She tries to raise her arm but is having trouble so I help her. She reaches for my face, so press her palm to my cheek. I can’t breathe, I’m starting to panic and I don’t know what to do.
“June is bringing the car around. The hospital is only a few minutes from here. I’ll drive. Come on we have to get her out of here,” Snitch says. I scoop her into my arms and press her to my chest.
When we get in the car June has already sl
ipped into the backseat and I get into the passenger seat with Max in my lap.
“Oh God!” June shrieks.
“Don’t.” I put my hand up. I can’t listen to her shriek and freak out. I needed to concentrate all of my attention on Max.
Snitch has us out on the main road and we’re speeding to the hospital faster than what I drove to the warehouse. “Keep her talking, Catch.”
“Hey, open your eyes for me. I need to see those mossy green eyes.” Her lids open a little and I think she manages a smile for me. It’s kind of hard to tell because her face is so swollen. “Stay with me okay. I can’t…I…” I’m overcome with emotion and I’m having trouble speaking, but I know I need to. I need her to stay awake. I take a deep, ragged breath. “Jesus Christ, Max, just please don’t leave me.” I’m begging her to fight as I feel the warm tears roll down my cheeks. “You’re the very air I breathe. I can’t do this whole going on living thing without you. I need you. I love you.” My voice is cracking and I’m choking up.
Again I have to help her raise her hand to touch my face. “I’m here. I’m…Sage, I love you.” Her eyes slip closed again and I feel her go limp against my chest.
“No. Max, no. God…please, no,” I’m yelling, panicking, and squeezing her against me as I rock back and forth in the seat. I pull her up close enough so I can whisper in her ear. “Baby, it’s Sage. You need to listen to me. Don’t give up. Stay with me, please don’t give up.” I press my finger to the pulse on her neck; it’s faint but slowly fading away. I press harder as if by some chance I can will it to stay with me. But it continues to slow.
We’re at the hospital and I throw the door open before Snitch comes to a complete stop. I run in through the double doors with Max in my arms. June is close on my heels.
“Help, someone help her.” I run up to the counter and the nurse gasps when she looks at Max’s face. “No. She’s been shot in the abdomen.”
Before I can turn around I feel something bump my backside. I turn around to see a gurney with a few nurses staring at me. “Sir, you need to put her down.” Instinctively my arms tighten around her. One of the nurses touches my shoulder. My body jerks with surprise. “We can’t help her if you don’t let her go.” It was then that I placed her on the rolling bed. I tried going with them, but they wouldn’t let me pass through the double doors. “Sir, are you family?”
My vision is starting to cloud over. “No, but…” I hear someone say they are starting CPR and I spin around to see a nurse hovering over Max’s body pressing violently into her chest as they wheel her away. I turn back around and grab the nurse by her shoulders. I’m desperate. “I need to be with her. Please.” I feel the tears stinging my eyes.
“Sir, if you’re not family then you can’t come back here.” My first thought. Oh fuck no! My second thought is to push through them and go back there anyway. Somehow this nurse is able to read minds because she gives me soft, understanding eyes and says, “If you come back here we’ll have to call security. Please just take a seat.”
“I’m her next of kin. She doesn’t have any family, she was orphaned at young age,” June says. I hadn’t noticed she was standing next to me. The nurse looks her over and then waves her though the doors. June touches my arm. “I’ll be out once I know something,” she says, and then rushes through those mechanical doors, following behind my whole life.
21
Max
The doctors were told that James Kelly did this to me. I confirmed their story when I woke. The story was short and to the point. Since they were partially lying they wanted to keep it simple so their stories would collaborate. I got by with saying I couldn’t remember for most of the questions they asked.
I had surgery to remove the bullet and fix the damage it had caused. Thankfully, nothing was serious. I came close to dying from the simple fact that I lost so much blood due to internal bleeding. James had shot me before Sage and Snitch arrived, so I had been bleeding for a while before they got me to the hospital.
Two weeks. I’ve been in the hospital for two weeks. And it has been two weeks since I’ve seen Sage Carmichael. I woke up and he was here. I was drowsy, and I remember him telling me how much he loves me. Then he kissed me, and even through my drug induced haze I could tell that the kiss had a note of finality to it.
When I woke up again he was gone.
The intense pain that tore through my chest had me so worked up that the nurse had to come in and sedate me because my blood pressure spiked too high, and I was somehow able to pop a few stitches in my abdomen. After I woke up from that I only cried. It was one of the first times that I just cried. No sobbing, no punching, no screaming, just hot tears streaming down my face. I never wiped them away. I just let them roll down and soak my neck and hospital gown. I needed to feel them. I needed to know that what I had with him was real. And besides, my face was too swollen and tender to touch.
June hasn’t left my side for a moment, and I honestly don’t know how she does it. Her job at Fiddle is gone. Actually, everyone who worked at Fiddle is out of a job. The investigation proved that James Kelly and other members of his radical political group were doing the things we suspected of them. I’ve had many interviews with the FBI and local authorities. They interviewed everyone who worked at Fiddle, even the ladies that did the cleaning after the office closed. Because they had such damming evidence against them they didn’t need me as a witness, something I was grateful for. I was just ready to put all of it behind me.
James Kelly is listed as missing. He has so many charges waiting on him that I almost wish he was still alive to have to face them. But they will never find him. I don’t know what Snitch and his buddies did with him, but if I learned anything, Timer has an elite group of people working for him. I don’t doubt for one second that they know how to make a person disappear.
“Hey, are you ready to go?” June asks as she picks up my bag. I found out that the last night I saw Sage he had brought my things to the hospital. That thought makes the permanent lump thicken in my throat, causing me to have to blink the tears back.
“God, yes, let’s get the hell out of here,” I croak. June can see me struggling, but she doesn’t say anything. She’s knows my pain is far deeper than my repaired abdomen.
They make me ride down in a wheelchair, saying something about hospital policy, but June talks the nurse into letting her escort me down alone. The floor I’m on is crazy busy, so the nurse doesn’t put up much of a fight. The moment the elevator hits the main floor I ditch the chair. I’ve been laid up for too long and I need to walk.
June drives me to my apartment to pack a bag. I still have a lot of healing to do, so I can’t stay home alone. And honestly, I was conflicted about that. In a way I want to be alone, but on the other hand maybe being alone isn’t the best idea right now. Besides I need to move out of that apartment. My lease will be up in about a month, and then I’m out of there. I refuse to live anywhere James Kelly graced me with his presence.
When we pull into my apartment complex parking lot Sage’s black Jeep Wrangler is parked in my assigned parking spot. I reach over and grip June’s arm so tightly that she winces.
“Max, what’s up?” she ask, concern lacing her voice.
Tears weld in my eyes as I shake my head. I point to the jeep. “That’s Catch’s jeep,” I whisper because my throat is so tight.
She pulls her car to a stop next to it and I get out. I take slow steps to the driver side door. There’s a small part of me that’s relieved to see that it’s empty, but a larger part of me feels like someone dumped salt on my open wound.
There’s an envelope tucked under the windshield wiper with my name on it. With trembling fingers I pull it free and break the seal.
Beautiful Max,
Your association with me almost got you killed more than once. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anything happened to you. I don’t know how things are going to play out with Timer. Take the jeep. I want you to have it. You nee
d something reliable to drive. The key is near the driver side tire.
I’m sorry, Max. Just know that I love you,
Sage
“Fanfuckingtastic,” I mumble as I start feeling around for the key. My hand lands on a little box magnetized to the metal. I slide it open to find two keys. Before I round the vehicle I shove the letter into my back pocket. Then I make my way over to June. She’s standing by her car watching me.
“Did that asshole give you a car?” she asks. June is now the president of the Hate Catch Fan Club. He made me cry, and June has never seen me cry. I think I may have scared her a little bit. She kind of compared it to the first time she saw her dad cry.
With a sigh I answer her. “Yes, he gave me a car.”
“And you’re just going to accept this ridiculous gift from him? I mean, seriously, is this supposed to make up for him ditching you?”
“I’ll only use it until I find myself another car. Then I fully intend on giving it back to him,” I say as I walk past her and push the button on the elevator.
When I enter my apartment my eyes zero in on the blood stain that’s still on the floor. Now I’m not sure if I will be able to get it off.
Well, there goes my security deposit.
I gather some clean clothes and go back down to see June waiting by her car. “You ready?”
“Yeah, but I’m going to drive,” I say as I attach the jeeps key to my key ring.
“You’re not supposed to drive, Max. Remember the doctor said no driving for another few weeks?”
“And since when do I listen to what anyone tells me to do?” I started refusing any pain medication days ago. I was done with feeling numb.
“Well, you did listen to…”
“June, shut up. Don’t say his name,” I warn. I don’t want to hear his name said out loud. It repeats itself over and over again in my head. Hearing it pass through someone’s lips would just be too much right now.