by Vivian Ward
He trained his gun back on Julie. I knew she was fucking scared, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it. He’d called my bluff. I couldn’t kill Bethany; it was my boss’s daughter, and even if I did, it wouldn’t mean anything to Mask at all.
A police car pulled up to the house and parked behind my jeep. I looked to Lee, thinking he called the police, but he shook his head no.
“Give it up, Mask! They’ll take you down in a blaze of bullets without a second thought.”
We heard a car door slam shut before the cop started calling for Shawn. Caving under the pressure and scared out of her mind, Julie started crying and tried to scream.
Mask attempted to cover her mouth to shut her up, but it was too late. The cop turned and spotted all of us standing along the edge of the woods and quickly withdrew his gun from his holster and took cover by the passenger tire of his cruiser.
“Everyone lower your weapons!” he shouted, pulling his radio close to his mouth.
Shit.
I never wanted the cops to get involved. Mask might get spooked and blow a hole right through her head. It would also be bad for the business, but they could consider the whole property a damned crime scene and possibly seize it—for however long they saw fit.
The cop pointed his gun and demanded that we drop our weapons again. I laid mine on the ground and put my hands in the air, letting the police know that I was surrendering.
Mask howled the most sinister laugh I’d ever heard before pointing his gun at me.
“Die, asshole!”
A loud, deafening blast rang through my ears before I had a chance to respond or react. Lee’s body floated past me in slow motion, and his body made a sick thud as it hit the ground. The bitter gunpowder floating through the air stung my senses, and I thought for sure I’d been shot.
Checking over my body, I realized there was no pain; no blood. Nothing; anywhere. I was fine. Looking down at Lee on the ground, he’d been shot in the gut and was bleeding through his shirt.
“You stupid son-of-a-bitch!” Mask hissed.
At another attempt on my life, he cocked his gun back again and tried to fire it at me but his gun jammed. I was still knelt down, tending to Lee when Julie broke my concentration from him for a split second as she cried out, scared for her life.
The police officer began firing shots at Mask, realizing the danger everyone was in.
“Get down!” I screamed at Julie.
For the second time in my life, I felt like a scared boy; completely helpless. The only other time I’d felt like this was when I was about eight years old. I’d just came home from school and saw my mom with her newest boyfriend, fighting in the kitchen.
Normally, it wasn’t a big deal; she fought with boyfriends as much as she probably changed her come-stained panties, but this day was different.
While most kids would have gone to the kitchen for an after-school snack, I never did. There was never anything to eat in the house.
Mom never had any money, and none of the guys she dated gave a shit if there was something to eat in the house. All they cared about was making their next score; didn’t matter if it was dope or pussy.
I went into the kitchen to see what was going on. I’d be lying if I said none of her boyfriends ever hit her because I’d seen my fair share of hand prints on her face or finger marks on her necks, but I’d never seen or heard it going on—until that day. When I walked into the kitchen, the two of them were standing near the kitchen table.
Her long stringy, greasy hair covered her profile and the guy she was dating—some loser with a fucking mullet—yelled at her while she screamed back.
I watched her bring her finger up, pointing at his chest, and the next thing I knew, he hauled off and punched her in the face. I tried to yell stop, but neither one of them could hear me over their loud arguing.
I tried tackling him, but he threw me right off of him and my back slammed into the kitchen cabinets. I was such a scrawny little shit; that’s why I dedicated my entire life to lifting weights; I started in middle school and never stopped.
After that day, I vowed to myself that no one would ever treat me, or someone I loved, like that again. Not that it mattered much afterwards, though. Mom got with some truck driver who had some family in Texas, and she packed up and left with him at the end of my freshman year of high school.
Looking at Julie, I could see the fear in her eyes. She was truly terrified for her life, and I hated myself for letting her be in that situation. I could—and would—always protect her. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw a second cop car rolling up to the scene, and then a third cruiser right behind him.
Fuck this. I’m not waiting for them to let her get killed.
Reaching out in front of me, I grabbed my gun and cocked the hammer. I’d never been so grateful for all the target practice I’d taken in my life. Closing my left eye, I aimed the barrel of my gun at Mask’s head and prayed to God that he wouldn’t let Julie get up off the ground, and squeezed the trigger.
All I could hear was the blast from my gun, and the smoke from the gunpowder clouded my vision. Several gun shots from behind me ensued but quickly halted. Nobody was standing, not even Mask.
I looked over at Julie and saw her lying on the ground in a pool of blood; her last scream still echoing in my mind. My heart dropped a thousand feet into the pit of the Earth, and my soul felt empty; my lover, the girl of my dreams, was gone.
We’d barely gotten our life started together. We’d only been reunited a couple of weeks ago, and now she was gone. I wanted to rip the beating heart of my chest and put it in hers; our baby needed his mother. The only mother he’d ever known.
She was the best mom any baby could ask for. She was so attentive to his needs, she knew what he wanted, what he liked and most of all, she was the only person who could understand his garbled words.
I remembered the last time I made love to her, and how good she felt. Her moaning as I bit her swollen, plump lip as I sank deep inside her was the first thing that ran through my mind. And how she was snuggled up next to me, wearing one of my oversized t-shirts as she slept like an angel, curled up next to me.
And now she was an angel again. Watching over us; watching over Bentley, the only person she adored in this world. She lived for that boy.
Lee’s hand grabbed my arm, and his lips started moving, but I couldn’t hear anything he was saying. The gun shots were still ringing in my ears, temporarily deafening me.
No matter how many times I asked him what he was saying, I couldn’t hear him, and soon, I was unable to see as the tears obscured my vision.
Chapter 15
Julie
I had never been so scared in my life when all the bullets started flying. The first thing I thought about was Bentley, and how I’d left my beautiful boy sleeping inside. I was going to die by the hands of some fool only feet away from my sweet baby. All because I wanted to be nosy.
If it hadn’t been for me wanting to see where my dad had been hurt, and see what else might still be in the woods, none of this would have happened.
This scary asshole would’ve never had the opportunity to grab me, and I wouldn’t have been standing in the middle of a gun fight. I was hoping that Damon would have shot him dead right off the bat, but the way he was holding me, there was no way that Damon had a clear shot to take him out.
The scariest part of the whole ordeal was when Damon and the police started firing bullets just moments before I jumped out of Mask’s death grip that he had on me. When the police shot him, he landed right on top of me, smearing his blood down my arm and back.
Lying on the ground, I looked over and saw Lee holding onto Damon’s arm while he stared into my eyes. The look of terror on his face was something I’d never seen before. He’s always been so tough; inside and out. It looked like someone had told him the saddest thing in the world. Lee was saying something to him, but I couldn’t make it out because the gunshots were still ringing in
my ears.
Three officers carefully approached us, with their weapons drawn, shouting at us. Even though it was impossible to hear what was being said, we all simultaneously raised our arms in the air, surrendering to the police.
Suddenly, I could partially hear what they were saying and abided their orders to get up on our knees with our hands behind our heads.
Slipping in the bloody mud, I struggled to get up on my knees but managed to assume the position and placed my hands behind my head.
Damon’s face contorted, his head tilted to the side before his eyes lit up and he donned the biggest smile I’d ever seen—like a kid opening his favorite present on Christmas morning.
One of the cops grabbed him first, I presumed since they’d seen him with a gun and he fired a shot and started putting him in cuffs as they arrested him. Still only partially able to hear, I could hear him laughing as they picked him up from the ground, grinning like a fool as they carted him away.
The others grabbed Lee and me, placing me in cuffs while they motioned for the emergency responders to assist Lee.
“I’ll be okay,” Lee said to me as the cop walked me past him.
We trekked over to Bethany, who the agent also placed under arrest and made our descent down the hill where we were escorted to separate patrol cars. As the officer walked me past the cruiser that Damon was sitting in, I looked inside the darkened window, and he mouthed the words, “I love you,” to me and blew me a kiss.
Confused as to why he was so happy, I smiled as the cop pushed my head down into the backseat of his patrol unit and shut the door. No longer able to see Damon and finally able to think for a moment, I realized that I needed to tell someone that Bentley was still inside the house, all alone!
Screaming did me no good because nobody could hear me—or if they did, they were doing a fantastic job of ignoring me. Finally, I turned my body and began kicking my legs across the back of the patrol car, slamming my feet against the door and the window as I continued screaming for the police.
A moment later, my arresting officer came over to give me a warning, but I started shouting that my baby was inside.
“My baby’s inside! He’s in the house!”
“What?” the officer stopped for a moment.
“My baby! He’s only a year and a half old! He was inside taking a nap!”
“Hold on,” he reached up to his shoulder and began speaking into the small radio.
“Can I get an available officer to go inside the house and check for a toddler, please?”
A few seconds later, an officer answered. “Ten-four, Brady is going to the residence.”
Looking over my shoulder, I watched the male officer walk inside the house and return moments later with a scared, crying Bentley before he strode over to the car with him on his hip.
“I’ll be damned,” the cop said to me. “I’ll have him put the baby in the backseat with you.”
The officer holding Bentley walked him to the car, and he started crying, “Momma! Mommy!” as he reached out for me.
“We’ll put them together,” he told his colleague. “I think she’s okay, but we still need to interview her before we can cut her loose.”
I looked at his name tag, “Excuse me, Officer Jennings,” I smiled politely. “Thank you.”
“Does he have a car seat ma’am?”
I nodded, “Yes, in the back of the jeep. It’s black and red.”
Turning to Bentley, I smiled and started talking to him as he climbed into my lap. I wanted to wrap my arms around him so badly, but the handcuffs prevented me from doing so.
“Hey baby, everything’s okay. Did you wake up scared?”
His bottom lip quivered as he looked into my eyes.
“Aww, it’s okay, baby. Lay your head on Mommy,” I said to him as he did it and I snuggled him as best I could.
The ambulance whooshed past us as they took Lee to the hospital. I looked up on the hill where Mask had been shot and saw his lifeless body covered with a white sheet.
One of the officers was busy roping off the area with yellow police tape. A few moments later, the officer returned with his car seat and hooked it up in the back of his car before we drove down to the police station.
Once we were downtown, they took all of us into separate rooms and began questioning us. I was scared that they were going to take Bentley away from me for leaving him in the house alone, but they didn’t bat an eye.
After my interrogation was through, they reunited us together in the lobby. A middle-aged brunette was playing blocks with him when he spotted me and ran toward me, arms opened wide.
“Baby!” I picked him up and swung him around. “Did you have fun while mommy was busy?”
His grinned, making his chubby cheek appear like two round apples and pointed at the woman with the blocks. I looked around and noticed Damon still wasn’t out of his interview yet.
“Here, we can play blocks together while we wait for daddy,” I took him over to the floor where the toys were and looked up at the woman.
“Do you know how much longer he’ll be?” I asked her.
“Who?”
“My boyfriend, Damon Miller. We came in at the same time?” she looked puzzled. “For questioning?”
“I’m sorry, I’m not following you.”
“There was a shooting—at my house—and they detained everyone, brought us all back here for questioning, and I was wondering how much longer he might be?”
“Babe,” I heard his voice as he walked down the hallway towards us.
When he got close enough, he grabbed me and wrapped both of his enormous arms around me, lifting me off the ground. It felt like a python was squeezing me to death and became hard to breathe.
I patted him on his back like I was tapping out in a cage fight to get him to let go of me. He put me down after one final squeeze and kissed me like our lives depended on it as his hands wrapped around the back of my head and his tongue probed my mouth, hot and wanting, not giving a care in the free world who was there to see.
“I thought I lost you,” he said, still not letting go of me with his arms still wrapped loosely around my waist.
“What? Why?”
“Because I saw you lying in a pool of blood; I didn’t realize it was his blood, and I thought it was yours.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. No baby, I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere,” I tiptoed and kissed him on his cheek. “It all makes sense now! The look on your face, you telling me that you loved me in the cop car and blowing me a kiss; you were glad to see me alive!”
“Why’d you think I said and did that?”
I looked around, making sure nobody could hear me and kept my voice low, “I thought you were going to jail for murder. You shot him, and he died.”
“No, babe, it was self-defense; the cops knew that. Not only did he have his gun trained on you, but he shot Lee and tried to shoot me too.”
“Do you have any idea who my dad is? I could own this damned police station if I wanted to!”
We heard the ruckus coming from down the hall and turned our attention to all the chaos. It was Bethany shaking the detective loose off her arm as she threw a hissy fit like a twelve-year-old.
“You grab the little kid while I grab the bigger one,” he said, nodding toward Bethany.
A few days later, I got to see my father for the first time in almost a week. He was cranky, but nothing that a little time and therapy wouldn’t heal. While we were there, the doctor said that my father could be released after a couple of days, as long as he had plenty of help around the house during his physical therapy.
Without a second thought, I immediately spoke up and said that we’d help him and volunteered us to move in with him and my mom. After I had opened my mouth, I thought about what Damon might have to say, but much to my surprise, he didn’t have anything to say. He looked down at me and nodded.
“Thank you for not being upset about me volunteering us to move in with
them; I can’t let my mom do it all alone,” I said to him as we left the hospital.
“Babe, I’d do anything for you and if that means helping out your old man then so be it. At least you have an old man to help, and I’ll always support you. You and your mom’s all the family he’s got, and you’re all the family I’ve got.”
It was bittersweet hearing him say those words; I knew it was true. He didn’t have any family except Bentley and me, and I was so happy for that reason, but I felt bad that his parents had bounced. He didn’t even know if they were dead or alive; they’d always just been…gone.
Back at our house, we were still playing hostess to Lee, who was still nursing his bullet wound, and Princess. I didn’t mind Lee staying with us, though it was odd since we had kissed, but Princess had to go. I couldn’t wait to get her out of our house.
“Well, you know, at least with us having to move back in with my parents, it’ll help ditch our two lovely guests,” I said sarcastically as we pulled onto our street.
“You’ve got a point there. Are you as sick of them as I am?”
“Very.”
“I’ll talk to Lee tonight and see when he thinks he’ll be up for traveling back to California.”
The night before Dad was scheduled to be released; we drove Lee and Bethany to the airport to catch a flight back to California.
I felt bad that Lee had to travel while he was still healing, especially after he admitted that he jumped in front of Damon because he felt that he owed him after he’d caught us kissing. He took a bullet to prove his loyalty and to make up for our mistake.
Damon’s boss tried to talk him into coming back with him, but he flat out refused. There wasn’t anything his boss could have said to get him on that plane.
We made sure to put our last night alone to plenty of good use by cracking open a bottle of wine and going to bed early; though, neither of us got a wink of sleep until right before the crack of dawn with as hot as the sheets were all night.
“Be careful!” I winced as Damon helped dad inside the house. “Watch out for the door!”