by Ryan Schow
“You wearing anything at all under that blanket?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“How can you go from fighting with your mother to this?” he asked.
“I can because I have to.”
“You want to escape in me tonight?” She leveled him with a sheepish smile. “Well in that case,” he said, standing up and taking her hand, “let’s get you off to bed.”
With that she confirmed that she needed to unburden her emotions by burying them into something else: him. As he walked her upstairs, he realized he truly enjoyed Indigo. That he wanted to be with her because he was falling in love with her. He also knew that somehow, some way, he needed to be with his family. To not leave them behind the way Margot left Indigo behind.
Talk about impossible burdens…
Rex was curled into Indigo, who was naked and asleep beside him. Margot was asleep down the hall in Indigo’s old bedroom.
He’d crashed at many a girl’s home, but for whatever reason he felt himself becoming a part of this family. Maybe it’s not when things are good that you feel yourself gaining permanence, maybe it’s when you know the problems and realize you can either be the light or the darkness in a person’s life that you begin to dig in.
Knowing he could be something good for Indigo and her mother is what kept him from being able to go to sleep. And knowing that if he left he’d be yet another man who left and never came back. He couldn’t do that. Rex wasn’t just falling in love with her, he’d already fallen.
That’s when the banging on the front door startled the absolute hell out of him. He hopped out of bed, same as Indigo and grabbed his gun. She was dressed faster than him and heading into the hallway. Margot had her head out of her bedroom door.
“Indigo?” she said.
“Go back to your room, Mom,” she hissed. “Get your gun and stay there until I tell you otherwise.”
Rex was behind her saying, “And shoot anyone who tries to come in that isn’t us.”
They both bounded down the stairs, and when Indigo opened the door, it was with the shotgun in the face of the man standing there.
He was a shadow.
“What the hell business do you have pounding on my front door?” Indigo barked.
“I came to see you,” the man said.
He was a slight man with a merry voice, almost like he took joy in having found her and was now excited to have a conversation at this ungodly hour. Behind him, someone turned on a flashlight, shined it on Indigo’s face.
She inched the shotgun left, shot the man dead. She racked a load and swung the shotgun back onto the man before her. Rex was suddenly at her side, not fully in the door, but enough for the stranger to see he was there and wouldn’t hesitate pumping his face full of lead.
“First off,” he said, “was that entirely necessary?”
“You come to my house in the middle of the night, banging on my door like your life depends on it, then flash a light in my face…do you really need to ask that question?”
“Roberto?” he said over his shoulder.
“Yeah, boss?”
Turning back to her, he said, “That was Mario you shot.”
“Well in the world of survival of the fittest, your friend Mario wasn’t too bright.”
“No he wasn’t, but I did enjoy his company. He was a humorous man. A suitable traveling companion.”
“What do you want?” Rex asked.
“My name is Emilio Gustavo Francisco De La Fuente and I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Perhaps at a more judicious hour we could have cracked a beer, talked about the end of the world and how it’s going and all that,” Rex said. “But at this hour? And the way you’re doing this—?”
“You’re Indigo, right?” he said.
Horror washed through Rex in the worst way. His skin grew cold and a shot of dizziness raced through him.
“Who are you to me?” Indigo asked, equally concerned judging by her subtle change in tone.
Ignoring the question, Rex stepped forward, put his weapon not six inches from the delicate man’s face and said, “I’m counting to five in my head then I’m putting two rounds in yours.”
“I’m assuming that’s a yes.”
“If you’re going to make any assumptions, pal, it would be to assume that I’m dead serious and I’ll do exactly what I say. Take your pack of asshats and pound sand. Oh, and never ever come back here.”
“Well Indigo,” Emilio whatever, whatever, De La Fuente said, “you left a lot of men dead back at that school, and you’ve been a burden to track down.”
Now it made sense.
“Your men killed innocent people,” Indigo replied. “Your men killed my friend. Tried to kill me.”
“I’m assuming they were the ones in the pile back in the alley?”
“Yes.”
De La Fuente shifted ever so slightly. “You waged a war that is much larger than you can handle.”
“Say the word,” Rex told her.
“You shoot me, my men turn this house into Swiss cheese,” the stranger said, his accent soothing, but pointed.
“What, just Roberto?”
“Do you think I would come alone? With only two men and a few guns?”
All the sudden, it sounded like two dozen slides on two dozen handguns chambered a round at once. Ice trailed down his spine and Rex nearly ended the man right then and there knowing he might not get another chance.
“Do what you want,” Indigo snarled. “But understand that before the second shot is fired, you’re a corpse, plain and simple. After that…whatever.”
“Threats such as these are but a coward’s last defense,” he said with a grin. “Retribution will see us all, Indigo.”
“You think my threats are anything other than a promise, you do your thing. But if your bony little ass is still on my porch inside of six seconds, I swear to God your head will be nothing but a red smear on the ground behind you.”
“I believe you, Indigo,” he said, turning around. “I truly believe you.”
He disappeared into the dark and Indigo shut the door. Rex stood there, overly concerned, humbled by the man’s chilled demeanor through this all.
“We need to go,” he said.
“This is my father’s house and I’m staying to defend it. So if you want to leave, leave. But if you want to stay with me, then you’ll stay here with me.”
“They send a big man to the door to threaten us, I can deal with that. They send anyone to the door to threaten us, I can deal with that, too. But when they send a very small, very kind man to the door simply to meet you, then what that means is not that I’m staying here with you to defend your father’s home. It means I’m staying here to die with you in your father’s home. If that’s what you’re asking, then I’ll stay, but at least understand, that’s what you’re asking of me.”
“I didn’t ask for anything other than you not fall in love with me.”
“Do you want me to stay or not?”
“I want you to stay.”
“Then we stay, but staying means dying.”
“If that’s what it means, then that’s what I’m committed to. You are free to leave if things get to dicey for you.”
Later that night, somehow, Indigo managed to go to sleep; Rex remained wide awake. Overseas, he met plenty of guys like this De La Fuente, and all of them turned out to be bad news in the worst way. Those were guys who killed their mothers, who burned entire villages, who had no problem killing kids, women, family pets. If he was right about this guy, and he—
The smashing of a window downstairs jolted him out of bed. Indigo was already up, grabbing her gun and dashing back downstairs. Rex was on her heels, already seeing firelight in the stairway. Indigo raced past the burning rug and couch, grabbed a fire extinguisher and put the flames out.
Another window broke and a flaming bottle followed; there was more fire. Indigo put that out, too.
“Indigo?” her
mother said from the top of the stairs.
“Get your gun, get dressed and get ready to go!” Indigo shouted.
Rex took the front window, saw another guy lighting another bottle. He fired a quick round, caught the man in the face. The rag caught fire just as the bottle dropped and exploded into a flash of light on the ground. Rex saw three more men. He fired off three more rounds, catching two of them. Gunfire peppered the house and he hit the deck.
After that, no more shots were fired.
They waited an agonizing thirty minutes before realizing that might have been it, but when Indigo asked who he shot, he said, “Not the right people.”
“You think this is over?”
“No,” he said. “I think it’s just starting.”
Huddled together in the living room, all of them nodding off, Margot and Indigo went first while Rex forced himself to stay awake. Hours later, he caught a whiff of smoke. It was only then that he realized the smoke was coming from their house.
He stood and went to the front windows, saw the fire blazing up the sides, then he ran to the back and there he was, one of those scumbags from earlier, packing a rag into a whisky bottle, preparing a Molotov Cocktail for the rear of the house.
Chapter Twenty
The girl was already running a fever. Jagger tucked her into bed, looked at the bruising on her face, saw the emptiness in her eyes. She looked up at him, held his eyes, blinked. He wiped away the sweat from her forehead, listened to her little teeth chattering.
“You cold?” he asked. She nodded. He bundled her in the blankets and told her he would be there until she fell asleep, just in case she needed him.
The stress of so much chaos had a way of catching up to a normal person. To be this young and have to have lived through the death of your parents, the torment of thugs and weasels, seeing these same cretins all but massacred then leaving everything and everyone you know to go on some road trip with a stranger—no wonder she’d fallen ill.
Not to mention the fact that she wasn’t properly hydrated or nourished...
He sat with her for a long time, and though her eyes were closed, she was not asleep. There was so much strength in this child, so much grit, yet he could see how fragile she was behind the façade and that made him want to always protect her.
“I’m going to take care of you,” he said. She opened her eyes, blinked twice, no expression. “I don’t care what happens in this world or for how long, I’m going to take care of you, okay?”
For a long second they just stared at each other, and then he thought he saw the faintest of smiles as she closed her eyes and finally drifted off to sleep.
Within a few hours her temperature spiked once more, bringing her back to fever chills and body pains. She never cried throughout any of it, but her temperature concerned him. He pulled a mattress into the bedroom so he could stay by her. He didn’t realize how tired he was until he was out cold. He woke the next morning to someone clearing their throat.
He opened his eyes and found himself staring down the barrel of a rifle. On the other side of that barrel was a big man with an overly serious face full of wrinkles. He had to be pushing eighty judging by the bushy eyebrows, the rugged landscape of his face and the fringe of white hair ringing his head.
“Where’s Tom?” he asked in a voice worn clean by time, but quietly so as not to wake the child.
“Old guy with the cat?” Jagger asked, studying the man’s hands.
“Yeah.”
“I found him in his chair, expired. Cat, too. How old are you, sir?”
“You burn them out back?” he asked, pressing the gun closer to him.
“I did.”
“My age is of no concern to you, son,” he said. “Why’d you burn them?”
“You don’t look well. And I burnt them because your buddy doesn’t have a shovel and I wanted to set his body free of this crappy world. Thought he and the cat could be free together. Plus I didn’t want the girl to see him. She just lost her parents.”
“She’s not yours?”
“She’s not mine, but she is my responsibility. You have kids?”
“Not anymore,” he said, glancing over at her. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Fever,” Jagger said. “I appreciate you not waking her.”
“You kill her parents?”
“Hell no,” Jagger said, reaching up and shoving the barrel of the man’s rifle aside. “Get that damn thing out of my face.”
The old man staggered a bit, then backed up and managed to keep the rifle trained on him. Jagger sat up and said, “If you don’t mind, I need to check on her.”
Using the gun, the stranger motioned for him to do so. Jagger saw the man’s energy waning a bit, so he stood and checked on the girl, feeling her head. She was still hot.
“Did Tom have a thermometer?”
The guy shrugged his shoulders and said, “You can check the bathroom.”
“Can you check it for me?” Jagger said, brushing wisps of hair off the girl’s face.
Her pale skin was slicked with moisture, but her lips were as dray and as cracked as ever. He feared she was dehydrated, but he didn’t want to wake her either because she needed her sleep. He laid a gentle hand on her forehead. God, she was burning up. Her eyes slid open a little, the corners dry with a few knobbles of sleep crust.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said. “How are you feeling.”
She just looked at him with those big blue eyes. They were hurting eyes. Eyes pumped full of desperation. Eyes rattled with discomfort. She looked around, not familiar with her surroundings. When the old man appeared behind him with a temperature gauge, those same eyes flashed with fear.
Jagger said, “It’s okay, he’s a friend of the man who lived her before.”
He handed Jagger the thermometer and said, “I washed it off in the toilet tank, so it should be mostly clean.”
Jagger inspected it, wiped it dry with the bottom sheet, the said, “Open up, I need to take your temperature.”
She put it in her mouth, then Jagger turned to the old man and said, “Can you find a washcloth and dip it in the water, make me a cold compress? She’s burning up.”
“Sure,” he said. “What’s her name?”
“Just go, please.”
He gave a sort of flustered, jumbled nod, then he left the room and came back about the time Jagger was pulling the thermometer out of the girl’s mouth.
“One oh five point one,” he said, reading the results aloud.
The man handed Jagger the washcloth, noticing he didn’t have his gun with him. He thanked the geezer and laid the washcloth on her head and asked if it was okay. Her eyes just about shut on their own, but not before she could answer him with a diminutive nod. Her color was off, her little teeth still gritting together and he couldn’t stop seeing that bruise.
For whatever reason, it still pissed him off.
“I’m going to talk to this nice man, then I’ll be back in to check on you, okay?”
She nodded.
He stood, looked at the man, who suddenly remembered that he did not have his gun and this was a stranger in his friend’s home. Jagger extended a hand and said, “Jagger Justice, First Lieutenant, US Marines.”
The man warmed instantly, then smiled and took his hand.
“Brighton Copley, US Army, retired. Call me Bright though, everyone does.”
“Sounds good, Bright.”
“So…Tom was…he was gone?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he die on the rocker?” Bright asked. Jagger nodded. “I told him he would. He never left that chair but to eat and crap.”
“How did you guys know each other?”
“Ran into him about twelve years back. He wasn’t looking and pulled out right in front of me. We had a wreck, then a fist fight, then we realized we both served and from there, well…we just sort of got along.”
“You live nearby?” Jagger asked.
“Two doors down. Saw the fir
e yesterday, thought he was burning something, but that didn’t sit right with me last night, so I though I’d stop by.”
“I’m glad you did,” Jagger said, half lying, half wanting to put Bright at ease.
“Yeah, me too,” he said. “Say, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“What brought you here?”
“I pulled this girl out of an…abusive, sick situation, and I’m taking her with me back to San Francisco. Needed a place to hold over until she gets better.”
“Well you can stay here as long as you want.”
“Thanks.”
“Another question?” he said.
“Shoot.”
“Are you…trouble?”
“No,” he said.
“You look like you could be.”
“I can. But not unless you deserve it and you don’t deserve it, Bright.”
He nodded his head, smoothed his unruly white hair, then said, “I got some Vitamin D3 and some Zinc chewables, if you’re interested.”
“I am.”
“Got a bit of honey also, and some lemons.”
“Whatever you think will help.”
It turned out Bright was a good and judicious man, all the way up until his death twenty-two days later. Before that fateful day however, without the help of antibiotics, the girl carried on fitfully and in bad shape. She lost a lot of weight and couldn’t seem to keep her temperature down. It was touch-and-go for the better part of a week without anti-biotics and both Jagger and Bright were scavenging anywhere and everywhere they could hoping to find something.
When they started going through mailboxes, they found a package with a couple of bottles of colloidal silver. The bottles read Silver Bullet in a blue and white label. Jagger damn near sagged with relief. They all but dumped the first bottle down her throat, which helped pull her out of her delirium, and they kept her body cool with cold compresses and open windows during the day. They took her through the second bottle of colloidal silver and this seemed to do the trick. As the days progressed, she was able to eat a little more, and take in more water at a time.