"Stop," he says. His voice is low, but still manages to crack out like a bullwhip. It stops me dead in my tracks. Dad, too, rigid next to me. His hand drops to his gun but he doesn't draw – thank goodness.
The gun we saw is still in Liam's hand. He holds it tight against his chest, wrapped up in his right hand, cradled like a strange baby born with death in its heart.
I don't want to hear it cry.
He looks at me. Ignores Dad, like he's not even there. "I can't believe it happened. Can't believe what's happened, what's...." His voice drifts off to nothing. A whisper swallowed by the black monster of night. He looks down again. Dad takes a half-step in his direction. "Don't." That voice, that low whip crack of a voice again. Dad freezes.
I try to find my voice. "What are you doing?" I whisper. A lame question, probably the wrong question. But it's the only question that matters. "Why... why are you here?"
Liam looks at me, and in his eyes is a pain so severe, so crippling, that my breath catches in my throat.
There was a day when we were ten. Both of us swinging on a swing set in a park near our house. Higher, higher, higher. Laughing and laughing and for a moment when we were both laughing in perfect sync... I think for that one moment I think I knew. I think I knew I would love him. That he would love me. That we were together now and were going to be together forever.
Up and down, up and down. Laughing and laughing.
All this has happened before, and it will all happen again.
Up and down.
Then he jumped.
Maybe it was because he was so close to flying in that instant. Maybe he just wanted to go that final inch, to reach up and touch the sun the way we pretended to do at the top of each forward glide. Maybe he was just having fun.
Maybe he was showing off for me.
Whatever it was... he flew.
So high, so far, so long. Too long.
There was a concrete curb around the edges of the sandpit where the swings sat. Far enough that they were safe. Safe from everyone but a little flying boy.
He slammed into the curb with his right knee, and the flight ended and the screams shattered the perfectness of it all and we weren't flying lovers, just a little boy and a little girl who were scared and in pain until Dad swept him into his big arms and carried him away to the hospital.
That was the only time I ever saw Liam cry. I thought it would break my heart. I cried for days at the memory, the merest thought of the look on his face. Told Dad about the moment, about the love, the pride, the terror. He held me and told me it would be all right, that Liam was fine. But all I saw was Liam's eyes, all I heard were his screams.
All that was nothing to his face now. The terror, the pain. Everything bad and wrong about the world was running through his eyes, making his beautiful mouth into something ugly, something beyond agony.
"Liam," I say. "What happened?"
"YOU KNOW!" he screams. It's so loud, so unexpected, that I nearly scream myself. I don't fall back from him, but only because the sound of his voice scares me so bad my muscles lock up completely. "You know," he says again. This time a whisper. And for some reason the whisper is worse.
He looks down, rubs that spot on the ground again. Looks up again. Tears streaming. Dropping off his chin. Disappearing into jeweled nothings in the night.
When he speaks again, sobs choke his words. "I can't live without.... Mel, please talk to me."
"I will, Liam. I will. Just –"
The shot cuts me off. A single blasting boom that is louder than I could have imagined. I've fired plenty of rounds, but always on the range. Always with ear protection. Never so loud, never so real.
I flinch. Dad shouts. Falls back.
Neither of us were in danger. The bullet wasn't for us.
The bullet was for Liam.
Whenever people shoot themselves in the movies, they always put the gun against their chins. Maybe sideways against their temple.
I'd never seen – in movies or life – someone turn a gun against his chest and pull the trigger. That's what Liam did. Turned it in and pulled the trigger with his thumb.
Then he falls.
It isn't elegant or violent – beyond the first explosion of the shot. Not even particularly dramatic. He doesn't jerk, doesn't fly backward with the force of the bullet. Just bang and he flops to the ground like God cut whatever strings held him up.
Dad runs to him. Has his hands on his chest in an instant, applying pressure. But I see almost no blood to apply pressure to. And I know what that means without being told.
One bullet. Right in the heart. And the heart stopped pumping that second.
I drop beside Liam. Lean in. Look in his eyes.
The light, that lovely light in those lovely eyes, is almost gone.
The breath sighs out of his lips, pluming in the night. And with it, words that make no sense. Or perhaps they do, but only to someone who is seeing a place beyond this world. Beyond pain and fear and life.
A small hint of a smile curls Liam's lips. "You told me to come," he says. "Is this what you wanted?" Then the lips slacken.
He's gone.
7
DAD LETS HIS HAND DRIFT away from Liam's chest. He wipes the same hand across his brow, and a thin streak of blood draws a line of worry and fear across his forehead.
I can't look away from Liam's face. So loose. Whatever was him is gone.
I hope that wherever he is, he is finally flying.
Dad starts patting the body –
(that's right girl it's not a boy not the boy you loved just a body just a thing nothing to worry about yeah you keep telling yourself that you keep lying and maybe it'll be true)
– up and down, legs and arms. Then he turns it over and feels the back, buttocks. He's frisking it.
I can't believe my eyes. Can't believe he's doing that.
"Dad, what are you –?"
He grunts. Doesn't answer.
"You can't do that."
"I can. I will. I am."
I put a hand on his wrist. My hand only goes halfway around. He's big and strong and in this moment he's a scary stranger.
"Why are you doing this?"
Now it's my turn to cry. My own tears march down my face, gather on my chin, fall to nothing.
Dad pulls his arm away. "All this, Mel. All that's happening. And then Liam shows up here.... It's not a coincidence."
I gape at him. "Of course it is. It has to be –"
"No. No coincidences. Not tonight. Besides, he's...." His voice falls away.
"He's what?" My hands wring. "He's what?"
Dad doesn't finish. He pulls out Liam's wallet. Discards the contents: driver's license with him looking happy. School ID with him looking dorky. A credit card his dad gave him last year and told him to use only in emergencies – "on pain of death, dismemberment, and grounding." A few cards I recognize as business cards to places we've gone to eat. A folded page I also recognize: the first note I wrote to him. Fifth grade, thick scrawls and loops. I told him to leave me alone at recess and to stop stealing the kickball.
The first time I found that I nearly cried. Told Dad about it, and told him I was going to marry the guy.
Dad spreads them out. To him they aren't pieces of a past filled with love and laughs and all the things that make a world worth the pain of existence.
Then my eye settles on one of the cards. I push the others out of the way.
My fingers shake so badly I can barely see the card once I pick it up. But I saw it when it was on the ground. Saw it there, and will never forget.
Twin palm trees in the corner.
A name in the corner: "Pier Point."
And in the center, written in swaying letters meant to evoke the feel of islands floating in a serene sea, a place of rest and relaxation: "Red Rocks."
I meet Dad's eyes. I can see what he's thinking: R&R, that new drug – one that I know nothing about. And here we are in a place where a drug bust turned into an
assassination, with another person now dead and holding a card with the name of that new drug in his pocket.
That's when the light erupts behind us.
8
THE LIGHT THAT BLARES is one I've seen a million times. But I've always been on the other side of it. Never had it glaring into my eyes like this. Never had it blasting me with the brightness of a thousand suns.
I'm almost glad. The brightness shoves away the creeping numbness that was about to overtake my body.
Liam is gone.
Liam.
Gone.
Liam.
Gone.
The words pound through me in time with my heartbeat.
The spotlight wavers slightly as the police cruiser pulls up, screeching to a halt in the side of the alley that we just came through, just across from the bar. But even though the car is moving fast – fast enough that I can smell the burnt rubber of shredding tires almost immediately after it appears – the spot never moves off our faces. The cop in the car is someone who knows what he's doing.
The sound of the car door opening. Dad turns to whoever it is. Open mouth, maybe to explain what happened, maybe to protest that we had nothing to do with Knight.
Where are the blues? The reds?
It registers that the light bar on top of the car isn't active. The siren doesn't blare. Just the spot.
Why would he –?
The answer comes in the next moment.
Boom-boom-boom.
Shots blast out from behind the spotlight. No way of telling exactly where. Dad and I are lost in the utter darkness of blinding light following close on the heels of the black alley.
I feel Dad grab my arm and yank me to the side. Behind the dumpster. The same one that failed to save a man before.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom....
The shots seem to keep on going forever. I hear the dumpster ping and rattle as bullets find their way to the green box. I wonder if the steel is thick enough to stop them, or if they're punching through and just missing us. I can't tell, and the lack of knowing is worse than the shooting.
The hope that we're safe, tempered by the reality that I have no idea if we are, is agony.
Dad peeks out, a quick motion. So fast I can barely follow it. Still –
Boomboomboomboom....
The gunfire erupts in a flurry even faster than the last. The metal of the dumpster seems to shiver, a death rattle that mirrors Liam's.
Hold out, Greeny.
I feel oddly like petting the thing. Whispering encouraging words to it.
There's a pause in shooting. I hear the snick of a mag falling to the ground. Another one being slammed home.
Boom-boom-boom....
The sound is relentless. All the more terrifying because it is the entirety of my world. Dad huddles with me, neither of us speaking, both of us wondering what's going on, what we did to deserve this.
His radio activates. Somehow we hear it. Jack's back, adding insult to injury. "Well, this started faster than I thought it would."
Dad screams into the radio. "What the hell's going on?"
"You have to figure it out for yourself, Latham. I already told you that."
Boom-boom-boom....
Jack continues. His voice finds the cracks between the rolling thunder of the gunshots. "And you better hurry. Sooner or later your friend out there is going to remember he's got an M4 in his trunk. That's the kind of thing that might get through to you." Jack laughs at some private joke.
Dad activates the radio, about to speak.
Boom-boom....
I jump in. "How are we supposed to get anywhere?"
The voice laughs. "You're bright. You'll figure it out. But I'd hurry if I were you. This guy might have a friend or two. Or he might not. But you shouldn't take chances."
Then there's a click. I look at Dad. We both know Jack's signed off and checked out for now. Pulled right out of the conflict – not that he was ever here to begin with.
I look at the far end of the alley. Dad's car, so welcoming. Not a hundred feet away, which is about ninety-nine feet too far.
Dad spins. Faces the dumpster.
Boom-boom....
He grabs the top. Begins pulling. I'm pulling with him an instant later. It's heavier than I thought it would be. Both of us have to stay down, only our fingers peeking over the top of the dumpster. The proper leverage to pull just isn't there, which means we buy each inch of movement with every muscle in our bodies. We're pulling with half our strength, muscles spent by a bad angle and the terror of the moment.
Boom-boom-boom.
Then silence.
We keep pulling.
There's a snick.
Silence.
Pulling.
BOOM.
The dumpster doesn’t simply shudder, doesn't merely shake. It jumps in our hands, like it's ground zero of a strange earthquake.
BOOM. TING.
A hole opens up in the wall of the dumpster, passing not six inches to the left of Dad's left hand. The shooter has found his heavy weapon, the M4 Jack warned us about.
BOOM. This one doesn't punch through. The next shot does, opening a peephole directly between me and Dad.
We pull faster. I begin trying to angle the dumpster toward the center of the alley. So heavy. I feel like the moment, like –
(Liam. His body. His blood, barely there but too much just the same.)
– the combination of light and dark and gunfire and terror have sapped all of my strength.
I keep pulling. It's the only thing I can do.
Another shot pings its way through. Dad screams.
"Dad!" I look over and see blood streaming down his right arm.
"It's okay! Barely...." He doesn't finish the sentence. Still pulling with me. Inch by inch.
Then he grabs me. We run.
A bullet zips off the pavement behind us. Ricochet. It passes by so close the heat of it burns my neck. I wonder how much longer we can avoid getting seriously injured. Killed.
I angle for the driver's side door of Dad's cruiser. He closed it before we walked into the alley, and I wonder how we're going to get in before getting gunned down. We'll have to stop to open it. A stationary target. Sitting ducks.
At the last second I feel a push on my back. Sideways and forward. Propelling me not toward the door but the hood of the car. I stumble. Almost lose my balance. Almost fall.
Another bullet bounces off the ground. Skips along. I hear it hit the side of Dad's cruiser with a dull thok.
What's happening? Why is he doing this?
WHAT HAPPENED TO PROTECT AND SERVE?
My thoughts jumble. Then I tumble forward, right over the hood of the car as Dad shoves me again. He follows me over the hood, the two of us sliding in an awkward splice of arms and legs and hands and feet. Gunfire follows but can't quite find us.
Then we fall. I fall first, somersaulting right over the far edge of the hood and hitting headfirst on the pavement. I splay out full-length beyond the car just in time to break Dad's fall. He hits me hard, and I hear both our lungs explode. Breath pounds out of both of us, we both gasp and try to breathe in and neither of us can.
Then Dad manages to get to his knees. He yanks open the passenger door. Pulls me to my knees as well.
I finally breathe in. The air stinks. Garbage and smog and stale chemicals. It's wonderful. Like coming home.
BOOM. PWING.
Dad throws himself into the cruiser, yanking me along with him. He manages somehow to bend himself around the MDT between driver and passenger sides, then I chuck myself in after him and we're both seated.
This is the part where the engine won't turn over. Where the car won't start and the gunman will approach with murder in his eyes and pull the trigger on us from point-blank range as we cower in the unsafety of the cruiser.
But this isn't a movie. Thank goodness. The car rumbles to life. Dad puts it in gear. Floors it. One more roar from the gun somewhere down the alley and then
we're gone.
Dad's radio crackles to life. "Good job," says Jack. I wish I could reach through the radio and punch him in the throat. "I was worried for a second there."
"Go to hell," Dad says. Doesn't hit the button on the side of his mic, so the words stay between him and me. "You okay?" he says.
I nod. "You?"
He nods. Flexes his right arm, the one that got hit. "It really just grazed me."
"You okay?" he says again.
"I told you, I'm fine. I wasn't –"
And it dawns on me. He's not asking about the bullets. He's asking about Liam.
Oh, no.
I'd literally forgotten him. Not long – it couldn't have been more than a minute or two between the time he killed himself and the time we made it to Dad's cruiser.
But I'd forgotten.
Grief and anguish and guilt roll over me. A tidal wave of emotion, and no way I can stand against it. My arms go against my stomach, pressing hard as though they can force the pain and grief out of me.
They can't.
Nothing can.
He's gone.
Gone.
What did he mean?
("YOU KNOW!" he screams. "You know," he whispers.)
But I don't. I don't know. I don't understand.
"Who was that?" I say. The tears are back. I hate this. I'm not a crier. Not one of those weepy girls who dissolves when her boyfriend blows kisses. But this isn't a kiss. Nothing so small or so kind. "What's happening to us?"
"I don't know, baby," says Dad. "I don't know."
"What are we going to do? What are we...?" I'm bent almost double in my seat. Face turned sideways, cheek only inches from my knees. The only reason I'm not flat against my legs is that my arms are still clasped against my stomach. They're like a bar jammed into my center, awkward and painful.
I keep them there. I focus on the pain. The pain is real. It anchors me to now, reminds me that I'm alive, that I didn't die there in the alley with Liam – much as I might wish that I had.
"Pier Point," Dad says.
"Why?" I can't help but sob. The sound disgusts me.
Get it together, Mel.
I force myself up. Pull my arms away from my center. Wipe my cheeks. The sobs still want to come, but I choke them back. They turn to a bitter wad in the back of my throat.
The Ridealong Page 7