by Holly Hart
"You can go fuck yourself, asshole," Cara yelled. Her voice was high and shrill with terror, but her fists were clenched, and her eyes smoldered with righteous anger. I'd never been more proud of anyone in my entire life. Hell, I'd never had anyone to be proud of. Cara was the first person to give me a shot, and I almost blew it.
I laughed out loud. "She's right, you know," I commented, as if he was standing right in front of me. "You always were an asshole. It doesn't seem like much has changed."
A crack reverberated down into the basement. Like the sound of a boot smashing into plasterboard. I grinned. "Look’s like someone’s pissed…"
The basement filled with an ominous silence. I glanced at Cara, and shot her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. She shot me one back. Then the basement exploded into a maelstrom of gunfire, flashing lights, smoke and chunks of falling ceiling.
I threw Cara to the wall and shielded her with my body. "I'll die before you do, I promise," I yelled.
She shook her head.
Bullets stitched the wall just above us, and I pushed further down into the dirt, doing anything to keep her safe.
"No," she said. "We can't get out of this. You know it as well as I do." I felt her hand wandering up my thigh. It was a sensation that at any other time, I'd have adored. But this was different. She wasn't doing it to give me pleasure, she was searching for something. Her hand stopped. It found something hard and cold – the pistol at my hip.
"I'm going to do it," she said, flicking the safety and bringing the weapon up to her chest. It hovered there for a second, and a tear leaked out of her eye.
"I love you, Val. I love you more than you can imagine. I always did, even when I thought you'd left me forever. Call me crazy, call me tragic, but it's true; but I can’t … I'm not letting them take me. I'm not living to see you die before me."
I watched, horrified, as the pistol continued climbing, relentlessly to her temple.
She's going to do it. She's going to kill herself!
A wave of nausea rose inside me. As I blinked, I pictured what life would be like without her. The world went silent. The sound of gunfire faded away, and the patchwork of new lights from the bullet holes in the floorboards disappeared.
"The fuck you are," I growled, batting the weapon aside. It skated along the floor and came to rest against the far wall. "I love you as much as the next girl, Cara," I said. "Wait – way more than the next girl! But no one's dying, not today. Especially not the girl I love."
Cara rested her forehead on my chest, breathing heavily, as the enormity of what she'd almost done crashed home deeply. Strangely, the sound of her breath seemed to almost outweigh the noise of the bullets that were landing all around us. "Then I hope you've got a plan."
I reached into my combat webbing and pulled out a small, black touchscreen tablet. It was protected in a thick plastic case, the kind you could throw of the Brooklyn Bridge without doing much damage. "You could say that."
I tapped the screen, and tapped it again – waiting for the fireworks.
They didn't come.
"God dammit."
"What now?" Cara asked listlessly. I looked at her worriedly. She was shaking slightly. I shined my flashlight into her eyes – glassy, barely responsive.
Fuck.
"You're going into shock, Cara," I muttered. "It'll be fine."
I reached for the radio receiver on my chest and clicked the black button on the side twice.
… and waited.
This time I got my fireworks display.
The first floor of the crack shack exploded – literally. The second the charges I'd placed went up like a large, sparks flying Catherine wheel, I charged up the stairs, dragging a barely responsive Cara behind me. I fired like a madman, not bothering to aim, and unable to anyway. The stairway was filled with smoke, and flames had begun to lick the walls.
The smoke wafted and I caught a glimpse of Arkady backing away, surrounded by a quartet of heavily armed bodyguards. He was wearing a finely tailored suit. The smoke curled, and then he was gone.
Of course he's in a suit.
The side of the flimsy building shuddered, and something crashed. It sounded like a door being kicked in.
And amidst the sound of burning wood cracking, and damp mold fizzing, the decrepit building filled with the sound of a choir. Not harps and angels, but something a damn sight more useful – claws clattering against wooden floorboards, teeth gnashing against one another, growls and frenzied barks.
"Sounds like…" Cara whispered behind me.
"Rat!" I agreed with a broad grin stretching across my face.
Roman, you glorious bastard, are a lifesaver.
A man yelled at the top of his lungs as Rat's jaws closed around his arm, or leg, or some other appendage… A man can dream. Either way, by the sound of the terrified yelps he was letting loose, it was a bad bite.
I stood up, shielding Cara from the conflagration, and surveyed my domain. It was chaos. Bullets whipped around like gnats, hissing and stinging in the air. Men growled curses in Russian, or else wept and prayed. They were the injured ones.
"Arkady," I called out. My voice was strong and proud. "It’s my turn now. I'll let your men go if you come out, unarmed." I raised my voice. "You hear that, boys? What do you think? Sound good? I give you my word."
"My men," dad's voice rang back, "wouldn't listen to a punk like you, boy. Respect still matters in this business. And that's something –"
Two shots rang out. A body thumped to the ground, obscured by smoke.
I froze. Who was it? Roman?
The radio crackled on my chest. Two sharp clicks. I heaved a deep sigh of relief.
"Another one bites the dust, boys," I called. "You got five seconds to make up your mind. Five."
"Four."
"Three."
"Two –"
"All right, all right," a panicked voice called out. It was heavily accented. "We'll do what you want. Just call off the damn dog already!"
My head jerked to my right, at the walls behind me. Flames were already half way up them, and Cara's eyes burned in the reflection. We didn't have long. I choked on the smoke, and beat my chest until the fit of coughing subsided.
"Drop your weapons," I shouted hoarsely. "And lie on the floor." For good measure I called out to the dog, though I had no idea where the hell he was or whether he was even listening. Maybe he was lost in a bloodlust. I wouldn't blame him. "Rat: down, boy."
I crouched down and beckoned for Cara to do the same. She followed my lead, but listlessly. I was still aware that this was more than likely a trap, but I didn't have a choice. The building was burning behind me, and there was only one way out – in Arkady's direction.
"I'll kill you," Arkady raged. "You, Popov, with your pretty young wife, and your too young –"
A thick, wet sound echoed down the smoke-filled corridor; the sound of a fist colliding with a man's jaw.
I smiled with satisfaction.
I beckoned toward the floor and whispered to Cara. "Stay down."
And then I walked into the smoke, my rifle held dead straight ahead of me. I was a wraith: phantom.
I walked into a pocket of fresh air, to see Arkady reaching for a rifle one of his men had hastily abandoned. I put a bullet through his hand, and then another through his other for good measure. He squealed and brought them up to his face in shock like a character in a cartoon. Blood soaked into his pristine white cuffs. I paused, and an immense battle raged inside me.
"You’re an asshole sometimes, Val," I groaned. And I shot both my fathers knees out. He dropped to the floor like a sack of shit.
I chuckled, hard and low as Roman appeared out of the midst, covering Arkady's foot soldiers with a pistol in each hand.
"Good to see you, partner," he grunted.
I couldn't hide the relief on my face. "I don't know why I ever doubted you, partner."
Arkady stretched out a red, dripping finger and pointed it accusingly a
t the big Russian hitman. "You!"
I raised my eyebrow and looked at Roman for explanation. He shrugged. "I never said I was just helping you. Arkady and I have … unfinished business."
"You killed my brother," Arkady snarled, snatching for the weapon at his hip but wincing with pain that was too much to bear. "He killed your uncle, Val."
I eyed Roman with renewed interest. "So it was you who did that? Which one? Hell, who cares. They both deserved what was coming to them."
Roman simply grunted. I was beginning to realize that that was something of a trademark. "You want the honors?"
I frowned. "The honors?"
"Yeah – of putting a bullet in this pig's head." He raised his voice so that Arkady, whining and sobbing on the floor, could hear. "For all the little girls you've fucked and all the innocent lives you've destroyed."
The blackness rose inside me, throbbing with the beating of my heart. I felt my trigger finger tightening, my eyes closing. I imagined dad's twisted, broken body lying forever where it fell on the floor, and it filled me with happiness. I wanted to end his life more than anything in the world.
But I couldn't do it.
I wouldn't do it.
Because that would mean succumbing to that blackness; it would mean that all of this fighting for my self had been for nothing. I didn't blame Roman for what he wanted me to do. Arkady deserved it a thousand times over. I didn't feel superior to the big Russian by my side, either. Arkady didn't deserve forgiveness, and I wasn't offering it. This was for me, not him.
My shoulders sagged forward and I shook my head. "I can't."
The gunshot rang out, and Alexandria's tyrant slumped back against the floor. A tiny trickle of blood flowed from the hole that now punctured his forehead, and then slowed, and stopped.
It was over. And then it wasn't.
Cara screamed. At least, someone did from the direction in which I left her. My heart leapt into my mouth and I spun on one foot, charging back into the smoke, terrified of what I might find.
But I was too late.
25
Cara
The blade sprouted like a sapling from Anatoly's chest and rooted there, stuck fast. Blood welled out from underneath it like oil spilling from the seabed, except red, hot, and dripping.
I backed away, looking at my filthy hands, now stained red: evidence of a crime that I could never wash away; proof that I was a different person now; confirmation that I was forever changed.
Guilty.
A killer.
Val sprinted out of the smoke with his rifle held up. I saw the barrel pass by me, saw him boot Anatoly in the chest to the ground and stand over him screaming obscenities. Then I saw him turn to me with terror in his eyes. He said something, but I didn't understand a word. My world was in pieces, shattered. The person I'd always been lay dying alongside my would-be rapist, and I could never take it back.
"I didn't mean to," I babbled. I barely understood the words spilling forth from my mouth but they came regardless, like a stream flying off a cliff. "He came out of nowhere, came to me, and said he was going to take me –"
Val left the dying corpse where he lay on the floor. "I don't care," he whispered.
"I'm a killer, Val," I went into his shoulder as the enormity of what I'd done began to crush home, "a killer. I'm going to go to jail. I'll never see Kitty again."
"Like hell you are," he growled. "You're a survivor. You did what you needed to do. No prosecutor in the state's going to bring a case against you. Besides, they won't bother. For all they know, this was a gang squabble. No one gives two shits about a few dead Russians. They'll write a feature on page ten of the Herald, and that'll be it."
I stared at my bloodstained fingers. "I killed a man," I whispered. The heat of the wall burning behind me licked the holes in my torn clothing, but I barely felt it. "I killed a man, Val."
He shook me by the shoulders. "You. Survived." He growled. "Repeat it after me, "I survived."”
I stared into his eyes. They were black, yet bright, and filled with conviction. He believed every word he said. I just didn't know if I could too.
Survive, or die.
Val grabbed me by the arms and squeezed tight. "Tell me this. You think the Cara Winters I met a few weeks ago, the one who panicked when she dropped a jar of damn hand cream on the floor – you think she could have done any of this?"
I shook my head. That's the point.
"You did what you had to do to survive. You did what you had to do to get back to Kitty; to me."
"And a man's dead because of it; more than one."
"But I don't love him," Val growled. "He doesn't have a Kitty waiting at home for him."
Kitty.
I nodded. "You're right, I know you're right."
Val grinned, and his smoke-stained face seemed to lose five years as the relief washed across it. "So say the damn words, ya idiot!"
I repeated them finally. "I survived."
It sounded hollow, but I knew they were true; and I had said them. That counted for something, didn't it?
"I think it's going to take a while," I murmured, "to come to terms with everything; with all this."
Val nodded, and all I saw in his eyes was blind devotion. "But you will."
"I will."
And it's true, I will. It doesn't matter how long it takes, because I'll have Val by my side and Kitty in my arms. So I'll heal.
Because, I survived.
Epilogue
Breathe.
One … one thousand.
Two… … two thousand.
Three … … … three thousand.
I hold every breath a second longer, each time dropping a little deeper into my trance.
Breathe.
Koh Samui is not Alexandria, not by a long shot. That’s not even nearly the best thing about it. It's not East Coast, either: it's not unbearably hot in the summer; it’s not horrendously icy cold come November. Apart from a little rain (okay, a lot rain) from time to time, it's damn near paradise. I mean, it's East Coast somewhere, but I sure as hell prefer living on a tropical island off the coast of Thailand than in a barely heated slum apartment with my violent father, or on my best friend's couch.
Besides, most important of all, it's home. At least, it is for now – and you know what? I don't see myself leaving anytime soon. Sure, I can be happy anywhere in the world as long as Val and Kitty are by my side; but there's something magical about the sun licking your skin sixteen hours a day. Plus, waking up to the sound of waves toppling over against the sand makes it a whole lot easier to smile first thing in the morning.
It's a new feeling, all this – happiness, safety, comfort – and love. It doesn't matter that it's been eight months – when you've been poor for as long as me, it's hard to break out of that soul sucking mindset.
I still find myself counting pennies when I go down to the fruit market, by the little harbor, in the morning. I think the sellers are surprised at how good I am at haggling. I guess most Americans come here and get fleeced, even if they think they are walking away with a steal. Not me.
There was a time, not very long ago, when every last red cent counted. There were months when I had to choose between meat for the table and money for Kitty's formula. She won, every time. Believe me, when you live not just from paycheck to paycheck, but day-to-day, you learn how to cut costs like the best of them. If I ever get a job in a big business, I'll be fine.
So when the man says he wants thirty baht for a watermelon, about a buck ten, I still offer him five, even though I know it costs way more back home. He flips back with twenty baht, and after a lot of angry hand gestures, the realization eventually dawns on his face that I'm not messing around. That's usually accompanied by the sound of disbelieving yells in Thai to nearby fruit-sellers, and anyone else in earshot. They look back at him and laugh – a local getting taken for a ride by an American?
It doesn’t happen often.
I never could afford a car, not
back home. Waiting in the icy rain for a bus that never comes gets old – fast. I know what you're thinking: with Val's money, who cares? You're right. I don't, not really. If I want I can buy a car every week for a whole year and it won’t make a dent in our joint checking account.
It’s crazy, right?
The rain's warmer here, though. You can stand in it with a bottle of shampoo sometimes and lather yourself up, and if you close your eyes you really can’t tell the difference between a cloud unloading on your hair, and a proper shower.
But still, it's nice not to have to wait. We don’t buy a car in the end. We figure there really isn't much need. Anytime you want to get somewhere around here, you just flag down a rickshaw, and a man with a broad smile will drive you down the coast road for fifty cents. There's something indescribable about a salt breeze whipping at your hair.
Then there's Kitty.
We might have to move some day, when she needs to go to big kid’s school. I know that's years away – that she's barely turned three – but you've got to be prepared. I want her to be around kids her own age. I want her to make friends in a way I never could. She'll never be one of those kids who show up at school with patched clothes. She'll never go hungry on her lunch period, or wait at the school gates until it's clear that dad's not coming to pick her up.
Val would never do that.
What if that means leaving the island? It's the only home I've ever known…
It doesn't matter. Cross that bridge when you come to it.
Breathe.
Three … … … three thousand.
Two … … two thousand.
One … one thousand.
My eyes flicker open, and Val's neatly trimmed beard is the first thing I see. He leans over with what smells like a cup of hot java in his hand, and a smile the size of Texas on his face. And still, the concern lingers in his eyes. It’s been there for months – a faint hint of worry that's the same every time.