by J. J. McAvoy
I didn’t want to listen anymore.
Wiping my face, I ran. My heart trembled, and I felt sick, but I kept running. I wasn’t sure where I was running until I ended up at his door, pounding.
“Helen?”
I grabbed him and sobbed. Like a child, I sobbed.
“Shh,” Wyatt whispered as he kissed the side of my head, pulling me into his room. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t okay.
Why out of everyone, did it have to be her?
And why did she keep saying sorry?
It wasn’t her fault.
Hearing her say sorry only made me feel worse.
My mom was dead.
And it hurt.
CALLIOPE
I don’t know why I chose to go to Declan and Coraline’s room. Why I chose now of all times to give them that video, it might have been Evelyn’s little pep talk. It was the first time I’d really been given a pep talk, at least one without any ulterior motive. Just a talk to make me feel better. It was what normal families did. It was nice. So, it made me want to be nice, at least for a second. However, that was the wrong thing to do.
Siena had told me over and over that nice people finished last. Nice was a weakness. She was thousands of miles away, most likely about to die. I trusted Ethan, and his crazy parents would be able to do it. I trusted other people that was also a mistake. Only trust yourself, Siena had told me.
I didn’t listen.
And as I walked back to Gigi’s room and saw the blood in the hallway, I felt Siena’s grip on me again. I should have run, but everything slowed down. I was scared to go into the room. Tears were already in my eyes. My heart was starting to burn.
“Gigi?” I called out softly.
But there was no answer.
The door was open. It was silent inside. She should have heard me.
Stepping inside, I saw my daughter on the floor, her dogs shot, and blood covered her. Evelyn was on the ground beside her!
“Gigi!” I screamed, finally able to run to her, falling to the ground to pull her into my arms.
“Mommy…” she grumbled, wincing in pain.
“Oh, thank God!” I said, pushing her hair off her face, seeing the blood that was on her temple. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay.”
Someone had hit her hard. Quickly, I moved to check the rest of her, but I didn’t get far. The black device around her neck meant there was no further to look. I stared at the timer on it, praying it wasn’t what I thought it was but knowing exactly what it was.
Ring.
Ring.
The cellphone was in her little hands.
“I will find and kill you for this,” I said.
“Or, we will finish the mission you were trained to do.”
I knew that voice. My eyes widened, and my stomach turned because I fucking knew that voice. “Kill the Callahans, Calliope, or your daughter’s head goes off. You have until sunrise.”
I looked at my daughter and then Evelyn. How could he have gotten this close? Despite the fact that the house was on lockdown? How?
“Roman.” My stepfather and my fucking useless older brother who abandoned everything! How? How could it have been him?
“I think you all called me Mr. One…good name. I heard you killed your father. Then you came for my mother. After you came for my wife and daughters? Did you think I was just going to keep being a pacifist? Let’s finish the Orsini dream! Tick, Tock, little sis!”
“Fuck you!” I screamed, throwing the phone against the wall. Grabbing my own quickly and dialing Ethan. Only one person I knew could take off this bomb, and he was about to kill him. It was Luca’s bomb!
But he didn’t answer!
“Fuck!” Fuck! I cried, lifting Gigi up onto the bed.
Who else? Who else?
There was no one fucking else! Holding her, I couldn’t think. I really couldn’t think.
Kill them.
Save her and kill them.
It was the only thought in my mind. Slowly I took out my gun and dialed.
“Calliope, this isn’t a good time,” Wyatt said.
“I don’t give fuck, get here now! Now!”
“Calliope?”
“I said now! Bring the whole fucking family!”
Kill them.
Kill them.
I have to kill them.
Siena had someone inside the house the whole time. Long before me. She had me in a trap the moment I had walked into this house.
There was no disobeying her.
Till the end, it had to be her way.
Dead or alive, none of them would ever let me have a happy ending. Ever.
…So they all needed to die.
18
“A family doesn’t need to be perfect,
it just needs to be united.”
~Anonymous
WYATT
She sat on the bed in a daze, Gigi cradled in her arms.
“Nana!” Helen called out, and it was then that I focused on the rest of the room. At the foot of the bed was my grandmother, amongst the dead dogs, blood on her forehead. Helen quickly moved to help her up as I checked her pulse.
“Hmm,” she grumbled with pain in her twitching eyes, which only gave me relief.
“Mom!” my Uncle Neal called out, coming over and taking her out of Helen’s hands.
“Evelyn, Wyatt, is she all right?” Aunt Mina asked, now also on the floor. One by one, they all entered except for Killian and Uncle Declan.
I told them to come to Gigi’s room, but I didn’t tell them why. Because she hadn’t told me why, either. “She’s fine,” I whispered.
“What do you mean, she’s fine! She’s bleeding!” Uncle Neal hollered at me.
Carefully rising, I looked back to Calliope and my niece, seeing the blood on her forehead. I saw her forehead rise, so she was not dead. I didn’t understand whatever new episode she was going through, but I wanted to get Gigi and my grandmother out of the way of her wrath.
“Calliope, what happened here?” I asked, slowly walking toward her. “What happened to Gigi? Can I check her?”
Her head turned to me, and she looked at me as if I were the crazy one. She had blood on her hands and sat in a blood-covered room, staring at me as if I were beneath her. Ethan really knew how to pick them.
“You think I did this?” she scoffed.
“No…”
“Liar,” she said, but her voice shook.
I didn’t understand. “Calliope, what happened?”
“One of you betrayed us!” she screamed at me, her eyes welling up with tears.
“No one—”
“Look.” She lifted Gigi, and I froze, watching the timer around her neck go down. Four hours, and thirty-four minutes, fifteen seconds. Then fourteen. It kept going, and I could not move. My eyes drifted up to Gigi’s little face.
“What is it? Wyatt, what’s wrong with her?” Helen rushed to the bed, but I grabbed her arm, stopping her from going any farther. “Wyatt?”
“He doesn’t want you to be in danger,” Calliope spoke, causing her to turn. “There is a bomb around my daughter’s neck. It was put there by my half-brother as an ultimatum. Kill the Callahans, or I kill your daughter.”
“Oh, my God.” Aunt Mina came closer; however, she stopped the moment Calliope showed her the gun in her hand.
“Mom, step back,” Sedric spoke, pulling her away from the bed. “Is that why you called us all here? I understand. But, let’s stay calm. We can—”
“We?” She laughed, shaking her head. “There is no we. There can never be a we, not until I find out who betrayed us!”
“You said it was your half-brother,” I replied and tried to move closer to her again, but she fired at my feet, causing me to back up.
“Who let a stranger into this house?” she asked coldly. “I need to know. They need to die first. If we are all going to die, the traitorous son of bitch needs to die first. So, who did it? Was it you, Helen? The poison
failed, so this your plan B.”
“Calliope, I would—”
“Liar,” she sneered, her grip on the gun shaking. “You all can hate me all you want. Try to kill me, fine. I’ll forgive you for the sake of your mother. But harm my child? I will rip you limb from fucking limb. So, do not fucking lie! Who let him in? Who?
None of them answered, which only made her bite her lips in frustration, tears in her eyes as she hunched over Gigi! Whispering something in her ear before kissing her forehead, the gun dropping from her hands.
“All of you leave,” she muttered tiredly, resting back on to the pillows. “Take your precious family and get out.”
“Now that is definitely a horrible plan,” Uncle Neal said, coming over and sitting on the bed beside us. He put his hand on Gigi’s head. “Even if you don’t kill us, Ethan would. And if Ethan didn’t, I’m not sure I’d like to witness that grief.”
“Staying here and dying is a better plan then?” she asked.
“Not dying at all is the best plan.” He smiled wide and goofy as always. “We aren’t all useless. It looks like we have a little over four hours, so let’s get this thing off her.”
Calliope shook her head. “I know the person who made the bomb. He’s a genius when it comes to things like this—”
“And so am I!” Helen called out, breaking free of my hand and standing beside our uncle. “Yes, I tried to poison you, and yes, part of me will always hate you. But I didn’t, nor would I ever let anyone into this house. Tell me everything you know, and I’ll work to get it off her.”
“Helen!” I finally found the voice to speak.
Was she insane? This wasn’t some super-computer or simple hacking. This was a fucking bomb.
“Ethan would kill me for not even trying,” she replied, hopping onto the bed and moving around with them. “And he’d kill you for just standing there and watching. Is there anything you can give her to keep her from waking up? I have a feeling this thing gets more sensitive as the countdown goes on.”
“You all have to go,” Calliope said again. “If all of us die, Ethan…Ethan can’t take that.”
“Aren’t you mad at him?” Sedric chuckled, also moving coming closer to the bed. “You looked ready to burn the house down just a little bit ago.”
“Yes, which is why us dying is the worst punishment for him. Next time, he’ll listen to his wife.”
“Harsh.” I sighed, stepping forward and placing my hand on Gigi’s wrist to check her pulse. “So, harsh, in fact, that I don’t think he’ll ever remarry. Don’t you know smart people can’t handle ever being wrong? It messes with their mind.”
“Which is why you have to be alive,” she said, looking to him. “Roman gave me a false choice. Kill the Callahans, or I kill your daughter. But my daughter is a Callahan. He wants me to beg, to grovel for her life just so he can kill her anyway. I won’t kill anyone for anyone else anymore. This is my choice. So, go.”
“You don’t seem to be getting it, Calliope,” I replied, looking up from her daughter to meet her eyes. “This is our choice, too. We are a family. This is a family. The more you try to get us to leave, the more everyone is going to stay. Now, it’s a pride thing. Either we are all dying…or we win. That’s the way it’s always been.”
“That’s the way it’s always going to be,” Uncle Neal said, putting his hand onto my shoulder. “So…let’s save her and then go kick your brother’s ass.”
“Half-brother,” she replied.
“Whatever,” Uncle Neal stated, rising so I could get more space as Sedric came with my medical bag.
I wasn’t sure when he had left to get it, but I was grateful. “He’s going to die and pay for this shit.”
“You all are crazier than me,” she scoffed.
“It’s the first family rule,” Sedric replied, handing Helen her glasses and tool kit as she looked over the bomb. “You kill for family. You die for your family—because you can’t trust anyone else.” He, Uncle Neal, and I said simultaneously, causing us to glance at each other.
Yeah, we really were some insane fucks, but I’d rather die with these insane fucks than any other insane fucks.
CALLIOPE
I’d seen strong families fall apart more times than I could ever count. I’d even be the reason those families fell apart. Throw in a little lie here, a secret there, strip them of their money, kill a key family member, and all those “families” turned on each other like savages. It was easy to puff out your chest and talk about how great your family was when everything was perfect, when you had money, when you had power, when you had respect. However, in tough times, they were all the same—broken, greedy, selfish people stuck together because of blood.
I was sure the Callahans were the same. Over the last year, I was proven right. The way they all had turned on Ethan, the way they doubted him, making their own plans. How ready they were to kill me. All I could think was, “Ah, so even the great Callahans are no different.” I was sure one of them had betrayed us. But I couldn’t think clearly. It didn’t really matter right now. So, I told them to leave. I didn’t want Roman to have the last laugh. I didn’t want Ethan to come home to his whole family gone. He’d kill himself instantly. Everything he had worked hard for—gone. I’d be the woman who led his entire family into hell. That truly was the thing of Greek tragedies.
They needed to go.
I would never leave our daughter.
So, they needed to go.
But they refused.
Instead, Wyatt was monitoring Gigi carefully. Helen was nose deep into the bomb; each time she tapped a wire, my heart shook. The rest of them could have gone. They were useless in this, but they stayed as some sort of moral support. It was fucking insane. At least they could have gotten Evelyn out, the older woman had been through enough, and Ethan cared about her the most. However, she sat down, eyes closed, refusing to be moved, with Mina putting ice to her head and Nari petting her hand. Neal and Sedric stood just off the bed, watching in case Helen and Wyatt needed anything.
This wasn’t a game.
The timer didn’t stop.
They left or faced death, and yet they all stayed as if I were holding them hostage.
“Fuck,” Helen snapped.
“What?” I said, rushing back to the bedside to look over Gigi. “What is it?”
She sighed. “It’s a two-man dead switch lock, with no red wire cutter—”
“In English?” Wyatt asked.
“There is no way to defuse the bomb. The only thing we can do is take it off her—”
“That’s still good enough,” Sedric said.
“Yeah, if I had a second pair of eyes and arms,” she snapped at him. “Even if we did, it’s has a pressure sensor. Which means someone is going to have to hold it the moment it unlocks and then—”
“What did I tell you about panicking?”
We all looked to the door as Declan, thin, raccoon-eyed, sickly Declan, who could only stand because Killian held him up, came into the room. Now the whole gang was here! What was up with these people?
“Dad!” Helen sat up, staring at him, wide-eyed. “What are you doing—”
“Don’t worry about me.” He forced a smile. “Focus. I would offer my hands, but they are a bit shaky. Wyatt, you help her. There are two switches. She will focus on one and you the other. I’ll be the eyes. Your hands are sensitive enough; it’s like surgery.”
It was the most any of us had heard him speak in the last year. He looked us over. “Do you really have time to be staring?”
“Right,” Wyatt switching to move over where Helen was by Gigi’s neck.
Killian walked his father over to the bed. However, before Declan made it, he looked at me, and I prepared for another round of insults.
“I know you did it for yourself, but still, thank you for being there for her. She…she at least got a chance to speak to… someone.” He looked away as his voice cracked again.
And for some reason, my th
roat ached.
Was this why no matter what he said, or how angry he was, Ethan couldn’t let go of them? He always said Gigi and I were his family. But at the end of the day, he always thought of his family, even when they disappointed him or misjudged him or betrayed him. He was harsh, but he never wanted them to die. Killian betrayed him. He said to beat him up; if it were anyone else, it would have been death. Helen, Wyatt, all of them…even when he sometimes wanted to kill them, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Was this the reason why?
I didn’t understand it, and I didn’t care to anymore. I was wrong about them. And I hoped I was wrong about Luca, that he wasn’t the best. That somehow, this family was smarter…stronger.
Even I was allowed to hope, right?
19
“…the gates of dark Death stand wide...”
~Virgil
ETHAN
I held my waist, trying to keep the blood in, but it kept pouring anyway. What kind of bad luck or good shooting let her hit me right under my damn vest.
“Ethan!” My father pushed himself off the ground. My mother pinned him down as we took on the gunfire. She fired above at the madwoman on the staircase.
We were far too fucking close for me to give up now. Sitting up, I inhaled through my nose before rising off the staircase.
“Ethan, no! Fall back!” he screamed at me.
But I ignored them, running up the side. I had one good shot and took it, my bullet hitting her throat, sending her rolling down the stairs.
“Boss!”
“Dino, get them out of here!” I yelled, gripping the railing with one hand and my side with my other. The monster who was Mary, who was not bleeding out at the bottom of the stairs, had gone full-blown Scarface on us. We’d managed to take out Luca, the son of bitch swearing that he had some surprise for me, too. But it didn’t matter. None of this mattered unless I got to the madwoman at the center.
I had memorized the house.
Every horror story Calli had told me seemed to make every other room more familiar. Outside I saw a well, and I wondered, so that was what they threw her into? The basement was like a medieval torture chamber. Had they done things to her there? The greenhouse, I was sure, was where she’d learn the poison trade.