by Naomi West
Moretti sighs. “Someone clean her up. I don’t want her reeking of vomit for the next bit.”
Comb-Over dabs at my face with a dirty rag. The next bit. I shiver, terror coursing its way through me. I don’t feel like a shield-maiden anymore.
I clench my jaw as this reassessment of my self-image occurs. Our self-images are so vital, I reflect, so important to making sure that we can function as people. I’ve seen myself as strong for so long that to be confronted by the idea that I’m weak, so weak that anything can be done to me without consequence, is unacceptable. And it’s even worse because it’s not just me. It’s my baby, too.
Then I hear it, above the sound of the drilling. Something crashes through an upstairs window. Moretti hears it, too. He waves at the basement stairs. “Everyone up, now. Tool up. Be sharp. Do whatever it takes. Right fucking now!”
The men file up the stairs with their weapons trained in front of them. All of them drop their whisky bottles, a few of them smashing on the floor, glass and whisky glittering in the naked bulb light. Moretti walks over to me, hands clawing toward my neck. “If anything happens to my men ...”
I won’t be a perpetual victim. I can’t be. When his hands are almost on me, I lunge forward, bringing the chair with me as I clamp my teeth down on his hand, biting so hard I taste blood in my mouth. I tear my teeth away, tearing a chunk of skin with me, grazing it off the bone like KFC. Moretti snarls and backhands me across the jaw. The chair smashes into the floor again, my head cracking, a thrum working its way through my body. My vision becomes foggy and I can barely think, but I don’t feel weak anymore. The blood in my mouth is testament to that. I acted. I did something. I can still see myself as the same woman who kneed Charles the manager in the nuts all those weeks ago.
Moretti kneels down next to me and brings a butterfly knife to my throat. “That was a very stupid thing to do,” he says, pressing the blade against my skin. “A very, very stupid thing to do, Melissa.”
“Maybe,” I agree, hardly aware of what I’m saying. Everything sways. “But at least now you know I’ve got teeth.”
Chapter 7
Logan
I kick down the front door with my submachine gun in hand, aiming it into the darkness. The building is the last place I’d expect them to hole up: a commercial toy store which has been going out of business for the past few weeks, selling everything at half price, sometimes lower. The first thing I see when I push into the building is a giant Superman cutout, smiling at me with his pearly white teeth. I jog to it and duck down, not that it’ll protect me any. That’s a mistake a lot of the new guys make in gunfights, thinking that car doors or cut outs or tables will stop a round of bullets from turning them to mush. Maybe they’ve played too many video games.
I look down my iron sights, watching the aisle. The store is separated into five aisles, each of them yawning toward the rear, where a small door leads to what I’m guessing is the storage area. Spider jogs in after me, and then a couple of the other men, all of them with their heads low, aiming their weapons. Soon the place is full of Demon Riders, shotguns and pistols and rifles aimed down every aisle.
“Slowly, fellas,” I say.
We stand up and advance down the aisles. I’ve got my sights on that door, listening for any movement. I hear it: muffled footsteps, hushed voices, the almost inaudible rasp of metal. There are men tooling up on the other side of that door. I nod to Spider, who hears it too, and he takes a tear-gas grenade from his pocket, courtesy of one of Uncle Sam’s shipments. He pulls the pin and tosses it. It hisses across the store, making a whining noise, and it’s about to enter the storage room when someone from the other side kicks the door closed.
“Shit.”
The tear-gas grenade bounces off the door and back into the store proper.
“Cover your eyes!” I roar.
The men start pulling their shirts and jackets up, covering their faces as best they can. I pull my shirt right up to my nose, leaving just a slit for my eyes, watching the door as the room fills up with the stinging liquid. Luckily it’s a big room and there’s only so much tear gas in one grenade, so we don’t get the worst of it, but it’s still a failure. I look at Spider, and he shrugs—and then a bullet tears through his spider tattoo and exposes his brains, which fall from their bone-white case like filling from the crust of a pie. He collapses on what used to be his face, twitching.
Then the store turns into hell. Men rush from the storage room, firing at us, and we all fire back. I catch two men in the chest, but the pricks are wearing bulletproofs. I catch another in the chin, two rounds which detach his jaw and toss it across the room in a shower of red. Another man falls when I shred his knees out from underneath him. A couple of Demon Riders fall around me, but we’ve got the numbers and we’ve got the experience. One by one, the mafia falls until there are only three men left, squeezed together an overturned crate. I fire a few rounds into the crate and hear a metallic clanging sound. There’s something metal, solid, protecting them.
“Biker scum!” a man roars, firing over the top of the crate.
I whisper to a nearby Demon, “The next time he does that, take his hand.”
“Boss.”
The man tries for another blind-fire, and this time our man turns his hands to ribbons. He drops his gun on the floor, screaming at the top of his lungs, his voice tearing.
“Two left.”
I call over to them, “You fellas can either die here or go on your way. Those are your choices. But you’ve gotta make it now, right this second. What’re you gonna do?”
Their answer is a volley of fire over the crate. I crawl to Spider’s body and reach into his pocket, making sure not to look at his mess of a face, and take out a tear-gas grenade. I nod to all the men to cover their eyes and then toss it over the crate. They try and take it, but pretty soon they’re writhing and moaning in pain, firing blindly in our direction. I take out both of them with well-placed headshots and then advance on the storage room, still on high alert, ready for any fucker lurking in the shadows.
“Secure the area,” I tell my men, nodding to the room, which is even bigger than the shopfront. It stretches in all directions.
We spread out, searching in the nooks and hidden places. I pause when I come to the basement. The door is ajar and there’s a light on down there, shining dimly up the stairs. I creep down slowly, trying to be careful, but when I see her on the floor like that I lose control. I run over to her, happy and angry in equal measure: happy I found her but angry that she’s like this, a dirty rag stuffed in her mouth. I kneel down and go to take the rag from her mouth, but then her eyes go wide and she tries to shout. There’s someone behind me! I turn—too late.
Moretti smacks me across the face with a pistol, once, twice, and then bites down on my hand. I drop my weapon but bring my hands to his wrist like Dad taught me. Get their weapon, son. Never let a bastard do you like that. I grip his wrist and dig my thumbs into the veiny part. He yelps, fires off three shots, and then drops the weapon. I head-butt him and he falls back, but then he springs up and catches me with a right-hook.
“You’re a dead man,” he says.
“We’ll see,” I reply.
Chapter 8
Cora
He has a butterfly knife! I try to scream, but the rag he stuffed in my mouth makes it impossible. I jostle the chair up and down, smashing it over and over against the floor, trying to break free, trying to be useful. The men fight, Logan smacking Moretti in the face and Moretti hitting him right back. He’s quicker and stronger than he looks; those spider fingers can make fists just like any man’s. Just as I smash the chair and grab a sharp piece of wood, Moretti flips out his blade and lunges for Logan. Logan dodges, just, but then Moretti is on him, slashing wildly. Logan has no choice but to retreat.
I cut at the zip-ties with the piece of wood, bending my hand at a painful angle and throwing my whole body into the motions. Moretti darts forward, Logan ducks, and Moretti buries
the knife up to the hilt in Logan’s bicep. Logan roars and backhands him, but Moretti is quick and ducks the swing, leaping back up and stabbing Logan in the side. I slash at the bindings quicker, harder. He can’t die here. This can’t be our fate. I can’t watch the father of my child bleed to death in front of me. It’s now, as I watch him limping around Moretti, that I know I want to be with him. I want to give it a shot. Screw the will and screw putting this kid up for adoption. He’s going to be taken from me; I can’t stand that. And so I must feel something.
Finally the zip-ties break loose. Logan spots it and circles around so that Moretti has his back to me. He widens his eyes and I get the message: be quiet.
“You’re a real brave man, Moretti,” he says. “A real brave bastard.”
“Who ever said violence was fair? Listen to that.”
Upstairs, more gunshots sound.
“You had some men hiding.” Logan shrugs, wincing at the movement. “My men’ll make short work of them.”
“Maybe they will. But will they be able to get here in time, I wonder?”
“No.” I creep forward, and then leap the final few paces. “But I will.” I bury the piece of wood in Moretti’s neck, pushing it with all my strength, letting out the rage I felt when he had me tied down, when he looked at me like I was his plaything. I push until I can’t push anymore because the wood has disappeared into his neck, and then stumble backward, shocked at the blood, shocked at the sheer reality of it.
Logan grabs the butterfly knife and slits Moretti’s throat for good measure, and then shoulder-barges him in the chest, knocking him to the floor. The spider-fingered man rolls onto his front, making gurgling sounds which might be words.
Then Logan rushes to me, his strong arms wrapping around me, his lips kissing my cheek, my forehead, my neck, my everything. I fall into him, letting out my pent-up tears, crying without shame into his shoulder, my body rocking with the madness of the last few hours. There’s blood on my face, in my hair, on my hands. Logan tears away a piece of his shirt and cleans Moretti’s blood before it dries, dabbing at me skillfully and quickly as I stand there, stunned. The man is dead, and I killed him. He was a bad man and he was going to do evil things to me, but still, I never prepared myself for something that brutal, for something so sudden and violent.
“I couldn’t let him hurt you,” I say, sobbing as I speak, my words hardly understandable even to myself. “I couldn’t let that happen.”
Logan smiles, and then winces and clutches his side. “I need to bind these,” he says. “Can you help me? We’ll head to the hospital, but in the meantime—”
“Okay, okay. What shall I do?”
He tears away more of his shirt, exposing his belly. “Use these.” Then he slumps down against the wall.
I take the pieces of fabric and tie up his wounds as tightly as I can. My hands are shaking and my head is still groggy, and to make it worse, upstairs a few gunshots still fire. I meet eyes with Logan and I know we’re both thinking the same thing: please let his men win. If Moretti’s men win and come rushing down the stairs, I don’t know if we’ll make it out of here. Once I’ve bound him up, he leans over and takes Moretti’s pistol, aiming it at the basement door.
“How’re you feeling?” he asks.
“Hurt—hurt and scared.” I laugh awkwardly. “I was going to lie to you then. It’s been my habit for so long to lie and pretend that I’m fine, that I’m too tough to be scared. But the truth is I’m hurt and I wish those gunshots would stop.”
They echo down the stairs, sounding like the last seconds of popcorn in the microwave.
“They will.” He glances at me. “How’s your face? You’ve got dried blood all around your lips.”
“Yeah.” I giggle. I don’t know why that’s the response that comes bubbling out of me. The giggle turns into manic laughter. Wiping a tear from my eye, I say, “Most of all I’m worried about my belly. We need to get to the hospital. They hit me in the belly and the baby, Logan, if they’ve hurt the baby ...”
I trail off, suddenly aware of my words. Logan’s eyes go wide and his lower lip trembles. He looks at my face as if trying to gauge the truth of my words, trying to work out if I’d tell a lie like that for some unknown reason, and then looks down at my belly. “Oh, shit,” he says.
“I didn’t mean to drop it on you like that.”
“And is it ...”
“Of course it is,” I say. “I haven’t been with any other man. I haven’t even wanted to.”
“No, me neither,” he mutters.
“What? You haven’t been with any other man.”
He laughs, and then sucks in a painful breath through his teeth. “Don’t do that,” he says. “You’re pregnant. Goddamn, Cora, you’re pregnant with my kid. I’ve got a kid. There’s a kid in you. My kid. I’m sorry. I know I’m rambling. It’s just ... a kid, a little baby. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to feel.”
“Are you happy, sad, angry, annoyed? Give me something!”
Tears stream continually down my face, but they’re not all bad tears. There’re some happy tears in there, and some tears which come from relief at having told him. I no longer feel so isolated. Even if he wants nothing to do with the child, it’s out there now. But I do want something to do with the child. Putting the baby up for adoption seems ridiculous now. A strong maternal instinct I never knew I had kicks in, growling like a tigress.
“Logan?” I urge, when he doesn’t respond.
“I’m happy.” He nods. “I reckon I’m happy, anyway. I’ll be happier when we can get you checked out. I don’t know if now’s the best time to talk about it.”
“No.” More gunshots fire, tap-tap-tap. “You’re probably right.”
“Wait a second.” He struggles to his feet. I grab him by the elbow, helping him up. Then he waves me away and limps toward the stairs. “Wait here.”
“Logan—”
“I’m not having the mother of my kid sitting down here not knowing if our baby’s okay or not, so just wait here.”
I grit my teeth at his words. If there wasn’t a baby in me I’d follow him up the stairs, but my urge to protect holds me back. I interlock my fingers on my belly and watch and wait, dreading the scenario when Logan has come all this way just to get killed at the very end, leaving me down here at the mercy of the remaining mafia men. Moretti throws up a stink from across the room. I purposefully don’t look at him. Seconds pass, and then minutes, and still Logan has not returned. I think about the first time I met him, the handsome guy sitting across from me in the bar. I try and connect the two pairs of people: the he and I from that night at The Devil, and the he and I in this mafia’s hell. Try as I might, I can’t bring them together.
“Logan?” I whisper, when the stairs begin to creak.
Time seems to stretch as the top two stairs whine. It could be anyone up there, one of the mafia men or one of Logan’s men. I have no way of knowing so I back into the shadows, picking up a steel pipe and holding it in front of me as my weapon. Then Logan comes limping down the stairs.
“We can get out through the side entrance,” he says. He nods at the steel pipe, holding his hands up. “You gonna attack me, Viking lady?”
I drop the pipe and go to him, wrapping my arm around his waist and helping him to walk. “We need to go, now.”
“Follow me, then.”
We limp up the stairs and along the wall, Logan standing in front of me with his arms spread, facing the direction of the intermittent gunfire. “Two bastards holed up in the manager’s office. I’d wager they’ve got about a clip left between them.” Just as he says that, the gunfire is replaced with a click-click sound. “There we go.” He reaches down and take my hand.
“Logan.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re in a fucking toy store.”
He laughs, smiling widely. It’s the best sight I’ve seen all week. “Yes, we are.”
“Wow. Okay.”
He takes
my hand and leads me outside. It feels so good to hold his hand again. Time has done some strange things since I’ve been here. The Vikings had a confusing and interesting relationship between the present and the past and the future. I remember reading about it when I was a teenager and going, “Huh,” and not really understanding it. They believed that the past could be somewhat changed by the present, that time was cyclical and wasn’t written in stone. I never understood that concept until now, but walking into the setting sunlight with the father of my child, I think I get it. This moment of victory changes every other moment I’ve spent with him; I’ll never be able to look back upon that moment I saw him in the bar and detach the watching stranger from the protective father.
“Cora. Focus. Stay with me. Your heads up in the clouds, ain’t it?”
“Yeah,” I admit.
“Well, stay with me, all right?”
“You’re talking to me like a little kid. Is it because I’m pregnant?”
He thinks, and then nods. “Maybe it is. I’ll try’n stop.”
“It’s okay. I kind of like it.”
“You wanna be babied? You, Cora Snake-Neck?”
I smile. “Maybe just for today.”
We walk to the corner of the street and then Logan leans against the wall. “It shouldn’t be too long ...”
A four-by-four pulls up with a Demon Rider behind the wheel. He leaps from the driver’s seat and helps his boss into the passenger seat. I climb into the back and fasten my seatbelt.
“Drive safe,” Logan says. “That’s my woman back there.”
We go to the hospital and get our check-ups. I’m buzzing with nerves during mine, dreading the moment when the doctor tells me, in that stern but sympathetic voice, that my child is dead, died a long time ago from the trauma of being pummeled in the belly. The doctor returns to me after getting my results. She’s a friendly-looking Asian lady with sparkling white teeth and pristine fingernails. I don’t know why I notice the fingernails; it makes me feel safe in her hands, I suppose.